front cover of The Babushka Phenomenon
The Babushka Phenomenon
Older Women and the Political Sociology of Ageing in Russia
Anna Shadrina
University College London, 2025
A unique sociological perspective on how “babushkas” have been pushed to the margins of post-Soviet society. 

The word “babushka” literally means “grandmother,” but it has come to represent much more since the Soviet era, not least the family caregiver. In her new study, Anna Shadrina explores the marginalization of older women in post-Soviet Russia, shedding light on the complex image of the babushka as both the cornerstone of the family unit and a passive recipient of social benefits. The author argues that this image has been shaped in no small part by welfare cutbacks that shifted the responsibility of family care from the state to individual women, as well as the increasing frustration of working-age people with the post-socialist economic system. Ultimately, she shows that despite being ostracized from society for defying age- and gender-specific social expectations, older women occupy a crucial position as active contributors to the economy.
 
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In Praise of Older Women
The Amorous Recollections of A. V
Stephen Vizinczey
University of Chicago Press, 1990
"A cool, comic survey of the sexual education of a young Hungarian, from his first encounter, as a twelve-year-old refugee with the American forces, to his unsatisfactory liaison with a reporter's wife in Canada at the belated end of his youth, when he was twenty-three . . . elegantly erotic, with masses of that indefinable quality, style . . . this has the real stuff of immortality."—B. A. Young, Punch

"A pleasure. Vizinczey writes of women beautifully, with sympathy, tact and delight, and he writes about sex with more lucidity and grace than most writers ever acquire."—Larry McMurtry, Houston Post

"Like James Joyce, who was as far from being a writer of erotica as Dostoevsky, Vizinczey has a refreshing message to deliver: Life is not about sex, sex is about life."—John Podhoretz, Washington Times

"The gracefully written story of a young man growing up among older women . . . although some passages may well arouse the reader, this novel brims with what the courts have termed "redeeming literary merit."—Clarence Petersen, Chicago Tribune

"A funny novel about sex, or rather (which is rarer) a novel which is funny as well as touching about sex . . . elegant, exact and melodious—has style, presence and individuality."—Isabel Quigly, Sunday Telegraph

"The delicious adventures of a young Casanova who appreciates maturity while acquiring it himself. In turn naive, sophisticated, arrogant, disarming, the narrator woos his women and his tale wins the reader."—Polly Devlin, Vogue


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