The article examines how the image of the mother became one of the central figures in Russian cultural imagination. It notes that the motif appears in epics and folktales, in eighteenth-century memoirs about the “mother-sovereign,” and in the twentieth century was reworked in the poster “The Motherland Calls” and the monument on Mamayev Kurgan. Scholars Olga Vainshtein and Irina Savkina are cited as linking this image to the particular importance of femininity in Russian culture.
“The figure of the Motherland combines maternal care and disciplinary severity. She calls, but also demands; she gives, but also punishes,” Olga Vainshtein says.
The author then turns to Old Russian law. In Russkaya Pravda of the 11th and 12th centuries, the fine for killing a man and a woman was the same and substantial, while in the French Salic Law of the 6th to 9th centuries compensation for killing a woman was lower. Daughters in Rus could inherit if there were no sons, and dowries and inherited property remained under a woman’s control. The sources also indicate that a woman could appear in court on her own behalf, seek damages, and even pursue divorce.
According to the article, chronicles portray women not only as relatives of rulers but also as independent participants in politics, religion, and education. Princess Olga in the Primary Chronicle is shown as a ruler carrying out reforms and enjoying international prestige. The chronicler emphasizes her “mind and wisdom,” not dependence on male authority. Other examples include Predslava, sister of Yaroslav the Wise, who warned him about events in Kyiv, Eupraxia Vsevolodovna, who became empress of the Holy Roman Empire, and Anna-Yanka, whom chronicles connect to the first documented educational center for girls.
The author also cites pre-Petrine economic records. Cadastres and customs books mention, among others, the salt producer Domna Ivanovna and the merchant Nastasya Ivanova, who owned property, traded goods, and paid duties on their own. In the author’s view, such records show that women’s participation in economic life was treated as a normal part of social order.
At the same time, the article notes that history also included violence: bride abduction, forced marriage, captivity, forced tonsure, and the Domostroi of the 16th century, which allowed a husband to punish his wife “for instruction.” Still, the author stresses that many such practices were not enshrined in secular law, while church rules explicitly forbade, for example, monastic tonsure against a person’s will. The article concludes that present-day appeals to “traditional values” do not align either with Old Russian legislation or with historical evidence about women’s roles.