Award-winning journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy.
In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly twenty years later, Ioffe returned to Moscow—only to discover just how much Russian society had changed while she had been living in America. The Soviet women she had known growing up—doctors, engineers, scientists—had seemingly been replaced with women desperate to marry rich and become stay-at-home moms. How had Russia gone from portraying itself as the vanguard of world feminism to the last bastion of conservative Christian values?
In “Motherland”, Ioffe turns modern Russian history on its head, telling it exclusively through the stories of its women. From her own physician great-grandmothers to Lenin's lover, a feminist revolutionary; from the hundreds of thousands of Soviet girls who fought in World War II to the millions of single mothers who rebuilt and repopulated a devastated country; from the members of Pussy Riot to Yulia Navalnaya, wife of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, she chronicles one of the most audacious social experiments in history and how it failed the very women it was meant to liberate—and documents how that failure paved the way to the revanche of Vladimir Putin.
Part memoir, part journalistic exploration, part history, “Motherland” paints a portrait of modern Russia through the women who shaped it. With deep emotion, Ioffe shows what it means to live through the cataclysms of revolution, war, idealism, and heartbreak—and reveals how the story of Russia today is inextricably tied to the history of its women.
"This powerful audiobook examines Russia from the points of view of its women. Author and narrator Ioffe's in-depth research and personal connection to the material make this a particularly compelling listen. Featuring Russian people such as her own great-grandmother and others alongside revolutionary icons like Alexandra Kollontai and dissidents like Pussy Riot and Yulia Navalnaya, the audiobook presents a blend of stories and experiences in a way that is intimate, educational, and inspiring. It's a long listen but a powerful exploration of the cost of progress and the importance of mixing reclaimed personal stories with the overarching historical trajectory of Russia. Ioffe brings marginalized voices and stories to the forefront of Russian history. K.S.M. � AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine"
