Prisoners' Wives in Post-Soviet Russia: ‘For my Husband I am Pining!’

Elena Katz and Judith Pallot

Europe-Asia Studies, 2014, vol. 66, issue 2, 204-224

Abstract: The identity of a prisoner's wife is often a shameful societal stigma. Yet Russia's unique history of imprisonment has provided an unusually positive trope for women who have to come to terms with their partners' incarceration: the ‘Decembrist wife’ (dekabristka). This trope originated in the aftermath of the 1825 ‘Decembrist’ uprising—the first anti-monarchist revolt in modern Russian history. A handful of wives of the perpetrators voluntarily joined their husbands in Siberian exile and, in leaving behind families and comforts, created a precedent to be glorified for future generations. Upheld in Russian national mythology as a model of the exemplary wife, the dekabristka identity lives on. This paper examines its enduring power and significance in contemporary Russia.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2014.883832

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