Susan Grant

Nurses across borders: displaced Russian and Soviet nurses after World War I and World War II.

Russian and Soviet nurse refugees faced myriad challenges attempting to become registered nurses in North America and elsewhere after the World War II. By drawing primarily on International Council of Nurses refugee files, a picture can be pieced together of the fate that befell many of those women who left Russia and later the Soviet Union because of revolution and war in the years after 1917. The history of first (after World War I) and second (after World War II) wave émigré nurses, integrated into the broader historical narrative, reveals that professional identity was just as important to these women as national identity. This became especially so after World War II, when Russian and Soviet refugee nurses resettled in the West. Individual accounts become interwoven on an international canvas that brings together a wide range of personal experiences from women based in Russia, the Soviet Union, China, Yugoslavia, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. The commonality of experience among Russian nurses as they attempted to establish their professional identities highlights, through the prism of Russia, the importance of the history of the displaced nurse experience in the wider context of international migration history.

Bolsheviks, Revolution and Physical Culture

This article assesses the impact of the October Revolution of 1917 and the role of its leading revolutionaries on physical culture and sport. Foremost among these was Bolshevik leader Vladimir I. Lenin, and his contribution to the shaping of sport in the Soviet Union receives particular attention. Key to fully understanding Lenins role in the development of physical culture and sport is the Lenin ‘myth’ and its interpretation in later Soviet sports discourse. The combination of the Lenin myth and Marxist–Leninist ideology was part of an ongoing Soviet effort to shape the ideal socialist citizen. The Bolshevik project was concerned with forging a new self and physical culture was an important part of this process. Thus, this article highlights intersections between the physical and emotional self, arguing that physical culture and sport were instrumental in contributing to revolutionary vision.

Nurses in the Soviet Union: Explorations of Gender in State and Society

This chapter examines the question of gender construction and portrayals of women through an analysis of the Soviet nurse, and in particular it analyses the changing representation of the Soviet nurse. By tracing the Soviet nurse in publications such as Rabotnitsa and Za sanitarnuyu oboronu, the chapter assesses how the depiction of nurses—and by extension women more generally—varied from maternal, to feminine, and/or to militaristic, depending on the social and political context. This analysis of nurse representation argues that it was only during the first and final days of the Soviet Union that the reality of nurses’ position within society, that is, their low social status and ambiguous position, featured in media portrayals of this largely female profession.

Creating Cadres of Soviet Nurses, 1936–1941

This chapter explores the development of Soviet nursing during the period 1936–1941, a time when moves towards greater professionalization took place. But this was also a time when the Soviet Union underwent militarization, and nursing was a part of campaigns to involve more people in medical work, be that first aid courses or nursing. These divergent trends—professionalization and militarization—impacted nursing and this chapter examines if and how these were reconciled. It also considers the role of the nurse within a gender narrative that positioned nurses—predominantly women—as both modern and traditional. It argues that nurses were active participants in the professionalization of nursing in the late 1930s and contributed to creating a more inclusive vision of Soviet health care.

Nursing and the Public Health Legacies of the Russian Revolution

The centenary of the October Revolution in 1917 provides a timely opportunity to assess the legacies of that event. I examine the role of the revolution in public health with a focus on nursing, assessing the Imperial Russian health care system, the development of Soviet nursing, and current plans for nursing and public health care in Putins Russia. Analyzing nursing shows that there was a great deal of continuity in terms of medical personnel and ideas on how public health care service in Russia should operate. Nursing illuminates some of the complexities of Soviet health care and ideology, particularly the states desire to create a socialist form of nursing in theory, despite the strong links with the prerevolutionary past in the form of personnel. This situation changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the new Russian state attempted to sever connections with the past, this time with the Soviet past. But as I show, making a clean break with the past is a difficult and often fraught process.

The American Hospital in Moscow: A Lesson in International Cooperation, 1917–23

In its examination of American Medical Aid to Russia, this article shows how the best of intentions can have the potential to go horribly awry. It argues that the competing binary forces of international collaboration and goodwill versus political tensions and uncertainty combined to create an environment wherein actors and agents inhabited an ever changing and unpredictable international stage. Could American philanthropic organisations and individuals overcome political volatility, financial restrictions and ideological barriers? Just what would it take to establish an American hospital in Moscow, the Bolshevik seat of power? The attempt to establish the hospital proved to be an exercise in patience, persistence and prudence (although not always in equal measure). This article shows that international cooperation, while undoubtedly complicated, was certainly possible. The flow of information, materiel and personnel between the United States, Germany and Russia proved that good intentions, trust and a will to help others were valued. The history of American Medical Aid to Russia also demonstrates that the Quaker role of facilitator and interlocutor was vital in establishing a relationship of trust between Soviet Russia and the United States. This article discusses the difficulties that philanthropic organisations faced when navigating the choppy international waters of the early 1920s and highlights the rewards of successfully doing this. It argues that basic human relationships and trust were just as, if not sometimes more, important than ideology in determining the tenor of early US–Soviet relations.

The Fizkul'tura Generation: Modernizing Lifestyles in Early Soviet Russia

The creation of the New Soviet Person was a constant concern of the Bolsheviks and this concern manifested itself in physical culture as well as in other areas. The desire to sweep away the cobwebs of the old system and replace these with the new Soviet culture infected and infused the political, social and cultural discourse. Physical culture, as this paper shows, was a vital element in the overall attempt to help construct the new society and new person. By offering its people a lifestyle reflective of Soviet ideals, physical culture had the potential to help construct a new generation of Soviet citizens.

THE COLLECTIVE AGITATION OF ARMS AND LEGS: ORGANISING MASS PHYSICAL CULTURE IN 1920S SOVIET RUSSIA

Following the establishment of the Supreme Council of Physical Culture in 1923, the policy of ‘physical culture twenty‐four hours a day’ assumed mounting importance for its organisers. Local authorities were charged with promoting physical culture by encouraging the ‘masses’ to exercise, use the sun, air and water for their health, become more educated in matters of hygiene and pursue a generally healthy lifestyle. This article shows that achieving this on a local level proved to be extremely challenging and argues that imposing central objectives in local areas encountered considerable difficulties. It argues further that the conduct and nature of physical culture itself was problematical.