General Editor's Introduction Notes on Contributors Introduction; S.Bridger Gender and Heroes: The Exploits of Soviet Pilots and Arctic Explorers in the 1930s; K.Petrone 1945: Change or Continuity in European Gender Relations?; I.Blom How Long Did 'Women's Finest Hour' Last? German Women's Situation and Experiences between 1945 and 1995; G-F.Budde Were These the Same Women? Life in the Socialist Structures in Estonia; S.Kivimäe Enterprise and Survival: Moscow Women and Market Mythologies: S.Bridger The Effects of the Economic and Political Transition on Women and Families in Poland; J.M.Bystydzienski Structural Changes and the Position of Women in St.Petersburg; T.Jyrkinen-Pakkasvirta and E.Poretzkina Neo-Conservatism in Family Ideology in Lithuania: Between the West and the Former USSR; A.Zvinkliene From Faction Not to Party: 'Women of Russia' in the Duma; M.Buckley Emancipation Without Feminism: The Historical and Socio-cultural Context of the Women's Movement in Russia; L.Lissyutkina Index

This collection of essays looks at the impact on women of the political changes which have taken place in East-Central Europe since the 1930s. It is unusual in combining a strong contemporary focus with re-evaluations of what the socialist experience has meant for women. It brings together specialists from both East and the West to offer insights into women's lives and responses to change in countries which have a shared legacy of state socialism yet are as culturally diverse as Russia and Germany, Poland and Estonia.

IDA BLOM Professor, Department of History, University of Bergen, Norway MARY BUCKLEY Reader in Politics, University of Edinburgh GUNILLA-FRIEDERIKE BUDDE Research Fellow, Freie Universität Berlin JILL M.BYSTYDZIENSKI Professor of Sociology, Franklin College, Indiana TEELA JYRKINEN-PAKKASVIRTA researcher, Department of Social Policy, University of Helsinki SIRJE KIVIMÄE Research Fellow with the Estonian Science Foundation working on the history of women in Estonia. She is Chair of the Society for Baltic-German Culture in Estonia LARISSA LISSYUTKINA previously researcher at what is now the Institute of Comparative Political Science of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow KAREN PETRONE Assistant Professor of History, University of Kentucky EVGENIA PORETZKINA Senior Researcher, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg ALINA ZVINKLIENE Senior Researcher, Lithuanian Institute of Philosophy and Sociology.