American women in Red Russia. Chasing the Soviet dream

At the beginning of the 20th century, not only Paris with its literary cafes, but also revolutionary Moscow, became for American expansion. In 1920-1930, many American intellectuals were fascinated by the Soviet project, among whom were occupied by independent, educated and decisive women - suffrazhists, teachers, journalists, artists and reformers. Many of them went to Moscow in the hope of the onset of a new era, in which they will not only be independent of men, but will also become equal builders of the new society. They saved starving children, worked in rural communes in Siberia, wrote for Moscow or New York newspapers, performed on Soviet scenes. Julia L. Mikenberg tells the stories of these women in his book, reveals the complex motives standing behind their actions, and demonstrates the path that most of them have made a romantic enthusiasm to severe disappointment with Soviet experiment. Julia L. Mikenberg - cultural historian, PhD, professor of the University of Minnesota