Professional Income and the Patterns of Economic Behavior of Russian Female Historians of the Second Half of the 19th – Early 20th Centuries

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2021-4/201-214

Abstract

The article focuses on the transformation of the everyday professional life of Russian female historians of the second half of the 19th century – 1920s through the prism of changes in their professional income and patterns of economic behavior. Based on ego-documentary sources, documents on the academic salaries, and the preserved records of income and expenses belonging to female historians, the study analyzed the impact of career changes on their income, the structure of expenses, and the issues of family budget management among scientists. The generational approach allows us to see the differences in the economic behavior of women historians of different generations. The first generation often perceived science as an equivalent of literary work or entrepreneurial activity, using paid publications as a source of income, which required increasing their competitiveness - learning new languages and mastering historical research methods. The second generation of Russian female historians had to work under a tougher competition; both men and other female students had to invest heavily in their education. In the late XIX - early XX centuries, women's part in the academic environment was institutionalized, so the best of them could work as teachers in the Higher Courses for Women, which provided them with a much higher income. With the establishment of the Soviet Union, almost all female researchers suffered a dramatic setback in their financial situation, and only a few of them were able to keep their teaching jobs. Only in the mid-1920s, the third generation of female historians who belonged to the "red professors" felt the improvement in the financial situation; nevertheless, social instability and the need to combine scientific work with the "second shift" consisting of housework continued to affect professional growth and development of many female scientists of the pre-war era.

For Citation: Sekenova, O.I. 2021. Professional Income and the Patterns of Economic Behavior of Russian Female Historians of the Second Half of the 19^th – Early 20^th Centuries. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 4: 201-214