“DOING HOUSEWORK”: DOMESTIC WORKERS IN EVERYDAY LIFE OF WOMEN-HISTORIANS OF THE 1ST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The article focuses on the practices used by the first Russian women-historians in the 1st half of the 20th century to reconcile the main job, i.e. academic researches, and the domestic chores. Based on ego-documents (diaries, memoirs and personal letters), the authors try to reconstruct the main principles and strategies that successful Russian women-historians used for managing their various professional and home duties. The article also analyzes the practices of interaction between women-researchers and their maids who helped them to handle household affairs. Before the Great Revolution, nearly all first Russian women-historians were of noble and rich origin (from the families of intellectual Russian nobility). They did not need to take care of money and could spend time not not making a living, but research. Like other women in their position, they used waged labour (cooks, maids, and nannies) to create the conditions for their academic success. The Great Revolution and the Civil War changed the way of life for all the social strata. Those women-historians who chose to stay in their homeland rather than emigrate, had to take care of everyday problems of themselves and their families. Their career became to depend on the opportunity to share the home duties with someone else. When scholars became part of the Soviet elite, using domestic work became a socially upheld behavioral rule. Soviet women-historians hired women from villages who had fled from the collectivization to delegate them their routine domestic chores and to get free time for research and lecturing.