Soldiers' Mothers post #1

Much research has already been completed concerning how effective Soldiers' Mothers groups were at influencing military policy and the political arena in relation to the First Chechen War, but I'm curious to find exactly how they influenced average citizens. A lot of my research already conducted focused on internal identity issues for the organizations- but how were they perceived externally by those not in power? The question I ultimately want to answer: To what extent did Soldiers' Mothers organization demilitarize the hearts and minds of Russians?

Eichler, Maya. Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. Chapter 4. “The Soldiers’ Mothers Movement: Contesting and Reproducing Militarized Gender Roles.” pp. 85-107.

This chapter compares the relative level of influence between the CSM, SMSP and two parent-based advocacy groups in Samara.

Eichler’s main point is to differentiate between patriotic and suffering mothers as it related to their external perception, and the spectrum of mothers in between. She argues that the CSMR(Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia) and the SMSP(Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg) both challenged traditional military conceptions of patriotism and instead promoted an alternative allegiance to the development of civil society and democracy in place of a militarized identity.

Groups in Samara, however, clung to more traditional approaches to mourning. Sons in the war were referred to as “defenders of the fatherland” and their heroic identity was emphasized. Parents of soldiers may have known about problems facing the military, yet they still promoted sons’ civic duty of conscription as a means to teach masculinity. The Samara organizations also managed neutrality toward the Chechen wars. Neither supporting nor condemning the government for the military operation, Samara parents instead stressed the importance of the transition to adulthood that  military experience provided. This strategy seemed to most accurately reflect popular opinion in the region toward military service.

Jagudina, Zaira. “Social Movements and Gender in Post-Soviet Russia: The Case of the Soldier’s Mothers NGOs.” PhD Diss., University of Gothenburg, 2009. 309 pp.

The majority of Jagudina’s fieldwork was completed in the fall of 2000, near the start of the Second Chechen War. She primarily interviewed active participant mothers, but also mothers just visiting various SOMO offices seeking help.

Though Jagudina doesn’t focus on the limiting factors of involvement in SOMO(the broader soldier’s mothers social movement in Russia), many of her interviews isolate reasons limiting potential involvement by unaffiliated mothers as well as others not directly affected by the First Chechen War.

-First, SOMO women generally did not perceive their actions as political, but rather as simply community involvement. In fact, it seemed they wished to distance themselves from political conflation in order to emphasize the ability of non-state actors to accomplish goals without assistance from the state. In this way they tried to demonstrate the empowerment of the individual in opposition to state policy. Unfortunately, this occasionally caused hesitation among unaffiliated mothers who assumed state support as absolutely necessary.

-Second, many women who became involved only did so temporarily. These “little mothers” as they are called (often with a bit of disdain and frustration) were only concerned for their own sons, and not the broader human rights movement. As soon as they secured their son they dropped out of the movement. Once women made enough to pay a bribe they had no interest in helping other mothers raise funds.

-Third, acceptance of traditional notions of motherhood provided an easily sympathetic identity. Mothers are mothers, they argued, and thus those who did seek help from SOMO found themselves working with those fighting the same battle. Because the offices and meetings were staffed with fellow mothers, SOMO had a sense of legitimacy that validated their actions in the eyes of other mothers(perhaps with younger sons, fearing their conscription). However, this also served to delegitimize the movement as Post-Soviet Russia reverted to traditional patriarchal conceptions of women. One interviewee expressed their frustration that in a country with 50% women, only 5% voted for a woman’s political party. Motherhood both attracted and repelled those seeking to prevent their sons from being conscripted.

-Fourth, SOMO organizations in the cities were perceived as more elitist for their ties to the west via funding and grants, whereas rural organizations seemed more Russian. This distinction may have prevented some rural women from seeking more organized support.

Jagudina also discusses at length this idea of cognitive-emotive liberation that mother participants experienced. Often crying mothers would come to SOMO offices and be told to pull themselves together. SOMO largely did not promote public displays of grief, but encouraged mothers to show strength in the face of loss. Though I’m not entirely sure the relevance of this yet, I wonder how public strength may have altered the way society thought about SOMO.

Oushakine, Serguei. The Patriotism of Despair: Nation, War and Loss in Russia. Cornell University Press, 2009. 262 pp.

Oushakine seeks to explain the larger societal impact of war and militarism on Post-Socialist Russia. In his fieldwork, he seems to have found that regardless of extensive media coverage of the wars in Chechnya, the loss of life remain somewhat invisible in society.  In interviews, mothers overwhelmingly indicated that the loss of their sons was only felt by themselves and few close friends. But what has caused this indifference and public amnesia? Oushakine argues that the post 9/11 worldwide War on Terror is providing a historical revision on the First Chechen War. He argues that Putin’s conflation of Chechen rebels with Islamic terrorism may be reversing any pre-existing goodwill towards Chechens on behalf of Russians.

Oushakine found that another reason for the invisibility of war is due to the sheer size of the operation in comparison to other wars in the 20^th century. Whereas nearly every family experience loss in World War Two, only a small fraction have experienced loss due to Chechnya. In considering this as a limiting factor to larger societal involvement against the war, it makes sense that many mothers had the option to live in denial. An interview with a CSM branch official in Barnaul revealed that many mothers of younger teen sons simply believed the war would be over before their sons came of age. Instead of being preemptively involved, many mothers preferred to believe that it simply wouldn’t happen to them based on statistical odds.

Another serious devising factor between women affected by war was their relative position to the soldier in question. Though mothers, sisters and widows all had right to grief, mothers tended to dominate the collective voice of those in mourning. Mothers regarded sisters as having the ability to marry and create their own families, whereas widows could remarry and betray their loss or live an ascetic lifestyle. Either way, mothers believed themselves to be the rightful recipient of financial compensation, albeit a very small amount. Unfortunately, natural allies of sisters and widows were often not included or even welcome in the SOMO organizations.

A full book review is forthcoming.

Oushakine, Serguei Alex, “The Politics of Pity: Domesticating Loss in a Russian Province,” American Anthropologist, 108.2, 2006. <http://www.princeton.edu/oushakine/download/english/2006.The%20Politcs%20of%20Pity.pdf>

Oushakine presents a comparative analysis of how the Moscow based Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers and the Altai branch of the group differ in their public and private process of grieving for lost sons. The majority of his paper provides a philosophical approach to their differences. He indicates that the Moscow branch focuses on turning their private loss into a politicized issue- that is, they politicize their own identity as a mother who has lost so as to form a community of likewise women. This community, then, seeks to make political demands through practicing strategic essentialism. The Altai branch takes the opposite path. Instead of seeking political justification for their loss, they focus on unveiling the individual narratives of loss within their local community as a means of exclusive grieving. Yet both methods, according to Oushakine, rely on a continual performance of death rituals to sustain their respective communities. He utilizes Wendy Brown’s notion of “wounded attachments” to show that these women, in a sense, do not want to get over their loss because it would endanger their identity and place within their symbolic community.  

Данилова, Наталья.  «Право матери солдата:  инстинкт заботы или

гражданский долг?»,  сборнике  «Семейные узы: модели для сборки» Под ред. С. Ушакина,

М., НЛО, 2004. <http://www.gender-ehu.org/files/File/Danilova.pdf>

Danilova’s main point is to highlight the ways in which motherhood can be co-opted by the state to serve militaristic agendas. She indicates that there is widespread societal belief that the military serves as the primary institution to socialize “real” men. This assumption was highly problematic in the 1990s as military problems(primarily extreme hazing) became visible to society. Unfortunately, no alternative institution arose to teach real male gender norms. Danilova argues that mothers who did not find ways to prevent their sons’ conscription tacitly promoted the expectation that the military taught men how to be “real men.”

Danilova also discussed the very public use of dead body representation given by SOMO organizations. She argues that it was precisely this public claim that gave legitimacy of SOMO to make demands on the political apparatus. I wonder, however, if these public representations were emotionally received by larger society. A question I am still searching for: was Russian society numb to these images of dead soldiers?

Zdravomyslova, Elena. “Soldiers’ Mothers Fighting the Military Patriarchy: Re-invention of Responsible Activist Motherhood for Human Rights’ Struggle,” Gender Orders Unbound? Globalisation, Restructuring and Reciprocity. pp. 207-229.

Zdravomyslova seeks to explain objection to the Chechen wars by Russian mothers through the lens of human rights. She explains that the rise in conscientious objectors in Russia is directly related to the campaigning of Russian mothers who verbally opposed the war. As part of the anti-war campaign from the St. Petersburg branch of the Soldiers’ Mothers Organization, pamphlets and literature advocated women literally hide their sons from the military to prevent their forced conscription. This organization put pacifism at the center of their core values and emphasized noncompliance with military service.

Their belief in pacifism extended to consideration and compassion for the Chechens as well. One of the organization’s slogans was “Stop the genocide – the extinction of the courageous Chechen people by fascist methods!” Though Zdravomyslova does not indicate the organization had external goals of Chechen nationalism, perhaps the rhetoric of their slogan was intended to provide a human element of the war. The label of “genocide” has legal context and attracts considerably more attention than “conflict.” At its core, this organization put recognition of humanity above all else. While their main goal was to prevent the deaths of their sons, they recognized that this meant they had to also call for the safety and well-being of other mothers’ sons. I’m curious to find out if this reaching out to the mothers of the “enemy” affected public perception of the organization.