Is It a Sin to Travel?
Being on the Road in Post-Soviet Times
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In Russian literature, the travel story is usually a story of male identity. Travel by female Russian migrants and their experiences on the road hardly exist. Furthermore, love of the homeland, the topic of all travel stories, is a male theme, since the homeland is often feminised and patriotism presented as heterosexual love of a woman. Three contemporary works of prose by women intervene in this discourse by examining female migration. In a subtle and often most refined way, they play on the stigmatisation of Russian women as prostitutes and in doing so pull the rug out from under the patriotic discourse.
(Osteuropa 6/2006, pp. 123–138)