Gender modernization or cultural deformation

Abstract

The article is devoted to social-cultural transformations in the Russian village, mediated by the modernization processes caused by the participation of Russia in the Great War. The militarization of industry and the mobilization of the rear led to the need to involve women in the production process. This, in its turn, stimulated the increase of the woman authority in traditional social structures. These processes, characteristic of the whole country, affected, among other things, the Muslim settlements of the Middle Volga region. The First World War was a serious social-cultural challenge for the Islamic social enclaves, which experienced a cultural shock in 1916 caused by the influx of carriers of other forms of culture, represented by disabled people, wounded and soldiers on leave, as well as the refugees and evacuees. The obvious result of this cultural expansion was the public and the widespread use of self-made alcoholic beverages at Sabantuy in 1916. This kind of modernization process, characteristic of the broad stratum of the population, has come into some contradiction with the movement of cultural woman emancipation, which in the early 20th century was spread among enlightened Muslims. Ultimately, following the Second Russian Troubles, the conflict between enlightened Islam and the people's modernizations was removed, as the result of the Bolsheviks victory and a radical change in the political and social-cultural situation in the country.