Until recent years, the great majority of the Russian population lived and worked in rural areas. This book provides an overview of the forces - economic, social, and ideological - that shaped and transformed Russian peasant society, especially the position of women in it, from the early nineteenth century to the present. The first half of the book deals with prerevolutionary Russia, the second with Soviet Russia. Topics include family life in the countryside, women's work, childbirth and midwifery, religion, the experience of peasant women during the Revolution and collectivization, and the condition of women in the Soviet Union in recent years. The work will be useful not only in Russian history courses, but also in a variety of courses in social history, women's history, peasant history, and European history.