"Ioffe-whose family fled the Soviet Union when she was a child-brings a unique personal and political perspective to this new book, which tells the story of promises made and broken to [Russia's] women." - Boston Globe
"Piercing . . . A pensive account of a revolution betrayed." - Kirkus
"Julia Ioffe, in her magnificent new book, asks how Russia, which gave rise to some of the world's most radical feminist ideas in the early twentieth century, ended up as a bastion of traditional gender roles a hundred years later. From the Bolshevik feminists to the wives of Soviet leaders to her own Jewish great-grandmothers and their improbable survival, her story crackles with
revolutionary action, the tragedy of missed opportunity, and brave struggles against authoritarianism. It is an urgent book for all of us." -
Sabrina Tavernise, writer at large and former Moscow correspondent for The New York Times and former host of "The Daily""Julia Ioffe tracks the transformation of Russia from dictatorship to democracy and back again in sharp, engaging prose, telling the stories left out by so many others." -
Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag and Red Famine"
Motherland is the most brilliant survey of Russian and Soviet women ever written. Women, the 'draft horses of the economy,' have been abused in every patriarchal way possible and yet somehow remain the only slim hope for the world's most hopeless country. Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, Ioffe has produced a page-turner full of bittersweetness and humor." -
Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story"Julia Ioffe's
Motherland is a fierce, intimate reckoning: a century of Russian history told through the women who lived it, shaped it, and survived it-revolutionaries, snipers, doctors, dissidents, artists-women trying to be happy and fulfilled in the long, turbulent century." -
Nadya Tolokonnikova, founder of Pussy Riot"A masterful blend of history, reportage, and family memoir. A fascinating, captivating, and unforgettable read." -
Ada Ferrer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cuba: An American History"Julia Ioffe's
Motherland is a brilliant retelling of the last century of Russian history through the eyes of the women who made it-and suffered through it. It's also a passionate family memoir that explains how the United States ended up with this gifted writer as one of our own. The best book I've read this year." -
Susan Glasser, staff writer at The New Yorker and coauthor of Kremlin Rising"Julia Ioffe has given us a masterpiece!
Motherland is at once epic and intensely intimate, devastating, inspiring, and always riveting. Ioffe brilliantly interweaves the lives of four generations of remarkable women in her own family with those of some of the most iconic individuals in the history of the Soviet Union-male and female. I could not put this extraordinary book down." -
Lynn Novick, documentary filmmaker and codirector of The U.S. and the Holocaust and The Vietnam War
