Women's Internationalism at the Cold War Periphery.

The seminar discusses the book by Yulia Gradskova "East–South Women Internationalism at the Cold War Periphery. Coming Together in Tashkent, Havana, and Beyond" (Bloomsbury 2025). The book examines Cold War women's gatherings, internationalism, political travel, and networks. It aims to further problematize interpretations of the “South” and “East” in connection to women’s internationalism. The book contributes to the growing field of decolonial criticism regarding the “second world” emancipation project by detailing how its vision of progress hindered many other voices and visions of the future from being heard. Finally, the transnational gatherings discussed in the book brought new geopolitical meaning to the cities that the book has in its title: Tashkent and Havana became important for South– East women’s connectivity.

Yulia Gradskova is Associate Professor in History and Research Coordinator at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University (Sweden). Her research interests include Soviet and postsocialist gender history, transnational history as well as decolonial perspective on Soviet politics of emancipation of “woman of the East”. Her last book is The Women’s International Democratic Federation, the Global South and the Cold War. Defending the Rights of Women of the ‘Whole World’? (Routledge 2021). Among her recent publications is the book chapter : “With the Help of the Great Russian People”: the (invisible) Whiteness of Soviet anti-colonialism and gender emancipation from Central Asia to Khartoum. (in the book edited by Baker, C., B.Iacob, A.Imre & J.Mark, Off White. Central and Eastern Europe and the Global History of Race, Manchester University Press, 2024). She is also the author of the book Soviet Politics of Emancipation of Ethnic Minority Women. Natsionalka (Springer, 2018).