A worker, a peasant, but mainly a friend. Portraying The New (?) Soviet Woman in a Polish female periodical in the 1940s-1950s

Departing from the notion of the “making of a socialist type of personality”, the article traces out an unparalleled, comparative analysis of the female image as it has been fashioned during the post-war period by the Soviet magazine “Krestjanka” (“Peasant”, founded in 1922) and by its Polish counterpart “Przyjaciółka” (“Friend”), established in 1948. In particular, it analyses the shift from the highly recognizable roles Soviet ideologists were pleading for by dividing women between “workers” and “peasants” (as synthesized by the very titles of the two most popular female periodicals in the USSR) to a more complex image of “friend”. In the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL) ideological propaganda went along with the attempt to give voice to women themselves. In this perspective letters addressed by the readers to the editorial board became a main feature of the magazine itself, turning it into a discussion platform which played an essential role in overcoming of the trauma of war.