Russia's Sisters of Mercy and the Great War by Laurie S. Stoff

Author:Laurie S. Stoff [Stoff, Laurie S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War I, Russia & the Former Soviet Union, Medical, Nursing, General
ISBN: 9780700621255
Google: ImSUrgEACAAJ
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2015-01-15T00:39:51+00:00

AMBIGUOUS RELATIONS

Chelakova’s reminiscences reveal much about the ways that female nursing personnel and male doctors, officers, and soldiers related to one another, and how sisters of mercy were received. Any study of wartime nursing would seem rather incomplete without an examination of the ways that the women who served as nurses intersected with the men they treated and with whom they worked. The relationships between Russia’s wartime nurses and the soldiers for whom they provided medical care and the male medical personnel with whom they worked are highly significant for understanding the phenomenon, and in particular they highlight the gendered meanings of wartime nursing. Her recollections also clearly reveal the anxieties that existed surrounding wartime nursing, especially the interactions between men and women in medical service. Authorities were extremely concerned about intimacy between female nurses and male medical or military personnel. Although sexual interaction was of primary concern to both military and medical authorities, and rumors concerning “immoral” behavior of sisters of mercy spread through Russian society during the war, this was not the primary way that female nurses and male personnel actually interacted. Although there were some women and men who had intimate interactions during the war, interpersonal relations between men and women in wartime service were as varied as the individuals themselves, and they reflect a number of different themes and influences. In many ways, they clearly reflected the familial structure of Russian society, modeled on patriarchal hierarchies of gender, class, and age. Gender, class, religion, nationality, and even politics were important factors in shaping perceptions and relations of female nurses and the numerous men they came into contact with while carrying out wartime medical service. Both men and women, including the nurses themselves, held certain expectations of nurses’ behavior, both as sisters of mercy and as women, and when the women did not conform to these idealized notions, both were often critical. By the same token, sisters assumed soldiers and doctors would also act according to conventional notions of masculinity and in keeping with stereotypes, but this was not always the case. The reality of interaction between soldiers and nurses, and their perceptions of one another, are diverse and complex. Studying these relationships as they were portrayed by the women and men involved in them are tremendously useful in helping us understand the phenomenon of war and its reciprocal effects.

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