This collection should interest researchers studying both Soviet feminism and the Soviet propaganda system. Anna Abramovna Stepanova (Faikina) (1910–87), a journalist, participated in a 10,000–kilometer Women’s Auto Race in honor of Stalin’s constitution in 1936; the race is documented in a number of photographs and associated materials. In other photographs, she and her husband, Aleksandr Vasil’evich Stepanov (1906–65), are shown with I. G. Bolshakov, the Soviet minister of cinematography from 1946 to 1953, S. A. Lozovskii, head of the Sovinformbiuro (the official news and propaganda agency of the Soviet government, formed during the Second World War), as well as Soviet military leaders Marshals V.D. Sokolovskii and S. M. Budennyi.
Another highlight of the collection is an autographed photographic print from Alexandra Kollontai, a Bolshevik feminist and ambassador to Mexico and Sweden, to Stepanova.
This collection provides excellent material with which to illustrate the Hoover Institution’s voluminous holdings on the USSR, particularly the Archives of the Soviet Communist Party and Soviet State microfilm collection.
