Salon: The Co-operators, the Peacemakers, and the Enigmas :Women in the SCR

Jane Rosen is a Librarian and has worked in a number of specialist historical and cultural libraries including the Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies and the Marx Memorial Library. She currently works for a very interesting museum where she served as historical advisor for their exhibition “Once Upon a Wartime: Classic War Stories for Children”.

Her research interest is in radical and working-class children’s literature and she has published work on the Socialist Sunday School Movement and the Proletarian Schools and Colleges at the beginning of the twentieth century. She is also working on a bibliography of twentieth century working-class and radical children’s literature. She has co-edited an anthology of radical children’s stories ‘Reading and Rebellion’ with Kimberley Reynolds and Michael Rosen (no relation) published in 2018, as well as a forthcoming essay on Communist children’s periodicals. Her latest publication is a centenary history of the Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies.

"The Co-operators, the Peacemakers, and the Enigmas : Women in the SCR"

There is no doubt that women were central to the foundation of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR.When you look at the list of the Society’s original supporters, you can see that thirteen were women. It is not, by any means, the majority, but it is a significant number. Further to that, the meeting to constitute the SCR held on July 9th 1924 at Caxton Hall had Margaret Llewelyn Davies presiding. It also included presentations by two Russian women living in Britain, Dr VN Polovtsev who spoke on advances in public health and education with suggestions on how to make Russian art and science better known in Britain and Mdme Vengerova on new literature after the revolution. And although the resolution for the formation of the Society was moved by the economist JA Hobson: ‘The civilisation of the future would be built, not on the standardisation of life, but on diversity of national cultures, each making their own special contribution.’ and was seconded by LF Gueruss from the Soviet Embassy, it was supported by Anna Ruth Fry, who also commented on the public school system. And if we look at the first executive committee of the Society, out of the ten members. five were women, and three of them, held three of the four highest offices – Chair, Vice Chair and Hon Secretary – the Co-operator, the Peacemaker and the Enigma.

Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies :

The SCRSS was founded in 1924 as the Society for Cultural Relations between the Peoples of the British Commonwealth and the USSR, following the establishment of diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the new Soviet state. It has continued its work uninterrupted until the present day.

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