Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
History
Major Professor
Kees Boterbloem, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Golfo Alexopoulos, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Kyle Burke, Ph.D.
Keywords
political prisons, populism, salience, suffragettes
Abstract
The British suffragettes’ utilization of the hunger strike as a political tool in the early twentieth century has roots tracing back to Russian political prisons of the late nineteenth century. The unique adoption and adaptation of the Russian method of hunger strike in England cannot be fully understood without examining the origins of the revolutionary hunger strikes through a gendered lens. Using case studies of various Russian women and their experiences as both university students and political prisoners, this research aims to unearth the reasons why women in both Russia and England had a particular affinity for the use of hunger strikes as a method of resistance against governmental authority in the period of 1870-1917. The expansion of higher education among Russian women in the late nineteenth century acquainted them with individualist and populist influences that served as their inspiration to weaponize the hunger strike as an extension of their revolutionary activities. Early twentieth-century adoption of hunger strikes amongst the British suffragettes seems to occur suddenly, suggesting a rapid transposal of experiences from their Russian sisters in the East. By exploring the transformation of the hunger-strike method, this project illuminates the increasing political agency and resulting significance shared by both groups. It also assesses reasons for the success and effectiveness of suffragette strikes in contrast to the Russian strikes that occurred in the late nineteenth century. This research reveals that the use of the hunger strike was a sociocultural link between Russian revolutionary women and British suffragettes that demonstrates shared adversities and the weaponization of similar tactics, even in extraordinarily different societies and political circumstances.
Scholar Commons Citation
Stanton, Rachel Yvonne, "From Russia With Love: The Transposal of Hunger Strikes from Russia
to Britain in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries" (2025). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/11010
