Nina Wassiljewna Popowa

Nina Vasilyevna Popova (Russian: Нина Васильевна Попова; 22 January 1908 – 30 May 1994) was a Soviet civil servant and women's rights activist. Orphaned at the age of twelve, she lived for two years in an orphanage before being reunited with her brother. She did not complete her secondary education because she needed to work. After training youth for the pioneer movement, she moved to Tambov, where she attended the Soviet Party School, after which she taught trade union officials and worked in the regional museum. She was sent to Leningrad to continue her education in 1930, but left after one year to join her husband who was studying in Moscow. After completing studies at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History in 1934, she became a vice rector at the Moscow Marxist–Leninist University for Science, Technology, and Engineering Workers.

In 1937, Popova began working as a secretary for the Communist Party. She worked for the Committee of the Krasnopresnensky District, the most important in Moscow. She was appointed chair of the district in 1941 and during World War II was responsible for maintaining district functions and security. Her efficiency in preparing the district for war resulted in her being honored in 1941 with both the Order of the Badge of Honor and Order of the Red Star. Also in 1941, she was one of the founders of the Antifascist Committee of Soviet Women (AKSZh), serving as its chair from 1945 to 1968. Popova was also a founding member of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) and served as a vice president of the organization from 1945 to 1967. From 1945 to 1957, she was secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. Elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in 1950, she served consecutive terms from the third to ninth sessions.

Popova was chair from 1957 to 1976 of the executive council of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS), and a full member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1961 to 1976. She was known for supporting policies and actions which improved international relations and for her skill in utilizing her networks and party positions to press for legislation to improve the status of women. In recognition of her work, she was honored with the Lenin Peace Prize for Strengthening Peace among Nations in 1953, received the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour twice, and was recognized with the Order of the October Revolution. Gender studies scholar Alexandra Talavar stated that Popova's role in the fight for women's agency in the era between Stalin and Brezhnev was pivotal. She also believed that study of Popova's life confirmed that women's advances in the period resulted from the significant efforts of women activists.

Early life and education

Nina Vasilyevna Popova was born on 22 January 1908 in Novokhopyorsk, Russian Empire. According to writer Natalia Borisova, her parents were Lyubov Aleksandrovna (née Borisova) and Vasily Petrovich Popov. Her mother was related to Ivan Alekseyevich Borisov, Archbishop Innocent of Kherson. Her father worked in construction, building houses, mills, and the first grain elevator in Yelets. The couple had thirteen children, but only four survived: Alexey, Nikolai, Nina, and Olya. Borisova states that Vasily died in July 1920, during the Russian Civil War, and Lyubov began working as a laundress to provide for the children and her sister, who lived with the family. During the famine in 1921–22, the daughters gathered goutweed, acorns, and nettles for soup, but there was insufficient food for the family and their mother died from illness and malnutrition soon after their father. At the time, the eldest brother was away fighting in the war, and per Borisova their aunt was sent to the poorhouse, while the girls went into the orphanage in Yelets. Despite the lack of food, Popova enjoyed her time in the orphanage, where she made friends and learned about communal living. The matron, Aleksandra Ivanovna Ryazantseva taught them how to do housework.

In 1922, Alexey returned from the war and took a position as a machinist in Borisoglebsk, (351 kilometres (218 mi) to the south east of Yelets). He brought his sisters there to live with him and his family and enrolled them in school. Popova was a good student and especially enjoyed math, but at fourteen she left school to go to work. In 1924, she was sent to the estate of the former privy counselor Kondondi to train children for the pioneer movement, a communist party youth organization. That year, she met Andrey Semenovich Shamshin and the couple married. Popova began serving as the head of the local Pioneer Bureau in 1925. For the next two years, she was a student at the Soviet Party School, a party school that trained party members assigned to organize rural workers. After her training, she taught social science courses to trade union officials in Tambov until 1929, when she started working as the director of revolutionary history at the Tambov Museum of Regional Studies. In September 1930, Popova moved to Leningrad and began studying at Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute, but was separated from her husband who had been sent to study at the Timiryazev Academy in Moscow. After a year of separation, loneliness, and illness, Popova joined her husband in Moscow, where she began studying at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History. In 1931, they had a daughter, Renita, whom they named by combining the first letters of "'revolution' [revoliutsiia], 'science' [nauka], 'art' [iskusstvo], and 'labor' [trud]". In 1932, Popova joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and over the next two years she completed two courses at the Moscow Institute.