Russia: The Modern Girl

Belatedly, the flapper is beginning to flourish in Russia. Called chuvikha (slang for female), she dabbles in sex and tipples vodka, cares more about fashions than factories. Russian cartoons criticize her rebelliousness, lampoon her fickleness. With heavy Victorian moralizing, the press points out the tragedies of good girls gone wrong. Stimulated rather than appalled by all this attention, the chuvikhi lap it up. Last week they had another heroine.

Svetlana Serova was a precocious Moscow schoolgirl with well-to-do parents, a mental block about studying and an obsession for makeup, hairdos and boys....

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