Mary Zirin et al., eds., WOMEN & GENDER IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, RUSSIA, AND EURASIA: A COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2007. 2 vols. 2132p. $346.95, ISBN 978-0765607379.

Reviewed by Jill Rosenshield

This massive (10.9 pounds) and extraordinary multilingual, partially annotated bibliography contains a wide range of resources--too cumbersome, according to its editors, to put online--although the problems described below, including the need to resort to double or triple "look-ups" and the lack of adequate cross-referencing between the "General Background" and other sections, would be eliminated were the tome to be available online. While sometimes difficult to use, it is a most impressive achievement. Following sections on "General Background" and "Stateless Diaspora Nationality (Gypsies/Roma and Jews)," Volume I: Southeastern and East Central Europe is arranged on a country-by-country basis, grouped by geography proximity (e.g., all the countries of Southeastern Europe including Yugoslavia and its antecedents and successors). Entries are for books, book chapters, articles, and M.A. and Ph.D. theses (no date range specified). Volume II: Russia, the Non-Russian Peoples of the Russian Federation, and the Successor States of the Soviet Union starts by listing material in the history of Russia (by time period), Russian folklore/ethnography, and arts and literature/linguistics. Next come sections on "non-Russian peoples of Russia," grouped by region (except for Jews, who lived throughout the area), and detailed listings for each successor state to the Soviet Union. Publication dates for entries in Volume II run from 1917 to 2005, although the entries for Russian literature are primarily from 1975 through 2005. In the section on Russia, articles under ten pages are not included unless they are part of a collection. As a rule, archival resources are not included in the volumes.

Sources for the Habsburg Monarchy, Ottoman Turkey, Greece, and East Germany provide a context for those many areas that belonged to varying empires. While both volumes have a section on Jews, the Gypsy/Roma diaspora appears only in Volume I, even though that section includes many references to the Soviet Union. The general background section in Volume I, which includes material pertinent to both volumes, is outstanding, but unfortunately the sections for specific countries or groups never refer to this background section, and readers who consult only...