1 What information seems to be missing from
Rublev's history?
2 How would you describe the appearance of
Rublev's work?
3 Who were Larionov and Goncharova's
contemporaries?
4 Besides being artists, what other quality did
Larionov and Goncharova share?
5 Under what circumstances did Tropinin
receive training in the arts?
6 How is it that Tropinin went on to become
a painter of portraits?​

We all love weekends, but not all of them are good. Recently I’ve had the worst weekend in my life. As usually I was hoping to spend great time with my family, my friends and my dog, but everything went wrong at that terrible weekend. The morning of Saturday started from an alarming incident. My beloved pet got sick. We had to take Gina to the vet instantly as she was having some breathing problems. As we later found out it was connected with her poor heart. The vet gave her special injection and she got a bit better. When we returned we were quite shocked to see that a part of our flat was flooded. Our neighbors from upstairs forgot to turn off the tap water and the result was terrible. Not only their bathroom but ours too was full of water. So, we spent half of the day cleaning the mess. Apart from water on the floor, there were some problems with the ceiling and walls which quickly became damp. It goes without saying that I had to cancel my meeting with friends. That weekend we were going to visit the cinema and spend some time ice-skating. Alas, these opportunities were lost. Now I had to wait for the next weekend to see them. My school days are usually rather busy and full of other activities. I thought things couldn’t get worse, but in the evening we got an urgent call from my grandma saying that she wasn’t feeling well. So, we didn’t have any supper and drove to her place as quickly as we could. My mum called the doctor and we stayed with her almost till midnight. I’m glad she finally felt better, but I missed my favourite sitcom. Sunday wasn’t fun either, as I spent the whole day cleaning up my room and doing my homework.

The Second World War changed the United States for women, and women in turn transformed their nation. Over three hundred fifty thousand women volunteered for military service, while twenty times as many stepped into civilian jobs, including positions previously closed to them. More than seven million women who had not been wage earners before the war joined eleven million women already in the American work force. Between 1941 and 1945, an untold number moved away from their hometowns to take advantage of wartime opportunities, but many more remained in place, organizing home front initiatives to conserve resources, to build morale, to raise funds, and to fill jobs left by men who entered military service.

The U.S. government, together with the nation’s private sector, instructed women on many fronts and carefully scrutinized their responses to the wartime emergency. The foremost message to women—that their activities and sacrifices would be needed only “for the duration” of the war—was both a promise and an order, suggesting that the war and the opportunities it created would end simultaneously. Social mores were tested by the demands of war, allowing women to benefit from the shifts and make alterations of their own. Yet dominant gender norms provided ways to maintain social order amidst fast-paced change, and when some women challenged these norms, they faced harsh criticism. Race, class, sexuality, age, religion, education, and region of birth, among other factors, combined to limit opportunities for some women while expanding them for others.

However temporary and unprecedented the wartime crisis, American women would find that their individual and collective experiences from 1941 to 1945 prevented them from stepping back into a prewar social and economic structure. By stretching and reshaping gender norms and roles, World War II and the women who lived it laid solid foundations for the various civil rights movements that would sweep the United States and grip the American imagination in the second half of the 20th century.