diff --git a/django/core/mail.py b/django/core/mail.py
index 3baf191b5c..415cb6e8fc 100644
--- a/django/core/mail.py
+++ b/django/core/mail.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 
 from django.conf import settings
 from email.MIMEText import MIMEText
+from email.Header import Header
 import smtplib
 
 class BadHeaderError(ValueError):
@@ -12,6 +13,8 @@ class SafeMIMEText(MIMEText):
         "Forbids multi-line headers, to prevent header injection."
         if '\n' in val or '\r' in val:
             raise BadHeaderError, "Header values can't contain newlines (got %r for header %r)" % (val, name)
+        if name == "Subject":
+            val = Header(val, settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET)
         MIMEText.__setitem__(self, name, val)
 
 def send_mail(subject, message, from_email, recipient_list, fail_silently=False, auth_user=settings.EMAIL_HOST_USER, auth_password=settings.EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD):
@@ -42,7 +45,7 @@ def send_mass_mail(datatuple, fail_silently=False, auth_user=settings.EMAIL_HOST
         if not recipient_list:
             continue
         from_email = from_email or settings.DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL
-        msg = SafeMIMEText(message)
+        msg = SafeMIMEText(message, 'plain', settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET)
         msg['Subject'] = subject
         msg['From'] = from_email
         msg['To'] = ', '.join(recipient_list)
diff --git a/docs/email.txt b/docs/email.txt
index b38b855cb3..37a4f38a5e 100644
--- a/docs/email.txt
+++ b/docs/email.txt
@@ -19,6 +19,13 @@ In two lines::
 
     send_mail('Subject here', 'Here is the message.', 'from@example.com',
         ['to@example.com'], fail_silently=False)
+        
+.. note::
+
+    The character set of email sent with ``django.core.mail`` will be set to
+    the value of your `DEFAULT_CHARSET setting`_.
+    
+.. _DEFAULT_CHARSET setting: ../settings/#DEFAULT_CHARSET
 
 send_mail()
 ===========