著者

光吉 淑江

出版者

The Japanese Association for Russian and East European Studies

雑誌

ロシア・東欧研究 (ISSN:13486497)

巻号頁・発行日

no.34, pp.133-145, 2005

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This article examines how Soviet maternalist policies were implemented in Western Ukraine, a newly acquired Soviet territory in the wake of the Second World War. While the 1944 Soviet Family Code, especially the campaign for "Mothers with Many Children, " has often been seen as the culmination of the Stalinist pronatalist policies-virtually encouraging extramarital affairs in order to produce children-, its meaning, perception, and methods of implementation were not uniform even in the authoritarian Soviet society. A close examination of the archival documents on the newly created women's departments in the Western Ukrainian party committees reveals that the "Mothers with Many Children" campaign and other state maternal supports served to justify otherwise extremely unpopular Soviet policies in the region. The essentialized gender role of "mother" was a rare measure of Sovietization that did not require special skills, training, or political education, and therefore would not have caused much resistance, bloodshed, or even hesitation. The Western Ukrainian women often quickly learnt how to exercise their new rights in defence of their lives in order to survive the difficult postwar material situation, thus becoming important, if not active, agents in the establishment of the Soviet regime in the region.