Authors

Discussion

In Soviet society, questions around individual choice and personal responsibility around parenting were entangled in ideological debates about a citizen’s duty to the state. This negotiation had particular weight under Brezhnev, when the authorities’ anxiety about falling birth rates among ethnic Russians prompted state-sponsored anti-abortion campaigns - despite the procedure remaining legal. However there was a particular tension when it came to teenage girls, who were both the focus of concerted propaganda about their future responsibilities and who faced arbitrary lines about the right time and way to do motherhood.

I consider the diegetic world of a number of films from the Gorʹkii studio as a reflection of contemporary Soviet society and policy, given that the Gorʹkii studio had an apparent commitment to the production of films for young people. I examine the treatment of the choices facing pregnant women, focussing particularly on the representation of how their youth and their relationships (romantic, familial, platonic) affect their decisions and the consequences of them. I assess the extent to which the films actively promote the state’s bio-political line about the necessity of motherhood and highlight the conditions that the films suggest were most acceptable for young women to have children, and who was deemed the ideal mother.