Extract

The Soviet Union lost some twenty-seven million citizens in World War II—so many that Joseph Stalin hid the full extent of losses, and leaders schemed to raise birth rates through unconventional programs and incentives. Yet a mere decade after the end of the war, in a move seemingly counterintuitive, abortion was relegalized after nearly two decades of restriction. In this deeply researched, strongly comparative, and utterly fascinating monograph, Mie Nakachi explores how the horrific toll of war and death on the Soviet Union served as a motivating force for domestic and foreign policy from the 1944 Family Law through the debates that resulted in the relegalization of abortion in 1955 and even on to the pronatalist policies currently pursued by Vladimir Putin. At the same time, in Replacing the Dead: The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union, Nakachi balances the high world of policy with interviews and personal accounts she collected and dug out of the archives. The resulting work conveys the desperation of women and medical practitioners, makes data reporting and meeting minutes compelling, and reveals the full story of one of the most significant issues for not just women but all of society in the postwar Soviet Union.

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