The Soviet State’s policy on marriage and childbirth registration procedures. Case of Moldavian SSR (1944-1961)

Abstract

The article clarifies the policy of the Soviet state and party bodies on procedures for registering childbirth and marriage in the post-war period in the Moldavian SSR. As a result of the implementation of the communist ideology and Soviet legislation in the MSSR, these procedures have undergone a number of changes. The transformations promoted at the administrative level through the adoption of normative acts resulted in the separation of the Church from the legal procedure for the registration of civil status documents. Also, some of the clergy’s freedom to serve religious services has been restricted, and the Church has been removed to the periphery of society by motivating it to be an institution that promotes vices, archaic and dangerous to the Soviet society customs and rituals. Atheist propaganda aimed at creating a negative image of the Church, closing the churches, and gradually reducing the number of believers. At the same time, in order to substitute religious rituals, civil ceremonies were created, which took on some elements of tradition to be infiltrated into family habits, labeled as new. In spite of the anti-religious measures and pressures on society, a significant proportion of the population in the MSSR in the post-war period continued to maintain their faith and to practice the religious ceremonies of the church, alongside with the civil compulsory ones, imposed by laws and administrative methods

Keywords

• soviet state
• communist ideology
• church
• religious ceremonies
• birth habits
• marriage customs.