Village mothers - David L Ransel

"Village Mothers" describes the reception of modern medical ideas and practices by three generations of Russian and Tatar village women in the twentieth century. It first traces the entry into Russia of Western medical discourse on reproduction and its extension to the countryside during the Soviet period. Using the village mothers' own words, as captured in 100 oral interviews collected by the author and his collaborators in the early 1990s, David L. Ransel traces the process by which the women mediated the inherited beliefs of their families and communities, the claims of the state to control reproduction, and their personal desire for a better life. The interviews tell a story of willing acceptance of some changes and selective acceptance of or outright resistance to others.;Although the lives of the women interviewed were propelled and battered by powerful forces beyond their control, ranging from patriarchal tyranny to civil war, governmental coercion and violence, famine, and world war, the women's testimonies reveal the strategies by which they maintained a measure of personal control and choice, building a sense of independence that helped them endure hardship and gave meaning to their lives. The scope of these personal histories and the detailed information they convey about everyday life in rural Soviet communities provides an important and fascinating portrait of socio-cultural continuity and transformation in twentieth-century Russia.