Ban on love: how the USSR launched a campaign against marriages with foreigners
Ban on love: how the USSR launched a campaign against marriages with foreigners

Video: Ban on love: how the USSR launched a campaign against marriages with foreigners

Video: Ban on love: how the USSR launched a campaign against marriages with foreigners
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Marriages with foreigners have long been banned in the USSR
Marriages with foreigners have long been banned in the USSR

70 years ago, on February 15, 1947, the USSR issued a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet "On the prohibition of marriages between citizens of the USSR and foreigners" … The need for such a decision was explained by the desire to protect Soviet women from the discrimination they were allegedly subjected to abroad. The ban did not last long - in 1953, Soviet citizens formally received permission to marry representatives of other states, but it was almost impossible to implement this in practice.

International marriages were only possible in the movies. Lyubov Orlova in the film Circus, 1936
International marriages were only possible in the movies. Lyubov Orlova in the film Circus, 1936

The decision on the need for a ban was made back in the Second World War, when Soviet soldiers had families in Eastern Europe, where hostilities were taking place. After the war, many women in the USSR were left alone, not all of those who were taken from the occupied territories to Germany returned back. The country was threatened with a demographic crisis, the leadership could not allow the mass departure of women of childbearing age from the country. In addition, there was a need to restore industry and agriculture, and this required large human resources.

Moscow, Pushkin square, 1947. Photo by N. Granovsky
Moscow, Pushkin square, 1947. Photo by N. Granovsky
Moscow. Street scene, 1954. Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson
Moscow. Street scene, 1954. Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson

In order to stop the outflow of the inhabitants of the USSR abroad, by a decree of February 15, 1947, international marriages were prohibited, even with citizens of socialist countries. At the same time, previously concluded marriages with foreigners were declared invalid. Before that, back in 1944, Stalin signed a decree abolishing the institution of adoption and paternity. This exempted men from paying alimony, which was also supposed to affect the increase in fertility rates. At the same time, the conditions for divorce were tightened, and women were forbidden to have abortions. At the same time, the struggle against "servility to the West" unfolded, which paved the way for the imposition of a ban on marriages with foreigners.

Moscow. In GUM, 1954. Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson
Moscow. In GUM, 1954. Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson

It is interesting that 2 months before the adoption of this decree, when the candidates for the Stalin Prize in Literature were discussed, Stalin defended Ilya Ehrenburg and his novel The Tempest, which described the romance of a Soviet citizen with a French woman. After that, the writer was seriously alarmed: "And now I ask myself: did not my novel push him to publish this inhuman law?"

Zoya Fedorova in the film On the Border, 1938, and her chosen one Jackson Tate
Zoya Fedorova in the film On the Border, 1938, and her chosen one Jackson Tate

As punishment for violating the decree, one could get a term under Article 58 for "anti-Soviet agitation." Many famous people have suffered because of this ban. So, the actress Zoya Fedorova in 1945 had an affair with the US Deputy Defense Attaché Jackson Tate. Soon he was expelled from the country, and Fedorova was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison for espionage. She was released in 1955 after rehabilitation, and she was able to see Tate only in 1976. In 1948, actress Tatyana Okunevskaya was arrested for an affair with a foreigner (officially, for "anti-Soviet propaganda"). She was sentenced to 10 years in labor camps. In Dzhezkazgan, she mined ore in a mine. In 1954 she was rehabilitated and released.

Tatiana Okunevskaya
Tatiana Okunevskaya

After Stalin's death, the decree banning marriages with foreigners was canceled. However, the new government still did not welcome the conclusion of such alliances. Repressions against Soviet citizens who joined such unions continued after 1953: they were fired from their jobs, prevented from finding a job, and then evicted to remote regions as parasites. NS. Khrutsky in his memoirs claims that there were a lot of such cases, and during the Khrushchev thaw, such families could be found on the virgin lands and at the Komsomol construction sites in Siberia and the Far East.

Moscow Festival of Youth and Students, 1957
Moscow Festival of Youth and Students, 1957

In the years of stagnation, repression was replaced by bureaucratic difficulties: in order to marry a foreigner, an incredible amount of documents had to be collected. In addition, international marriages could only be concluded in large cities, and only in strictly defined registry offices. All applicants were interviewed by KGB officers.

Members of the delegation from Ethiopia during the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, 1957
Members of the delegation from Ethiopia during the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, 1957

In the 1970s. emigration from the USSR was allowed, primarily Jewish. Many then entered into fictitious marriages in order to travel abroad. During these years, several thousand international unions were registered. In the era of perestroika, the first marriage agencies appeared, specializing in dating foreigners. And after the collapse of the USSR, this phenomenon became widespread - only in the United States at the end of the twentieth century. emigrated about 75 thousand brides from the CIS.

Moscow Festival of Youth and Students, 1957
Moscow Festival of Youth and Students, 1957

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