The Week’s Events
“Events of the week” is a multi-part topic made up of two subtopics, each focused on a different theme.
The first segment of the clip included here addresses the elections for the local People’s Councils, which were held separately from those for the Grand National Assembly. Under Law No. 6/1950 which lay down the process for the election of deputies to the People’s Councils, eligible citizens were entered into the electoral register and issued with a voter’s certificate, enabling them to exercise their right to vote. Candidacy proposals could be submitted by the Party, trade unions, women’s groups, cultural organizations, cooperatives, and others. However, in practice, no candidate could enter the electoral race without the endorsement of the Party organization, and all candidates ran under the banner of the People’s Democracy Front. Although election campaigns were held, they were somewhat awkward due to the complete lack of political competition. Voting Day was portrayed in both print and audiovisual media as a celebration of the accomplishments achieved under the Party’s leadership. The clip included here highlights the celebratory atmosphere surrounding the elections, with voters dressed in traditional clothes and participating in a “hora” dance in front of a school set up as a polling station, possibly staged at the suggestion of the newsreel team.
The second topic focuses on the celebration of International Women’s Day, an event held annually under the auspices of the National Women’s Council. The Council organized various activities, including press campaigns, educational conferences, and film screenings, culminating in a gathering in Bucharest where Council leaders delivered public speeches on the women’s emancipation movement. This took place in 1967, less than a year after the notorious Decree 770, issued on October 1, 1966, which banned contraception and the termination of pregnancies, thus leading to the establishment of one of the most repressive pro-natalist regimes in history.
One year after Decree 770, when this newsreel subject was filmed, the birth rate in Romania was double compared to 1966. However, in the long run, it eventually decreased again as a direct result of the widespread practice of clandestine abortions, often performed in poor medical conditions. These illegal procedures became part of the grim landscape of the following decades, with fatal results for thousands of women.
The celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, 1967, presented here, serves as a poignant reminder of the status of women in Romania at the time. The clip shows a “warm festive gathering” organized by the urban and educated political elite, where medals and orders such as the “Motherhod Medal”, the “Maternal Glory”, and the title of “Heroine Mother” are awarded to women who had given birth to the politically appropriate number of children. The stark contrast in social status between those bestowing the distinctions and those receiving them, visibly from less privileged backgrounds, is a glaring and unsettling reminder of the hypocrisy that surrounded much of the regime’s policy about women.
In the years following Decree 770, the annual celebration of International Women’s Day in Romania gradually abandoned the promotion of female emancipation and became an event celebrating motherhood. (MB, AB)
