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Russia's Illegitimate Children Before and After the Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Bernice Madison
Bernice Madison*
Affiliation:
San Francisco State College
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Extract

The last tsarist statute to deal with illegitimate children, the law of June 3, 1902, improved the lot of these “untouchables” somewhat but left them still in a most unfavorable economic and social position. It permitted proof of paternity and established the father's civil responsibility for support. But it denied to the father the right to acknowledge his child, and to the child the right to inherit from his father or to use his name. Some of the mother's property but not that of her relatives could be passed on to the illegitimate child if she acknowledged him in writing and if this property had been acquired by “honorable” means. “Legal” status could be conferred by the marriage of the parents or by adoption, but such marriage was permitted only if there were no children from a previous lawful union.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1963 , pp. 82 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1963

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References

1 , XXXIV (1902), 606.

2 Ibid., XX (1897), 834-37. The major Russian source that these publishers use is Estimates of illegitimacy rates for the Soviet period are not available, primarily because no statistics on which such estimates might be based have been published. An estimate of the total number of illegitimate children currently living in the Soviet Union is given later in this paper.

3 Johnson, William E., The Liquor Problem in Russia (Westerville, Ohio, 1915), p. 50.Google Scholar

4 B. B. II (St. Petersburg, 1903), 481.

5 H. B. (St. Petersburg, 1901), pp. 109-12; (Moscow, 1946), pp. 58-61.

6 In Protestant countries homes for illegitimate children did not appear until the eighteenth century; this delay was due in large part to the philosophic ideas of the Reformation (such homes were considered immoral because they furnished a means whereby; parents could escape from carrying out their natural duties) and to the destruction of monastic orders which administered the early homes.

7 op. cit., pp. 27-28.

8 Selivanov, A, “Hospices des enfants assistés, instituts pour les orphelins, asiles pour les enfants trouvés et pour les mineurs,” in Direction Générate de 1'Économie Locale du Ministère de I'Intérieur: V'Assistance Publique et Privée en Russie (St. Petersburg, 1906), pp. 26–33 Google Scholar.

9 op. cit., pp. 23-24, 32.

10 ibid., pp. 24-25, 33.

11 Ibid., p. 33.

12 Ibid., p. 29; , op. cit., pp. 108-10.

13 , op. cit., p. 46.

14 This estimate is based on a number of data given in , and Selivanov, especially on: (1) exact figures on the number of children “’ admitted to the Moscow home and the number that died in the years 1764-67, inclusive, I and 1880-89, inclusive; (2) exact figures on admissions and deaths in the St. Petersburg home from the year of its founding until 1905; (3) expenditures by each home in 1904; (4) s survival rates for scattered years; (5) number of children under care for scattered years.

15 The legal material is based on: Gsovski, V., Soviet Civil Law, II (Ann Arbor, 1948), m pp. 248-78Google Scholar; Hazard, John N., “The Child under Soviet Law,” University of Chicago Law Review, V (1937-38), 424 Google Scholar; Soloveitchik, S, “Family Law and Inheritance Law in USSR,” 3 University of Kansas City Law Review, XV (1946-47), 83–94 Google Scholar; II (1932), 3-5.

16 (Moscow: Moscow University, 1957), pp. 3-4, 8-10.

17 The estimate of the number of children for whom benefits are being paid to “lone“ mothers appears in U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Social Security Administration, A Report on Social Security Programs in the Soviet Union (Washington, D.C, 1960), p. 88. The figure of 52, 500, 000 children is derived from estimates made by Eason, Warren W., “Population Changes,” in The Transformation of Russian Society, ed. Black, Cyril E. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 72–90.Google Scholar

18 (Moscow), Nov., 1960, p. 60.

19 , op. cit., p. 63.

20 Material about the rights of unmarried mothers is based on: C. E. CCCP (Moscow, 1954), pp. 24-25, 31, 34.

21 See, for example, the story of Evdokiia in (Leningrad, 1961). A story in , March 13, 1955, indicates that the reluctance of authorities to deprive “lone” mothers of custody is sometimes overdone. In this instance an obviously unfit unmarried mother was permitted to keep her child for some time, and action against her was finally taken only after repeated and urgent requests by the child's maternal grandmother.

22 , Jan., 1960, p. 3, and Mar., 1960, pp. 17-18.

23 Eason, op. cit., p. 80.