The Anthropology of Birth in Russia and Ukraine

As is well known, the Bible opens with the Creation and recounts the carefree life of the first two people in Paradise. This blissful state soon comes to an end when Adam and Eve are driven from Paradise. Eve is told: “In pain shall you bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband” (Gen. 3, xvi). “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Gen. 4, i). An unbroken chain of births followed, a story that mingled joy and sorrow [Stol, Wiggermann 2000: ix]. Such was the beginning of the anthropology of birth. In this article I shall be drawing upon a database collected in the field over the last few years in the Middle Dnieper region of Ukraine, as well as on archival material. The latter includes the unique notes of the Ukrainian folklorist and ethnologist, Liudmyla Shevchenko (niece of the great Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko) [Boriak 2001b: 42-56], and S. Verkhrads'kyi, professional physician and ethnographer. From the 1920’s through the 1940’s they succeeded in collecting some outstanding material from peasants in various regions of Ukraine, in particular Polissia, famous among ethnologists for the archaic nature of its oral tradition [e.g. Kabakova 2001]. In Ukraine, just as elsewhere, the traditional midwife (baba or grandmother) coexisted with those who had received some training. The latter had undergone brief courses, qualifying as licensed nurse midwives, but usually practiced in city regions. Over time obstetrics became a profession and developed its own body of knowledge: Zamois'ka Academy, set up in 1593, was