I begin my notes dedicated to the film The lost year of 1986written and directed by Lygia Chorney, with some historical details that seem to me absolutely necessary to mention.

In 1957, the Romanian authorities (we are in the Deja era) passed a law that legalized abortion. It allowed abortions on demand, which were banned in 1948, shortly after the Communist Party, or PMR, please, took complete control of Romania and its citizens.

After 9 years, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the party, which was held somewhere on the seashore, Nicolae Ceausescu, who was the general secretary of the CPSU for a year, made a speech in which he expressed concern about the demographic situation in the country. . A few days later, under the signature of Chivu Stoyka, then President of the State Council, Decree-Law No. 770. In the motivation of this Decree, you can read: Considering that abortion is an act with serious consequences for a woman’s health and causes great damage to the birth rate and natural population growth, the State Council of the Socialist Republic of Romania decrees… In paragraph 1 it was written: Termination of pregnancy is prohibitedand in Article 7 it was said: Termination of pregnancy under conditions other than those provided for by this Decree is a crime and is punished according to the provisions of the Criminal Code.

In response to the megalomaniacal intentions of someone who was preparing to restore a personal dictatorship, the Decree would have immediate consequences. It was not only about the unprecedented natural population growth that had been observed since 1967 or 1968, but also about an endless number of dramas or tragedies. What, however, did not interest the party. In a short time, the birth of a child was celebrated with pomp, increasing the country’s population to 20 million. Then a whole propaganda machine was launched, fake documentaries, holiday radio and television broadcasts were created. Ceaușescu cherished the desire that every woman would give birth to at least 4 children, so that the population of Romania would reach 30 million inhabitants in a short time. Those who were born in the first years after the issuance of the relevant Decree were appointed decree.

However, apart from what the party propagandists said, it was a large-scale criminal social experiment, compared to the December 1989 revolution. Lebensbornstarted in 1935 by Heinrich Himmler.

20 years after Decree 70/1966, in the last days of April 1986, Western press agencies reported alarming news about a possible large-scale nuclear accident that was about to happen at the Chornobyl NPP. The Soviet authorities first tried to hide it (we are in the first year of the Gorbachev regime), and then to minimize its scale and consequences. The Bucharest authorities did the same, the communist secret is the same everywhere. It was only on May 1 that the Romanian mass media reported the first news about what had happened. With all caution, avarice and time constraints. However, the population of Romania was already sufficiently familiar with Western radio stations broadcasting in the Romanian language.

In the first series of the film The lost year of 1986, a film written and directed by Ligia Chorney, mostly set in a Romanian village, miserable, almost anonymous, forgotten by the world, we see a beautiful woman past her prime carrying a huge suitcase with a lot of weight. We later learn that the woman (played impeccably by Isabela Neamtsou) is in her 40s, that she is a teacher, that she is married to a long-distance sailor. By chance, an old man named Vasile (played by Valer Dellaqueza) stands in his way, holding a small transistor radio. To strengthen the reception, he put a plug in the form of an antenna. It was Vasyl who gave Irina the first information about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. What he also learned from the radio Free Europe. Vasile, you know, specializes in bad news, because he will also be the one to inform the woman that a large tonnage ship flying the flag of the Socialist Republic of Romania (I can’t help but notice how comically Valer Dellaqueza speaks and repeats the country’s name) would sink. The woman’s husband, Yannis, is a naval officer and may be among the victims. Naturally, he is played by Gavril Petru.

This news came at a time of epic crisis. Iryna is pregnant, and her mother-in-law, a doctor by profession, but also a party activist, in fact or only formally fully committed to communism, in any case, a strict woman, more sensitive to the mouths of the world than to human suffering, the embodiment of a new person, for whom lies and inhumanity are by law (strongly drawn by Victoria Kocias), tries to convince her daughter-in-law to have an abortion. He called for this and specialist (Oana Pușcatu) who has to do his illegal work. And this under any conditions (it doesn’t matter that there is no anesthetic in the dispensary) and regardless of the consequences.

The scene is brutal, it is one of the key scenes in the film. The director insists on preparing for the smooth operation of the operation. All kinds of precautions are taken. The windows are closed. Iryna refuses to have an abortion, thereby even allowing the danger of giving birth to a disabled child, tanned by a nuclear cloud. Fear gripped the woman in labor. Thus, the film is not only about big elections, about hesitation and cowardice (Yannis), but also about courage and dignity (Iryna), about conformity and lies (Marcela’s mother-in-law), about theoretically natural things, normal, but forbidden in communism . A regime that rejects normalcy. The lost year of 1986 but especially this is a film about fear and dehumanization, about changing the idea of ​​family. About the domestic ugliness of communism. About life as a daily prison, without visible bars. The prison is created and guaranteed by socialist humanism, ethics, justice and legality. But also about how all this has been perpetuated to this day. Because the story doesn’t end in 1986 or in a long series at the seaside. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro