Mihaela Miroiu, Otilia Dragomir (coord.), Birth. Stories lived, Polirom Publishing, “EGOgrafii” Collection, Iaºi, 2010, 376 p.; contributors: Emilia Bîrsan, Cornelia Grünberg, Ana Maria Sandi, Grete Tartler Tãbãraºi, Sofia Vãcãrescu, Mihaela Miroiu, Otilia David, Aida Ferat Postolache, Cornelia Pãsculie, Mihaela Vlãsceanu, Laura Grünberg, Cristina ªtefan, ªtefania Miclea, Claudia Miroiu, Otilia Dragomir, Maria Bucur, Ana Bulai, Ramona Pãunescu, Daniela Palade Teodorescu, Mia Gorea
An extraordinary, astounding, exhilarating recent book: Birth. Stories lived, a collection a collection of testimonies from twenty ladies on their birth giving experience. In the foreword, the two coordinators of the book, Otilia Dragomir and Mihaela Miroiu, define the project as overcoming a barrier: since, despite the victories over the last century for the “emancipation of women”, “their deepest human experiences, the way in which they live them and relate to them remain locked in the gynaecium, continuing to represent a taboo for the Romanian public discourse” (Foreword, p. 10); “Such things are not to be discussed about and if they are discussed about, they’re not to be written about, and if, however, they’re written about, at least, they’re not to be published.”(p. 12). On the other hand, from a complementary perspective of the children, therefore ... of all people, “the state of pregnancy” and birth are related to the “primary experience of each and every of us" (Ibid.; the Foreword begins with beautiful words on “co-beingness” - p. 7).
The topic is - therefore - exceptional in itself, as is the act of tackling it in a detabooing manner, here and now, in a socio-cultural context still prude to it. There are no inhibitions - however – with the twenty authors, who, once they have undertaken the project, don’t go back on their steps and give a daring and minute account of their maternal experiences. This is not surprising, if we look at the list of contributors: most of them have worked before with Mihaela Miroiu, the founder of feminist studies in post-communist Romania, other are young PhD students in the field, or, without much detective work, and simply looking at the name relations, their close ones (mothers, other relatives, colleagues). Therefore, sociologically speaking, we are facing a “sample” representative only for a certain professional and cultural field. It would have probably been difficult otherwise, before the barrier rose for this first time. The advantage is that most authors can phrase their accounts from the perspective of thorough social-human and gender competences (in terms of the concerned scientific and academic disciplines). Not explicitly, however, but in the subsidiary, as the contributions are not presented as studies, but as direct testimonials, mostly narrative, which does not rule out analytical or reflections systematically strewn along.
After the introductory pages, the book opens with a list introducing the authors: not as a list of standard, dry resumes, but as first person presentations, with an occasional first sentence “I have birth to him / her at... on... in...” (name, date, location), followed by a brief self descriptive paragraph, often prankish or self-ironic, sometimes on bitter notes, outlining the relationship with children, since then, the time of birth, until today. All touching. Here are, for example, the first two (although any is worth quoting):
“1. Emilia Bîrsan// I gave birth to Mihaela on March 10, 1955 in Sâncrai, Hunedoara.// I am seventy-six now, and trying to enjoy life as much as I can. For thirty-eight years I was a teacher and I loved my profession with all my heart. I love seeing my students again. For thirty years now I am a grandmother as well, not only a mother, and that helped me discover a different form of love, total and unconditional. During the past nine years I travelled between Bucharest and Hunedoara, between my daughter and my home land. The little girl then is now woman as I dreamed her to be.
2. Cornelia Grünberg// I brought my daughter into this world on January 31, 1961, in Bucharest.// My baby is my pride. An intelligent, sensitive, loyal person, open to everything human. What more can a mother ask for? Apart from that, a life of hope “in hard times” (p. 13).
The texts in the book are ordered chronologically, by the dates of birth of the children, giving a larger history mirroring effect. Personal stories gather details on the family, social, material background of the mothers in the early communist period, then on the other stages of the regime, while the last nine cross the 1989 period, into different times, different conditions, better and better, in other countries included, due to the new freedom to travel (the sale of the absorbent Pampers diapers in our country and their absence before, it's a recurring topic ...). Similarly, there's a description of the attitudes towards birth at the time, the medical conditions, the training of the doctors, sometimes poor, the hospitals conditions, with some “horror” stories, etc. The result is a kind of historical and cultural study residing of puzzle pieces of the individual cases. The score in the short indications guide given to the invited contributors by the coordinators of the volume, reproduced in Annex, explains both for systematic aspect of the information, and the confessional acceptance of the past (“Write from your soul, with no neutrality, do not make a report, but try to relive in writing that moment in your life”- p. 367).
Said and done! The authors who took the invitation give charming accounts, either brisk, of enormously racy, or warmly melancholic, with a tendency to clearly genuine, vibrant sentimentalism. There’s no key out of tune, and no doubt that the mothers deeply, completely and definitely love their children. For which reason, book is not only interesting, but also an exciting reading, extremely funny here and there, when irony and self-irony are at home, striking in every line, sometimes deeply moving. There are wuite a few pages of the best quality literature. As, beyond socio-human research project that the initiative is based on, we are facing – isn’t that so? – thematic and thematized memorialist writing. Grete Tartler is, in any case, a career writer, Mihaela Miroiu has written before autobiographical, personal essays, (in The R'E(a)st and the West, Polirom, 2005, among others), Laura Grünberg signed a playful children's book (A Story of Children, Dormouse, Kitty, and Quince Leaf, Company Publishing, 2007), and has just submitted for publication a second, etc. The other colleagues in the volumes about the birth are splendid writers as well. Writing skills seem at hand to mothers regardless of their profession training!...
