The History of East-Central European Eugenics, 1900-1945: Sources and Commentaries

by Marius Turda (Editor)

Overview

The History of East-Central European Eugenics, 1900-1945 redefines the European history of eugenics by exploring the ideological transmission of eugenics internationally and its application locally in East-Central Europe. It includes 100 primary sources translated from the East-Central European languages into English for the first time and key contributions from leading scholars in the field from around Europe. This volume examines the main eugenic organisations, as well as individuals and policies that shaped eugenics in Austria, Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. It also explores the ways in which ethnic minorities interacted with national and international eugenics discourses to advance their own aims and ambitions, whilst providing a comparative analysis of the emergence and development of eugenics in East-Central Europe more generally.

Complete with a glossary of terms, a list of all eugenic societies and journals from these countries, as well as a comprehensive bibliography, The History of East-Central European Eugenics, 1900-1945 is a pivotal reference work for students, researchers and academics interested in East-Central Europe and the history of science and national identity in the 20th century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472531360
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/27/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Marius Turda is Reader in 20th Century Central and Eastern European Biomedicine in the Department of History at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is the author of Modernism and Eugenics (2010) and Eugenics and Nation in Early 20th Century Hungary (2014).
Marius Turda is Professor in Central and Eastern European Biomedicine at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He is the author of Eugenics and Nation in Early 20th Century Hungary (2014); Modernism and Eugenics (2010); The Idea of National Superiority in Central Europe, 1880-1918 (2005), co-author (with Maria Sophia Quine) of Historicizing Race (2018), and the editor of The History of Eugenics in East-Central Europe, 1900-1945: Sources and Commentaries (2015) and Religion, Evolution and Heredity (2018).

Table of Contents

Introduction (Marius Turda, Oxford Brookes University)
Part I - State-Orientated Eugenic Movements
1. Austria
Overview (Thomas Mayer, University of Vienna)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
2. Poland
Overview (Kamila Uzarczyk, Wroclaw Medical University)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
3. Czechoslovakia (Bohemia and Moravia):
Overview (Michal Šimunek, Instiute for Contemporary History, Prague)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
4. Hungary
Overview (Marius Turda, Oxford Brookes University)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
5. Romania I.
Overview (Marius Turda, Oxford Brookes University)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
6. Yugoslavia I. Slovenia
Overview (Ana Cergol Paradiž, University of Ljubljana)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
7. Yugoslavia II. Croatia
Overview (Vjera Duic, University of Zagreb)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
8. Yugoslavia III. Serbia
Overview (Vladimir Petrovic, Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
Part II - Minority Eugenic Movements
9. Yugoslavia IV. Volksdeutsche Eugenics in Vojvodina
Overview (Filip Krcmar, University of Novi Sad)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography
10. Romania II. Saxon Eugenics in Transylvania
Overview (Tudor Georgescu, Oxford Brookes University)
Main Eugenicists and Key Texts
Glossary
Bibliography

Appendix: Eugenic Societies in East-Central Europe
Index

Editorial Reviews

A number of things make this volume extremely useful for scholars of eugenics ... One immediate strength lies in the richness of the sources used ... Another is the nuanced and complex approach contributors take to exploring the autarchic eugenic traditions of their individual states ... while, at the same time, detailing attempts to establish common eugenic values ... This extremely well-written and thoroughly-researched volume will provide scholars of eugenics and related subjects with a wealth of information and primary sources. It makes a major contribution to the study of eugenic thought.
Social History of Medicine

This excellent collection of essays is more than an introduction to East-Central European eugenics. It is a detailed investigation illuminating a rather dark period of European history ... [and] an essential read for scholars interested in both the general and specific aspects of European eugenics.
Journal of Historical Geography

This volume succeeds admirably ... [in] provid[ing] an invaluable new perspective on the transmission and adaptation of eugenic ideas in countries, which, until recently have not been part of the so-called mainstream.
European History Quarterly

From the Publisher

Marius Turda and his colleagues have provided an invaluable resource for scholars seeking to understand the development of international eugenics in the first half to he twentieth century. This new focus on East Central European eugenics provides an important complement to the wealth of literature already existing on western European, Anglo-American and Latin American eugenics. Particularly valuable are the biographical sketches of important eugenicists in each country and translations of selections from their writings, previously inaccessible to scholars unfamiliar with languages such as Czech, Magyar, Polish, and Croatian. This work is thus a significant contribution to the primary source literature in an almost uncharted area in the history of eugenics.

Garland E. Allen

This volume complicates the standard narrative of eugenics nicely. The oft told tale is that it was a matter of dominant groups imposing their definitions upon those they deemed inferior, however this book describes the multiple categories stretching across a vast range of boundaries, geographic and other. Essential reading for historians of eugenics.

William deJong-Lambert

Comprehensive, incisive, and authoritative, this ground-breaking book on East-Central European eugenics is essential reading. It establishes a whole new geography through which we can understand and analyse the most important socio-scientific endeavour of the twentieth century. Received wisdoms about eugenics and high modernity, authoritarian states, and urban populations are deeply questioned by this book, which turns Anglo-American presumptions on their head. Turda and his authors offer interpretations as well as translations that will serve historians of eugenics and public health well for generations.

Alison Bashford

Public interest in the history of eugenics has so far focused on North America and Northern Europe. It has concentrated on extreme consequences like compulsory eugenic sterilization and racist population policies in Germany and the United States. This volume on eugenics in East-Central Europe presents an eye-opening variety of eugenic ideas and visions. It demonstrates the great range of eugenics as a factor in social, cultural and political developments in the first half of the 20th century - a historical lesson to remember in present debates about human reproduction policies.

Nils Roll-Hansen