Maria Bucur argues in the conclusion that in this volume the Balkans are transformed ‘from a relatively vapid area on the map of modern Europe into a vibrant locale of change, modernization and contestation’ (p. 430). Health, Hygiene and Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to 1945 is certainly an outstanding achievement and represents a significant breakthrough in scholarship on health politics, eugenics and population control in Europe’s ‘backward’ region. Progressing in a loosely chronological format, it reveals how both the individual and the state became increasingly defined in biological terms, with the focus of each chapter not the political elites, as is often the case, but leading medical professionals. Thus the introduction describes the volume as an exploration of the ‘porous border between care for the population and the repression of their individual rights’ (p. 21). Above all, these thirteen original studies demonstrate that modernisation in southeastern Europe was coloured by strong, indigenous expressions of national character.
Neatly framing the volume as a whole, Weindling asserts that, until now, historians have given undue credence to the idea that ‘German racial superiority’ was ‘imposed on other European countries by the Third Reich’. The reality is, at this time in southeastern Europe, ‘race and the racialization of hygiene, health and medicine were contested and open to a multiplicity of interpretations’ (p. 40). With this in mind, a number of new discourses emerge from the second and third parts, which deal with ‘Health and Hygiene’ and ‘Eugenics and Reproduction’ respectively.
The contributors use various methodologies, ranging from broad narratives on the modernization of health, such as Papastefanaki on occupational health in Greece, to the narrow investigation of individual eugenic ideas, such as Georgescu on Saxon eugenics in Romania. The result of this is to highlight how the ‘culture of health’ was dispersed (whether to help fight diseases, like typhus or malaria, or promote national biological improvement via eugenics) in each national context, through books and journal articles, targeting the well-educated, but also pamphlets, posters and even parades as means to overcome widespread illiteracy and engage with the masses.
There are also more specific discourses established throughout the book. In part II, for example, various chapters detail the interactions between Bosnian and Bulgarian medical professionals and the Muslim communities, often considered a symbol of ‘backward’ former-Ottoman rule, gender roles and the nature of ‘civilising’ in general. Elsewhere, the ‘Europeanisation’ of public health in Greece produced remarkable reactions from factory workers. Many refused to utilise the new protective legislation put in place, which is explained by Papastefanaki as ‘not merely a matter of ‘backwardness’ (p. 185) but often more an ‘unspoken resistance to a technocratic ‘civilization’ process from above’ (p. 191).
In part III, the influence of orthodox religion on eugenic policies is striking. In Romania, for example, Turda describes how members of the orthodox clergy were enlisted to help diffuse eugenic arguments for sterilisation, whereas in Croatia, Yeomans highlights how Catholic doctrine influenced a more pro-natalist approach, resulting in extreme punishments for those undergoing and performing abortions. Other chapters reveal how different understandings of the nature of heredity were taken from outside influences and in turn helped shape native eugenic ideas. For example, Theodorou and Karakatsani demonstrate how the adoption of Neo-Lamarkist ideas by a number of French eugenicists influenced Greek arguments on puériculture and ‘biological capital’.
The scope for comparative analysis between the studies is rich, with four chapters focusing on Greece, three on the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, two on Bulgaria, and two on Romania. The earlier chapters are generally successful in comparing how widespread disease was managed differently across southeastern Europe. It could be suggested that more comparisons may have been made in the later chapters. For example, Catholicism appears to play a prominent role in shaping the eugenic ideology in Yeomans’ chapter on Croatia, and Fuchs spends much time discussing how the perceived cultural ‘backwardness’ of the Muslim minority effected the efficiency of health care modernisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, while Dudac’s chapter on public health in Yugoslavia successfully explains how priests were used to promote new ideas on health and hygiene, more perhaps could have been said on how the presence of religious minorities and the different national religious contexts across the Kingdom of Yugoslavia effected the development of public health. Also, following the two Romanian chapters, one may ask, how did Manliu and Facaoaru, who argued for Romanian racial improvement through negative eugenics, view Csallner’s Transylvanian Saxon movement, a pro-natalist German minority? It would seem that a comparative study could prove an interesting discourse within Romanian historiography.
Minor criticisms aside, this is a superb collection. It is to be hoped that the participants now move towards acknowledging each other as part of a larger dialogue on the ‘culture of health’ in southeastern Europe. Such incisive and intriguing contributions to this field suggest that there are exciting times ahead for the history of this fascinating region.
