Felder , Björn M. Weindling , Paul J. Baltic Eugenics: Bio-Politics, Race and Nation in Interwar Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania 1918–1940 Turda , Marius The History of East-Central European Eugenics, 1900–1945: Sources and Commentaries (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 571 unfolding of the Second World War, so often absent in Western publications. The complete English translation should be acquired by university libraries where the history of international relations and the Soviet Union are taught. These volumes will open up a Soviet point of view to non-Russian readers, something needed in these days of Western anti-Russian hysteria. Département d’histoire Michael Jabara Carley Université de Montréal Felder, Björn M. and Weindling, Paul J. (eds). Baltic Eugenics: Bio-Politics, Race and Nation in Interwar Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania 1918–1940. On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics, 35. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York, 2013. 333 pp. Notes. Bibliographies. €93.00. Turda, Marius (ed). The History of East-Central European Eugenics, 1900–1945: Sources and Commentaries. Bloomsbury Academic, London and New York, 2015. xxii + 630 pp. Glossaries. Notes. Bibliographies. Appendices. Index. £95.00. The first half of the twentieth century saw the rise of eugenic thoughts and practices across the globe. In Central and Eastern Europe, this eugenic trend coincided with rising national aspirations in imperial formations and the nation-building efforts of newly independent states. Central and Eastern European eugenicists pushed for their agenda in a context distinctively different from their colleagues in Britain, Germany and the United States. While eugenic ideologies and legislations in these three countries are relatively well explored in scholarly pursuits, the two edited collections reviewed here turn our attention to a region with a rich past of eugenics prior to the Second World War, yet less represented in the study of eugenics. Baltic Eugenics, a collection of conference papers from 2009, emphasizes trans-national perspectives to examine the history of eugenics in the Baltic States and its relations to the wider Baltic Sea Region, including the Soviet Union, Germany and Sweden. In particular, half of the volume focuses on interwar Estonia and Latvia. This is justifiable, given that Estonia boasted of the most institutionalized eugenic movement of the three Baltic States, and that Estonia and Latvia legalized eugenic sterilization in late 1930s. The timing of such eugenic legislations — not under democratic order but after the coups that turned Estonia and Latvia into authoritarian states — raises the important question of the relationship between authoritarianism and eugenic practices. It also invites the obvious comparison with Nazi Germany. In his introduction, Björn M. Felder argues that the eugenic agenda of Baltic authoritarian regimes SEER, 97, 3, JULY 2019 572 reflected the wish to form a ‘racial state’ that defined its nation in biological terms (p. 6). This is a convincing claim supported by evidence drawn from subsequent papers, even though other contributors show more reservation than Felder. Two chapters investigate racial anthropology and its eugenic logics of differentiating racial value in Estonia and Latvia. Ken Kalling and Leiu Heapost examine Estonian responses to Baltic German and Swedish research on the Estonian racial constitution, especially focusing on the eugenic-minded anthropologist Juhan Aul in the interwar period. They argue that his interest in the Estonian racial question were motivated by a nationalist defensiveness towards German and European scholarship that characterized Estonians as racially inferior. However, they suggest that ‘there seems to have been no particular racial goal or ideal as an agenda of popular discussions’ in Estonia (p. 93). Meanwhile, Felder takes a similar approach, focusing on the research and politics of Latvian anatomist Jēkabs Prīmanis to analyse the links between racial anthropology and eugenics in Latvia. Felder convincingly demonstrates Prīmanis’s central role in forging a Nordic racial identity for the Latvians, as well as his involvement in the national eugenic projects. In contrast to Kalling and Heapost’s reservations about the racial aspect in Estonian eugenics, Felder sharply criticizes the lack of reflection on race and eugenics in Latvian historiography. Though diverging in conclusions, these two chapters elucidate many parallels in the career development of leading Estonian and Latvian racial scientists. Comparison with Nazi sterilization law constitutes the background of two studies on eugenic practices in Estonia and Latvia. Ken Kalling argues that, while authoritarianism indeed contributed to the eugenic regulation of human reproduction, it was mainly the small nation’s...