In this article, Marius Turda discusses Romanian anthropological and serological research during the interwar period. At the time, the physical contours of the nation captured the attention of specialists and lay commentators alike, from skeptical believers in the historical destiny of the nation to those obsessed with national essence. In this context, anthropology and serology provided scientific legitimacy to the assumption that there was a racial nucleus within the Romanian nation that the natural and social environment could not obliterate; it was this racial nucleus that anthropology and serology identified as “Romanian.” This biologization of national belonging indicates that the origins of eugenic programs of biopolitical rejuvenation are to be sought in the attempt to achieve a new national body amid alleged domestic spiritual decline and unfavorable international conditions. Ultimately, the need for the rejuvenation of the ethnic community was based on the “palingenetic myth” of national renewal, comprising both the idea of spiritual metamorphosis and its fulfillment in a new ethnic ontology.

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Among various programmes of biological engineering developed in the twentieth century eugenic sterilization is one of the most notorious. The reasons are numerous, ranging from its application under the Nazi regime to its post-1945 application in the Scandinavian countries, the recent sterilization of the Roma in the Czech Republic, and China's birth planning policies. 1 Yet it is only in the past two decades that our knowledge about sterilization policies and practices has improved-both in their historical context, and with respect to their practical implementation. 2 After the First World War, the prospect of introducing coercive eugenic measures gained acceptance, especially in Northern and Western Europe. Within the economic

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