In Pursuit of Greater Hungary: Eugenic Ideas of Social and Biological Improvement, 1940–1941

‘New eugenics,’ gender and sexuality: a global perspective on reproductive politics and sex education in Cold War Europe

“…The articles presented here are among the first to discuss the resurfacing of eugenics in the postwar period in the field of sex education and reproductive politics in Europe. Existing research on eugenics in the region has so far primarily focused on the first half of the 20 th century (Bucur, 2002;Kund, 2016;Turda, 2007Turda, , 2009Turda, , 2013Turda, , 2014Turda, , 2015Turda & Weindling, 2007). Quine (1996) has revealed how eugenic ideas were interlinked with health, education and welfare measures in the early 20 th century, especially in France and Italy, where eugenicists proved to be receptive to environmentalist arguments on 'modify[ing] nature' through changes in social conditions (p. 67).…”

“…Scholars have drawn attention to the fact that battles about sexual and reproductive matters among the representatives of various state institutions, and social and religious movements have intensified in periods of political and economic change (Gal & Kligman, 2000, p. 21). The establishment of nation states after World War I in the region increased anxieties concerning population quantity and 'quality' (Bucur, 2002;Kund, 2016;Turda, 2007Turda, , 2009Turda, , 2013Turda, , 2014Turda, , 2015Turda & Weindling, 2007). Eugenic thought intertwined increasingly with nationalist and also racist and anti-Semitic ideas from the 1920s onwards, resulting in selective and forced pro-and antinatalist practices that affected different groups of women and men differently (Kund, 2016;Szikra, 2009;Turda, 2007Turda, , 2009Turda, , 2013Turda & Weindling, 2007).…”

“…The establishment of nation states after World War I in the region increased anxieties concerning population quantity and 'quality' (Bucur, 2002;Kund, 2016;Turda, 2007Turda, , 2009Turda, , 2013Turda, , 2014Turda, , 2015Turda & Weindling, 2007). Eugenic thought intertwined increasingly with nationalist and also racist and anti-Semitic ideas from the 1920s onwards, resulting in selective and forced pro-and antinatalist practices that affected different groups of women and men differently (Kund, 2016;Szikra, 2009;Turda, 2007Turda, , 2009Turda, , 2013Turda & Weindling, 2007). Furthermore, fears of the 'degeneration' of the nation called upon the regulation of sexuality and affected debates around the purposes of sex education (Bernstein, 2007;Szegedi, 2012).…”

The Invention of Prestige:People on the Mountainand the Politics of the National

“…The vocabulary of eugenics made its way into the mainstream political discourse of the time and informed many of the major debates. 54 The story of a family's destruction as a result of the rape of the woman and the exploitation of the man by a rapacious foreign capitalist (almost always code for 'Jew' in the Hungarian context) is reflective of Hungarian nightmare visions of nemzethalál or death of the nation. 55 From the middle of the nineteenth century this fear, rooted in eighteenthcentury political debates on the future of Hungary within the Habsburg Empire, featured heavily in Hungarian political discourse.…”

Minorities and Eugenic Subcultures in East-Central Europe

“…If in the mid-nineteenth century, the great Hungarian statesman István Széchenyi set the course of Hungarian nationalism by famously pronouncing that the 'nation lives in its language' , by the mid-twenty century, his epigones in northern Transylvania recodified this statement to reflect the new historical realities. 'The nation' , the pastor declared, 'lived in its race' [1].…”