"Baltic Eugenics: Bio-Politics, Race and Nation in Interwar Estonia, ... 1918-1940" ed. by B. M. Felder, P. J. Weindling

This book compares for the first time the eugenic projects of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the related disciplines of racial anthropology and psychiatry, and situates them within the wider European context.

Strong ethno-nationalism defined the nation as a biological group, which was fostered by authoritarian regimes established in Lithuania in 1926, and in Estonia and Latvia in 1934. The eugenics projects were designed to establish a nation in biological terms. Their aims were to render the nation ethnically, genetically and racially homogeneous. The main agenda was a non-democratic state that defined its population in biological terms. Eugenic policies were to regenerate the nation and to reconstruct it as a "pure" and "original" race.

The research presented here opens a new perspective in terms of politics, culture and science in the inter-war republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Eugenics, Sterilisation and the Racial State: The Baltic States and Russia and the Global Eugenics Movement
Part 1: Eugenics in the Baltics
Race, Eugenics and National Identity in the Eastern Baltic: From Racial Surveys to Racial States
The Application of Eugenics in Estonia 1918-1940
Racial Identity and Physical Anthropology in Estonia 1800-1945
"God forgives - but Nature never will" - Racial Identity, Racial Anthropology, and Eugenics in Latvia 1918-1940
Latvian Psychiatry and Medical Legislation of the 1930s and the German Sterilisation Law
"Over-Latvianization in Heaven" - Attitude towards Contraception and Abortion in Latvia 1918-1940
Eugenics againstState and Church: Juozas Blazys (1890-1939), Eugenics, Abortion and Psychiatry in Interwar Lithuania 1918-1940
Part 2: Eugenics in the Baltic Sea Region
World War One and National Characterology in East-Central Europe
Soviet Eugenics for National Minorities: Eradication of Syphilis in Buriat-Mongolia as an Element of Social Modernisation of a Frontier Region 1923-1928
Sterilisations in the Swedish Welfare State: A Gender Issue?
Eugenic Concerns, Scientific Practices: International Relations and National Adaptations in the Establishment of Psychiatric Genetics in Germany, Britain, the USA, and Scandinavia 1910-1960
Contributors