Baltic Eugenics on the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics 35

Baltic Eugenics On the Boundary of Two Worlds: Identity, Freedom, and Moral Imagination in the Baltics 35 Founding and Executive Editor Leonidas Donskis, Member of the European Parliament, and previously Professor and Dean of Vytautas Magnus University School of Political Science and Diplomacy in Kaunas, Lithuania. Editorial and Advisory Board Timo Airaksinen, University of Helsinki, Finland Egidijus Aleksandravicius, Lithuanian Emigration Institute, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania Aukse Balcytiene, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania Stefano Bianchini, University of Bologna, Forlì Campus, Italy Endre Bojtar, Institute of Literary Studies, Budapest, Hungary Ineta Dabasinskiene, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania Pietro U. Dini, University of Pisa, Italy Robert Ginsberg, Pennsylvania State University, USA Martyn Housden, University of Bradford, UK Andres Kasekamp, University of Tartu, Estonia Andreas Lawaty, Nordost-Institute, Lüneburg, Germany Olli Loukola, University of Helsinki, Finland Bernard Marchadier, Institut d’études slaves, Paris, France Silviu Miloiu, Valahia University, Targoviste, Romania Valdis Muktupavels, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia Hannu Niemi, University of Helsinki, Finland Irina Novikova, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia Yves Plasseraud, Paris, France Rein Raud, Tallinn University, Estonia Alfred Erich Senn, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania André Skogström-Filler, University Paris VIII-Saint-Denis, France David Smith, University of Glasgow, UK Saulius Suziedelis, Millersville University, USA Joachim Tauber, Nordost-Institut, Lüneburg, Germany Tomas Venclova, Yale University, USA Tonu Viik, Tallinn University, Estonia Baltic Eugenics Bio-Politics, Race and Nation in Interwar Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania 1918-1940 Edited by Björn M. Felder & Paul J. Weindling Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013 Cover photo : Jēkabs Prīmanis measuring skulls (from Jēkabs Prīmanis (1937), Ievads antropoloģijas metodikā. Riga: Valters un Rapa.) Cover background map: racial map from the article “How the European peoples are formed “ (Kā cēlušās Eiropas Tautas), in the illustrated Latvian journal “Atputa” (issue no.759, 19 May 1939) The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-3722-9 E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0976-2 © Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013 Printed in the Netherlands JWH Table of Contents Acknowledgments 3 Introduction: Eugenics, Sterilisation and the Racial State: The Baltic States and Russia and the Global Eugenics Movement Björn M. Felder 5 Part 1: Eugenics in the Baltics Race, Eugenics and National Identity in the Eastern Baltic: From Racial Surveys to Racial States Paul J. Weindling 33 The Application of Eugenics in Estonia 1918-1940 Ken Kalling 49 Racial Identity and Physical Anthropology in Estonia 1800-1945 Ken Kalling and Leiu Heapost 83 “God forgives - but Nature never will” – Racial Identity, Racial Anthropology, and Eugenics in Latvia 1918-1940 Björn M. Felder 115 Latvian Psychiatry and Medical Legislation of the 1930s and the German Sterilisation Law Vladimirs Kuznecovs 147 “Over-Latvianization in Heaven” - Attitude towards Contraception and Abortion in Latvia 1918-1940 Ineta Lipša 169 Eugenics against State and Church: Juozas Blažys (1890-1939), Eugenics, Abortion and Psychiatry in Interwar Lithuania 1918-1940 Björn M. Felder and Arūnas Germanivičius 203 Part 2: Eugenics in the Baltic Sea Region World War One and National Characterology in East-Central Europe Maciej Górny 235 Soviet Eugenics for National Minorities: Eradication of Syphilis in Buriat-Mongolia as an Element of Social Modernisation of a Frontier Region 1923-1928 Vsevolod Bashkuev 261 Sterilisations in the Swedish Welfare State: A Gender Issue? Maija Runcis 287 Eugenic Concerns, Scientific Practices: International Relations and National Adaptations in the Establishment of Psychiatric Genetics in Germany, Britain, the USA, and Scandinavia 1910-1960 Volker Roelcke 301 Contributors 335 Acknowledgments The majority of the papers included in this volume were presented at the workshop Eugenics, Race and Psychiatry in the Baltic States: a Trans- National Perspective, held at the Goethe Institute Riga between 7 and 8 May 2009. The workshop was organized by the Working Group in the History of Race and Eugenics in Europe, the Department of History at Oxford Brookes University, the Nordost-Institute in Lüneburg and the Estonian University of Life Science in Tartu and generously sponsored by the Gerda-Henkel- Foundation and the Fritz Thyssen foundation. First I should express my gratitude to Andreas Lawaty, who as the director of the Nordost-Institute encouraged me in organizing the workshop and to prepare this conference volume. Without him and his generous support the workshop and this volume would not have been possible. I also have to thank to Ulrich Everding, director of the Goethe Institute in Riga for his hospitality and the financial and logistical support. Thanks are also due to Erki Tammiksaar, director of the Karl Ernst von Baer House at the Estonian University of Life Science in Tartu. As the publication of this volume took some time I first have to thank the contributors for their patience. Firstly, I owe gratitude to the Gerda- Henkel-Foundation, which supported this volume with a publication grant. Manfred Hildermeier welcomed me at his chair for Eastern European History at the Seminar for Medieval and Modern History at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and supported my research. Thanks to his open- mindedness and his support, this volume could be completed. There were several persons who helped this volume coming into existence in some way. Ken Kalling was never tired to answer any of my questions. Konrad Mayer and Katrin Steffen were reviewing chapters and gave important advices. Marius Turda also encouraged me to follow the trace of Baltic eugenics and to work on this volume. I have especially wish to thank Eva-Lotta Kalz, Katharina Sewening and Julian Nieding, who worked on the text and did a great job with the layout and the notes. Finally I am very thankful to Leonidas Donskis and Eric van Broekhuizen who accepted this volume to the Rodopi series “On the Boundary of Two Worlds” and kindly facilitated the process of publication. Finally, I have to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for generously supporting me to conduct research at the Georg-August University in Göttingen as well as enabling me to finish this volume. Björn Felder Göttingen, Spring 2013 I wish to add my grateful thanks to the above mentioned persons, to Margit Berner and Maria Teschler-Nicola, in her capacity as Director of the Department of Anthropology at the Natural History Museum Vienna for crucial access to library resources, and to acknowledge the Wellcome Trust for Grant Number 082808. Paul Weindling Oxford, Spring 2013 Introduction: Eugenics, Sterilisation and the Racial State: The Baltic States, Russia, and the Global Eugenics Movement Björn M. Felder In 1938, the annual conference of the International Federation of Eugenics Organisations was scheduled to be held in the Estonian town of Pernu on the Baltic Sea. The host was the Estonian Association for Eugenics and Genealogy (Eesti Eugeenika ja Genealoogia Selts), which had been a member of the federation since 1928, and which was headed by Hans Madissoon. Estonia would be in the spotlight of eugenics researchers from throughout the world. However, the conference was postponed because of the impending war, and it would never be rescheduled for Estonia.1 This episode shows that while the Baltic states were on the periphery of Europe geographically, they were scientifically directly in the centre of the eugenics debate and applied eugenics. International cooperation was not limited to conferences and communications. Since the beginning of the 20th century, scholars from the Baltics travelled to the West, in particular to Germany, to study bio-medical science, including eugenics. During the 1930s, students and scholars went abroad to visit well-known researchers, especially in Germany. Madissoon, for example, visited Fritz Lenz at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin, and Otmar von Verschuer at the University of Frankfurt/Main in 1936. In addition to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, one of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Munich, the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie headed by Ernst Rüdin was also frequently visited by eugenics pilgrims from the Baltic states.2 This volume also considers crucial aspects of transnational science, the transfer of scientific knowledge, and scientific interactions in the field of eugenics in Europe. Thus the volume includes not only contributions on eugenics in the Baltics but also in its second part chapters on eugenics and race in the influential neighbouring countries, as Germany, Sweden, Soviet Union and Poland. The rationale for this is that Baltic eugenics has to be investigated in the European and international context. Estonia probably had the strongest eugenics movement in the Baltics, even before World War One. A eugenics society was established in the 1920s, and the first law for applied eugenics was enacted in 1936, including mandatory sterilisation and abortion. Though Estonia may have been the country with the broadest social support for eugenics, neighbouring

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