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Review A Family Colonized by the State? On a Book about Family Policy in the Czech Lands in the Previous Century Květa Jechová RÁKOSNÍK, Jakub – ŠUSTROVÁ, Radka: Rodina v zájmu státu: Populační růst a in- stituce manželství v českých zemích 1918–1989 [Family in the interest of the state: Population growth and marriage in the Czech Lands 1918–1989]. Praha, Lidové noviny Publishing House 2016, 283 pages, ISBN 978-80-7422-378-5. The book starts with the authors’ explanation why they expanded the original ob- jective of their research. Unlike the grant project, which monitored the evolution of family policy in the Czech Lands under totalitarian regimes (1939–1989), the new book covers the time from the birth of the Czechoslovak Republic until the demise of the communist regime (1918–1989). The authors believe that looking at a longer period of time helps capture and understand the continuity of social problems and the search for their alternative solutions in a better way. It should be noted that their goal was to show how the state increases its interventions into the private sphere through family policy. The book is divided into three chapters. The fi rst one, “(Un)controlled evolution of family policy,” summarizes what happened during the seven decades covered by the book. The second one, “Organization of family care,” deals with transformations of family policy institutions. The third one, “Expert discourse between ideology 204 Czech Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. VI and law,” analyzes the discourse and legal standards and regulations to fi nd an explanation of the changes referred to above. One would expect a characterization of various forms of the state in the begin- ning of the story of state interventions into family policy. Indeed, one would expect a question whether there is any difference between family policy of a democratic country and that of a totalitarian or authoritarian one. The authors obviously did not consider such a difference important; as a matter of fact, they chose an unu- sual chronological perspective for their family policy account, merging the time of the democratic First Republic and the German Protectorate into just one period from 1918 to 1945. As a matter of fact, they believe that “the radical changes of political regimes in the country notwithstanding, there was a signifi cant continu- ity in the populationist discourse, both at the personal level and at the level of opinions. We do not believe that the frequent perception of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as a non-Czech period, in which any links to previous and subsequent periods are very diffi cult to fi nd, is correct” (p. 9). The authors are convinced that “history as a scientifi c discipline is not competent to judge what was ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in history, although it is often asked to do so. However, its methodological tools enable it to state, in a verifi able manner, ‘what’ happened, and also to try to explain ‘why’ it happened.”1 However, by waiving an evaluation of the family policy of the democratic state and the totalitarian or authoritarian one, they do not distinguish between a pro-natalist policy the goal of which was self-preservation of the nation, and a populationist policy infl uenced by a master race ideology.2 It was actually this ideology which co-determined family policy practices and projects in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. When explaining the populationist policy, historians should not forget to pay attention to how “racial hygiene” was implemented in the Czech Lands and how scientists participated in the German racial policy concept.3 In the fi rst chapter, I miss a characterization of historical changes of eugenics as a professional term used in biology, anthropology, historical demography, and medicine, as a scientifi c concept, and as an ideological notion.4 While eugenics is mentioned on several occasions in connection with the family policy concept in the subsequent sections of the book, they are, in the absence of an initial defi nition, incomprehensible or even misleading for the reader. If eugenics is perceived only 1 RÁKOSNÍK, Jakub – TOMEŠ, Igor, et al.: Sociální stát v Československu: Právně-institucionální vývoj v letech 1918–1992 [Social state in Czechoslovakia: Legal and institutional develop- ments between 1918 and 1992]. Praha, Auditorium 2013, p. 1. Radka Šustrová was a mem- ber of the team of authors of this collective monograph. 2 See PROCTOR, Robert N.: Rasová hygiena: Lékařství v době nacismu [Racial hygiene: Medi- cine under the Nazis]. Praha, Academia 2009. 3 The Law for the Protection of the Genetic Health of the German Nation, which the Reich had adopted in 1935, was in effect also on the territory of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia from 1941. 4 At that time, there were important “racial hygiene” experts lecturing at the German Univer- sity in Prague. A Family Colonized by the State? 205 as a way to improve the quality of the population, it is possible to agree with the authors’ statement to the effect that “the issue of the quality of the population was found to be a permanent topic of debates of Czechoslovak sciences and politics throughout the period under scrutiny” (p. 120).5 Attempting to fi nd an independent starting point, a detached view that would save them from ideological errors, the authors declare that they “tried to treat both Nazi family policy in the Protectorate and communist family policy after 1945 with due respect, as alternatives of a competitive model of social arrangement of industrial modernity, the fact they are hardly compatible with […] values of Central Europeans in the early 21st century notwithstanding” (p. 12). In my opinion, the effort to be “neutral” does not contribute to a better understanding of the issue: on the contrary, it obscures its substance. Jakub Rákosník and Radka Šustrová have recorded a number of social benefi ts and measures taken in support of Czech children and mothers in the Protectorate; however, they did not mention systematic anthropometric measurements of school- children and other “medical examinations” the purpose of which was to evaluate the population from a racial viewpoint. They did not mention preparations for sorting out children to those suitable for Germanization, and others who were to be reset- tled in Eastern regions. German historian Detlef Brandes states that the outcome of the anthropometric assessments was satisfactory for Germans: 85 percent of children in the Czech population met Germanization criteria.6 The authors of the reviewed book undervalued these aspects in the policy of the occupiers, claiming that “after the war, the Czechoslovak state proceeded from a banal conviction that Czech youths had been de-nationalized throughout the occupation” (p. 45). Would not it be appropriate to say that only the defeat of the occupiers prevented the demise of the Czech population as a nation? There were two different ethnics living in the territory of the Protectorate, each of which had a different social structure, different family and reproduction behaviour patterns, and more or less opposite life perspectives and future projects. All these factors were refl ected in different family policies. The Germans, who had perceived their inclusion in the Greater German Reich in 1938 as a victory, soon became directly involved in the war and were affected by the induction of men into the military and losses on the battlefi eld. As to the Czech population, unemployment was over. On the contrary, needs of the war industry demanded total deployment of all people fi t for work. Hundreds of thousands of people, including women, most of them young, were drafted for forced labour in Germany threatened by bombing raids. Due to the decreasing unemployment rate, the number of marriages was go- ing up, including those which had been postponed due to the economic crisis. 5 On p. 120, the authors admit that the term “eugenics” is interpreted in several ways. How- ever, they do not say which of the interpretations they have been working with. 6 See BRANDES, Detlef: Češi pod německým protektorátem: 1945 [Czechs under German pro- tectorate: 1945). Praha, Prostor 1999, pp. 281–285. 206 Czech Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. VI Between 1938 and 1939, the average marriage age of both men and women dropped by one year. The high marriage rate continued even in the period of the harshest repressions after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The immediate interest in avoiding the Totaleinsatz in the Reich was stronger than worries about future political developments. The higher marriage rate was also refl ected in a higher number of childbirths. Initially, it was a compensation of childbirths postponed due to the economic crisis; a later rise, which reached its peak in 1943, is attributed to childbirths of younger women. It was this time that numerically strong generations of women born after the Great War were entering the highest fertility age. Milan Kučera, a renowned Czech demographer, noted: “It is somewhat paradoxical that the number of women with children and the average number of children in families increased at the hard- est times for the Czech nation. The reason was not an increased desire of women to have children; as a matter of fact, having a child was a way to avoid forced labour in Germany.”7 The fi rst chapter of the book is concluded by a section titled “Acceleration of the population growth in the normalized society” (p. 59). The title is, as a matter of fact, misleading. Since 1963, Czechoslovakia introduced a number of economic and social measures in connection with political détente and preparations of economic reforms. Their objective was, inter alia, to improve the sector of services, increase the standard of living, provide more free time, and support families, but not to accelerate population growth.

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