The collection of papers Eugenics: Public Health Policy, Nationalism and Populism in Southeast Europe (18th-21st Century) edited by Dr. Maja Vasiljević and Nikola Samardžić was created as a result of a decade of intensive work and research in the widely understood field of eugenics. However, it was not a arduous but rather an inspiring path towards new knowledge, colleagues, and institutions. The ideas and concepts are part of the brainstorming of the team that one of the editors of this edition, Professor Nikola Samardžić, gathered within the Scientific Society for the History of Health Culture (NDIZK) in Belgrade. And as such, this collection is oriented towards the future and even more, towards an interdisciplinary, national, and international opening towards one important topic – eugenics, above all. The collection was published by the Scientific Society for the History of Health Culture and the reviewers are: Dr. Vlada Stanković from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, Dr. Vladan Gavrilović from the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad and Dr. Željko Dugac from the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb.
The topics represented in this collection are: racial theory and racism, medicine, gender politics, the issue of minorities in society, nationalism, militarism and the relationship of science and education towards all these topics. Our interest in eugenics first spread as the establishment of international cooperation, not strictly institutional, but more collegial, with leading experts who dealt with this topic. Thus, cooperation was established with the professor and head of the Oxford Brookes University Medical Center in the United Kingdom – Marius Turda.
Most of the papers that make up this collection were presented in March 2024 at the conference of the same name at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. The collection opens with an introductory chapter by Professor Turda, who, as a historian dedicated to the topics of racism, nationalism and minorities, through the introductory work in this collection, sought to establish a connection and comparisons of the European and American contexts of eugenics, but also to remind us of important historical points in the development of eugenics and its institutionalization both in medicine and in dealing with this topic. One of the editors of this collection, Nikola Samardžić, goes a step further, observing at a macro level the impact of eugenics on human life and the complex processes in which we exist as individuals and society over several centuries. This is followed by the works of Nevena Divac, which treat the controversial topic of clinical research and eugenics, with the author expertly touching on both medical and eugenic discourse. On a similar innovative track is the work of historian Miroslav Popović, who focuses on biopolitics as a strategy of interpretation in the social sciences. With the breadth of his view of biopolitics, Popović provides both a clear history of biopolitical discourse and at the same time inspiration for future interdisciplinary research and approaches. Since eugenics developed narrowly through the development of a modern concept in which a place for minorities was rarely found, works on Jews were also published in this collection. Historian Miloš Đorđević examines the lesser-known history of Jews in 18th-century Belgrade, and pays special attention to a comparative view of the status of this minority in the Holy Roman Empire. Another work in this collection provides a comparative picture of the position of Jews, and its authors, Haris Dejč and Maja Vasiljević, provide an analysis of Jews in Serbia and Romania in 1867, when their poor position was monitored, assisted, and attempted to improve by international bodies, as the authors write about it based on British sources. In addition to the Jewish minority, this collection also pays attention to the local context through three works that treat the discourse and practice of right-wingers and conservatives in the first half of the 20th century. A comprehensive and rich analysis of racial theory and eugenics on the road to integral Yugoslavia is the subject of the work of historian Vasilije Dragosavljević. The author not only follows this complex topic thematically and chronologically, but also enriches the explication with a selection of the most significant views and quotes from domestic “eugenicists” and theorists of the (Dinaric and Aryan) race. The next two works, by historians Ljubinka Škodrić and Radosav Tucović, represent the insistence that we advocate in this collection – that the topic be treated on the basis of rich archival and research periodicals. Without succumbing to the revisionism that is common in the former Yugoslavia in relation to collaboration, Tucović and Škodrić remain committed to the analysis of discourse and practice in Serbia during the Second World War. Since the topic of eugenics has been applied and persists in many contemporary societies, one of the goals of this collection is to point out the importance of the study and contemporary applications of eugenics. Thus, the collection is rounded off by the works of Mark and Hana Schuitza on the importance of the study of eugenics and Alexander Weisner on militarism as one of the possible applications of eugenics in a broader scientific sense.
The collection is available in open access on the NDIZK website
