“To End the Degeneration of a Nation”: Debates on Eugenic Sterilization in Inter-War Romania (2009)
The history of eugenics in Eastern Europe has not only been unfairly neglected but has much to offer in terms of understanding the connection between science, political ideals and national contexts.5 This article hopes to enrich this emerging scholarship by concentrating on a hitherto neglected topic: eugenic sterilization in inter-war Romania. The Romanian case meaningfully demonstrates the increasingly intertwined relationship between eugenic sterilization as medical praxis and eugenic sterilization as political discourse geared towards the political engineering of a biologically defined community. In inter-war Romania, debates on eugenic sterilization were predominantly stimulated by a particular fear of the degeneracy of the Romanian nation. For many supporters of sterilization, the concept of the nation served as a unifying principle linking their preoccupation with hygiene to concepts of eugenics, social progress and economic sustainability. Not to inquire into the debate on sterilization would not only render the history of Romanian eugenics during the inter-war period incomplete but would also leave the relationship between concepts of national health and totalitarian biopolitics unexplored.
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