Building the Czechoslovak nation and sacralizing peoples’ health: the vicissitudes of disability discourse during the 1920s

Abstract

During the interwar period, the sacred meaning of health was refined and disseminated due to mutual efforts from both international and national stakeholders in different countries. This text aims to identify and explore the main pathways of connecting the discourse of health to the nation’s identity as a substitute for traditional religion in Czechoslovakia during the 1920s, a period during which institutions were created and new discourses about health were promoted. By investigating the primary discourses and policies concerning people with disabilities, we deconstruct the concept of functional health as used by Czechoslovak ideologists, in their attempts to connect health and labour as the grounds for building the nation. We trace how the concept of functional health and disability as inability to work operated in favour of delegitimizing the Roma as a nation and establishing tough strategies of surveillance of the Roma population.

Keywords:

• Nation-building
• civil religion
• interwar period
• Czechoslovakia
• disability
• Roma

Acknowledgement

The authors appreciate the feedback from an anonymous reviewer and especially the inspiring Comments from Andrej Ignatjev.

Notes

1. While in Bulgaria, the Orthodox Church consistently supported the implications of eugenics, in Poland and Czechoslovakia, the Catholic Church resisted any attempt to legalize eugenic treatments.

2. Ladislav Haškovec (1866–1944) was a physician and a professor of neuropathology.

3. Karel Kadlec (1886–1961) was a professor of theology at Charles University.

4. Jan Šrámek led the Ministry of Health three times – from 1922 to 1925, 1926 to 1927 and in 1929, and the Ministry of Social Welfare – from 1926 to 1929.

5. More precisely, Plojar’s approach to children with disabilities and his long-term fight against the experts and activists in special education for the disabled can be viewed as a sort of continuity of the interwar fight (Shmidt 2015, 52–55).

6. In the early 1920s, attempts to separate the Church and the state failed despite the optimistic attitude of the ruling coalition. Neither secularization of matters regarding marriage nor the establishment of a secular educational system was achieved. These efforts were blocked by massive moral campaigns initiated by the Czechoslovak People’s Party, especially in Slovakia and Moravia – two of the most Catholic regions. The resistance movement quickly progressed from political satire, in the autumn of 1918, to direct civil disobedience in the winter of 1918/1919. For instance, the rapidly established “Local union of parents and friends of Christian upbringing” (Zemská rada rodičů a přátel křesťanské výchovy) in Brno initiated several actions, including the strike of the main boys’ school opposing school attendance of its pupils as long as one of the anti-clerical teachers continued to work there (Občanské noviny Ke stavce školních dítek v Moravanéch [About the Strike of School Children in Moravany]. 10. prosince 1919). Also, the girls’ school, together with the nuns, organized a meeting against secularization in the centre of Brno at the end of 1918 (Občanské noviny Obrovská manifestace katolických žen a dívek v Brně za křesťanské školství [The Manifestation of Catholic Women and Girls in Brno for Christian Education] 3.srpna 1921).

7. Josef Pelnář (1872–1964) was a famous physician, a member of the Czechoslovak Union of Physicians and a professor at Charles University, who introduced into practice the concept of internal medicine in Czechoslovakia and led the first internalist clinic in the country.

8. Karel Driml (1991–1929) was a famous popularizer of the eugenic approach to health care who was supposed to lead the Department of Propaganda of Health Education at the State Institute of Hygiene but suddenly died. In close cooperation with the Czechoslovak Red Cross, and personally with Alise Masaryk, he made more than one hundred instructional movies about health care for children and young people as well as several puppet shows about healthy nutrition, sexually transmitted diseases and other issues (Prezidium ministerské rady 1923).

9. The Czech Legionnaires were those who either from the very beginning of the First World War fought together with the Entente Powers abroad (in France, Italy and Russia) against Germany and Austria-Hungary or who came over to the side of the Entente after being captured by the Entente Powers. Generally, Czech soldiers were recruited into the Austro-Hungarian troops – however, the number of cases when Czech males rejected enlistment was quite large, even though the measures against rejection were tough at the beginning (some of them were executed), but when this did not improve the situation, the imperial authorities decided to pay a sum to the families of soldiers, and this remained the main reason for enlisting with the Austro-Hungarian troops. Conversely, the legionnaires’ families were persecuted by the imperial authorities. After the war, the tensions between different groups of war veterans, especially in public discourse, remained one of the obstacles in uniting the nation.

10. Sometimes, ascribing the role of rescuers to legionnaires achieved exaggerated forms, as in the story about the rescue of two cars with bacon from Slovenia transported by the same train which should have approached the most well-known legion regiment, the 28th unit named the “Prague children.” The German authorities were going to separate the cars containing bacon, “due to technical issues,” but one of the legionnaires who was a former rail man checked the cars and helped to repair the small issue. The title of the article, “How a dozen of twenty-eighths rescued the precious parcel to the Czech heart and workers in Kladno” (Jak hrstka „osmadvacátníků“ zachránila „českému srdci“ a kladenskému dělnictvu drahocenné zásilku 6.listopadu 1918 Lidový dennik Večer) simultaneously highlighted the outstanding vigilance of the legionnaires, their ability to achieve success even in small numbers and their allegiance to the people.

11. It was typical to find in the newspapers in 1918–1921 such combinations of article titles, as in the daily newspaper “Evening,” issued on November 22, 1918 with two titles about legionnaires, one under another: “I was injured five times” (Pětkrát raněn) and “He is a model for our youngsters” (Vzor pro naš dorost).

12. The Czech definition, “vyhubeni cikánskoho zla,” means literally “the abolition of the mold of Gypsy evil”.

13. Josef Lukeš (1870–1956) was a lawyer and an expert on ethnic minority issues.

14. Jaromír Nečas (1988–1945) was one of the leaders of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party (Československá sociálně demokratická strana) and the Minister of Social Care between 1935 and 1938.

15. Irene Kirpal (1886–1977) was a female activist and a member of Deutsche sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei.

16. Jindřich Matiegka (1862–1941) was one of the most prominent eugenicists of the first cohort, the director of the Anthropological Institute at Charles University and the Rector of Charles University.

17. Břetislav Foustka (1862–1947) was one of the prominent eugenicists, a sociologist and a professor at Charles University.

18. Jiří Malý (1899–1950) was the director of the Anthropological Institute of Charles University between 1932 and 1940 and again between 1945 and 1949.

19. Helena Malá (1935–2013) traced the changes in the physical development of Roma children in Czechoslovakia (Shmidt 2016).