Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAn original contribution to the history of humanitarian relief, child-welfare work, and the social impact of the First World War in Central Europe. Richly detailed and deeply researched, Budapest's Children traces the dire effects of war and demise of Hapsburg rule on conditions in Hungary's capital city and examines the diversity and interaction of organizations and actors, foreign and domestic, concerned with aiding children and mothers. An insightful analysis of social conditions, relief work, and their representation, Budapest's Children elucidates the evolution and dynamics of interwar humanitarianism as well as the politics informing it.
-- Heide Fehrenbach, Board of Trustees Professor, Northern Illinois University
Contemporaries referred to Budapest in the immediate postwar years as the 'capital of human misery.' Friederike Kind-Kovács's meticulously researched and original study provides a compelling, and tragically topical, analysis of the impact of war and social disintegration on children. It also examines the ways in which suffering was instrumentalized in humanitarian aid programs, and the relationship between philanthropy and national prestige. It is an important contribution both to the history of childhood, and to the social and cultural history of imperial collapse in the interwar decades.
-- Catriona Kelly, Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK
Budapest's Children is a compelling, deeply researched, and all too timely account of the dire humanitarian crisis that gripped Budapest after World War I and of the valiant efforts of local and international aid workers to care for refugee children displaced by the collapse of the Habsburg empire. Rich with insights about the interaction of nationalist and internationalist politics and about the power that images of children's suffering have to move consciences and inspire action, this book is a magnificent contribution to the growing literature on war and its aftermath in East-Central Europe.
-- Paul Hanebrink, Rutgers University
Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1. MIGRATION: LIFE IN A DISPLACEMENT HUB
2. HUNGER: STARVING IN THE CAPITAL CITY
3. DEGENERATION: EMBODYING POSTWAR SUFFERING
4. INSTITUTIONS: THE GENESIS OF CHILD PROTECTION
5. INFRASTRUCTURES: MATERIALIZING 'GLOCAL' RELIEF
6. BODIES: FEEDING BUDAPEST'S HUNGRY CHILDREN
7. (INTER)NATIONALISM: THE POLITICS OF MATERIAL AID
8. DISPLACEMENT: THE AMBIGUITY OF CHILD TRANSPORTS
9. EDUCATION: WORKROOMS TO TEACH THE CHILDREN
CONCLUSION: TRANSFORMATION: FROM AID TO SELF-HELP
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
