The article is dedicated to one of the “blank pages” in the historiography of Latvian libraries − the beginnings of children’s departments in public libraries and independent children’s libraries, ...from the idea, its implementation and the first twenty years of operation in the independent Republic of Latvia (1918−1940). As there are no academic or popular publications on this topic, the so-called historical method is used in the research, which allows the reconstruction of the emergence and development of Children’s departments in public libraries and children’s libraries in the context of the library sector’s development in Europe and the United States. The main base of the research: press articles and books of the respective period, as well as documents in the National Archives of Latvia on the children’s departments of Rīga public libraries.
The study shows that the ideological justification for free children’s libraries in Latvia was the same as in Russia and Sweden: the public’s desire to protect children and young people from the harmful effects of “pulp” literature (at that time even the term “dirty” literature was used) and to offer them “good” books instead. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, Latvia lacked the main precondition – a network of free public libraries, within which children’s departments in public libraries or independent children’s libraries could be organised. The first children’s department in a public library was only opened in December 1919 in Liepāja (the largest city in Latvia’s Kurzeme region), thanks to the enthusiasm of publicist and politician, library manager Voldemārs Caune and his conviction of the need for such a service. Until the Soviet occupation, it was the only children’s department at a public library in the province.
The situation in the capital Rīga was different. Here, the first children’s department aimed at reducing the “book famine” was established by the State Library of Latvia in February 1922, but soon other organisations became involved in the provision of library services to the younger generation. During the first period of independence of the Republic of Latvia, ten Children’s departments were opened in the public library system and at least ten more children’s libraries were opened by charity organisations in different city districts. The encouragement of Caune and like-minded enthusiasts, mostly members of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (Hermanis Kaupiņš, Teodors Līventāls, Emma Kalniņa, etc.) also played an important role in their establishment, as did the municipality’s readiness to provide the necessary financial support.
Although the Liepāja and Rīga children’s libraries were used very actively, insufficient state and local government funding for libraries hindered the establishment of special library services for children in the rest of Latvia. Thus, until the Soviet occupation in 1940, a network of children’s departments at public libraries and children’s libraries was created only in Rīga. The Soviet occupation saw a new phase in the development of children’s library services, as the establishment of children’s departments at public libraries or separate children’s libraries became mandatory throughout Latvia.
The article is devoted to the young children’s healthcare in Samara region in the period from 1918 to 1940. The aim of the study was to demonstrate the evolution of healthcare system for children of ...the first three years of life in Samara-Kuibyshev region in the 1920-1930s (according to archival and literary sources). The results of historical and medical research have shown that children's healthcare in Samara-Kuibyshev region during this time period achieved significant success in implementation of urban and rural children's institutions (children’s health centers, nurseries, infant-feeding centers). Human resources increased significantly, medical staff qualification improved. All that together led to enhancement of children primary care, children and infants mortality decrease. At the same time, the performed analysis has revealed the crucial problems of children's healthcare in Samara. Archival materials from Samara region characterize the situation with children's healthcare in the country in general during the tragic years of famine (1921-1922 and 1932-1933). These years were accompanied by increase of children morbidity and mortality. Statistics has shown that the areas affected by famine had natural decline in the population even in 1937. The results of this research of evolution of healthcare system for young children in Samara region during first two decades of Soviet Russia can be used in the educational process (history of pediatrics) of students in Samara medical colleges and universities, they can assist with creation of fundamental work on the history of children’s healthcare in the Soviet Union.
Norges socialdemokratiske arbeiderparti (NSA) ble stiftet i januar 1921 av utbrytere fra Det norske arbeiderparti og sluttet seg i januar 1927 igjen sammen med Arbeiderpartiet. Kjernen i partiet var ...Arbeiderpartiets gamle ledelse som ble kastet av den såkalte «nye retning» på landsmøtet i 1918. Det nye flertallet forfektet revolusjonær masseaksjon, arbeiderråd og arbeiderklassens diktatur. Den gamle ledelsen holdt fast på en parlamentarisk vei til det sosialistiske samfunnet. NSA er blitt karakterisert som en høyrefløy i arbeiderbevegelsen, men de fleste av medlemmene som bare var interessert i praktiske reformer forble i Arbeiderpartiet. NSA ble aldri noen politisk suksess og er stort sett blitt ignorert av historikere som først og fremst har interessert seg for de radikale strømningene i norsk arbeiderbevegelse. Partiet kan likevel ha hatt en betydning for å holde tradisjonelle sosialistiske idealer levende og dermed bidratt til at Arbeiderpartiet kanskje ble noe mer idealistisk enn sine skandinaviske søsterpartier på 1930-tallet. Artikkelen diskuterer selve splittelsen og NSAs sosialdemokratiske tenkemåte samt partiets oppslutning over hele landet.
This is a pioneering, multi-empire account of the relationship between the politics of imperial repression and the economic structures of European colonies between the two World Wars. Ranging across ...colonial Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, Martin Thomas explores the structure of local police forces, their involvement in colonial labour control and the containment of uprisings and dissent. His work sheds new light on broader trends in the direction and intent of colonial state repression. It shows that the management of colonial economies, particularly in crisis conditions, took precedence over individual imperial powers' particular methods of rule in determining the forms and functions of colonial police actions. The politics of colonial labour thus became central to police work, with the depression years marking a watershed not only in local economic conditions but also in the breakdown of the European colonial order more generally.
This study analyses and shows how the history of the Communist Party of Lithuania (Lietuvos komunistų partija, LKP) was constructed as the history of an organised labour movement in Soviet ...historiography. Most studies on Lithuanian workers and labour unions written between 1960 and 1988 searched for connections between the LKP and the labour movement, analysed the impact of the LKP on the workers and unions, and sometimes used the terms ‘workers’ or ‘labouring men’ as synonyms for members of the LKP. According to Soviet Lithuanian historians, labour unions, strikes, workers, and the whole organised labour movement that sympathised with Moscow, helped to gain influence among the citizens of Lithuania prior to the occupation in 1940.
Because the labour history of Soviet Lithuania was tied to the history of the Lithuanian Communist Party, it is still hard to draw a line between the history of the workers and the history of the LKP, since the studies on workers, the labour movement and the history of the LKP written during Soviet times are treated as a product of the ideology. It is argued that Soviet Lithuanian labour history must be properly reviewed in order to reevaluate its relationship with contemporary historiography and today’s perception of the labour movement itself.
Taking its cue from the 90th anniversary commemorations of November 2008, this work explores the relationship between state and nationhood during the three phases to date in Latvia's existence as a ...territorial entity: the sovereign statehood of 1918-1940; the Soviet and Nazi occupations of 1940-1944 and the ensuing half-century within the USSR; and the post-1991 period, which has seen the restoration of independence on the basis of legal continuity from the inter-war period and - latterly - accession to the European Union. The aim in relation to all three eras is to go beyond the often essentialising contours of Cold War and post-Cold War debates and reveal the underlying complexities and ambiguities of political and social development.
Baltic Eugenics Felder, Bjö M; Weindling, Paul J
2013, 2013-01-01, Letnik:
35
eBook
The history of eugenics in the Baltic States is largely unknown. The book compares for the first time the eugenic projects of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the related disciplines of racial ...anthropology and psychiatry, and situates them within the wider European context. Strong ethno-nationalism defined the nation as a biological group, which was fostered by authoritarian regimes established in Lithuania in 1926, and in Estonia and Latvia in 1934. The eugenics projects were designed to establish a nation in biological terms. Their aims were to render the nation ethnically, genetically and racially homogeneous. The main agenda was a non-democratic state that defined its population in biological terms. Eugenic policies were to regenerate the nation and to reconstruct it as a "pure" and "original" race, Such schemes for national regeneration contained strong elements of secular religion.
This paper provides first broad cross-national quantitative comparison of social transfers and total social spending by the central government in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1930 and cross-time ...comparative case study of social and defense spending patterns of these three countries during the entire interwar independence period. To compensate for many gaps in the available historical statistics of national income, the ratio of social to military expenditure (Sivardian Index), used in the contemporary UNDP Human Development Reports is retrospectively applied for cross-national comparisons along with share (%) of social spending in national income. Main findings: by 1930 the transformation of warfare state into welfare state was most advanced in Latvia due to the strength of the Latvian Social Democratic Worker party. With 2.12% of social transfers and 4,15% of total social spending in total output, Latvia followed closely behind Scandinavian Nordic countries, and was ahead of all Eastern European countries. After failed Communist putsch in Estonia in 1924, bringing Left parties into strategic defensive, the advancement of welfare state stagnated in Estonia on the level of authoritarian and less economically advanced Lithuania.
Until the outbreak of World War I, vagrants and beggars were depicted as a group lacking the basic elements of morality, which the national elite considered its own identity-maker. Unwillingness to ...work, filth, drunkenness, ignorance, and contagious diseases were depicted as the visible features of moral indignity. Their condition remained redeemable through educational tools. In postwar Lithuania, the overall characterization of vagrants and beggars remained unchanged. Nevertheless, their sanitary stigmatization and the concept of heritability of social 'diseases' became dominant, making isolation and disciplining the only tools to protect the 'healthy' organism of society from social contagion.
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