scholarly journals Family Planning Advice in State-Socialist Poland, 1950s–80s: Local and Transnational Exchanges

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-266
Author(s):  
Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska ◽  
Agata Ignaciuk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Family Planning ◽  
Birth Control ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Reciprocal Influence ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Second World ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
Party State

This paper scrutinises the relations between different models of family planning advice and their evolution in Poland between the mid-1950s and the late 1980s, focusing on their similarities and dissimilarities, conflicts and concordances. From 1956 onwards, the delivery of family planning advice became a priority for both the Polish Catholic Church and the party-state, especially its health authorities, which supported the foundation of the Society of Conscious Motherhood and aspired to mainstream birth control advice through the network of public well-woman clinics. As a consequence, two systems of family planning counselling emerged: the professional, secular family planning movement and Catholic pre-marital and marital counselling. We argue that reciprocal influence and emulation existed between state-sponsored and Catholic family planning in state-socialist Poland, and that both models used transnational organisations and debates relating to contraception for their construction and legitimisation. By evaluating the extent to which the strategies and practices for the delivery of birth control advice utilised by transnational birth control movements were employed in a ‘second world’ context such as Poland, we reveal unexpected supranational links that complicate and problematise historiographical and popular understandings of the Iron Curtain and Cold War Europe.

scholarly journals No Man’s Land? Gendering Contraception in Family Planning Advice Literature in State-Socialist Poland (1950s–1980s)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agata Ignaciuk
Keyword(s):  
Family Planning ◽  
Sexual Interest ◽  
Contraceptive Methods ◽  
Advice Literature ◽  
Medical Discourses ◽  
Health Project ◽  
Mixed Messages ◽  
No Man's Land ◽  
State Socialist ◽  
Party State

Summary This article examines popular medical discourses on contraception produced in state-socialist Poland following the legalisation of abortion in 1956, a time when the party state declared family planning to be a public health project. By analysing popular medical literature, I argue that the popularisation of family planning constructed and relied on gender norms that could ease anxieties about the mainstreaming of ideas relating to sexuality and contraception, as well as about gender equality in a state-socialist context. I show that the femininity constructed in Polish birth control advice was based in fertility and the physical attractiveness required to maintain a husband’s sexual interest. Although masculinity was represented as distant, egoistic and violent, experts broadcast mixed messages about the effectiveness and usefulness of popular male contraceptive methods, some of which were at times utterly demonised.

Anglicanism, Family Planning and Contraception: The Development of a Moral Teaching and its Ecumenical Implications

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-169
Author(s):  
John Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Family Planning ◽  
Birth Control ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Official Position ◽  
The Church

AbstractThis essay examines pressures and theological developments regarding sexuality and birth control within Anglicanism, as represented by statements from Lambeth Conferences and in discussions in the Church of England during the early to mid twentieth century, and notes some of the changes in ‘official’ position within US churches and especially The Episcopal Church. It offers comparison with the developments in moral theology within the Roman Catholic Church after 1930 and asks if, and by what means, the two Communions may come to agree on the specific issue of contraception.

HROMADKA: Theologian of the Resurrection

Worldview ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 6-9
Author(s):  
Charles C. West
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Princeton Theological Seminary ◽  
Second World

Josef Hromadka was a man of controversy his whole life long. A quarter of a century ago, as the second world war was nearing its end, a refugee from his native land and a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in the U.S.A., he published a testament and a prophecy for Western bourgeois civilization under the title Doom and Resurrection. The world had reason to be cautiously optimistic in these last days of 1944. The first atomic bomb had not yet exploded. The wartime partnership between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies was in full emotional swing; "cold war" and "iron curtain" were still unknown concepts. D-Day was a fact; the Nazi armies were in retreat; the United Nations had been conceived, if not yet born. Against the terrible darkness of the previous years, the future gave promise of a new and better world.

scholarly journals A Polish Approach for German Cities? Cement Old Towns and the Search for Rootedness in Postwar Leipzig and Frankfurt/Main

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-127
Author(s):  
Andrew Demshuk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
German Cities ◽  
Second World

This essay explores the consequences of a hunger for history amid the architectural desolation that had blighted most German cities by the 1970s. After sweeping demolitions had wrought a so-called ‘second destruction’ that eclipsed the scale of wartime losses, Germans on both sides of the Iron Curtain steadily identified Poland as a model for humane reconstruction. Not just historic preservation but even historic replicas long rejected by preservationists as inauthentic were demanded as a way out of modernist anonymity and ugliness to make ‘home’ in an invented history. It was a trend as thoroughly comprehensible as it was problematic – for which history would one privilege? If modernism had encouraged an escape from the past, preservation or reproduction of choice monuments threatened to instill selective forgetting, a reinvention of the past that could marginalize or twist the lessons of wartime destruction. To grapple with these quandaries, this essay begins with an exposition of the increasingly lauded Polish solution through close analysis of the old town in Wrocław, the very ‘capital’ of so-called ‘Recovered Territories’ acquired from Germany after the Second World War. Having reviewed the genesis, realization, and shortcomings of Poland’s nationalized reinscription of urban space, German disappointment with modernist erasure will be examined in Leipzig and Frankfurt, each leading cities in their respective Cold War successor states that roughly paralleled each other in their increasing interest in Polish methods. After timid attempts at preservation and replicas in each city before the mid-1960s failed to satisfy the public longing for hominess, debates intensified about whether to replicate a sweeping array of monuments lost to war and demolition. Alienated in ‘their own’ cities, residents in Frankfurt and Leipzig incited discourse with contemporary ramifications about how to appropriate one’s surroundings as home.

scholarly journals Contraception and Catholicism in the Twentieth Century: Transnational Perspectives on Expert, Activist and Intimate Practices

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agata Ignaciuk ◽  
Laura Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Family Planning ◽  
Social History ◽  
Birth Control ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
Catholic Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Activist Groups

This special issue uses Catholicism as a thread to bring together five contributions to the transnational history of contraception. The articles, which cover examples from Western and East-Central Europe, East Africa and Latin America, all explore the complex interplay between users and providers of birth control in contexts marked by prevalence of the Catholic religion and/or strong political position of the Catholic Church. In the countries examined here, Brazil, Belgium, Poland, Ireland and Rwanda, Catholicism was the majority religion during the different moments of the long twentieth century the authors of this special issue focus on. Using transnationalism as a perspective to examine the social history of the entanglements between Catholicism and contraception, this special issue seeks to underscore the ways in which individuals and organisations used, adapted and contested local and transnational ideas and debate around family planning. It also examines the role of experts and activist groups in the promotion of family planning, while paying attention to national nuances in Catholic understandings of birth control. The contributions shed light on the motivations behind involvement in birth control activism and expertise, its modus operandi, networking strategies and interactions with men and women demanding contraceptive information and technology. Moreover, through the use of oral history, as well as other print sources such as women’s magazines, this collection of articles seeks to illustrate ‘ordinary’ men and women’s practices in the realm of reproductive health.

On display in East and West

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luminita Gatejel
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
State Socialist

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how state socialist countries used soft power to improve their image in the West and advocate “the socialist way of life” in the context of the Cold War. Design/methodology/approach – The author argues from a cultural history perspective that underlines transfers and entanglements among the two camps during the Cold War. The study is based on primary and secondary sources such as automotive periodicals and archival material from the German Bundesarchiv. Findings – International fairs turned in the late 1950s into a new “battlefield” of the Cold War. The Soviet Union and its allies were celebrating at these meetings, important medial victories, laying the grounds for a state socialist consumer society. For the first time, Western audiences were realizing that irrespective of certain stylistic differences, consumer goods and particularly cars were not that different on the other side of the Iron Curtain. However, ideological bias and manufacturing flaws prevented them from being fully acknowledged by the Western side. Originality/value – Cold War research mainly focused on bipolar confrontation and the high-level decision-making process. This study is part of a recent trend in historiography to reassess the history of the Cold War, focusing on the multi-layered interactions between the two camps. It also shows that consumption and material well-being were important topics for understanding the dynamics and the flow of ideas through the Iron Curtain.

Second World Urbanity: Infrastructures of Utopia and Really Existing Socialism

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daria Bocharnikova ◽  
Steven E. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Special Collection ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Cultural World ◽  
Second World ◽  
State Socialist

The disappearance of most state socialist regimes in 1989/1991 afforded scholars from a range of disciplines new opportunities to examine the history of socialist cities and their post-socialist transformations. Recent scholarship has focused particularly on such cities in their corresponding national contexts and with the passing of the Cold War, broader commonalities with the urban history of Western cities have come into sharper focus. Absent in most recent work on socialist cities, however, is attention to the broader ideological, political, and cultural world—the socialist Second World—that bound these cities and their countries together. Similarly lacking is a deeper appreciation of the specificities of the socialist city in contrast to its counterparts in the capitalist West and the global South. Read together, the essays in this special collection underscore the value of re-examining how socialist cities were once part of the myriad relations that gave the Second World its ideological and material coherence in pursuit of socialist urbanity.

ХРИСТИЯНСЬКА МІСІЯ В ЕПОХУ ПОСТПРАВДИ: 80 РОКІВ УКРАЇНСЬКІЙ РЕДАКЦІЇ РАДІО «ВАТИКАН»

2020 ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
I. Tsyperdiuk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Editorial Office ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Church

<div><p><em>The milestones of the activity of the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican Radio during its 80-year history are considered in the article. The reasons for the creation of the Ukrainian editorial office, the peculiarities of its work under the pressure of Soviet propaganda during the Cold War are analyzed. It was found that the broadcast of the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican Radio was intended to help the faithful preserve unity with the church in the conditions of the destruction of the UGCC and the total onset of militant atheism. It was demonstrated that the work of the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican radio was still aimed at defending the truth, although it was much easier to conduct evangelization in the conditions of confrontation between the USSR and the West. Rapid information and communication development of society has allowed everyone to speak publicly. At the same time, it made it possible to manipulate public opinion and to disseminate disinformation instantly and in the end contributed to the emergence of a post-truth phenomenon that not only replaced traditional propaganda but also made it part of it. The appeal to the foundations of the Christian being in a changing world distinguishes programs of the Ukrainian editorial office from materials of other broadcasters, the main focus of which is on socio-political events.</em> <em>The reform of the information system implemented by the Vatican has shown that there has been a shift from preaching in the conditions of aggressive propaganda during the confrontation between the two systems to counteracting post-truth, which destroys the objective perception of the world. It is shown that the main task of the editorial office is to unite Ukrainians around Christian values, to preserve and promote the key principles of human existence in the conditions of spreading populism, disinformation, secularization, and relativism of modern society. In its programs, the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican Radio encourages the audience to cultivate faith, to rely on Christian values and beliefs, emphasizing its unchanging purpose of serving God, people, and the church.</em></p></div><p><strong><em>Key words: </em></strong><em>the Ukrainian editorial office of Vatican Radio, Vatican News, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, post-truth, Christian values.</em></p>

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