Children, Poverty and Nationalism in Lithuania, 1900–1940

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

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2. Introduction

   • Andrea Griffante

   Pages 1-9

3. The Future of the Nation: The Emergence of Poor Children as a Problem

   • Andrea Griffante

   Pages 11-40

4. The Great War over Children, 1914–1918

   • Andrea Griffante

   Pages 41-68

5. Rehabilitating Children: Lithuania and International Humanitarian Aid, 1918–1923

   • Andrea Griffante

   Pages 69-100

6. The New Interwar Order: Children, Rehabilitation, and Discipline, 1923–1940

   • Andrea Griffante

   Pages 101-138

7. Final Remarks

   • Andrea Griffante

   Pages 139-143

8. Back Matter

   Pages 145-148

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This book discusses the emergence of care for orphaned, abandoned and poor children in Lithuania from the early twentieth century to the beginning of the Second World War. In particular, it focuses on how such practices were influenced by nationalist and political discourses, and how orphanages became privileged institutions for nation building. Emerging during the humanitarian crisis following the First World War, the Lithuanian orphaned and destitute children’s assistance network had an eminently ethno-national character, and existed in parallel with, and was challenged by, Polish poor child assistance institutions.  By analysing such care for children, this book explores concepts such as the nation state and citizenship, as well as the connections between poverty, childhood and nationalism.

• Tsarist Empire
• First World War
• independent Lithuania
• citizenship
• national identity
• childhood studies

• Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

  Andrea Griffante

Andrea Griffante is a Senior Research Fellow at the Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius. After graduating at the University of Trieste, he received his PhD in history from the University of Klaipėda, Lithuania. 

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