By focusing on aid in Central and Eastern Europe, this volume adds to the existent scholarly explorations of modern humanitarianism, its actors and practices. In the twentieth century, aid workers assisted victims of war and earthquakes, delivered food, supported health care, provided childcare, or sheltered refugees. The contributors not only reconstruct these diverse histories and their protagonists, but also bring international, national, and local actors together: from grassroots activists to private associations to state-driven 'socialist humanitarians' to large Western aid organizations. In doing so, they challenge the often unidirectional, from West-to-East, and asymmetrical perspective on donor-recipient relationships in humanitarian processes.
Edited by:
Doina Anca Cretu,
Michal Frankl
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 18mm
Weight: 568g
ISBN: 9781526189936
ISBN 10: 1526189933
Series: Humanitarianism: Key Debates and New Approaches
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 18 November 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Doina Anca Cretu, Michal Frankl, Humanitarian Mobilisation in Central and Eastern Europe: Introduction Part I: Local Humanitarianism 1 Friederike Kind-Kovács: Save the (Workers’) Children: Humanitarian Kindergartens in Budapest’s Slums 2 Franciszek Zakrzewski: Jews and Christians Inside and Outside the Social Care System in Interwar Lubartów 3 Cristian Capotescu: When the ‘Socialist Good Life’ Met its Match: Austerity andHumanitarianCrisis in 1980s Romania 4 Maren Hachmeister: Self-organized Care for Older People in Eastern Germany. From Local Socialist Humanitarianism to post-1989 Transformations Part II: National Humanitarianism 5 Nikola Tohma: The Czechoslovak Red Cross and Refugee Children from Greece and North Korea 6 Julia Reinke: Refugees in the “Better Germany”. Humanitarian Aid to Greek Refugee Children in the Early German Democratic Republic Part III: International Humanitarianism 7 Gábor Egry: How to Leave Central Europe? Transnational, Humanitarian State-building and the Post-Habsburg Transition 8 Laura Brade: Western Perceptions of Czechoslovak Humanitarians Interactions under Nazi Occupation, 1938-1939 9 Ruth Nattermann: “The Same Spirit that Led Me into War …” Italian and Transnational Humanitarian Actors and Postrevolutionary Russia 10 Sarah Knoll: Religious Humanitarianism: The World Council of Churches for Refugees in Austria in 1956 and 1968 -- .
Doina Anca Cretu is Assistant Professor in Modern European History at University of Warwick. Michal Frankl was Senior Researcher at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator project 'Unlikely Refuge?'. Currently, he is the head of the Prague Department 'Knowledge and Participation' of the Leibniz-Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe.
