The aim of this conference was to spatially and temporally broaden the scope of research on expertise in the human sciences. Conference panels explored how various forms of expertise communicated with each other. How did experts communicate with the state, and did they initiate or forge new policies? Did this expertise translate into people’s everyday practices? Was the expertise communicated properly, and maybe transformed in some way, when it spread among the population, or did it remain in the realm of scientific discussion?
The transfer of knowledge among state-socialist countries and between East and West was mentioned in numerous lectures. ANASTASSIYA SCHACHT (Vienna) presented two strategies that the Soviet Union used to Sovietize intellectual communities in East and Central Europe, in regions they had either directly annexed or politically influenced. Schacht called these strategies crude scripts and soft scripts. Crude scripts were applied in countries and regions directly annexed by the Soviet Union and included the physical elimination and replacement of local elites. These scripts stopped working in the mid-1950s. Soft scripts were applied in countries that were within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, the “Eastern bloc”, where it was possible to use soft scripts after communist regimes were established in the 1950s. Soft scripts included cultural diplomacy, Soviet lifestyle propaganda, and promises of adaptation to the region’s established system. MICHAELA ŠMIDRKALOVÁ (Prague) contributed with a practical example of knowledge transfer between East and West. Using the Third European Congress of Anesthesiology in Prague in 1970, she showed how anesthesiology was shaped by international discourse and spearheaded by Czechoslovak scientists in the Netherlands (where they had emigrated) and in Czechoslovakia.
The Soviet Union itself was the topic of a few lectures. ALMIRA SHARAFEEVA (Munich) brought the attention of the attendees to female workers in the early Soviet period (1920s–1930s). The speaker emphasized that even experts of the time criticized the labor conditions of women in industry, e.g., in relation to industrial poisoning. Soviet experts also started to explore the impact of industrial work on reproductive health, including decreases in pelvis size, genital prolapse, menstrual disorders, premature births, and miscarriages. These health risks were discussed in detail and finally categorized as occupational diseases. Sharafeeva also presented some measures applied at workplaces, such as separate toilets and increased numbers of breaks. ALEXEY GOLUBEV (Houston) presented the care for the health of Soviet citizens from a different point of view – an emphasis on individual health. After World War II, Soviets launched a huge knowledge propaganda campaign and started publishing medical booklets in Russian and in other languages of the Soviet Union. Golubev analyzed a popular health journal, “Zdoroviye (Здоровье)”, focused on Soviet beliefs in technological improvements of life, such as using air ionization, and on the growing emphasis on individual responsibility, as exemplified in the success of autogenic training as a form of psychotherapy. BOGDAN IACOB (Bucharest) talked in his keynote about socialist medicine and its relation to the postcolonial world. Iacob presented the field of tropical medicine as a way for the Soviet Union to exert its influence in postcolonial regions. As the speaker pointed out, the socialist medical internationalism allowed Central- and South Eastern European experts to take on a global role. However, it is also important to mention a striking difference between the 1950s and the 1970s. While in the 1950s, experts went into “hot areas” (dangerous areas torn by an armed conflict), by the 1970s experts no longer traveled into these locations.
Several participants focused on women’s health. MARÍA MUNDI LÓPEZ (Paris/Granada) elaborated on suction curettage, an abortion technique, and showed how its use spread across Europe. DESPO KRITSOTAKI (Athens) spoke about OB/GYNs in interwar Greece, who were perceived as marriage experts, enabled by the rise of eugenics in the 1930s. KARISSA R. PATTON (Edinburgh) covered an interesting conflict that arose in Scotland in 1983. Patton presented on the Scottish Women’s Health Fair (SWHF) in 1983, which took place at the same time as a fair organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Scotland. While the latter was supposed to be a fair with experts behind closed doors, SWHF was intended to be open to every woman, not only experts. Analyzing this event, Patton documented a battle for authority between women’s health activists and the medical care establishment.
Psychological health and psychiatric medical care were at the center of several presentations across multiple panels. KOSTIS GKOTSINAS (Athens) presented the history of psychiatric care in relation to drug addiction in Greece. He identified a sudden turning point in the 1920s when the government announced prohibitive actions against drugs. Gkotsinas argued that since many Greek psychiatrists and politicians studied in Germany, the newly adopted legislation was similar to that of Germany at that time. KLÁRA PINEROVÁ (Prague) also talked about addiction, but this time from the point of view of psychologists employed by prisons in post-war Czechoslovakia. She presented the experimental treatment of alcoholics in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Pinerová argued that a personalized approach was not welcome in a socialist prison because it went against the collectivized ethos of the state. SOPHIA GRÖSCHEL (Bremen) presented an emerging field of study in Germany, gambling addiction, a problem that appeared in West Germany in the 1980s. She pointed out the establishment of the self-help Gamblers Anonymous groups, inspired by Alcoholics Anonymous groups, as an important moment. Unlike alcohol addiction, however, gambling is an addiction without a substance, thus its classification relies on self-diagnosis and self-help. Gröschel noted tensions that arose when psychological and psychiatric experts were invited to participate in the government and the people who worked with self-help groups were not.
MONIKA BAAR (Florence), one of the keynote speakers, focused on the question of population and expertise, specifically on the often-overlooked aspect of marginal expertise, activism, and volunteering. Baar presented a serious problem with researching and studying marginal expertise: it is often at the margins of archival collections. The matter is further complicated as WHO destroys material that has not been requested after a certain amount of time. She then focused on the main topic of her lecture – rehabilitation and/or integration of disabled people. The aim of this rehabilitation was to build independence and working capacity, to bring a person as close to the mainstream as possible, because at the core of both capitalist and socialist systems is a healthy, working population. Baar presented a WHO project that was supposed to help with rehabilitation – community-based rehabilitation (CBR). This project was intended for the developing world and was quite idealistic, because of its reliance on the work of volunteers. The CBR project is ongoing and its manuals are published in dozens of languages in alignment with local customs. Its outcomes, however, are difficult to measure.
A second initiative that Baar presented was a Dutch welfare initiative in the 1970s: Het Dorp, a neighborhood near Arnhem, designed by rehabilitation experts, where community members shaped the environment based on their lived experiences. This idea of community living for disabled people also transferred through the Iron Curtain. Gadó Pál, a Hungarian disability activist, was a secretary general of the Budapest Association of the Disabled (Mozgássérültek Budapesti Egyesülete). Gadó participated in the foundation of the National Federation of Associations of the Disabled (Mozgássérültek Egyesületeinek Országos Szövetsége) and also founded the SILÓ Community Home and Independent Living Centre (SILÓ Társasotthon és Önálló Élet Központ) in Piliscsaba. This second initiative also sparked an interesting discussion. Among the questions asked, one stood out: Could disability activism exist under state socialism? Baar stated that this question used to receive a simple answer: no. However, new studies have shown that it was possible. The problem is the definition of activism; Gadó was an example of activism in socialist Hungary. Another important point of this keynote speaker was that disability movements cannot be compared with other movements. Disability movements are heterogenous; disability is really the only connection.
This conference highlighted how expertise crossed national borders and was amended for local purposes throughout the 20th century. The metaphor of the Iron Curtain had little application when it came to knowledge. Many thought-provoking papers were presented analyzing various European countries and pointing out many unexpected links. Further explorations of transnational expert connections and the circulation of ideas are needed to fully understand the complex web of scientific and intellectual exchanges that shaped modern Europe. Despite political divisions, experts maintained networks that transcended national boundaries, adapting global knowledge to address regional challenges. This fluidity of expertise challenges traditional narratives of isolation and underscores the importance of examining the history of knowledge through a transnational lens, revealing a more nuanced picture of collaboration and innovation across diverse political landscapes.
Conference overview:
Transnational routes of medical expertise between the East and the West
Chair: José Luis Aguilar López-Barajas (Prague)
Anastassiya Schacht (Vienna): The art of persuasion – Early steps of postwar Sovietization in intellectual communities of East & Central Europe
Michel Christian (Geneva): Maternal deprivation and the transnational debate on day nurseries in the UN-organizations (1950s-1960s)
Michaela Šmidrkalová (Prague): Anesthesiology expertise circulating across the Iron Curtain: Third European Congress of Anesthesiology in Prague (1970)
María Mundi López (Paris/Granada): Vacuum aspiration: Transnational journeys and transformations of an abortion technique (1965-1985)
Religion and ethnicity expertise before and after WWII
Chair: Natalia Jarska (Warsaw)
Anca Filipovici (Cluj-Napoca) / Zsuzsa Bokor (Cluj-Napoca): Ethnicity and medicine: Minority health policies in interwar Transylvania
Ethell Gershengorin (Madison): Medical experts in the Jewish classroom: TOZ school hygiene programming in interwar Poland
Gözde Kılıç (Florence): Hunting for Ruh: Tracing the evolution of psychoanalysis in Turkey (1917-1957)
Keynote 1
Chair: Kateřina Lišková (Brno)
Bogdan Iacob (Bucharest): The white gaze of socialist medicine: Central and Southeastern European experts in postcolonial spaces
Forensic expertise between the state and the public sphere
Chair: Vjačeslav Glazov (Prague)
Natalia Tsourma (Athens): From the forensic laboratory to the courtroom: The public view of the expert as part of the scientific discourse in the administration of justice in interwar Greece
Klára Pinerová (Prague): Penology Research Institute as a bearer of expert knowledge and change in Czechoslovak prison system (1967-1989)
Nicolas Henckes (Düsseldorf) / Chantal Marazia (Düsseldorf): “Judges in white coats”: Media representations of forensic psychiatric expertise in West Germany
Anna Kvíčalová (Prague): Forensic voices: Sound-based expertise in Cold-War Czechoslovakia and beyond
Keynote 2
Chair: Kateřina Lišková (Brno)
Monika Baar (Florence): Another knowledge may be possible: Neglected professions and marginal regions in the history of medical expertise
Women’s health and medicine
Chair: Annina Gagyiova (Prague)
Almira Sharafeeva (Munich): The health of Soviet female workers: Expert debates and state interests in the 1920s and 1930s
Despo Kritsotaki (Athens): Prescribing “vitamins for marriage”: Health scientists as marriage experts in Greece (1920s-1960s)
Agnieszka Kościańska (Warsaw/Granada) / Agata Ignaciuk (Warsaw/Granada): How religion became expertise: Natural family planning and childbirth preparation in late socialist Poland
Karissa Patton (Edinburgh): The Scottish Women’s Health Fair vs WHO, 1983: A case study of the splintering of health specialization, expertise, and authority in the late 20th century
The pathologization of vice in psychiatry and psychology
Chair: Annina Gagyiova (Prague)
Kostis Gkotsinas (Athens): The uncertain experts: Psychiatrists’ and doctors’ attitudes towards drug addiction in interwar Greece
Gábor Csikós (Budapest): The nervous peasant in Hungarian socialism: Political and professional influences in introducing the social paradigm in psychiatry
Sophia Gröschel (Bremen): Establishing an illness: The debate on pathological gambling in West Germany in the 1980s
Life and death in state socialism
Chair: Theo Finsterschott (Prague)
Alexey Golubev (Houston): The Soviet quest for universal medical literacy and the new biopolitics of late Soviet socialism, 1960s–1980s
Alex Langstaff (New York): The new elderly: Transnational expertise and social gerontology between 1970s Czechoslovakia and France
Viola Lászlófi (Vienna): How to die in a socialist way: Medical expertise, social conflicts, and the institutionalization of dying in state socialist Hungary