EBOOK
Budapest's Children
Humanitarian Relief in the Aftermath of the Great War
Friederike Kind-KovácsSeries: Worlds in Crisis: Refugees, Asylum, and Forced Migration(0)
About
In the aftermath of World War I, international organizations descended upon the destitute children living in the rubble of Budapest and the city became a testing ground for how the West would handle the most vulnerable residents of a former enemy state.
Budapest's Children reconstructs how Budapest turned into a laboratory of transnational humanitarian intervention. Friederike Kind-Kovács explores the ways in which migration, hunger, and destitution affected children's lives, casting light on children's particular vulnerability in times of distress. Drawing on extensive archival research, Kind-Kovács reveals how Budapest's children, as iconic victims of the war's aftermath, were used to mobilize humanitarian sentiments and practices throughout Europe and the United States. With this research, Budapest's Children investigates the dynamic interplay between local Hungarian organizations, international humanitarian donors, and the child relief recipients.
In tracing transnational relief encounters, Budapest's Children reveals how intertwined postwar internationalism and nationalism were and how child relief reinforced revisionist claims and global inequalities that still reverberate today.
Budapest's Children reconstructs how Budapest turned into a laboratory of transnational humanitarian intervention. Friederike Kind-Kovács explores the ways in which migration, hunger, and destitution affected children's lives, casting light on children's particular vulnerability in times of distress. Drawing on extensive archival research, Kind-Kovács reveals how Budapest's children, as iconic victims of the war's aftermath, were used to mobilize humanitarian sentiments and practices throughout Europe and the United States. With this research, Budapest's Children investigates the dynamic interplay between local Hungarian organizations, international humanitarian donors, and the child relief recipients.
In tracing transnational relief encounters, Budapest's Children reveals how intertwined postwar internationalism and nationalism were and how child relief reinforced revisionist claims and global inequalities that still reverberate today.
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Reviews
"An original contribution to the history of humanitarian relief, child-welfare work, and the social impact of the First World War in Central Europe. Richly detailed and deeply researched, Budapest's Children traces the dire effects of war and demise of Hapsburg rule on conditions in Hungary's capital city and examines the diversity and interaction of organizations and actors, foreign and domestic,
Heide Fehrenbach, Board of Trustees Professor, Northern Illinois University
"Contemporaries referred to Budapest in the immediate postwar years as the 'capital of human misery.' Friederike Kind-Kovács's meticulously researched and original study provides a compelling, and tragically topical, analysis of the impact of war and social disintegration on children. It also examines the ways in which suffering was instrumentalized in humanitarian aid programs, and the relationsh
Catriona Kelly, Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK
"Budapest's Children is a compelling, deeply researched, and all too timely account of the dire humanitarian crisis that gripped Budapest after World War I and of the valiant efforts of local and international aid workers to care for refugee children displaced by the collapse of the Habsburg empire. Rich with insights about the interaction of nationalist and internationalist politics and about the
Paul Hanebrink, Rutgers University