It is no secret that the Peripheral Histories? editorial team is comprised of a few historians of humanitarianism who are rather enthusiastic about drawing upon the archives of international organisations to write new histories of Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Some of our readers may remember that we included the collections of the ICRC archives and library back in our archives-focused series in summer 2023.
Therefore, we were very excited to see the publication of a new book tracing the interrelation between state building and nongovernmental humanitarianism and philanthropy in Eastern Europe: Doina Anca Cretu’s Foreign Aid and State Building in Interwar Romania: In Quest of an Ideal. In this interview with Peripheral Histories? editor Siobhán Hearne, Doina Anca Cretu reflects upon her journey to the topic, the challenges of multi-sited research, and the complex interplay between internationalist humanitarian aid and nationalist agendas of state building in interwar Eastern Europe.
PH: What motivated you to write a book about the impact of foreign aid upon state building in interwar Romania?
My interest in concepts of “foreign aid” started, actually, at the university level when I began working at the now-called Global Research Institute (College of William and Mary, USA) and on a project related to the transparency of US development aid projects. I was also studying political science at the time, but I remained interested in the topic after I decided to focus on history. Interestingly, this was at a time when the history of humanitarianism and history of development, respectively, exploded so-to-speak and my interest fit very nicely into this ever-growing scholarship. One thing that I was always quite keen to explore further was what happens when this aid hits the ground, who recipients are, where the money or other forms of assistance go and what happens to them (and I believe that social scientists and people working in organizations themselves are also interested in this more generally). I figured out quite early that we need to dissect the landscape of reception as well.
The reason why I ended up looking so far back in time is largely that aid for civilians fundamentally crystallized during and after the First World War. And, on top of everything, central and eastern Europe (my geographic area of expertise at this point) was going through changes (e.g. borders, demographics, forms of governance). .This was not unique: various states that emerged from empires were going through their own state building projects. So, where was foreign aid in this story? This was my starting point in terms of topic and in terms of chronology.
The case of Romania came to me quite late. I initially started working on Yugoslavia as my case study, due to the fact that I had been working on longer histories of aid in the western parts of the Balkans (esp. Bosnia Herzegovina), particularly after the wars in the 1990s. So I wanted to explore this region at an earlier historical juncture. However, the archives were difficult to access, patchy, and many were destroyed in various wars, so I had to rethink the project. I ended up working on Romania out of panic initially: I am a Romanian national and a native speaker and I went to the archives very randomly when I was visiting my family. However, even if arrived completely unprepared and messy, I realized that maybe I could put something together. But interestingly, I approached this material thinking that I would write a history of contentions and rejection, given the absence of information regarding various organizations that worked in Romania at the time. Nonetheless, I ended up writing a history of overlapping agendas, of collaboration, and of compromises, with foreign aid emerging as a domestically implemented tool of state building.
Why was Romania such a centre for foreign (and particularly American) aid and intervention in the interwar period? What does this case study bring to broader understandings about the role of humanitarian relief in state building?
Romania was, in many ways, the perfect story: it was an ally for the United States during the war; it was also in ruins because of the war; and it was deemed ‘backward’ enough. For the Christian organizations, it was Christian enough. For Jewish organizations, it had many suffering Jews. So it was a perfect storm of needs that various American humanitarians and philanthropists identified in Romania.
To a certain extent, writing a history of the perfect recipient is a challenge in and of itself, because, after all: where is the drama? But this is exactly what this case study adds to the scholarship, as we see the messiness of aid processes when various organizations hit the ground. We also see various voices of recipients and the rapport that they developed with aid givers.
If we are to play with the “drama” dimension of this story, I would argue that we see here how a so-called international(ist) liberal project of humanitarian and constructive aid (American in nature) infused national(ist) agendas of state building. We also see how various channels of reception (elites in particular) influenced the implementation of foreign aid on the Romanian ground. As I mention in my introduction, historians have spent a long time looking at various organizations and various individuals who became architects of humanitarianism and philanthropy. And the picture is often very political, very tone-deaf, we see imperialist ideas behind aid-giving, we see civilizational ideas…and I do not counter that within my study. But I want to emphasize the fact that implementation of aid, what happens on the ground, does not always match these grand agendas (both positive and negative); there are local actors that might counter or instrumentalize humanitarian projects for instance. This is where, I believe, my study contributes to the scholarship.
In the book, you show how state building was a heterogenous activity engaged in by a wide range of actors working within and beyond the arena of high politics and government bureaucracy. Could you tell us how some of the different groups that you examine conceptualised state building in this period?
The future of the state (and, indeed, of the nation) was deeply entrenched in the political and social life of Romania after the war. Romania was ultimately a victor of the war and it expanded geographically and demographically. Yes, politicians were deeply involved in institutional development, in developing laws and reforms for a changed state. But we also see what I call a “second tier” of state builders; and here I look at a welfare-oriented civil society (e.g. associations that appeared or developed in context of war in order to assist children or Jews), as well as a plethora of experts.
Waiting for the American Red Cross soup to cook, Bobesti, Roumania, August 1919.
Source: Library of Congress
When it comes to these civil society actors, state building meant the improvement of children’s lives – children were, after all, the vulnerable future of the nation and the state. Jewish philanthropists strongly believed that improving Jews’ lives – from a material and socio-political perspective – was to strengthen the future of Romania first and foremost. The role of the expert is compelling here (and other historians looked at this dimension for other countries in the interwar period – France, Austria, or the United Kingdom); we see professionals and technocrats conceptualizing and implementing projects for the development of state institutions or for social improvement by and large (e.g. proposals of health reforms, of education development, or of rural modernization). They all conceived of a future, ideal (hence the title of the book) Greater Romania that emerged from war and imperial collapse. And they all, in different ways, turned to various foreign aid actors to support these visions. So, from this perspective, we see this meeting of nationalism and internationalism.
Foreign Aid and State Building in Interwar Romania begins in the rubble of post-First World War Eastern Europe and moves on to examine initiatives targeted at specific populations in the interwar period, namely children and Jews. Could you tell us why these groups were prioritised by American humanitarians and what these projects can tell us about the history of foreign aid in Eastern Europe more generally?
Children were what I (and other historians) call the quintessential victims of the war. They had lost parents, they had lost homes, they were hungry, they lacked clothes, and they were ill. In this context of civilian-focused aid, children were the “ideal” recipients: they were vulnerable, but they were also malleable – their bodies and minds could be moulded through aid. This was the logic of many of these organizations and, in the case of the US, this was nothing new. Progressivism—a product of the late nineteenth century—prioritized the professionalization of childcare domestically in the US; and progressivism was at the heart of humanitarian work in Europe in the aftermath of war. However, there was also a more practical dimension. These organizations were largely dependent on fundraising: children and their fate brought more money from donors (if we are to be cynical). This is something that we see quite prominently nowadays when we look at posters, websites, leaflets from various international aid organizations. But what about “Eastern European” children? I argue in the book that aid organizations saw this region through both its suffering and its potential. Yes, the war destroyed a lot, but there was also novelty, as many new or changed states emerged. Thus, humanitarians and philanthropists conceive of the break from imperial rule as a path for a new life and a clean slate for political, social, or economic transformations. Therefore, what mattered in this context was to give children and youth the opportunity to unleash this potential, and this was to be through providing food, through schooling, and through homes for orphans.
The case of the Jews has a longer history here. Eastern European Jews had long been on the agenda for western (and American) politicians and philanthropists. Abigail Greene or Carole Fink have already looked at the ways in which American and British philanthropists and lawyers attempted to address discrimination against Jews as an object of diplomatic aid in the mid-nineteenth century. The war brought, once more, opportunity for action. I focused here particularly on the Jewish American Joint Distribution Committee, which was established in 1914, in response to the outbreak of war. Jaclyn Granick’s work was vital for me here, as she dissected, in-depth, the birth and the scope of the JDC: New York-based philanthropists were looking particularly at Eastern Europe as a space of action; they mostly (and often begrudgingly) stayed out of “political issues” in a context of overt antisemitism, and they focused their language and actions on the feeding, clothing, healing, and housing of Jews in this region. In this context, we see both continuity and change in methods vis-à-vis the fate of Eastern European Jews. Where I turn the perspective, however, is in the way Romanian Jews regarded this aid: unlike the donors, they did interpret American Jewish humanitarian aid in political terms and demanded it as such.
American Red Cross food distribution from food truck, Sendrini, Galatz district
Source: Library of Congress
In the book, you draw upon sources from a plethora of archives in Romania, Croatia, the United States, and Switzerland, in addition to an impressive number of multilingual periodicals and other published primary sources. Could you tell us about the challenges and opportunities of this methodology? And relatedly, do you have any advice for scholars of Central and Eastern Europe who are keen to work with the collections of international organisations?
I always describe this book’s narrative as classic “puzzle” work. I developed a series of research questions that created a loose framework and allowed for an oft-freestyle form of archival work. Once I identified the thematic arenas of foreign aid and, importantly, the main actors involved (both institutionally and locally), I traced them in various archives. The language skills certainly helped; however, there is a level of creativity in research that the book entailed as Romanian archives, for instance, did not have a folder or a box that was explicitly about foreign aid, humanitarian work, or external philanthropy. So there was a lot of digging, at times I used one sentence from a box, other times more could be added in the building of this narrative. There was a lot of “craft” work in which I brought together different and often chaotic pieces of archival material (this is why part of my introduction is titled “Crafting the Narrative”).
My advice to scholars working on central and eastern Europe is very simple in terms of preparation for investigating the collections of international organisations: read widely. It is true that in recent years a growing body of scholarship has emerged regarding the relationships and the work developed by and within international organisations, which pays geographic attention to central and eastern European actors. However, there was very little when I started this particular project. My approach was to read as widely as possible in order to understand the ways these organisations functioned, their architects and their agendas, as well as their rapport with their recipients (from their own perspective). It is important to read beyond “the region” in my view; so I encourage scholars of central and eastern Europe to read on Africa, Asia, or Latin America – spaces that saw the mobilization of resources and interest in terms of humanitarian and development projects and practices throughout the twentieth century. It helps to understand how these organisations operated in various locales, as well as understanding how the central and eastern European story fits within a global perspective.
Were there any aspects of the topic that proved trickier to research or left you with unanswered questions?
I wish I had had more access to the direct recipients: the children, the refugees, the widows, the victims of war, the villagers that saw transformations of their spaces with Rockefeller Foundation money. The process of aid was deeply elitist – organizations worked with channels of reception or with those who claimed to speak in the name recipients. The book sometimes traces some of these direct recipients, but I wish I had more opportunities to find these voices. I do think that the nature of aid-giving and the timeframe of this story did not allow for the visibility of these historical actors. But I do think that exploring “reception” and “recipients’ agency” (broadly speaking) at later historical junctures is possible and I hope that the themes of this book can inspire this exploration as well.
Doina Anca Cretu is Assistant Professor in Modern European History at the University of Warwick. She is a historian of modern Europe, working at the intersection of history of east-central Europe and international history. Thematically, her research centres on history of humanitarianism, history of development, and history of migration (especially the history of refugees).