Private Actors, Public Intervention, and International Networking: Child Assistance in Interwar Lithuania

Interwar social assistance for orphans and poor children in Lithuania represented the outcome of a long-term process influenced by medical and national (ethnic) discourses, sociopolitical pre-conditions and economic factors. Even though the goals of social assistance for orphans and children ‘at risk’ were widely shared and bore a clear ethno-political significance, financial difficulties led to the emergence of a tripartite social assistance management scheme. Private organisations remained the backbone of the system—they organised, managed, and partially financed orphanages and other assistance facilities. Public institutions most often limited their role to one of partial financial support. International organisations gained importance as vectors of new practices but, especially, sources of additional financial support. Despite efforts, meagre financial support made efficient and widespread assistance networks barely imaginable throughout the interwar period. Whitin this framework, assistance was envisaged as a tool to prevent children from ‘damaging’ the nation’s body and to integrate them into the nation’s organism.