Knowledge in Circulation: Methods of Birth Control among Slovak Women in the 1920s and 1930s
Eva Škorvanková
Comenius University, Faculty of Arts
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 15 Issue 3 (2026): 464-493 DOI 10.38145/2026.3.464
This study considers the dissemination of knowledge about methods of birth control among Slovak women in the 1920s and 1930s. Focusing on practices based on tracking the menstrual cycle and periodic abstinence, it draws on contemporary statistical data, ethnographic research, and a wide range of sources, including health-education literature, women’s periodicals, and the activities of social organizations. The article analyses the multiple channels through which such knowledge circulated, from medical discourse and church environments to informal networks among women. It argues that, despite the Catholic Church’s rejection of birth control, these methods became part of women’s birth control strategies, revealing tensions between medical knowledge, moral norms, and everyday practice. In doing so, the study adds to the historiography of reproductive health and gender by highlighting women’s agency in the negotiation of competing normative frameworks.
Keywords: natural birth control, reproductive health, women’s agency, interwar Czechoslovakia, knowledge circulation