Asumarea politicilor sociale de către stat în România. Cazul invalizilor, orfanilor şi văduvelor de război (IOVR) după Primul Război Mondial
The Beginnings of State Social Policies in Romania? The Case of Invalids, Orphans, and War Widows after World War I

Summary/Abstract: This text deals with the moment of creating the National Office for War Disabled, War Orphans and War Widows in 1920, a moment which is placed in its social and political aftermath of the First World War in its international dimensions, in order to argue for a conceptual shift in state’s involvement in regulating, supervising and providing social assistance in the first half of the twentieth century Romania. While not yet a form of welfare state, the consequences of the First World War led to a shift from an indirect involvement clustered around the concepts of Christian mercy and philanthropy to a direct involvement clustered around the lay concepts of duty and obligation. This text stems from my own research on the cultural, political, social and institutional contexts of war commemorations in interwar Romania. A first part of the text deals with the economic and social impact of the Great War in Romania in order to point to the lack of previous research on the subject, a second part analytically places social assistance in an international perspective, the third part presents the first private initiatives of assisting war disabled, war orphans and war widows during the war, a fourth part presents at length the creation of the office and the conceptual debate around it while a final part shortly surveys the most important aspects of its activity during the 1920s and the 1930s.

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