SEEJ_61_4_26H final 1/24/2018 6:29 PM Page 933 Reviews 933 Keely Stauter-Halsted. The Devil’s Chain: Prostitution and Social Control in Partitioned Poland. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2015. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. x ⫹ 379 pp. $39.95 (cloth). Keely Stauter-Halsted’s monumental study examines the world of prostitution in partitioned Poland from the 1880s until the country’s independence in 1918. Stauter-Halsted’s impressive analysis reveals how discourse on the prostitute and her milieu evolved in response to a variety of factors, including contemporary medical discourse, white-slavery narratives, shifts in migration, and calls for abolition among reformers. Combining archival documentation with relevant literature of the period, Stauter-Halsted evaluates the genesis of ideas and beliefs relating to sex workers and their trade, taking care to examine each school of thought and its relation to broader European trends. Thus the book offers a valuable contribution not only to Polish historiography, but also to the growing number of works on sex trafficking and prostitution in various times and contexts. Stauter-Halsted approaches her study thematically and begins with an examination of the system of police-regulated prostitution codified in the early nineteenth century. She first describes how the institution of commercial sex existed in a “twilight zone” where prostitution was “neither officially sanctioned nor prohibited” in Polish lands (28). Beginning in the 1880s, however, horror stories of sexual improprieties and increased rates of venereal disease caused a “moral panic” that prompted stricter regulations on prostitution. Shining a light on sex work revealed that prostitution “was no longer a mere professional subspecialty,” but rather “an urban menace that had imposed itself on [...] bourgeois witnesses” (52). Stauter-Halsted then analyzes contemporary myths of sex workers; in contrast to the melodramatic and stereotypical assumptions on how the venal woman came to her trade, Stauter-Halsted offers evidence from the lives of actual prostitutes, drawing upon testimonies and observations from the period to note how lowerclass women navigated “the slippery sexual terrain of Polish urban life” (79). Whereas social commentators depicted the prostitute as coerced into a life of sexual slavery, careful study reveals that a large, diverse group of women, both registered and not, “maintained a delicate balance between paid sex and legitimate work” (77). Evidence on domestic servants, female textile workers, seamstresses, and other working-class women shows that prostitution “formed part of the family economy in some communities” (103). But, as Stauter-Halsted argues, voyeuristic stories from the popular press detailed lurid accounts of sexual abduction, fueling beliefs that all commercial sex was violently forced upon women. Taking the 1892 Lwów trafficking trial as central focus, Stauter-Halsted demonstrates how the court proceedings stressed the “inverted morality of light-skinned girls from the ‘civilized’ world being whisked away by ‘darker’ primitives” (128). White-slavery narratives and similar frenzied accounts helped codify the idea that women traveling on their own or abandoning their native land risked “tarnishing their reputation [...] and challenging Poland’s national honor” (136). Thus, as Stauter-Halsted argues, commentators framed the solution to fighting increased rates of prostitution within the context of national renewal. Stauter-Halsted then examines how sex trafficking and migration impacted women traveling to Polish lands or beyond. Contrary to prior scholarship, much of which sees female migrants as passive subjects unwittingly duped into sex work, she takes a closer look at archival evidence to demonstrate the complex forces motivating female migration. Moving beyond simplistic “captivity narratives,” Stauter-Halsted offers a more nuanced assessment of how women ended up in foreign and domestic brothels. In this way, The Devil’s Chain uncovers how popular narratives stereotyped Jews as villains in “the drama of international sex migration” (170). By scapegoating prostitution as a Jewish problem, the Polish public “dodged responsibility for a whole host of causal factors” that brought women to sexual commerce (195). By the turn of the twentieth century, exposure to the problems of regulation and failed attempts to curtail the spread of venereal disease caused Polish commentators to rethink prostitu- SEEJ_61_4_26H final 934 1/24/2018 6:29 PM Page 934 Slavic and East European Journal tion. Invigorated by social activity following the revolutionary events of 1905, Polish feminists (although divided on the questions of reform and abolition) fought to remedy the “sexual double standard reflected in the system of police-regulation” (229). In Stauter-Halsted’s assessment, the work of women’s rights activists helped create a “shadow state” that encouraged civic engagement and open debate. Within these discussions, critics could use the system of registered prostitution as a means to critique the occupying imperial powers. However, attempts to free prostitutes from the onerous and humiliating demands of police regulation conflicted with the beliefs of medical practitioners who espoused that only through increased supervision could the prostitute be trusted to ply her trade. Certain in their ability to cure syphilis and other venereal diseases, physicians utilized extreme measures—at times experimenting on and coercing female patients—in the name of public health. But despite “influence and authority over their patients [...] medical guidance failed to staunch the skyrocketing rates of syphilis, alcoholism, and prostitution” (283). As sympathy for the “fallen woman” waned in Polish lands, physicians turned their clinical powers to studying her within the processes of reproduction and degeneration. Following the work of Cesare Lombroso, Polish experts pointed to “hereditary” traits and biological inheritance as an explanation to rising rates of prostitution. Stauter-Halsted locates Polish debates on criminal anthropology within a broader European context, showing how particular institutions like the Polish Eugenics Society informed national debate on how best to rebuild the nation in the aftermath of World War I. Advocates for eugenics convinced the public that analyzing and improving the behavior and health of prostitutes “was essential if the nation was to survive” (308). Bogged down by political dysfunction and conflicting interests, the Polish interwar government failed to reform the fossilized system of regulation. Nevertheless, “by establishing programs of reeducation” the prostitute entered mainstream national culture through “rational reform” rather than moral condemnation (339). Carefully researched and eloquently articulated, The Devil’s Chain is an exemplary study on the complex relationship between the prostitute and the many intermediaries who studied her. Given its breadth and depth of the subject matter, the The Devil’s Chain will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including historians of Eastern Europe and scholars of the history of sexuality, gender relations, and medicine. Colleen Lucey, University of Arizona Michael Wögerbauer, Petr Píša, Petr Šámal, Pavel Janáček et al., ed. V obecném zájmu: Cenzura a sociální regulace literatury v moderní české kultuře 1749–2014 [In the Public Interest: Censorship and the Social Regulation in Literature in Modern Czech Culture 1749– 2014]. Svazek I, 1749–1938. Praha: Academia, Praha: Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR, 2015. Charts. Illustrations. Index. 863 pp. Paper. Michael Wögerbauer, Petr Píša, Petr Šámal, Pavel Janáček et al., ed. V obecném zájmu: Cenzura a sociální regulace literatury v moderní české kultuře 1749–2014 [In the Public Interest: Censorship and the Social Regulation in Literature in Modern Czech Culture 1749–2014]. Svazek II, 1938–2014. Praha: Academia, Praha: Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR, 2015. Charts. Illustrations. Index. 797 pp. Paper. The two volumes under consideration cover the history of censorship in the territory of the Czech Lands from the times of the Hapsburg Empire through the First (1918–1938), Second (1938–1939), and Third (1945–1949) Czechoslovak Republics; the Communist government (1948–1989); the post-Velvet Revolution Czech and Slovak Federal republics (1989–1992); and the succeeding Czech Republic (1993–present). The first volume begins with the enlightened rule of Maria Theresa (1740–d.1780) and her