Contemporary and Modern Theorists of Nationalism

1
Contemporary and Modern Theorists of Nationalism

• Connections and Elaborations

2
Aims

• Revisiting both cont. and modern theorists of
  nationalism
• Identifying some of the main themes in the
  writing of 3 cont. theorists
• Exploring how these themes relate to, and have
  been elaborated, by modern theorists/historians
  (lectures 1 - 3)

3
3 lectures

• Contemporary and modern theories From Renan,
  Mazzini and List to AD Smith and E. Gellner
• National Pasts Memory or Invention
• Nationalism and regions/localities

4
nations in 19th c. Europe coming to terms with
an essential problem

• Nations are not something eternal. They began,
  so they will come to an end. A European
  confederation will probably replace them. But
  such is not the law of the age in which we live.
  At the present time, the existence of nations is
  a good thing, a necessity even. Their existence
  is the guarantee of liberty, which would be lost
  if the world had only one law and only one master
  Ernest Renan, 1882

5
How to study nationalism?

• nationalism has proved itself the most powerful
  ideology of modern times, and condemning it
  without distinction, or identifying it
  automatically with racism, deprives us of any
  chance to humanise an ideology whose time, far
  from being over, seems to have arrived once more.
  But it would be equally blind to ignore the
  aggressiveness and ideas of superiority which are
  latent in any world view which tends to emphasise
  exclusiveness and totality. (George Mosse, 1995)

6
Ernest Renan(1823 92)
7
Quest-ce quune nation? (1882)

• A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two
  things, which in truth are but one, constitute
  this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the
  past, one in the present. One is the possession
  in common of a rich legacy of memories the other
  is present- day consent, the desire to live
  together, the will to perpetuate the value of the
  heritage that one has received in an undivided
  form.

8
Renan Contnd.

• A nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity,
  constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that
  one has made in the past and of those that one is
  prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a
  past it is summarized, however, in the present
  by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly
  expressed desire to continue a common life. A
  nation's existence is, if you will pardon the
  metaphor, a daily plebiscite, just as an
  individual's existence is a perpetual affirmation
  of life.

9
Friedrich List (1789 1846_
10
Friedrich List The National System of Political
Economy (1841)

• If the English are enabled through new
  inventions to produce linen forty per cent
  cheaper than the Germans can by using the old
  processes, and if in the use of their new process
  they merely obtain a start of a few years over
  the Germans, in such a case, were it not for the
  absence of protective duties, one of the most
  important and oldest branches of Germanys
  industry will be ruined. It will be as if a limb
  of the body of the German nation had been lost.

11
List contd.

• We have proved historically that the unity of
  the nation forms the fundamental condition of
  lasting national prosperity
• As regards the system of a German transport
  system, and especially of a German system of
  railways all that is required of the
  Governments can be expressed in one word, and
  that is ENERGY.

12
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805 71)
13
G. Mazzini General Instructions for the Members
of Young Italy

• Young Italy is a brotherhood of Italians who
  believe in a law of Progress and Duty, and are
  convinced that Italy is destined to become one
  nation

14
Mazzini contd.

• By Italy we understand I, Continental and
  peninsular Italy, bounded on the north by the
  upper circle of the Alps, on the south by the
  sea, on the west by the mouths of the Varo, and
  on the east by Trieste 2, The islands proved
  Italian by the language of the inhabitants, and
  destined, under a special administrative
  organization, to form a part of the Italian
  political unity.
• By the Nation we understand the universality of
  Italians bound together by a common Pact, and
  governed by the same laws.

15
Mazzini contd.

• Because our Italian tradition is essentially
  republican our great memories are republican
  the whole history of our national progress is
  republican whereas the introduction of monarchy
  amongst us was coeval with our decay, and
  consummated our ruin by its constant servility to
  the foreigner, and antagonism to the people, as
  well as to the unity of the nation.

16
Major themes? (3 lectures)

• Nations as ethno-symbolic formations vs. nations
  as products of the modern age (Smith vs. Gellner)
  historical unfolding versus functional
  requirement
• National histories inventions or
  reconstructions? (Hobsbawm and critics)
• National unity and sub-national spaces (regions
  localities) (various historians)

17
Anthony D. Smith

• Nations and nationalism distinction
• The longue durée
• Myth-symbol complexes (ethno-symbolism)
• Relation to modern nationalism
• Important Culture has structural force (limited
  malleability)

18
Smith quote (Warwick debate)

• If the modern nation is, in large part, a
  creation of nationalism, then there are three
  vital elements of the nation which depend, in my
  view, on collective memory. The first is the
  drive for regeneration which is based on memories
  of a golden age A second element is the sense of
  collective mission and national destiny The
  third vital component is a sense of national
  authenticity, and this too is bound up with
  shared memories.

19
Ernest Gellner

• Agrarian versus industrial society (Gemeinschaft
  vs. Gesellschaft)
• Nationalism becomes functional for modern,
  industrial society
• Nationalism language-based high culture
• Nationalist ideas/ideologies provide adornment
  they have no causal force
• Industrial society culture becomes structure

20
Gellner quote

• It is nationalism which engenders nations, and
  not the other way around.

21
Gellner Quote (Warwick debate 1995)

• My main cause for modernism that Im trying to
  highlight in this debate, is that on the whole
  the ethnic, which is such an important part of
  Anthonys case, is rather like the navel. Some
  nations have it and some dont and in any case
  its inessential. So I would say there is a
  certain amount of navel about but not everywhere
  and on the whole its not important. The cultural
  continuity is contingent, inessential.

22
Concluding Remarks

• On the question of causality, Gellner and
  Breuilly are persuasive
• Problem a) setting the benchmark too high b)
  preoccupation with formal nationalism
• Questions?