Naţiune și naţionalismCoordonatori:Marius-Alexandru Dan și Alexandru Ţîrdea  

COMUNITĂŢI RE-IMAGINATE

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Națiune și naționalism 8-9 iulie 2017 Str. Al. Lăpușneanu, nr. 7-9, Iași 10:00-18:00 Seminar conceput și coordonat de Marius-Alexandru Dan și Alexandru Țîrdea Participanți: Ana Szel, Andrei Nacu, Cristina David, Dorina Ticu, Vitalie Sprînceană, Smaranda Ursuleanu, Behzad Khosravi Noori, Andrei Pripasu, Dan Acostioaei, Ivana Smiljanic, Ovidiu Gherasim-Proca, Florin Bobu, Livia Pancu, Delia Bulgaru, Cătălina Hirean, Andrei Timofte, Alex Tărnăuceanu, Ovidiu Pop “Scopul acestui seminar este de a genera o dezbatere despre națiune și naționalism pornind de la

o selecție de texte esențiale din bibliografia dedicată teoriilor despre naționalism. Fără a avea

pretenții de exhaustivitate, selecția propune o discuție legată de paradigmele dominante de

interpretare din cadrul domeniului: cea modernistă și cea etnosimbolistă. În pofida evoluțiilor

recente din domeniul studierii naționalismului (de la naționalismul de zi cu zi, teoretizat de

Michael Billig, până la abordările feministe, post-coloniale și post-structuraliste), cele două

paradigme amintite anterior continuă să furnizeze cele mai convingătoare încercări de a explica

un fenomen care se sustrage foarte ușor eforturilor de definire.

Ca atare, selecția noastră vizează în mod special patru autori care au exercitat o influență

puternică asupra dezbaterilor din domeniu: Benedict Anderson (Comunități imaginate), Ernest

Gellner (Națiuni și naționalism), Eric Hobsbawm (The Invention of Tradition) și Anthony D.

Smith (Myths and Memories of the Nation și National Identity). Textele acestora sunt completate

de demersul de pionierat al lui Ernest Renan, celebra sa prelegere „Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?”,

precum și de două studii care abordează chestiuni privind naționalismul românesc în secolul al

XX-lea, primul aparținând Mariei Bucur („Edifices of the Past. War Memorials and Heroes in

Twentieth Century Romania”), iar celălalt lui Răzvan Pârâianu („National Prejudices, Mass

Media and History Textbooks: The Mitu Controversy”).

Pe baza fragmentelor din Anderson, Gellner și Hobsbawm, vom încerca să înțelegem de ce

națiunea și naționalismele aparțin epocii moderne și să aflăm care au fost condițiile istorice care

le-au permis apariția. De cealaltă parte, pornind de la două fragmente din vasta operă a lui

Anthony D. Smith, discuțiile se vor îndrepta spre o a doua școală de gândire din acest domeniu:

etnosimbolismul. Îndepărtându-ne de verdictele tranșante emise de Gellner și Hobsbawm nu doar

în privința modernității națiunilor și a naționalismelor, ci și a falsității acestora, parcurgerea

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textelor lui Anthony Smith va oferi explicații diferite, dar cu argumente foarte convingătoare

privind ideea conform căreia unele națiuni ar avea origini care precedă modernitatea; în această

parte vom discuta despre importanța simbolurilor, miturilor, a memoriei colective, a valorilor și a

tradițiilor comune în apariția naționalismului și a națiunilor.

Finalmente, dezbaterea se va încheia cu unele reflecții legate de cazul naționalismului românesc,

căutând să vedem cum s-a articulat memoria colectivă a românilor pe parcursul ultimului secol,

în ce măsură sunt tradițiile noastre inventate și ce rol joacă naționalismul în accentuarea

tensiunilor culturale din cadrul societății românești. “ (Marius-Alexandru Dan, Alexandru

Tîrdea)

Alexandru ȚÎRDEA (n. 1991) este doctorand la Facultatea de Istorie a Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași, realizând o teză despre formarea clasei muncitoare în România comunistă. Domeniile sale de interes sunt istoria contemporană și recentă a României, teoriile naționalismului și sociologia istorică Marius-Alexandru DAN (n. 1990) este doctorand la Facultatea de Istorie a Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași. Domeniile sale de interes sunt istoria modernă și contemporană, teoriile naționalismului, perspective interdisciplinare vizând problematica conceptului de putere cât și abordări privitoare la evoluția conceptelor, ideilor și a curentelor politice. Seminarul Națiune și naționalism face parte din proiectul COMUNITĂŢI RE-IMAGINATE organizat de 1+1 în colaborare cu tranzit.ro/ Iaşi și este cofinanțat de Administrația Fondului Cultural Național. Proiectul nu reprezintă în mod necesar poziţia Administrației Fondului Cultural Național. AFCN nu este responsabilă de conţinutul proiectului sau de modul în care rezultatele proiectului pot fi folosite. Acestea sunt în întregime responsabilitatea beneficiarului finanţării.

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VOINȚĂ, PLEBISCIT ZILNIC, CETĂȚEAN

Ernest Renan, „What is a nation”, conferinţă susţinută la Sorbona la 11 martie 1882, în

Idem, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?, Paris, Presses-Pocket, 1992, traducere în engleză de Ethan

Rundell.

Ideile lui Ernest Renan referitoare la naționalism şi identitate națională aveau să stea la

bază paradigmei modernist-constructiviste de interpretare a naţiunii. Respingând viziunea

dominantă în epocă, emanată din filosofia germană, care definea naţiunea din perspectiva unor

criterii obiective precum rasa (înţeleasă ca etnie), limba sau religia, istoricul francez vede

naţiunea ca o mare solidaritate, având la bază dorinţa indivizilor de a trăi împreună. Existenţa

unei naţiuni devine astfel un „plebiscit de fiecare zi”, fiecare membru al comunităţii, indiferent

de etnie, religie sau limbă fiind chemat să ia parte la viaţa naţiunii. O asemenea perspectivă poate

părea redundantă astăzi, dar pentru Europa sfârşitului de secol XIX ea era foarte progresistă.

Totodată, un element definitoriu al naţiunii, din perspectiva lui Renan, este „uitarea colectivă”,

concept care ilustrează caracterul selectiv al memoriei colective, predispusă în a celebra

momentele de glorie şi de a eluda evenimentele tragice sau rușinoase din istoria naţiunii.

Cuvinte cheie: voință, plebiscit zilnic, cetățean

COMUNITĂȚI IMAGINATE, MODERNITATE,

SUVERANITATE, COMUNITATE

Introduction – Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and

Spread of Nationalism, ediție revizuită, Verso, London/New York, 2006 [1983], pp. 1-9.

Introducerea celebrei lucrări a lui Benedict Anderson, Comunități imaginate, conține o

definiție a națiunii care a făcut carieră în mediile academice din întreaga lume, unde sintagma

care dă titlul acestei cărți a devenit un soi de „mantra” a oricăror discuții despre naționalism. În

pofida notorietății conceptului, el este adesea înțeles greșit, deoarece termenul „imaginat” poate

trimite la „falsitate”, „invenție”, așadar la o perspectivă mai apropiată de cele oferite de Ernest

Gellner și Eric Hobsbawm. În fapt, deși lucrând tot într-o paradigmă modernistă, Anderson se

desparte de teoriile celor doi și nu contestă existența efectivă a națiunilor, ci consideră că

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procesul de „imaginare” a națiunii, discutat pe larg pe parcursul cărții, construiește solidarități

reale la nivelul societăților, făcând posibilă coexistența a milioane de oameni în cadrul națiunii.

Cuvinte cheie: comunități imaginate, modernitate, suveranitate, comunitate

TRADIȚIE INVENTATĂ, FORMALIZARE, RITUALIZARE

Eric Hobsbawm, „Introduction: Inventing Tradition”, în Idem, Terence Ranger, The

Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983, pp. 1-15.

În opera sa despre naționalism, istoricul marxist Eric Hobsbawm a accentuat rolul

schimbărilor politice în înțelegerea naționalismului. Fiind un istoric al modernității, mai buna

înțelegere a naționalismului a reprezentat o miză majoră pentru Hobsbawm, ale cărui teze au fost

expuse în The Invention of Tradition și în prelegerile susținute la Universitatea din Belfast în

1985, reunite în volumul Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Din

perspectiva sa, națiunile și naționalismul sunt rezultatul unor procese de inginerie socială, în

cadrul cărora un rol important îl joacă „tradițiile inventate”, definind un „set de practici [...] care

caută să inculce anumite valori și norme de comportament prin intermediul repetiției, implicând

în mod automat o continuitate cu trecutul”. Pentru istoricul englez, această continuitate este, în

cele mai multe cazuri, o ficțiune creată prin utilizarea istoriei în scopul legitimării unor acțiuni și

al consolidării coeziunilor de grup.

Cuvinte cheie: tradiție inventată, formalizare, ritualizare

EPOCA NAȚIONALISMULUI, ILUZIE, AUTOILUZIONARE,

CULTURĂ ÎNALTĂ, POPOR Ernest Gellner, Națiuni și naționalism. Noi perspective asupra trecutului, traducerea de

Robert Adam, Editura Antet, București, 1997, pp. 84-99.

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În general, teoria lui Ernest Gellner este considerată cea mai importantă încercare de

înțelegere a naționalismului. Pentru teoreticianul de origine cehă naționalismul este un „principiu

politic care statuează că unitatea politică și cea națională ar trebui să fie congruente” (Națiuni și

naționalism, p. 1). Totodată, el este o caracteristică fundamentală a lumii moderne, din moment

ce cea mai mare parte a istoriei umanității nu a fost organizată pe baza unor principii naționaliste.

Granițele orașelor-stat, ale domeniilor feudale sau ale imperiilor dinastice nu au coincis decât

foarte rar cu cele ale națiunilor. Gellner susține că naționalismul a devenit necesar de abia în

epoca modernă, datorită condițiilor create de dezvoltarea industriei, care conturează un spațiu al

mobilității sociale și geografice, unde pozițiile sociale nu mai sunt atribuite la naștere decât în

cazul aristocrației (cu precădere în Imperiul Habsburgic). În acest context capitalist, bazat pe

creștere economică neîntreruptă, a apărut nevoia standardizării culturii și a unei comunicări

impersonale care să susțină transformarea continuă a structurii ocupaționale. Oamenii trebuie să

fie capabili să învețe și să urmeze indicații diverse, motiv pentru care educația ajunge să fie un

„bun” tot mai căutat, care, din cauza costurilor și a infrastructurii necesare diseminării

informațiilor, nu putea fi sprijinită decât de un stat centralizat. Aceste condiții istorice au adus

statul și cultura împreună și au generat naționalismul. În capitolul selectat aici, Gellner

construiește o argumentație solidă în sprijinul modernității națiunii, emițând una dintre ideile de

bază ale paradigmei moderne de interpretare, aceea că „naționalismul zămislește națiunile, și nu

invers” (p. 88).

Cuvinte-cheie: epoca naționalismului, iluzie, autoiluzionare, cultură înaltă, popor (Volk,

narod)

PRINT-CAPITALISM, VERNACULAR, SIMULTANEITATE

Cultural Roots, The Origins of National Consciousness - Benedict Anderson, Imagined

Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, ediție revizuită, Verso,

London/New York, 2006 [1983], pp. 9-47.

În această secțiune, Benedict Anderson încearcă să descopere care au fost condițiile care

au dat naștere comunităților imaginate. Rădăcinile culturale ale naționalismului sunt sistemele

culturale care au precedat naționalismul și din care cel din urmă s-a născut. Două dintre ele sunt

extrem de relevante: comunitatea religioasă și regatele dinastice. Declinul lor treptat, început în

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secolul al XVII-lea, a creat condițiile istorice pentru formarea națiunilor. Un rol important a fost

jucat de erodarea comunităților imaginate religioase, generată de marile descoperiri geografice,

precum și de declinul treptat al limbii latine, limba sacră a universalismului creștin și, în același

timp, limba intelighenției pan-europene (de fapt, singura limbă predată în școlile și universitățile

europene din Europa medievală occidentală). Dezvoltarea tiparului și apariția unui număr tot mai

mare de cărți în limbile vernaculare a pus capăt dominației limbii latine și a dat naștere unor

posibilități noi de vizualizare reciprocă a locuitorilor din diferite spații geografice, în special prin

apariția și dezvoltarea presei și a literaturii, fenomen care a făcut ca un număr tot mai mare de

oameni să își gândească în noi moduri poziția în societate și relațiile cu ceilalți.

Piața inițială vizată de capitaliștii din domeniul tipăriturilor a fost stratul superior de

cititori de latină, dar Anderson observă că acest segment a ajuns la saturație în aproximativ 150

de ani, oferind astfel un impuls pentru lărgirea pieței, fapt care a condus la apariția cărților ieftine

destinate maselor. Impunerea limbilor vernaculare în acest fel a pus bazele formării conștiinței

naționale, generând sfere publice (caracterizate de o limbă comună, alta decât latina) și făcând ca

limbile vernaculare să se transforme în limbaje ale puterii.

Cuvine cheie: print-capitalism, vernacular, simultaneitate

CONȘTIINȚĂ SOCIALĂ, MIT GENEALOGIC, MIT

IDEOLOGIC, ETNIE, ETNO-GENEZĂ

Anthony D. Smith, „National Identity and Myths of Ethnic Descent” în Idem, Myths and

Memories of the Nation, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, pp. 57-95.

Anthony D. Smith, „The Ethnic Basis of National Identity” în Idem, National Identity,

Penguin Books, Londra, New York, Auckland, 1991, pp. 19-43.

Anthony D. Smith este cel mai important reprezentant al etnosimbolismului. Această

interpretare emerge dintr-o critică teoretică a modernismului. Larg vorbind, etnosimbolismul este

o abordare care subliniază rolul miturilor, simbolurilor, memoriei și tradițiilor în formarea şi

persistenţa națiunilor. Smith crede că națiunile, chiar în cazurile în care sunt de dată recentă,

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perpetuează numeroase trăsături ale comunităţilor etnice care le-au precedat. Din această

perspectivă, națiunile actuale nu mai par atât de „noi” şi „artificiale” pe cât le prezintă autorii

constructivişti, deoarece ele duc mai departe, oarecum „obligatoriu”, o moștenire perenă al cărei

sens nu poate fi atât de uşor deturnat sau instrumentalizat prin acţiunea conştientă a unor elite. În

primul text selectat, Smith analizează legătura dintre identitatea naţională şi miturile

descendenței etnice. Pornind de la cinci studii de caz (Anglia, Franţa, Turcia, Grecia şi Israel),

autorul evidenţiază importanţa acestor mituri în consolidarea unor solidarităţi naționale. În cel

de-al doilea text, Smith discută despre categoria etniei şi rolul acesteia în determinarea identităţii

naţionale.

Cuvinte cheie: conștiință socială, mit genealogic, mit ideologic, etnie, etno-geneză

PANTEONUL NAȚIONAL, EROI, MEMORIAL Maria Bucur, „Edifices of the past. War memorials and heroes in twentieth century

Romania”, în Maria Todorova (ed.), în Balkan Identities. Nation and Memory, New York

University Press, New York, 2004, pp. 158-179.

În acest text autoarea analizează legătura dintre memorie şi naţiune, explorând practicile

comemorative din România secolului XX şi rolul acestora în crearea identităţii naţionale.

Analiza este concentrată pe monumentele și practicile performative (sărbători, comemorări etc.)

dedicate celor uciși în cele două războaie mondiale, evidențiind relaţiile de putere dintre stat şi

biserică, legătura dintre memoria individuală şi cea colectivă şi absenţa sau invizibilitatea unor

elemente sau personaje în ritualul comemorativ (sacrificiile civililor şi contribuţia evreilor în

primul război mondial).

Cuvinte cheie: panteonul național, eroi, memorial

MANUAL, MASS-MEDIA, DEZBATERE PUBLICĂ

Răzvan Pârâianu, „National Prejudices, Mass Media and History Textbooks: The Mitu

Controversy”, în Balázs Trencsényi, Dragoş Popescu, Cristina Petrescu, Constantin Iordachi,

Zoltán Kántor (editori), Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian and Hungarian

Case Studies, Regio Books/Polirom, Budapesta/Iaşi, 2001, pp. 93-117.

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În cadrul proceselor de nation-building, sistemul public de învăţământ ocupă un loc

special, acesta fiind mediul în care tinerii sunt socializaţi cu viziunea oficială despre naţiune.

Astfel, o atenţie sporită este acordată manualului de istorie, în elaborarea căruia vulgata istorică

are deseori o influenţă mai mare decât viziunea istoricului profesionist. În textul de față, Răzvan

Pârâianu analizează dezbaterea publică provocată de introducerea manualelor alternative de

istorie, în 1999, în centrul discuţiei fiind manualul elaborat de istoricul clujean Sorin Mitu.

Inspirându-se din interpretarea demitologizată a lui Lucian Boia, Mitu propunea, în manualul său

pentru clasa a XII-lea, o abordare relativistă a istoriei naţionale, desprinzându-se de tonul

triumfalist şi militant al manualelor anterioare. Gestul a fost întâmpinat cu oprobriu de opinia

publică, Mitu fiind acuzat în mass media de „trădare naţională” şi de susţinere a „revizionismului

maghiar”. Pornind de la poziţiile publice a doi politicieni şi un jurnalist (Sergiu Nicolaescu,

Adrian Năstase şi Cristian Tudor Popescu), Răzvan Pârâianu demonstrează cum această

dezbatere a adus la suprafaţă tensiunile culturale latente din sânul societăţii româneşti.

Cuvinte cheie: manual, mass-media, dezbatere publică

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Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?”, text of a conference delivered at the Sorbonne on March 11th, 1882, in Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?, Paris, Presses-Pocket, 1992. (translated by Ethan Rundell) I propose to analyze with you an idea which, though apparently clear, lends itself to the most dangerous misunderstandings. The forms of human society are of the greatest variety. They include great agglomerations of men after the fashion of China, Egypt, and ancient Babylonia; tribes such as the Hebrews and the Arabs; city-states on the Athenian and Spartan model; reunions of diverse countries such as were to be found under the Carolingian Empire; communities such as the Israelites and the parsis, lacking a country and maintained by religious bonds; nations like France, England, and most other modern, autonomous polities; confederations after the fashion of Switzerland and America; the great families that race, or rather language, has established between the different branches of Germans, the different branches of Slavs. Such are the types of groupings that exist, or rather existed, and that one confuses only at the price of the most serious inconvenience. At the time of the French Revolution, many believed that the institutions of small independent cities such as Sparta and Rome could be applied to our great nations of thirty or forty million souls. In our days, a yet greater error is committed: one confounds the idea of race with that of the nation and attributes to ethnographic, or rather linguistic, groups a sovereignty analogous to that of actually existing peoples. Let’s try to achieve some precision in regards to these difficult questions, questions in which the least confusion over the meaning of words in the first steps of the reasoning process can produce by the end the most disastrous errors. What we are going to do is a delicate operation, indeed, it is nearly vivisection: we are going to treat the living as one ordinarily treats the dead. We shall keep them cold, however, with the most absolute impartiality. I. Since the end of the Roman Empire or, better yet, since the break up of Charlemagne’s Empire, western Europe has appeared to be divided into nations, certain of which, at certain moments, have sought to exercise hegemony over the others without ever having succeeded in a lasting fashion. What Charles V, Louis XIV, and Napoleon I were unable to do, it is likely that no one shall do in the future. The establishment of a new Roman or Charlemagnian Empire has become an impossibility. The division of Europe has reached such a point that any attempt at universal domination too quickly provokes a coalition that returns the ambitious nation to its natural frontiers. A sort of equilibrium has been long established. France, England, Germany, and Russia shall for hundreds of years remain, and despite whatever they will have experienced in the meantime, historic individuals, the essential pieces of a checkerboard whose squares vary ceaselessly in importance and grandeur without ever fully being lost in one another. Understood in this way, nations are something rather new in history. Antiquity did not know them: Egypt, China, and ancient Chaldea were in no sense nations. They were herds led by a child of the Sun or of the Sky. They were no Egyptian citizens, no more than there were Chinese ones. Classical antiquity had its republics and its municipal kingdoms, its confederations of local republics, its empires; it hardly had a

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nation in the sense that we understand it. Athens, Sparta, Sidon, and Tyr were small centers of admirable patriotism but they were cities with relatively restrained territory. Prior to their absorption into the Roman Empire, Gaul, Spain, and Italy were assemblages of peoples, often comprising leagues between themselves but without central institutions or dynasties. The Assyrian, Persian, and Alexandrine Empires also did not constitute fatherlands. There were never any Assyrian patriots; the Persian Empire was one great fief. Not a single nation finds its origins in Alexander’s colossal adventure, otherwise so rich in consequences for the general history of civilization. The Roman Empire was much nearer to being a fatherland. In response to the cessation of wars, Roman domination, at first so hard, quickly came to be loved. It was a grand association synonymous with order, peace, and civilization. In the last days of the Empire, there was to be found among elevated souls, enlightened bishops, and the literate a genuine sentiment for the “Roman peace” that one opposed to the menacing chaos of barbarous countries. But an empire twelve times the size of present-day France does not constitute a state in the modern sense of the word. The schism between the East and the West was inevitable. The attempts to found a Gallic empire in the third-century did not succeed. It was the Germanic invasions which introduced in the world the principle that, later on, would come to serve as the basis for the existence of nationalities. What did the Germanic peoples do between the great invasions of the fifth-century until the last Norman conquests in the tenth? They had little effect on the races they encountered but they imposed dynasties and a military aristocracy on the more or less important portions of the ancient Western Empire and lent their names to these places. It is here that France, Burgundy, Lombardy, and, later on, Normandy find their origins. The rapid preponderance achieved by the Frankish Empire briefly restored the unity of the West but this Empire was irredeemably shattered around the middle of the ninth-century. The Treaty of Verdun traced divisions that were in principle immutable. From that point on, France, Germany, England, Italy, and Spain were to travel, by frequent detours and across a thousand adventures, towards the full national existence we today see blossoming. What characterizes these different states? It’s the fusion of the populations that comprise them. In the countries that we have enumerated, there is nothing analogous to what you find in Turkey, where the Turk, the Slav, the Greek, the Armenian, the Arab, the Syrian, and the Kurde are as distinct today as they were the day of the conquest. Two essential circumstances have contributed to this result. The first is the fact that the Germanic peoples adopted Christianity as soon as they had some extended contact with Greek and Latin peoples. When the conqueror and the conquered are of the same religion, or rather when the conqueror adopts the religion of the conquered, the Turkish system of making absolute distinctions on the basis of religion is no longer possible. The second circumstance is the fact that the conquerors forgot their own language. The grandsons of Clovis, of Alaric, of Gondebaud, of Alboin, and of Rollon already spoke roman. This fact was itself the consequence of another important particularity: that the Franks, the Burgunds, the Goths, the Lombards, and the Normans had very few women of their race with them. Over several generations, the chiefs married with German women. Their concubines, however, were Latin, their children’s nurses were Latin, the entire tribe married Latin women. It was for this reason that the lingua francica and the lingua gothica had only a short history following the appearance of the Franks and the

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Goths in Roman territories. It was not thus in England: the Anglo-Saxon invasion no doubt included large numbers of women. The original Breton population fled and, as a result, Latin ceased to be ⎯ indeed, may never have been ⎯ dominant in Britanny. One may have generally spoken Gallic in fifth-century Gaul; Clovis and his followers at any rate did not abandon German for Gallic. That had the important result that, despite the extreme violence of the German invaders’ mores, the mold that they imposed over the centuries became the mold of the nation itself. France very legitimately became the name of a country into which only a very imperceptible minority of Francs had entered. In the first chansons de geste of the tenth-century, so perfect a mirror of their time, all inhabitants of France are French. The idea of a difference of race within the population of France, so evident in the writing of Gregory of Tours, is to no degree to be found among French writers and poets following Hugh Capet. The difference between the nobleman and the vilain is as accentuated as possible but the difference between the one and the other is not at all an ethnic difference. It is a difference of courage and in the hereditary transmission of habits and education. No one has the idea that all of that should have had a conquest as its origin. The false system according to which the nobility owes its origin to a privilege conferred by the king in recognition of services rendered to the nation (such that every noble is in fact “ennobled”) first appeared as a dogma beginning in the thirteenth-century. The same thing next happened with all of the Norman conquests. At the end of one or two generations, the Norman invaders no longer distinguished themselves from the rest of the population; for all that, their influence on it was no less profound. They had given the conquered country a nobility, military habits, and a patriotism that it had not had before. Forgetting, I would even say historical error, is an essential factor in the creation of a nation and it is for this reason that the progress of historical studies often poses a threat to nationality. Historical inquiry, in effect, throws light on the violent acts that have taken place at the origin of every political formation, even those that have been the most benevolent in their consequences. Unity is always brutally established. The reunion of northern and southern France was the result of a campaign of terror and extermination that continued for nearly a century. The king of France was, if I dare say so, the ideal type of the secular crystallizer and produced the most perfect national unity there had ever been. However, having been seen from too close, the king of France lost his prestige; the nation that he had built damned him and, today, only cultivated minds know what he was worth and what he did. It is by the method of contrast that the great laws of Western European history are observable. Many countries have failed in the great enterprise so admirably accomplished ⎯ partly by tyranny, partly by justice ⎯ by the king of France. Under the Crown of St. Etienne, the Magyars and Slavs have remained as distinct as they were eight hundred years ago. Far from melting down the diverse elements of its domains, the House of Habsburg kept them distinct and often opposed to one another. In Bohemia, the Czech and German elements are superimposed on one another like oil and water in a glass. The Turkish policy of separating nationalities by religion has had the gravest consequences: it has caused the ruin of the East. Take a city like Salonica or Smyrna. You will find there six or seven communities each with its own memories and almost nothing in common. However, the essence of a nation is that all of its individual members have a great deal in common and also that they have forgotten many things. No French citizen knows

12

whether he is a Burgund, an Alain, a Taifala, or a Visigoth. Every French citizen has forgotten St. Bartholomew’s Day and the thirteenth-century massacres in the Midi. There are only ten families in France that can furnish proof of Frankish origin and even such proof is essentially defective due to the thousand unknown pairings that can derange every genealogical system. The modern nation is therefore the historical result of a number of facts that have converged in the same direction. Sometimes unity has been achieved by a dynasty as was the case in France; sometimes it has been the expression of the direct will of provinces as was the case for Holland, Switzerland, and Belgium; and sometimes by a general spirit finally overcoming feudal caprice as in Italy and Germany. A profound raison d’être has always presided over these formations. In similar cases, the same principles from one day to the next in the most surprising outcomes. In our lifetimes, we have witnessed Italy unified by its defeats and Turkey destroyed by its victories. Each defeat advanced the interests of Italy; by each victory, Turkey lost. For Italy is a nation and Turkey, outside of Asia Minor, is not one. It is the glory of France to have announced, by the French Revolution, that nations exist by themselves. We must not find it objectionable that others imitate us. The principal of the nation is our own. But then what is a nation? Why is Holland a nation while Hanover and the great duchy of Parma are not? How has France persisted in being a nation once the principle that created it ceased to exist? How is Switzerland, which has three languages, two religions, and three or four races, a nation while Tuscany, for example, which is so homogenous, is not one? Why is Austria a state and not a nation? In what respect does the principal of nationality differ from that of race? These are the questions to which a critical mind, in order to avoid contradicting itself, must give its attention. The business of the world is hardly ruled by this sort of reasoning. Still, men who apply themselves can bring reason to these questions and untangle the confused muddle wraught by superficial minds. II If one is to follow certain political theorists, a nation is above all else a dynasty representing an ancient conquest, one first accepted and then forgotten by the mass of the people. According to the theorists of whom I speak, the grouping of provinces brought about by a dynasty through wars, marriages, and treaties ends with the dynasty that has brought it about. It is quite true that the better part of modern nations have been the work of a family of feudal origins that has contracted with the soil and in some measure formed the nucleus of central government. The frontiers of France in 1789 had nothing natural or necessary about them. The large zone added by the Capetian family the straight edge of the treaty of Verdun was entirely the personal acquisition of this family. At the time of the annexations, no one had any idea of natural limits, the right of nations, or the will of provinces. The union of England, Ireland, and Scotland was similarly a dynastic fact. Italy has waited as long as it has to become a nation because, amongst its numerous reigning families, not one has served as a unifying center before our century. Oddly enough, it has been the obscure and hardly Italian island of Sardinia that has taken the royal title. Holland, a nation that created itself by an act of heroic resolution, has nevertheless contracted an intimate marriage with the house of Orange and runs a great risk the day this union is compromised. However, is such a law absolute? Without a doubt, no. Switzerland and the United States, both formed as conglomerations of successive additions, have no dynastic

13

foundation. I will not discuss the question as it concerns France: that would require having access to the future. Let’s just say that this great French kingdom had been so highly national that, the day after its fall, the nation was able to go on without it. And then the eighteenth-century had changed everything. After centuries of abasement, man returned to the spirit of antiquity in regards to himself and his idea of rights. The words ‘fatherland’ and ‘citizen’ once again had meaning. Thus was accomplished the most difficult operation every carried out in history, comparable to what would be, in physiology, restoring life and identity to a body after having removed its brain and its heart. One must thus admit that a nation can exist in the absence of the dynastic principle ⎯ even that nations that have been formed by dynasties can separate themselves from these without for all that ceasing to exist. The old principle that only takes princes into account should no longer be observed: apart from the right of dynasties is the right of nations. But on what criterion should we base this national right? By what sign shall we know it? From what tangible fact can we derive it? I. By race, many say with assurance. The artificial division that resulted from feudalism, princely marriages, and diplomatic congresses are null and void. What remains firm and fixed is the race of the population. That is what constitutes right and legitimacy. According to this theory, the Germanic family, for example, has the right to reclaim its scattered members, even if these member do not ask to rejoin it. The right of “germanism” to such-and-such a province is stronger than that of the province’s inhabitants. In this manner, one has created a sort of primordial right analogous to the divine right of kings; for the principle of nations one substitutes that of ethnography. That is a great error, one which, should it become dominant, will result in the destruction of European civilization. To the same degree that the right of nations is just and legitimate, the primordial right of races is narrow and full of danger for true progress. Amongst ancient tribes and cities, we know, the fact of race had an importance of the first order. The tribe and the ancient city were only extensions of the family. In Sparta and Athens, all citizens were to one degree or another related. It was the same amongst the Beni-Israel and is still thus amongst the Arab tribes. From Athens, Sparta, and the Israeli tribe let us now turn to the Roman Empire. There, the situation is quite otherwise. Initially formed by violence and then kept together by mutual interest, this great collection of absolutely different cities and provinces delivered a severe blow to the idea of race. Christianity, with its universal and absolute character, was in this sense even more effective. Together with the Roman Empire, Christianity formed an intimate alliance. As a result of these two incomparable agents of unification, ethnographic reason for centuries remained remote from the government of things human. The barbarian invasions were, despite appearances, yet one more step in this direction. The jagged outlines of barbarian kingdoms had nothing ethnographic about them: they were determined by the strength and whim of the invaders. The race of the populations they dominated was a matter of total indifference to them. Charlemagne accomplished in his manner what had already been done by Rome: a single empire composed of the most diverse races. The authors of the Treaty of Verdun, in

14

imperturbably tracing their two great north-south lines, had not the least suspicion of the race of the men who found themselves on one side or the other of these. Changing frontiers in the Middle Ages also lacked any ethnographic tendency. If the policy followed by the house of Capetian was to reunite the territories of ancient Gaul, this was not an expression of any tendency on the part of these places to join with their fellows. Dauphiné, Bresse, Provence, and the Franche-Compté no longer recalled any common origin. Any Gallic conscience had perished in the second-century A.D. and only an erudite regard can today retrospectively identify the individuality of the Gallic character. Ethnographic considerations have therefore counted for nothing in the constitution of modern nations. France is Celtic, Iberian, Germanic. Germany is Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic. And in no country is ethnography more embarrassed than Italy. Gauls, Etruscans, Pélasgians, Greeks, and any number of other groups have crossed there producing an unquantifiable mixtures. The British Isles, taken together, present a mixture of Celtic and German blood the proportions of which are singularly difficult to define. The truth of the matter is that there are no pure races; making politics depend on ethnographic analysis is to have it repose on a chimera. The most noble countries ⎯ England, France, and Italy ⎯ are those in which blood is the most mixed. Is Germany in this respect an exception? Is it a purely Germanic country? What an illusion! The entire south of the country had been Gallic. All of the area east of the Elbe is Slavic. Are the parts that claim to be genuinely pure really that? We touch here on a problem of the greatest significance to making ideas clear and preventing misunderstandings. Discussions of the idea of race are interminable because the word ‘race’ is taken by historical philologists and physical anthropologists in two entirely different senses. For anthropologists, race has the same meaning as in zoology: it refers to actual descent, a blood relation. However, the study of history and languages does not support the same distinctions. The words ‘brachycephaly’ and ‘dolichocephaly’ have a place neither in history nor in philology. In the human group that created Aryan [Indo-European] languages and institutions, there were already to be found brachycephalics and dolichocephalics. The same can be said of the primitive group that created what one calls the Semitic languages and institutions. In other words, the zoological origins of humanity are tremendously anterior to the origins of culture, civilization, and language. The primitive Aryan, Semitic, and Touranian groups had no physiological unity. These groups are historical facts that had a place at a certain epoch ⎯ let’s say fifteen or twenty thousand years ago ⎯ whereas the zoological origins of humanity disappear in incalculable shadows. That which ones calls physiologically and historically the Germanic race is without a doubt a distinct family in the human species. But is it a family in the anthropological sense? Certainly not. The appearance of Germanic particularity in history only occurred a very few centuries before Jesus Christ. Apparently the Germans had not risen from the earth at this time. Before that, mixed with the Slavs in the great indistinct mass of Scythia, they had no separate individuality. An Englishman is very much a type amongst his fellow men. However, the type that one very improperly refers to as the Anglo-Saxon race is neither the Breton at the time of Caesar nor Hengist’s Anglo-Saxons, Knut’s Danes, or William the Conqueror’s Normans. It is the result of all those things. The Frenchman is neither a Gaul, a Franc, or a Burgund. He is that which has left the great boiler in which, under the supervision of

15

the king of France, the most diverse elements were together fermented. A inhabitant of Jersey or of Guernsey differs not at all in his origins from the Norman population on the neighboring coast. In the eleventh-century, the most penetrating eye had not noticed the slightest difference between the two sides of the Channel. Due to certain insignificant circumstances, Philip-Augustus did not take these Islands along with the rest of Normandy. Separated from one another for seven hundred years, the two populations have become not only strangers to one another but also altogether dissimilar. Race as it is understood by us historians is therefore something that is made and unmade. The study of race is central to discovering who figures in the history of humanity. It has no application whatsoever to politics. The instinctive conscience that has presided over the construction of the European map has taken no notice of race; indeed, the most important nations of Europe are those in which the blood of different peoples is the most mixed. The fact of race, a fact of the greatest moment at the outset, has always been diminishing in importance. Race is not everything as it is amongst rodents and felines and no one has the right to go about the world examining men’s heads and then grabbing them by the throat, saying “you are of our blood; you belong to us!” Aside from anthropological traits there is reason, justice, truth, and beauty, things that are the same for all. This ethnographic politics is anything but certain: you use it today against others but tomorrow will see it used against you. Can one be so certain that the Germans, who have raised so high the flag of ethnography, will not one day witness the Slavs analyzing in their turn the names of Villages in Saxony and in Lusace, searching for traces of the Wiltzes and the Obotrites and demanding an explanation for the massacres and expropriations inflicted by the Othons on their forefathers? For everyone, it is better to forget. I very much like ethnography. It is an unusually interesting science. However, as I wish to live free, I desire that it have no political application. In ethnography as in all studies, systems change; that, after all, is a basic condition of progress. The limits of states would thus follow the fluctuations of scientific knowledge and patriotism would depend on a more or less paradoxical dissertation. One would come to say to the patriot: “You were wrong. You spilled your blood for this cause, believing that you were a Celt. No, you are a German.” Then, ten years later, one would discover that you are in fact a Slav. In order to avoid falsifying science, we should forgo holding views on such questions, questions on which too much rides. Be sure that, were one to ask ethnography to contribute to diplomacy, one would often discover it doing nothing at all. Ethnography has better things to do. Let us only ask the truth from it. II. What we have said of race must also be said of language. Languages ask to be united, they do not force it. The United States and England, like Spanish America and Spain, speak the same language but do not constitute a single nation. By contrast, Switzerland, so well-made because created by the consent of its different parts, contains three or four languages. The desire of Switzerland to be united despite its linguistic variety is a much more important fact than similarity often achieved by humiliation. An honorable fact about France is that it has never sought to achieve linguistic unity by means of coercion. Can’t one have the same sentiments and thoughts and love

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the same things in different languages? We spoke earlier of the inconveniences that would result were international relations to depend on ethnography. They would be no less so were it to depend on comparative philology. Let us leave these interesting studies full liberty in their discussions and not mix them with things that would upset their serenity. The political importance that one attaches to languages comes from the fact that they are regarded as indications of race. Nothing could be more false. Prussia, where today only German is spoken, spoke Slav several centuries ago. Gallic countries speak English. Spain and Gaul speak the primitive idiom of Albe. Egypt speaks Arab. The examples are innumerable. Even at its origins, linguistic similarity does not imply similarity of race. Take the proto-Aryan or proto-Semitic tribes, for example. On would have found their slaves speaking the same language as their masters, though the slave was often of a different race than his master. Let us say it again: the division of Indo-European, Semitic, and other languages, invented with admirable sagacity by comparative philology, coincides with no divisions in anthropology. Languages are historical formations that imply nothing in regards to those who speak them. Nor should languages in any way shackle human liberty when it comes to determining the family with which one unites one’s self in life and in death. This exclusive interest in language as a criterion of nationhood has, like that of race, its dangers and inconveniences. When one exaggerates its importance, one limits and closes oneself up in a particular culture understood as national. One leaves the open air that one breathes in the midst of humanity in order to lock one’s self away in little freemasonries of one’s compatriots. Nothing could be worse for the mind nor more regrettable for civilization. We must not abandon this fundamental principle: that man is a reasonable and moral being before he is penned up in this or that language, a member of this or that race, or a participant in this or that culture. Before French, German, and Italian culture is the culture of mankind. Look at the great men of the Renaissance; they were neither French nor Italian nor German. They had discovered in the study of antiquity the secret of the true education of the human mind and they devoured it body and soul. And they were right to do so! III. Religion no longer offers a sufficient basis for the establishment of a modern nationality. At its origin, religion valued the very existence of the social group. The social group was an extension of the family and the rites of religion were the rites of the family. The religion of Athens was the cult of Athens itself, of its mythic founders, its laws, and its customs. It implied no dogmatic theology. This religion was, in the full sense of the term, a state religion; one was not Athenian if one refused to practice it. At its basis, it was the cult of the Acropolis personified. To swear on the altar of Aglaur was to take an oath to die for one’s country. It was the equivalent of drawing lots or the cult of the flag. To refuse to participate in such a cult was the same as it would be in our modern societies to refuse military service: it was to declare that one was not Athenian. On the other hand, it is clear that such a cult had no meaning for anyone who was not from Athens and no one attempted to force foreigners to accept it (Athenian slaves, for instance, did not practice it). It was the same in several small republics during the Middle Ages. One was not a good Venetian if one did not swear by Saint Mark. One was not a good Amalfian if

17

one did not put Saint Andrew over all other saints in paradise. In these small societies, that which would late be persecution and tyranny was legitimate and had as few consequences as our practice, today, of observing father’s day or addressing vows to him on the first day of the year. That which was true of Sparta and Athens did not hold for the Roman Empire ⎯ indeed, it did not even hold of the kingdoms that followed upon Alexander’s conquest. The Antiochus Epiphany’s violent attempts to introduce the cult of Jupiter Olympian, the official religion of Rome, to the East was a mistake, a crime, and a true absurdity. In our days, the situation is perfectly clear. There are no longer masses of people believing in a uniform manner. After his manner, each believes and practices as he can and as he likes. There is no longer any religion of state: one can be French, English, or German while being a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, or someone who practices no religion. Religion has become something individual and concerns the conscience of each. The division of nations between Catholics and Protestants no longer exists. Religion, something that, fifty-two years ago, played so major a role in the creation of Belgium, still maintains its importance in the interior of each individual. But it has nearly nothing to do with the reasons that determine the limits of various peoples. IV. Community of interest is assuredly a powerful link between men. Do interest suffice to make a nation? I do not think so. Communities of interest determine commercial treaties. However, sentiment features in the making of nations. A nation is a body and soul at the same time. A Zollverein [customs union], by contrast, is never a fatherland. V. Geography and what are called natural frontiers certainly play a considerable part in the division of nations. Geography is one of the essential factors in history. Rivers have distributed the races; mountains have stopped them. The former encouraged whereas the latter discouraged the great historical movements. But can one say, as certain parties believe, that the limits of a nation are inscribed on the map and that a given nation has the right to judge what is necessary in rounding its corners or in striving to reach this mountain or that river? I know of no more arbitrary or disastrous doctrine. With it, one justifies every kind of violence. After all, is it the mountains or the rivers that form supposed natural frontiers? It is incontestable that mountains separate. Rivers, however, tend to unite. And then not all mountains run between states. Why do some mountain ranges serve to separate and not others? From Biarritz to Tornea, no river has a more delimiting character than any other. If history had so wanted, the Loire, the Seine, the Meuse, the Elba, or the Oder would have seemed natural frontiers allowing, as has the Rhine, so many violations of the fundamental law that is the will of men. One speaks of strategic reasons. However, nothing is absolute and it is clear that many concessions must be made to necessity. But one must be certain that these concessions do not go too far otherwise all the world would claim military necessity and it would be war without end. No, geography makes a nation no more than race does. Geography provides the substratum, the field of battle and of work but man provides the soul. Man is everything

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in the formation of this sacred thing that one calls a people. Nothing material suffices. A nation is a spiritual principle resulting from the profound complexities of history ⎯ it is a spiritual family, not a group determined by the lay of the land. We now see what does not suffice to create such a spiritual principle: race, language, interests, religious affinity, geography, military necessities. What more could there be? Given what has already been said, I will not need to hold your attention much longer. III. A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things which, properly speaking, are really one and the same constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is the past, the other is the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received. Messieurs, man does not improvise. The nation, like the individual, is the outcome of a long past of efforts, sacrifices, and devotions. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate: our ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past with great men and glory (I mean true glory) is the social capital upon which the national idea rests. These are the essential conditions of being a people: having common glories in the past and a will to continue them in the present; having made great things together and wishing to make them again. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices that one has committed and the troubles that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one passes on. The Spartan chant, “We are what you were; we will be what you are”, is, in its simplicity, the abridged him of every fatherland. A people shares a glorious heritage as well, regrets, and a common program to realize. Having suffered, rejoiced, and hoped together is worth more than common taxes or frontiers that conform to strategic ideas and is independent of racial or linguistic considerations. “Suffered together”, I said, for shared suffering unites more than does joy. In fact, periods of mourning are worth more to national memory than triumphs because they impose duties and require a common effort. A nation is therefore a great solidarity constituted by the feeling of sacrifices made and those that one is still disposed to make. It presupposes a past but is reiterated in the present by a tangible fact: consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life. A nation’s existence is (please excuse the metaphor) a daily plebiscite, just as an individual’s existence is a perpetual affirmation of life. Yes, I know, that is less metaphysical than divine right and less brutal than so-called law of history. In the scheme of ideas with which I present you, a nation has no more right than a king to say to a province: “You belong to me, I am taking you.” For us, a province is its inhabitants and, if anyone in this affair has the right to be consulted, it is the inhabitant. A nation never has a true interest in annexing or holding territory that does not wish to be annexed or held. The vow of nations is the sole legitimate criterion and that to which it is necessary to constantly return. We have chased metaphysical and theological abstractions from politics. What now remains? Man remains, his desires, his needs. The secession and, in the long run, collapse of nations are the consequence of a system which placed these old organisms at the mercy of often poorly enlightened wills. It is clear that, in such a matter, no principle should be pushed too far. Truths of this order are only applicable when taken together and in a very general way. Human will changes but then what doesn’t beneath heaven?

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Nations are not eternal. They have a beginning and they will have an end. A European confederation will probably replace them. But, if so, such is not the law of the century in which we live. At the present moment, the existence of nations is a good and even necessary thing. Their existence is the guarantee of liberty, a liberty that would be lost if the world had only one law and one master. By their diverse and often opposed faculties, nations serve the common work of civilization. Each carries a note in this great concert of humanity, the highest ideal reality to which we are capable of attaining. Isolated, they have their weaknesses. I often tell myself that what are in an individual faults, in nations ⎯ where vainglory is nourished ⎯ pass as virtues. Whoever would be so jealous, quarrelsome, and egotistical, always reaching for his sword at the slightest provocation, would be the most insupportable of men. But all of these dissonances of detail disappear when taken together. Poor humanity, you have suffered so much! Tests await you still! If only the spirit of wisdom could guide you in order to preserve you from the innumerable dangers that threaten you on your way! I summarize, Messieurs. Man is a slave neither of his race, his language, his religion, the course of his rivers, nor the direction of his mountain ranges. A great aggregation of men, in sane mind and warm heart, created a moral conscience that calls itself a nation. As long as this moral conscience proofs its strength by sacrifices that require the subordination of the individual to the communal good, it is legitimate and has the right to exist. If doubts are raised along the frontiers, consult the disputed populations. They certainly have a right to express their views on the matter. There you have what makes the transcendents of politics smile so, those infallibles who pass their lives being wrong and who, from the eminence of their superior principles, feel pity for our mundane world. “Consult the populations, you say! What naiveté! These sickly French ideas that pretend to replace diplomacy and war with an infantile simplicity!” Let’s listen, Messieurs, and leave the reign of the transcendents. Let’s know how to submit to such strong disdain. Perhaps, after many fruitless experiments, they will later return to our modest empirical solutions. At certain moments, the best way to be right in the future is to know how to resign one’s self to being out of fashion.

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Introduction

Perhaps wi thout being much noticed yet, a fundamental transforma­

t ion i n the history o f Marxism and Marxist movements is upon us. Its

most visible signs are the recent wars between Vietnam, Cambodia

and China. These wars are o f world-historical importance because

they are the first to occur between regimes whose independence and

revolutionary credentials are undeniable, and because none o f the

belligerents has made more than the most perfunctory attempts to

justify the bloodshed i n terms o f a recognizable Marxist theoretical

perspective. Whi le i t was still just possible to interpret the Sino-Soviet

border clashes o f 1969, and the Soviet military interventions i n

Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Af ­

ghanistan (1980) i n terms o f - according to taste - 'social imperialism,'

'defending socialism,' etc., no one, I imagine, seriously believes that

such vocabularies have much bearing on what has occurred i n

Indochina.

I f the Vietnamese invasion and occupation o f Cambodia i n

December 1978 and January 1979 represented the first large-scale

conventional war waged by one revolutionary Marxist regime against

another, China's assault on Vietnam i n February rapidly confirmed

1. This formulation is chosen simply to emphasize the scale and the style o f the

fighting, not to assign blame. To avoid possible misunderstanding, i t should be said that

the December 1978 invasion grew out o f armed clashes between partisans o f the

1

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

the precedent. On ly the most trusting w o u l d dare wager that i n the

declining years o f this century any significant outbreak o f inter-state

hostilities w i l l necessarily find the USSR and the P R C — let alone the

smaller socialist states — supporting, or fighting on, the same side. W h o

can be confident that Yugoslavia and Albania w i l l not one day come

to blows? Those variegated groups who seek a withdrawal o f the R e d

A r m y from its encampments i n Eastern Europe should remind

themselves o f the degree to which its overwhelming presence has,

since 1945, ruled out armed conflict between the region's Marxist

regimes.

Such considerations serve to underline the fact that since W o r l d

War I I every successful revolut ion has defined itself i n national terms

- the People's Republic o f China, the Socialist Republic o f

Vietnam, and so forth - and, i n so doing, has grounded itself

firmly i n a territorial and social space inherited from the prerevolu-

tionary past. Conversely, the fact that the Soviet U n i o n shares w i t h

the Un i t ed K i n g d o m o f Great Bri tain and Nor thern Ireland the rare

distinction o f refusing nationality i n its naming suggests that i t is as

much the legatee o f the prenational dynastic states o f the nineteenth

century as the precursor o f a twenty-first century internationalist

order.

Eric Hobsbawm is perfectly correct i n stating that 'Marxist

movements and states have tended to become national not only

i n form but i n substance, i.e., nationalist. There is nothing to suggest

two revolutionary movements going back possibly as far as 1971. After A p r i l

1977, border raids, initiated by the Cambodians, but quickly followed by the

Vietnamese, grew i n size and scope, culminating i n the major Vietnamese

incursion o f December 1977. None o f these raids, however, aimed at over­

throwing enemy regimes or occupying large territories, nor were the numbers o f

troops involved comparable to those deployed i n December 1978. The con­

troversy over the causes o f the war is most thoughtfully pursued in : Stephen P.

Heder, 'The Kampuchean-Vietnamese Conflict, ' i n David W . P. Ell iott , ed.,

The Third Indochina Conflict, pp. 21-67; Anthony Barnett, ' Inter-Communist

Conflicts and Vietnam,' Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 11: 4 (October-

December 1979), pp. 2-9; and Laura Summers, ' I n Matters o f War and

Socialism Anthony Barnett wou ld Shame and Honour Kampuchea Too M u c h , '

ib id . , pp. 10-18.

2. Anyone who has doubts about the UK's claims to such parity w i t h the USSR

should ask himself what nationality its name denotes: Great Brito-Irish?

2

22

INTRODUCTION

that this trend w i l l not continue.' N o r is the tendency confined to

the socialist wor ld . Almost every year the Uni t ed Nations admits

new members. A n d many 'old nations,' once thought fully con­

solidated, find themselves challenged by 'sub'-nationalisms w i t h i n

their borders - nationalisms which , naturally, dream o f shedding this

sub-ness one happy day. The reality is quite plain: the 'end o f the

era o f nationalism,' so long prophesied, is not remotely i n sight.

Indeed, nation-ness is the most universally legitimate value i n the

political life o f our t ime.

Bu t i f the facts are clear, their explanation remains a matter o f

long-standing dispute. Nat ion , nationality, nationalism — all have

proved notoriously difficult to define, let alone to analyse. I n contrast

to the immense influence that nationalism has exerted on the modern

wor ld , plausible theory about i t is conspicuously meagre. H u g h

Seton-Watson, author o f far the best and most comprehensive

English-language text on nationalism, and heir to a vast tradition

o f liberal historiography and social science, sadly observes: 'Thus I am

driven to the conclusion that no "scientific defini t ion" o f the nation

can be devised; yet the phenomenon has existed and exists.' 4 T o m

Nai rn , author o f the path-breaking The Break-up ofBritain, and heir

to the scarcely less vast tradition o f Marxist historiography and social

science, candidly remarks: 'The theory o f nationalism represents

Marxism's great historical failure. ' 5 Bu t even this confession is

somewhat misleading, insofar as i t can be taken to imply the

regrettable outcome o f a long, self-conscious search for theoretical

clarity. I t w o u l d be more exact to say that nationalism has proved an

uncomfortable anomaly for Marxist theory and, precisely for that

reason, has been largely elided, rather than confronted. H o w else to

explain Marx's failure to explicate the crucial adjective i n his

memorable formulation o f 1848: 'The proletariat o f each country

3. Eric Hobsbawm, 'Some Reflections on "The Break-up o f Bri tain" New Left

Review, 105 (September-October 1977), p. 13.

4. See his Nations and States, p. 5. Emphasis added.

5. See his 'The Modern Janus', New Left Review, 94 (November-December 1975),

p. 3. This essay is included unchanged in The Break-up of Britain as chapter 9 (pp. 329¬

63).

3

23

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

must, o f course, first o f all settle matters w i t h its own bourgeoisie'? 6

H o w else to account for the use, for over a century, o f the concept

national bourgeoisie' w i thou t any serious attempt to justify theore­

tically the relevance o f the adjective? W h y is this segmentation o f the

bourgeoisie - a world-class insofar as i t is defined i n terms o f the

relations o f production — theoretically significant?

The aim o f this book is to offer some tentative suggestions for a

more satisfactory interpretation o f the 'anomaly' o f nationalism. M y

sense is that on this topic both Marxist and liberal theory have become

etiolated i n a late Ptolemaic effort to 'save the phenomena'; and that a

reorientation o f perspective i n , as i t were, a Copernican spirit is

urgently required. M y point o f departure is that nationality, or, as

one might prefer to put i t i n v iew o f that word's multiple significations,

nation-ness, as wel l as nationalism, are cultural artefacts o f a particular

k ind . T o understand them properly we need to consider carefully h o w

they have come into historical being, i n what ways their meanings have

changed over time, and why , today, they command such profound

emotional legitimacy. I w i l l be trying to argue that the creation o f these

artefacts towards the end o f the eighteenth century 7 was the sponta­

neous distillation o f a complex 'crossing' o f discrete historical forces;

but that, once created, they became 'modular,' capable o f being

transplanted, w i t h varying degrees o f self-consciousness, to a great

variety o f social terrains, to merge and be merged w i t h a correspond­

ingly wide variety o f political and ideological constellations. I w i l l also

attempt to show w h y these particular cultural artefacts have aroused

such deep attachments.

6. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, i n the Selected Works,

I , p. 45. Emphasis added. I n any theoretical exegesis, the words ' o f course' should flash

red lights before the transported reader.

7. As Aira Kemilainen notes, the t w i n 'founding fathers' o f academic scholarship

on nationalism, Hans K o h n and Carleton Hayes, argued persuasively for this dating.

Their conclusions have, I think, not been seriously disputed except by nationalist

ideologues i n particular countries. Kemilainen also observes that the word 'nationalism'

did not come into wide general use unt i l the end o f the nineteenth century. I t did not

occur, for example, i n many standard nineteenth century lexicons. I f Adam Smith

conjured w i t h the wealth of'nations,' he meant by the term no more than 'societies' or

'states.' Aira Kemilainen, Nationalism, pp. 10, 33, and 48-49.

4

24

INTRODUCTION

CONCEPTS A N D D E F I N I T I O N S

Before addressing the questions raised above, i t seems advisable to

consider briefly the concept o f ' na t i on ' and offer a workable defini­

t ion . Theorists o f nationalism have often been perplexed, not to say

irritated, by these three paradoxes: (1) The objective modernity o f

nations to the historian's eye vs. their subjective antiquity i n the eyes

o f nationalists. (2) The formal universality o f nationality as a socio-

cultural concept - i n the modern w o r l d everyone can, should, w i l l

'have' a nationality, as he or she 'has' a gender - vs. the irremediable

particularity o f its concrete manifestations, such that, by definition,

'Greek' nationality is sui generis. (3) The 'political ' power o f

nationalisms vs. their philosophical poverty and even incoherence.

I n other words, unlike most other isms, nationalism has never

produced its o w n grand thinkers: no Hobbeses, Tocquevilles,

Marxes, or Webers. This 'emptiness' easily gives rise, among cos­

mopolitan and polylingual intellectuals, to a certain condescension.

Like Gertrude Stein i n the face o f Oakland, one can rather quickly

conclude that there is 'no there there'. I t is characteristic that even so

sympathetic a student o f nationalism as T o m Nai rn can nonetheless

wri te that: ' "Nationalism" is the pathology o f modern developmental

history, as inescapable as "neurosis" i n the individual, w i t h much the

same essential ambiguity attaching to i t , a similar bu i l t - in capacity for

descent into dementia, rooted i n the dilemmas o f helplessness thrust

upon most o f the w o r l d (the equivalent o f infantilism for societies)

and largely incurable.'

Part o f the difficulty is that one tends unconsciously to hypos-

tasize the existence o f Nat ional ism-wi th-a-big-N (rather as one

might Age-with-a-capital-A) and then to classify ' i t ' as an ideology.

(Note that i f everyone has an age, Age is merely an analytical

expression.) I t wou ld , I think, make things easier i f one treated i t as

i f i t belonged w i t h 'kinship' and 'rel igion' , rather than w i t h

'liberalism' or 'fascism'.

I n an anthropological spirit, then, I propose the fol lowing

8. The Break-up of Britain, p. 359.

5

25

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

definition o f the nation: i t is an imagined political community - and

imagined as both inherently l imited and sovereign.

I t is imagined because the members o f even the smallest nation w i l l

never k n o w most o f their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear

o f them, yet i n the minds o f each lives the image o f their

communion . 9 Renan referred to this imagining i n his suavely

back-handed way when he wrote that ' O r Vessence d'une nation

est que tous les individus aient beaucoup de choses en commun, et

aussi que tous aient oubl ié bien des choses.' W i t h a certain ferocity

Gellner makes a comparable point when he rules that 'Nationalism is

not the awakening o f nations to self-consciousness: i t invents nations 11

where they do not exist.' The drawback to this formulation,

however, is that Gellner is so anxious to show that nationalism

masquerades under false pretences that he assimilates ' invent ion ' to

'fabrication' and 'falsity', rather than to ' imagining' and 'creation'. I n

this way he implies that ' true' communities exist w h i c h can be

advantageously juxtaposed to nations. I n fact, all communities larger

than primordial villages o f face-to-face contact (and perhaps even

these) are imagined. Communities are to be distinguished, not by

their falsity/genuineness, but by the style i n wh ich they are ima­

gined. Javanese villagers have always k n o w n that they are connected

to people they have never seen, but these ties were once imagined

particularistically - as indefinitely stretchable nets o f kinship and

clientship. U n t i l quite recently, the Javanese language had no w o r d

meaning the abstraction 'society.' W e may today th ink o f the

French aristocracy o f the anden regime as a class; but surely i t was

9. Cf. Seton-Watson, Nations and States, p. 5: ' A l l that I can find to say is that a

nation exists when a significant number o f people i n a community consider themselves

to form a nation, or behave as i f they formed one.' W e may translate 'consider

themselves' as 'imagine themselves.'

10. Ernest Renan, 'Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?' i n OEuvres Completes, 1, p. 892. He

adds: 'tout citoyen français doit avoir oublié la Saint-Barthélemy, les massacres du M i d i

an XHIe siècle. I l n 'y a pas en France dix familles qui puissent fournir la preuve d'une

origine franque . . .'

11. Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change, p. 169. Emphasis added.

6

26

INTRODUCTION

imagined this way only very late. T o the question ' W h o is the

Comte de X? ' the normal answer w o u l d have been, not 'a member

o f the aristocracy,' but 'the lo rd o f X , ' 'the uncle o f the Baronne de

Y , ' or 'a client o f the Due de Z . '

The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest o f them,

encompassing perhaps a b i l l ion l iv ing human beings, has finite, i f elastic,

boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. N o nation imagines itself

coterminous w i t h mankind. The most messianic nationalists do not

dream o f a day when all the members o f the human race w i l l j o i n their

nation i n the way that i t was possible, i n certain epochs, for, say,

Christians to dream o f a whol ly Christian planet.

I t is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born i n an age i n

wh ich Enlightenment and Revolut ion were destroying the legitimacy

o f the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm. Coming to

maturity at a stage o f human history when even the most devout

adherents o f any universal religion were inescapably confronted w i t h

the l iving pluralism o f such religions, and the allomorphism between

each faith's ontological claims and territorial stretch, nations dream o f

being free, and, i f under God, directly so. T h e gage and emblem o f this

freedom is the sovereign state.

Finally, i t is imagined as a community, because, regardless o f the actual

inequality and exploitation that may prevail i n each, the nation is always

conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately i t is this

fraternity that makes i t possible, over the past two centuries, for so

many millions o f people, not so much to k i l l , as wil l ingly to die for such

l imited imaginings.

These deaths bring us abruptly face to face w i t h the central problem

posed by nationalism: what makes the shrunken imaginings o f recent

history (scarcely more than two centuries) generate such colossal

sacrifices? I believe that the beginnings o f an answer lie i n the cultural

roots o f nationalism.

12. Hobsbawm, for example, 'fixes' i t by saying that i n 1789 i t numbered about

400,000 in a population of23,000,000. (See his The Age of Revolution, p. 78). But would

this statistical picture o f the noblesse have been imaginable under the ancien regime?

7

27

I. Introduction: Inventing Traditions E R I C HOBSBAWM

Nothing appears more ancient, and linked to an immemorial past, than the pageantry which surrounds British monarchy in its public ceremonial manifestations. Yet, as a chapter in this book establishes, in its modern form it is the product of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 'Traditions' which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented. Anyone familiar with the colleges of ancient British universities will be able to think of the institution of such 'traditions' on a local scale, though some - like the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in the chapel of King's College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve-may become generalized through the modern mass medium of radio. This observation formed the starting-point of a conference organized by the historical journal Past & Present, which in turn forms the basis of the present book.

The term 'invented tradition' is used in a broad, but not imprecise sense. It includes both' traditions' actually invented, constructed and formally instituted and those emerging in a less easily traceable manner within a brief and dateable period - a matter of a few years perhaps - and establishing themselves with great rapidity. The royal Christmas broadcast in Britain (instituted in 1932) is an example of the first; the appearance and development of the practices associated with the Cup Final in British Association Football, of the second. It is evident that not all of them are equally permanent, but it is their appearance and establishment rather than their chances of survival which are our primary concern.

' Invented tradition' is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past. In fact, where possible, they normally attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past. A striking example is the deliberate choice of a Gothic style for the nineteenth-century

1

28

2 ERIC HOBSBAWM

rebuilding of the British parliament, and the equally deliberate decision after World War II to rebuild the parliamentary chamber on exactly the same basic plan as before. The historic past into which the new tradition is inserted need not be lengthy, stretching back into the assumed mists of time. Revolutions and 'progressive movements' which break with the past, by definition, have their own relevant past, though it may be cut off at a certain date, such as 1789. However, insofar as there is such reference to a historic past, the peculiarity of 'invented' traditions is that the continuity with it is largely factitious. In short, they are responses to novel situations which take the form of reference to old situations, or which establish their own past by quasi-obligatory repetition. It is the contrast between the constant change and innovation of the modern world and the attempt to structure at least some parts of social life within it as unchanging and invariant, that makes the 'invention of tradition' so interesting for historians of the past two centuries.

'Tradition' in this sense must be distinguished clearly from 'custom' which dominates so-called 'traditional' societies. The object and characteristic of 'traditions', including invented ones, is in variance. Trie past, real or invented, to which they refer imposes fixed (normally formalized) practices, such as repetition. 'Custom' in traditional societies has the double function of motor and fly-wheel. It does not preclude innovation and change up to a point, though evidently the requirement that it must appear compatible or even identical with precedent imposes substantial limitations on it. What it does is to give any desired change (or resistance to innovation) the sanction of precedent, social continuity and natural law as expressed in history. Students of peasant movements know that a village's claim to some common land or right 'by custom from time immemorial' often expresses not a historical fact, but the balance of forces in the constant struggle of village against lords or against other villages. Students of the British labour movement know tha t ' the custom of the trade' or of the shop may represent not ancient tradition, but whatever right the workers have established in practice, however recently, and which they now attempt to extend or defend by giving it the sanction of perpetuity.' Custom' cannot afford to be invariant, because even in 'traditional' societies life is not so. Customary or common law still shows this combination of flexibility in substance and formal adherence to precedent. The difference between' tradition' and 'custom' in our sense is indeed well illustrated here. 'Custom'

29

Introduction: Inventing Traditions 3

is what judges do; 'tradition' (in this instance invented tradition) is the wig, robe and other formal paraphernalia and ritualized practices surrounding their substantial action. The decline of'custom' inevi­tably changes the 'tradition' with which it is habitually intertwined.

A second, less important, distinction that must be made is between 'tradition' in our sense and convention or routine, which has no significant ritual or symbolic function as such, though it may acquire it incidentally. It is evident that any social practice that needs to be carried out repeatedly will tend, for convenience and efficiency, to develop a set of such conventions and routines, which may be de facto or de jure formalized for the purposes of imparting the practice to new practitioners. This applies to unprecedented practices (such as the work of an aircraft pilot) as much as to long-familiar ones. Societies since the industrial revolution have naturally been obliged to invent, institute or develop new networks of such convention or routine more frequently than previous ones. Insofar as they function best when turned into habit, automatic procedure or even reflex action, they require invariance, which may get in the way of the other necessary requirement of practice, the capacity to deal with unforeseen or inhabitual contingencies. This is a well-known weakness of routinization or bureaucratization, particularly at the subaltern levels where invariant performance is generally considered the most efficient.

Such networks of convention and routine are not 'invented traditions' since their functions, and therefore their justifications, are technical rather than ideological (in Marxian terms they belong to 'base' rather than 'superstructure'). They are designed to facilitate readily definable practical operations, and are readily modified or abandoned to meet changing practical needs, always allowing for the inertia which any practice acquires with time and the emotional resistance to any innovation by people who have become attached to it. The same applies to the recognized 'rules' of games or other patterns of social interaction, where these exist, or to any other pragmatically based norms. Where these exist in combination with 'tradition', the difference is readily observable. Wearing hard hats when riding makes practical sense, like wearing crash helmets for motor-cyclists or steel helmets for soldiers; wearing a particular type of hard hat in combination with hunting pink makes an entirely different kind of sense. If this were not so, it would be as easy to change the ' traditional' costume of fox-hunters as it is to substitute

30

4 ERIC HOBSBAWM

a differently shaped helmet in armies - rather conservative institu­tions - if it can be shown to provide more effective protection. Indeed, it may be suggested that 'traditions' and pragmatic conventions or routines are inversely related. 'Tradition' shows weakness when, as among liberal Jews, dietary prohibitions are justified pragmatically, as by arguing that the ancient Hebrews banned pork on grounds of hygiene. Conversely, objects or practices are liberated for full symbolic and ritual use when no longer fettered by practical use. The spurs of Cavalry officers' dress uniforms are more important for 4 tradition' when there are no horses, the umbrellas of Guards officers in civilian dress lose their significance when not carried tightly furled (that is, useless), the wigs of lawyers could hardly acquire their modern significance until other people stopped wearing wigs.

Inventing traditions, it is assumed here, is essentially a process of formalization and ritualization, characterized by reference to the past, if only by imposing repetition. The actual process of creating such ritual and symbolic complexes has not been adequately studied by historians. Much of it is still rather obscure. It is presumably most clearly exemplified where a 'tradition' is deliberately invented and constructed by a single initiator, as for the Boy Scouts by Baden-Powell. Perhaps it is almost as easily traced in the case of officially instituted and planned ceremonials, since they are likely to be well documented, as in the case of the construction of Nazi symbolism and the Nuremberg party rallies. It is probably most difficult to trace where such traditions are partly invented, partly evolved in private groups (where the process is less likely to be bureaucratically recorded), or informally over a period of time as, say, in parliament and the legal profession. The difficulty is not only one of sources but also of techniques, though there are available both esoteric disciplines specializing in symbolism and ritual, such as heraldry and the study of liturgy, as well as Warburgian historic disciplines for the study of such subjects. Unfortunately neither are usually familiar to historians of the industrial era.

There is probably no time and place with which historians are concerned which has not seen the 'invention' of tradition in this sense. However, we should expect it to occur more frequently when a rapid transformation of society weakens or destroys the social patterns for which' old' traditions had been designed, producing new ones to which they were not applicable, or when such old traditions and their institutional carriers and promulgators no longer prove

31

Introduction: Inventing Traditions 5

sufficiently adaptable and flexible, or are otherwise eliminated: in short, when there are sufficiently large and rapid changes on the demand or the supply side. Such changes have been particularly significant in the past 200 years, and it is therefore reasonable to expect these instant formalizations of new traditions to cluster during this period. This implies, incidentally, against both nineteenth-century liberalism and more recent 'modernization' theory that such formal­izations are not confined to so-called 'traditional' societies, but also have their place, in one form or another, in 'modern' ones. Broadly speaking this is so, but one must beware of making the further assumptions, firstly that older forms of community and authority structure, and consequently the traditions associated with them, were unadaptable and became rapidly unviable, and secondly that 'new' traditions simply resulted from the inability to use or adapt old ones.

Adaptation took place for old uses in new conditions and by using old models for new purposes. Old institutions with established functions, references to the past and ritual idioms and practices might need to adapt in this way: the Catholic Church faced with new political and ideological challenges and major changes in the com­position of the faithful (such as the notable feminization both of lay piety and of clerical personnel);1 professional armies faced with conscription; ancient institutions such as law-courts now operating in a changed context and sometimes with changed functions in new contexts. So were institutions enjoying nominal continuity, but in fact turning into something very very different, such as universities. Thus Bahnson2 has analysed the sudden decline, after 1848, of the traditional practice of mass student exodus from German universities (for reasons of conflict or demonstration) in terms of the changed academic character of universities, the rising age of the student population, its embourgeoisement which diminished town/gown tensions and student riotousness, the new institution of free mobility between universities, the consequent change in student associations and other factors.3 In all such cases novelty is no less novel for being able to dress up easily as antiquity.

1 See for instance G. Tihon,' Les religieuses en Belgique du XVIIIe au XXe siecle: Approche Statistique', Belgisch Tijdschrift v. Nieuwste Geschiedenis/Revue Beige dHistoire Contemporaine, vii (1976), pp. 1-54.

2 Karsten Bahnson, Akademische Ausziige aus deutschen Universitats und Hoch-schulorten (Saarbriicken, 1973).

3 Seventeen such exoduses are recorded in the eighteenth century, fifty in 1800-48, but only six from 1848 to 1973.

32

6 ERIC HOBSBAWM

More interesting, from our point of view, is the use of ancient materials to construct invented traditions of a novel type for quite novel purposes. A large store of such materials is accumulated in the past of any society, and an elaborate language of symbolic practice and communication is always available. Sometimes new traditions could be readily grafted on old ones, sometimes they could be devised by borrowing from the well-supplied warehouses of official ritual, symbolism and moral exhortation - religion and princely pomp, folklore and freemasonry (itself an earlier invented tradition of great symbolic force). Thus the development of Swiss nationalism, concomitant with the formation of the modern federal state in the nineteenth century, has been brilliantly studied by Rudolf Braun,4

who has the advantage of training in a discipline ('Volkskunde') which lends itself to such studies, and in a country where its modernization has not been set back by association with Nazi abuses. Existing customary traditional practices - folksong, physical con­tests, marksmanship - were modified, ritualized and institutionalized for the new national purposes. Traditional folksongs were supple­mented by new songs in the same idiom, often composed by school­masters, transferred to a choral repertoire whose content was patriotic-progressive ('Nation, Nation, wie voll klingt der Ton'), though it also embodied ritually powerful elements from religious hymnology. (The formation of such new song-repertoires, especially for schools, is well worth study.) The statutes of the Federal Song Festival-are we not reminded of the eisteddfodau? - declare its object to be 'the development and improvement of the people's singing, the awakening of more elevated sentiments for God, Freedom and Country, union and fraternization of the friends of Art and the Fatherland'. (The word 'improvement' introduces the characteristic note of nineteenth-century progress.)

A powerful ritual complex formed round these occasions: festival pavilions, structures for the display of flags, temples for offerings, processions, bell-ringing, tableaux, gun-salutes, government delega­tions in honour of the festival, dinners, toasts and oratory. Old materials were again adapted for this:

The echoes of baroque forms of celebration, display and pomp are unmistakable in this new festival architecture. And as, in the baroque celebration, state and church merge on a higher plane, so 4 Rudolf Braun, Sozialer und kultureller Wandel in einem landlichen Industriegebiet

im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ch. 6 (Erlenbach-Ziirich, 1965).

33

Introduction: Inventing Traditions 7

an alloy of religious and patriotic elements emerges from these new forms of choral, shooting and gymnastic activity.5

How far new traditions can thus use old materials, how far they may be forced to invent new languages or devices, or extend the old symbolic vocabulary beyond its established limits, cannot be discussed here. It is clear that plenty of political institutions, ideological movements and groups - not least in nationalism - were so unprece­dented that even historic continuity had to be invented, for example by creating an ancient past beyond effective historical continuity, either by semi-fiction (Boadicea, Vercingetorix, Arminius the Cheruscan) or by forgery (Ossian, the Czech medieval manuscripts). It is also clear that entirely new symbols and devices came into existence as part of national movements and states, such as the national anthem (of which the British in 1740 seems to be the earliest), the national flag (still largely a variation on the French revolutionary tricolour, evolved 1790-4), or the personification of 4 the nation' in symbol or image, either official, as with Marianne and Germania, or unofficial, as in the cartoon stereotypes of John Bull, the lean Yankee Uncle Sam and the 'German Michel'.

Nor should we overlook the break in continuity which is sometimes clear even in traditional topoi of genuine antiquity. If we follow Lloyd,6 English Christmas folk carols ceased to be created in the seventeenth century, to be replaced by hymn-book carols of the Watts-Wesley kind, though a demotic modification of these in largely rural religions like Primitive Methodism may be observed. Yet carols were the first kind of folksong to be revived by middle-class collectors to take their place kin novel surroundings of church, guild and women's institute' and thence to spread in a new urban popular setting 'by street-corner singers or by hoarse boys chanting on doorsteps in the ancient hope of reward'. In this sense 'God rest ye merry, Gentlemen' is not old but new. Such a break is visible even in movements deliberately describing themselves as 'traditionalist', and appealing to groups which were, by common consent, regarded as the repositories of historic continuity and tradition, such as peasants.7 Indeed, the very appearance of movements for the defence

5 Rudolf Braun, op. c/7., pp. 336-7. 6 A. L. Lloyd, Folk Song in England (London, 1969 ed.), pp. 134-8. 7 This is to be distinguished from the revival of tradition for purposes which

actually demonstrated its decline. 'The farmers' revival (around 1900) of their old regional dress, folk dances and similar rituals for festive occasions was neither a bourgeois nor a traditionalistic feature. On the surface it could be viewed as

34

8 ERIC HOBSBAWM

or revival of traditions, 'traditionalist' or otherwise, indicates such a break. Such movements, common among intellectuals since the Romantics, can never develop or even preserve a living past (except conceivably by setting up human natural sanctuaries for isolated corners of archaic life), but must become 'invented tradition'. On the other hand the strength and adaptability of genuine traditions is not to be confused with the 'invention of tradition'. Where the old ways are alive, traditions need be neither revived nor invented.

Yet it may be suggested that where they are invented, it is often not because old ways are no longer available or viable, but because they are deliberately not used or adapted. Thus, in consciously setting itself against tradition and for radical innovation, the nineteenth-century liberal ideology of social change systematically failed to provide for the social and authority ties taken for granted in earlier societies, and created voids which might have to be filled by invented practices. The success of nineteenth-century Tory factory masters in Lancashire (as distinct from Liberal ones) in using such old ties to advantage shows that they were still there to be used - even in the unprecedented environment of the industrial town.8 The long-term inadaptability of pre-industrial ways to a society revolu­tionized beyond a certain point is not to be denied, but is not to be confused with the problems arising out of the rejection of old ways in the short term by those who regarded them as obstacles to progress or, even worse, as its militant adversaries.

This did not prevent innovators from generating their own invented traditions - the practices of freemasonry are a case in point. Nevertheless, a general hostility to irrationalism, superstition and customary practices reminiscent of the dark past, if not actually descended from it, made impassioned believers in the verities of the Enlightenment, such as liberals, socialists, and communists, unre-ceptive to traditions old or novel. Socialists, as we shall see below, found themselves acquiring an annual May Day without quite knowing

a nostalgic longing for the old-time culture which was so rapidly disappearing, but in reality it was a demonstration of class identity by which prosperous farmers could distance themselves horizontally relative to the townspeople and vertically from the cottars, craftsmen and labourers.' Palle Ove Christiansen, 'Peasant Adaptation to Bourgeois Culture? Class Formation and Cultural Redefinition in the Danish Countryside', Ethnologia Scandinavica (1978), p. 128. See also G. Lewis, 'The Peasantry, Rural Change and Conservative Agrarianism: Lower Austria at the Turn of the Century', Past & Present, no. 81 (1978), pp. 119-43.

8 Patrick Joyce, 'The Factory Politics of Lancashire in the Later Nineteenth Century', Historical Journal, xviii (1965), pp. 525-53.

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Introduction: Inventing Traditions 9

how; National Socialists exploited such occasions with liturgical sophistication and zeal and a conscious manipulation of symbols.9

The liberal era in Britain at best tolerated such practices, insofar as neither ideology nor economic efficiency were at issue, sometimes as a reluctant concession to the irrationalism of the lower orders. Its attitude to the sociable and ritual activities of Friendly Societies was a combination of hostility (4 unnecessary expenses' such as ' payments for anniversaries, processions, bands, regalia' were legally forbidden) and toleration of events such as annual feasts on the grounds that 6 the importance of this attraction, especially as respects the country population, cannot be denied'.10 But a rigorous individualist ration­alism dominated not only as an economic calculus but as a social ideal. Chapter 7 will investigate what happened in the period when its limitations became increasingly recognized.

These introductory notes may be concluded with some general observations about the invented traditions of the period since the industrial revolution.

They seem to belong to three overlapping types: a) those estab­lishing or symbolizing social cohesion or the membership of groups, real or artificial communities, b) those establishing or legitimizing institutions, status or relations of authority, and c) those whose main purpose was socialization, the inculcation of beliefs, value systems and conventions of behaviour. While traditions of types b) and c) were certainly devised (as in those symbolizing submission to authority in British India), it may be tentatively suggested that type a) was prevalent, the other functions being regarded as implicit in or flowing from a sense of identification with a 'community' and/or the institutions representing, expressing or symbolizing it such as a 'nation'.

One difficulty was that such larger social entities were plainly not Gemeinschaften or even systems of accepted ranks. Social mobility, the facts of class conflict and the prevalent ideology made traditions combining community and marked inequality in formal hierarchies (as in armies) difficult to apply universally. This did not much affect traditions of type c) since general socialization inculcated the same values in every citizen, member of the nation and subject of the crown,

9 Helmut Hartwig, 'Plaketten zum 1. Mai 1934-39', Aesthetik und Kommunik-ation, vii, no. 26 (1976), pp. 56-9.

10 P. H. J. H. Gosden, The Friendly Societies in England, 1815-1875 (Manchester, 1961), pp. 123, 119.

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10 ERIC HOBSBAWM

and the functionally specific socializations of different social groups (such as public school pupils as distinct from others) did not usually get in each others' way. On the other hand, insofar as invented traditions reintroduced, as it were, status into a world of contract, superior and inferior into a world of legal equals, they could not do so directly. They could be smuggled in by formal symbolic assent to a social organization which was de facto unequal, as by the restyling of the British coronation ceremony.11 (See below pp. 282-3.) More commonly they might foster the corporate sense of superiority of elites - particularly when these had to be recruited from those who did not already possess it by birth or ascription - rather than by inculcating a sense of obedience in inferiors. Some were encouraged to feel more equal than others. This might be done by assimilating elites to pre-bourgeois ruling groups or authorities, whether in the militarist/bureaucratic form characteristic of Germany (as with the duelling student corps), or the non-militarized 'moralized gentry' model of the British public schools. Alternatively, perhaps, the esprit de corps, self-confidence and leadership of elites could be developed by more esoteric 'traditions' marking the cohesiveness of a senior official mandarinate (as in France or among whites in the colonies).

Granted that 'communitarian' invented traditions were the basic type, their nature remains to be studied. Anthropology may help to elucidate the differences, if any, between invented and old traditional practices. Here we may merely note that while rites of passage are normally marked in the traditions of particular groups (initiation, promotion, retirement, death), this was not usually the case in those designed for all-embracing pseudo-communities (nations, countries), presumably because these underlined their eternal and unchanging character - at least since the community's foundation. However, both new political regimes and innovatory movements might seek to find their own equivalents for the traditional rites of passage associated with religion (civil marriage, funerals).

One marked difference between old and invented practices may be observed. The former were specific and strongly binding social practices, the latter tended to be quite unspecific and vague as to the nature of the values, rights and obligations of the group membership they inculcate: 'patriotism', 'loyalty', 'duty', 'playing the game', ' the school spirit' and the like. But if the content of British patriotism

11 J. E. C. Bodley, The Coronation of Edward the VHth: A Chapter of European and Imperial History (London, 1903), pp. 201, 204.

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Introduction: Inventing Traditions 11

or 'Americanism' was notably ill-defined, though usually specified in commentaries associated with ritual occasions, the practices symbolizing it were virtually compulsory - as in standing up for the singing of the national anthem in Britain, the flag ritual in American schools. The crucial element seems to have been the invention of emotionally and symbolically charged signs of club membership rather than the statutes and objects of the club. Their significance lay precisely in their undefined universality:

The National Flag, the National Anthem and the National Emblem are the three symbols through which an independent country proclaims its identity and sovereignty, and as such they command instantaneous respect and loyalty. In themselves they reflect the entire background, thought and culture of a nation.12

In this sense, as an observer noted in 1880, 'soldiers and policemen wear badges for us now', though he failed to predict their revival as adjuncts to individual citizens in the era of mass movements which was about to begin.13

The second observation is that it seems clear that, in spite of much invention, new traditions have not filled more than a small part of the space left by the secular decline of both old tradition and custom; as might indeed be expected in societies in which the past becomes increasingly less relevant as a model or precedent for most forms of human behaviour. In the private lives of most people, and in the self-contained lives of small sub-cultural groups, even the invented traditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries occupied or occupy a much smaller place than old traditions do in, say, old agrarian societies.14 'What is done' structures the days, seasons and life-cycles of twentieth-century western men and women very much less than it did their ancestors', and very much less than the external compulsions of the economy, technology, bureaucratic state organization, political decision and other forces which neither rely on nor develop 'tradition' in our sense.

However, this generalization does not apply in the field of what might be called the public life of the citizen (including to some extent

12 Official Indian government commentary, quoted in R. Firth, Symbols, Public and Private (London, 1973), p. 341.

13 Frederick Marshall, Curiosities of Ceremonials, Titles, Decorations and Forms of International Vanities (London, 1880), p. 20.

14 Not to mention the transformation of long-lasting rituals and signs of uniformity and cohesion into rapidly changing fashions-in costume, language, social practice etc., as in the youth cultures of industrialized countries.

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12 ERIC HOBSBAWM

public forms of socialization, such as schools, as distinct from private ones such as the mass media). There is no real sign of weakening in the neo-traditional practices associated either with bodies of men in the public service (armed forces, the law, perhaps even public servants) or in practices associated with the citizens' membership of states. Indeed most of the occasions when people become conscious of citizenship as such remain associated with symbols and semi-ritual practices (for instance, elections), most of which are historically novel and largely invented: flags, images, ceremonies and music. Insofar as the invented traditions of the era since the industrial and French revolutions have filled a permanent gap - at all events up to the present - it would seem to be in this field.

Why, it may be asked finally, should historians devote their attention to such phenomena? The question is in one sense unneces­sary, since a growing number of them plainly do, as the contents of this volume and the references cited in it bear witness. So it is better rephrased. What benefit can historians derive from the study of the invention of tradition?

First and foremost, it may be suggested that they are important symptoms and therefore indicators of problems which might not otherwise be recognized, and developments which are otherwise difficult to identify and to date. They are evidence. The transformation of German nationalism from its old liberal to its new imperialist-expansionist pattern is more exactly illuminated by the rapid replace­ment of the old black-red-gold colours by the new black-white-red ones (especially by the 1890s)amongtheGermangymnasticmovement, than by official statements of authorities or spokesmen for organiz­ations. The history of the British football cup finals tells us something about the development of an urban working-class culture which more conventional data and sources do not. By the same token, the study of invented traditions cannot be separated from the wider study of the history of society, nor can it expect to advance much beyond the mere discovery of such practices unless it is integrated into a wider study.

Second, it throws a considerable light on the human relation to the past, and therefore on the historian's own subject and craft. For all invented traditions, so far as possible, use history as a legitimator of action and cement of group cohesion. Frequently it becomes the actual symbol of struggle, as in the battles over the monuments to Walther von der Vogelweide and Dante in South Tyrol in 1889 and

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Introduction: Inventing Traditions 13

1896.15 Even revolutionary movements backed their innovations by reference to a 'people's past' (Saxons versus Normans, 'nos ancetres les Gaulois' against the Franks, Spartacus), to traditions of revolu­tion (' Auch das deutsche Volk hat seine revolutionare Tradition' as Engels claimed in the first words of his Peasant War in Germany)1* and to its own heroes and martyrs. James Connolly's Labour in Irish History exemplifies this union of themes excellently. The element of invention is particularly clear here, since the history which became part of the fund of knowledge or the ideology of nation, state or movement is not what has actually been preserved in popular memory, but what has been selected, written, pictured, popularized and institutionalized by those whose function it is to do so. Oral historians have frequently observed how in the actual memories of the old the General Strike of 1926 plays a more modest and less dramatic part than interviewers anticipated.17 The formation of such an image of the French Revolution in and by the Third Republic has been analysed.18 Yet all historians, whatever else their objectives, are engaged in this process inasmuch as they contribute, consciously or not, to the creation, dismantling and restructuring of images of the past which belong not only to the world of specialist investigation but to the public sphere of man as a political being. They might as well be aware of this dimension of their activities.

In this connection, one specific interest of' invented traditions' for, at all events, modern and contemporary historians ought to be singled out. They are highly relevant to that comparatively recent historical innovation, the 'nation', with its associated phenomena: nationalism, the nation-state, national symbols, histories and the rest. All these rest on exercises in social engineering which are often deliberate and always innovative, if only because historical novelty implies innovation. Israeli and Palestinian nationalism or nations

15 John W. Cole and Eric Wolf, The Hidden Frontier: Ecology and Ethnicity in an Alpine Valley (N.Y. and London, 1974), p. 55.

16 For the popularity of books on this and other militant historical subjects in German workers' libraries, see H.-J. Steinberg, Sozialismus und deutsche Sozial-demokratie. Zur Ideologic der Partei vor dem ersten Weltkrieg (Hanover, 1967), pp. 131-3.

17 There are perfectly sound reasons why participants at the bottom do not usually see historic events they live through as top people or historians do. One might call this (after the hero of Stendhal's Chartreuse de Parme) the 'Fabrice syndrome'.

18 E.g. Alice Gerard, La Revolution Francaise: Mythes et Interpretations, 1789-1970 (Paris, 1970).

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14 ERIC HOBSBAWM

must be novel, whatever the historic continuities of Jews or Middle Eastern Muslims, since the very concept of territorial states of the currently standard type in their region was barely thought of a century ago, and hardly became a serious prospect before the end of World War I. Standard national languages, to be learned in schools and written, let alone spoken, by more than a smallish elite, are largely constructs of varying, but often brief, age. As a French historian of Flemish language observed, quite correctly, the Flemish taught in Belgium today is not the language which the mothers and grand­mothers of Flanders spoke to their children: in short, it is only metaphorically but not literally a 'mother-tongue'. We should not be misled by a curious, but understandable, paradox: modern nations and all their impedimenta generally claim to be the opposite of novel, namely rooted in the remotest antiquity, and the opposite of constructed, namely human communities so 'natural' as to require no definition other than self-assertion. Whatever the historic or other continuities embedded in the modern concept of 'France' and 'the French ' -and which nobody would seek to deny-these very concepts themselves must include a constructed or 'invented' com­ponent. And just because so much of what subjectively makes up the modern 'nation' consists of such constructs and is associated with appropriate and, in general, fairly recent symbols or suitably tailored discourse (such as 'national history'), the national phenomenon cannot be adequately investigated without careful attention to the 'invention of tradition'.

Finally, the study of the invention of tradition is interdisciplinary. It is a field of study which brings together historians, social anthro­pologists and a variety of other workers in the human sciences, and cannot adequately be pursued without such collaboration. The present book brings together, in the main, contributions by historians. It is to be hoped that others will also find it useful.

41

5

Ce este o naţiune?

Putem în sfârşit încerca un răspuns plauzibil la această întrebare. Iniţial aveam doi candidaţi extrem de promiţători pentru construirea unei teorii a naţiona­lităţii: voinţa şi cultura. Evident, ambii sunt importanţi şi relevanţi; dar este la fel de evident, că nici unul nu este nici pe departe adecvat. Şi este instructiv să vedem de ce se întâmplă aşa.

Neîndoielnic voinţa sau consimţământul constituie un factor important în formarea majorităţii grupurilor mari şi mici. Omenirea s-a organizat mereu în grupuri mari sau mici, de toate tipurile de forme şi mărimi, uneori definite precis şi alteori nu prea, uneori net localizate, alteori suprapuse sau îngemănate. Diversi­tatea acestor posibilităţi şi a principiilor în baza cărora aceste grupuri au fost recrutate şi menţinute este nesfârşită. Dar doi agenţi generici sau catalizatori ai formării şi menţinerii grupurilor sunt indubitabil esen­ţiali: voinţa, aderarea şi identificarea voluntară, loiali­tatea, solidaritatea, pe de o parte, şi teama, constrân­gerea, coerciţia, pe de alta. Aceste două posibilităţi constituie polii extremi ai unui fel de spectru. Unele comunităţi s-ar putea să se bazeze exclusiv sau foarte mult pe una sau pe alta, dar ele sunt probabil rare.

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C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ? 85

Majoritatea grupurilor stabile se întemeiază pe un amestec de loialitate şi identificare (sau aderare voită) şi de stimuli externi, pozitivi sau negativi, pe nădejdi şi temeri.

Dacă definim naţiunile ca grupuri care vor să se stabilizeze sub formă de comunităţi,1 năvodul-definiţie pe care l-am aruncat în mare ne va aduce o pradă mult prea mare. Vom scoate cu el la lumină şi comunităţile pe care le putem uşor recunoaşte ca naţiuni efective şi unitare; aceste adevărate naţiuni chiar se vor ca atare, şi viaţa lor chiar poate constitui un fel de continuu plebiscit neoficial, prin care se reafirmă mereu pe ele însele. Dar (din păcate pentru această definiţie), ace­laşi lucru se aplică şi multor altor cluburi, conspiraţii, bande, echipe, partide, pentru a nu mai pomeni şi numeroasele comunităţi şi asocieri ale epocii preindus- triale care nu erau formate şi definite conform princi­piului naţionalist şi care îl sfidează. Voinţa, consim­ţământul, identificarea nu au lipsit niciodată de pe scena omenirii, deşi erau (şi continuă să fie) însoţite şi de calcul, teamă şi interes. (O chestiune interesantă şi discutabilă este dacă pura inerţie, persistenţa reuni­rilor şi combinaţiilor trebuie socotită consimţământ tacit ori altceva.)

Autoidentificarea tacită a operat în numele a tot soiul de grupări, mai mari sau mai mici ca naţiunile care se întretăiau cu ele sau erau definite orizontal ori în alte chipuri. Pe scurt, dacă voinţa ar fi fundamentul unei naţiuni (spre a parafraza o definiţie idealistă a statului), ea ar fi şi baza atât de multor alte lucruri încât pur şi simplu nu putem defini o naţiune în acest

1. Emest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une Nation, republicat în Ernest Renan et VAÎÎemagne, Textes recueillis et commentes par Emile Bure, New York, 1945.

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fel. Numai pentru că în epoca moderna, naţionalista, unităţile naţionale sunt obiectele preferate, favorite de identificare şi aderare voită pare tentantă această defi­niţie, căci celelalte tipuri de grupare sunt acum atât de uşor uitate. Cele care iau de bune presupunerile tacite ale naţionalismului le extind în mod eronat şi asupra omenirii în general şi din orice epocă. Dar o definiţie legată de presupunerile şi condiţiile unei anume epoci (şi chiar şi atunci constituind o exagerare), nu poate fi rodnic utilizată spre a explica apariţia acestei epoci.

Orice definire a naţiunilor prin cultură comună este un alt năvod ce scoate o pradă prea mare. Istoria ome­nirii este şi continuă să fie din belşug încărcată ai dife­renţieri culturale. Graniţele culturale sunt uneori pre­cis delimitate, alteori complexe; tiparele sunt câteodată simple şi clare, alteori întortocheate şi complexe. Pen­tru toate aceste motive pe care le-am accentuat atât, această bogăţie a diferenţierii îndeobşte nu converge, şi în mod normal nici nu poate să o facă, cu graniţele unităţilor politice (jurisdicţia autorităţilor efective) sau cu graniţele unităţilor consfinţite prin sacramentele democratice ale consimţământului şi voinţei. Pur şi simplu lumea agricolă nu putea fi atât de limpede. Lumea industrială tinde să devină, sau cel puţin se apropie de o astfel de simplitate; dar aceasta este altă poveste şi există factori speciali care generează acest curs al lucrurilor.

întemeierea unor înalte culturi cu arie largă de cu­prindere (sisteme de comunicare standardizate, ba­zate pe alfabetizare şi educaţie), un proces în rapid progres în toată lumea, au făcut să pară oricui prea adânc înrădăcinat în convingerile noastre contem­porane că naţionalitatea se poate defini prin cultura comună. în zilele noastre oamenii pot locui numai în

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C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ? 87

u ni lăţi definite de o cultură comună şi intern mobile şi liniile. Adevăratul paralelism cultural încetează să fie viiibiî în condiţiile curente. Dar puţină conştiinţă isto­rică ori sofistică sociologică ar trebui să risipească iluzia că aşa s-a întâmplat întotdeauna. Societăţile pluraliste cultural au funcţionat adesea bine în trecut: <lc fapt, atât de bine încât pluralismul cultural a fost uneori inventat şi acolo unde lipsea.

Dacă, din pricini incontestabile, aceste două apa­rent promiţătoare căi de definire a naţionalismului sunt de fapt nişte fundături, există şi o a treia.

Marele, dar valabilul paradox, este acesta: naţiunile ]K)t fi definite numai în termenii epocii naţionalismului, adică invers decât ne-am putea aştepta. Nu că „epoca naţionalismului" ar fi o simplă însumare a deşteptării şi autoafirmării politice a unei naţiuni sau a alteia. Mai degrabă s-ar putea spune că, atunci când condiţiile sociale generale evoluează spre înalte culturi standar­dizate, omogene, susţinute de la centru, cuprinzând populaţii întregi şi nu minorităţi de elite, se iveşte o situaţie în care culturile bine definite, unificate şi cu sistem educaţional pus la punct constituie aproape unicul tip de unitate cu care oamenii se identifică voluntar şi adesea cu înflăcărare. Culturile par acum să fie depozitarele fireşti ale legitimităţii politice. Numai acum încălcarea graniţelor lor de către orice unitate politică ajunge să constituie un scandal.

în aceste condiţii, şi numai în aceste condiţii, naţiu­nile pot fi într-adevăr definite prin voinţă şi cultură şi prin convergenţa acestora cu unităţile politice. în aceste condiţii, oamenii doresc să se unească politic cu toţi aceia ce le împărtăşesc cultura, şi numai cu ei. Formaţiunile statale doresc acum să-şi extindă frunta­riile până la limitele culturilor lor. Contopirea voinţei,

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88 C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ?

culturii şi formaţiunii statale devine normă, şi ea nu este prea des ori frecvent încălcată. (Odinioară, fusese aproape universal încălcată, cu impunitate, şi trecuse neobservată şi nediscutată.) Aceste condiţii nu defi­nesc situaţia umană ca atare, ci doar varianta ei industrială.

Naţionalismul zămisleşte naţiunile, şi nu invers. Se recunoaşte că naţionalismul foloseşte moştenirea isto­rică a preexistentei proliferări a culturilor sau tezaurul cultural, deşi o foloseşte foarte selectiv şi, cel mai ade­sea, o transformă radical. limbi moarte pot fi dezgro­pate, tradiţii inventate, imaginare, purităţi de altădată scoase la lumină. Dar această latură cultural creativă, fantezistă, pozitiv inventivă a înflăcărării naţionaliste nu ar trebui să vă facă să trageţi concluzia greşită că naţionalismul este o invenţie ideologică întâmplătoare, artificială, care ar fi putut să nu apară dacă afurisiţii şi băgâreţii de gânditori europeni, cărora nu le-a ajuns s-o ducă bine de unii singuri, n-ar fi născocit-o şi injectat-o în sângele unor comunităţi politice altfel via­bile. Peticele şi cârpelile culturale folosite de naţiona­lism sunt adesea invenţii istorice arbitrare. Orice petic sau cârpeală veche ar fi fost la fel de bune. Dar nu rezultă de aici în nici un fel că principiul naţionalis­mului în sine, spre deosebire de avatarurile în care se întâmplă să se încarneze, este el însuşi câtuşi de puţin accidental şi întâmplător.

Nimic nu ar putea fi mai departe de adevăr decât o asemenea supoziţie. Naţionalismul nu este ceea ce pare, şi înainte de toate nu este ceea ce îşi pare sieşi. Culturile pe care pretinde că le apără şi învie sunt adesea propriile-i invenţii, sau sunt modificate până ce nu mai pot fi recunoscute. Totuşi principiul naţionalist ca atare, spre deosebire de toate formele sale specifice

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C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ? 89

si de nimicurile individual distinctive pe care le poate predica, are rădăcini foarte, foarte adânci în actuala noastră condiţie comună, nu este deloc întâmplător şi nu poate fi uşor negat.

Durkheim spunea că în devoţiunea religioasă socie­tatea îşi adoră propria imagine camuflată. într-o epocă naţionalistă, societăţile se adoră pe ele însele deschis şi cu neruşinare, renunţând la camuflaj. La Niirnberg, Germania nazistă nu se adora pe sine pretinzând că-1 adoră pe Dumnezeu sau chiar pe Wotan; se adora făţiş pe sine. Intr-o formă mai atenuată, dar la fel de semni­ficativă, teologii modernişti luminaţi nu cred, şi nici măcar nu le acordă prea mult interes, în doctrinele religiei lor ce au însemnat atât de mult pentru prede­cesorii lor. Le tratează cu un soi de comic autofuncţio- nalism, la fel şi numai atât de valabil ca şi instrumen­tele conceptuale şi rituale cu ajutorul cărora o tradiţie socială îşi afirmă valorile, continuitatea şi solidaritatea, şi ascund şi minimalizează sistematic diferenţa dintre o asemenea „credinţă" tacit reducţionistă şi cea adevă­rată care a precedat-o şi a jucat un rol atât de însemnat în istoria europeană timpurie, un rol ce nu ar fi putut fi niciodată jucat de actualele variante diluate, intrate la apă, de nerecunoscut.

Dar faptul că autodevoţiunea socială, fie ea viru­lentă şi violentă sau blândă şi evazivă, este acum mai degrabă o autodevoţiune colectivă recunoscută făţiş decât o formă ascunsă de venerare a societăţii prin imaginea lui Dumnezeu, după cum afirma Durkheim, nu înseamnă câ actualul stil este mai veridic decât cel de pe vremea lui Durkheim. Poate comunitatea nu mai este văzută prin prisma divinului, dar naţionalismul are amnezii şi operează selectiv, amnezii care, chiar atunci

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90 C e e s te o n a ţ i u n e ?

când par a fi pronunţai seculare, pot fi profund defor­matoare şi înşelătoare.

Iluzia de bază şi autoiluzionarea practicată de naţio­nalism este aceasta: naţionalismul este, esenţial, impu­nerea generală a unei înalte culturi asupra societăţii, acolo unde înainte vreme culturi joase îmbunătăţiseră viaţa majorităţii şi în unele cazuri a totalităţii populaţiei. El presupune acea răspândire generală a unui idiom transmis prin şcoală şi supervizat de academie, codi­ficat pentru cerinţele unei comunicări birocratice şi tehnologice destul de precise. Naţionalismul repre­zintă întemeierea unei societăţi anonime, impersonale, cu indivizi atomizaţi reciproc, substituibili, ţinuţi laolaltă în primul rând de o cultură comună de acest tip, în locul unei complexe structuri anterioare de grupuri locale, susţinută de culturi folclorice repro­duse local şi idiosincratic chiar de către microgrupuri. Acesta este lucrul care se întâmplă într-adevăr. Naţio­nalismul face de obicei cuceriri în numele unei culturi folclorice putative. Simbolismul său se trage din antica, sănătoasa, viguroasa viaţă a ţăranilor, a acelui Volk sau narod. Există un anume element de adevăr în autoprezentarea naţionalismului dacă acel narod ori Volk este condus de reprezentanţi ai unei înalte culturi străine, la a cărei opresiune trebuie rezistat în primul rând prin deşteptare şi reafirmare culturală şi, mai apoi, printr-un război de eliberare naţională. Dacă na­ţionalismul propăşeşte, el elimină înalta cultură străină, dar nu pentru a o înlocui cu vechea şi joasa cultură locală; el trezeşte la viaţă, sau inventează, o înaltă cultură (alfabetizată şi transmisă prin specialişti) a sa proprie, chiar dacă ea va avea unele legături cu precedentele tradiţii şi dialecte locale. Dar la

48

Budapesta ieşeau în oraş îmbrăcate în costume popu­lare, sau prelins populare, tocmai marile doamne de la Operă. în momentul actual în Uniunea Sovietică nu populaţia etnică rurală rămasă constituie consumatorii do discuri „etnice", ci populaţia recent urbanizată, edu­cata, plurilingvă şi locuind în apartamente,1 căreia îi piace să-şi exprime sentimentele reale sau imaginare şi c?re va adopta fără îndoiala o comportare naţiona­listă în măsura în care îi va îngădui situaţia politică.

O asemenea autoamăgire sociologică, o viziune a realităţii prin prisma iluziei, încă persistă, dar nu este identică cu cea pe care a analizat-o Durkheim. Socie­tatea nu se mai proslăveşte pe sine prin simboluri reli­gioase; o înaltă cultură modernă, aerodinamică, moto­rizată se celebrează pe sine cu cântece şi dansuri, pe care le-a împrumutat (stilizându4e în cursul proce­sului) de la o cultură populară pe care îi place să creadă că o perpetuează, apără şi reafirmă.

Cursul adevăratului naţionalism nu a fost niciodată liniştit

Un scenariu caracteristic al evoluţiei unui naţiona­lism - şi avem încă temeiuri să ne întoarcem la acest lip de scenariu - decurge cam aşa. Ruritanii sunt o populaţie rurală care vorbeşte un grup de dialecte înrudite sau mai mult ori mai puţin reciproc inteli­gibile şi locuieşte în ţinuturi discontinue, dar nu foarte mult separate, cuprinse în Imperiul Megalomaniei, limba ruritană, sau mai degrabă dialectele despre care s-ar putea susţine că o compun, nu este în fapt

C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ? 91

1. Iu.V. Bromlei et. al.. Sovremenîie Etniceskie Proţesî v SSSR (Procese etnice contemporane în URSS), Moscova, 1975.

49

92 C E ESTE O NAŢIUNE?

vorbită de nimeni în afara acestor ţărani. Aristocraţia şi administraţia vorbesc limba de la curtea Megaloma­niei, care se întâmplă să aparţină unui grup de limbi diferit de acela ale cărui mlădiţe sunt dialectele ruritane.

Majoritatea, dar nu toţi ţăranii ruritani, aparţin de o biserică a cărei liturghie se slujeşte într-o limbă din un al treilea grup lingvistic şi mulţi dintre preoţi, în special cei din vârful ierarhiei, vorbesc o limbă care este o versiune vernaculară modernă a acestui crez, şi care este şi ea foarte îndepărtată de ruritană. Micii comercianţi din târguşoarele apropiate satelor ruritane îşi au şi ei obârşia în alt un grup etnic şi sunt de o religie diferită, şi încă una detestată din toată inima de ţăranii ruritani.

în trecut ţăranii ruritani au avut multe dureri mişcă­tor şi frumos păstrate în cântecele lor de jale (trudnic culese de dascălii săteşti, târziu, în secolul 19 şi aduse la cunoştinţa publicului muzical internaţional de com­poziţiile marelui compozitor naţional ruritan L.)! Crunta asuprire a ţăranilor ruritani a dat naştere, în secolul 18, unui război de gherilă condus de vestitul haiduc ruritan K. ale cărui fapte se spune că sunt încă prezente în memoria populară, ca să nu mai pomenim şi de mai multe romane şi două filme, unul dintre ele făcut de către marele artist naţional Z., sub cele mai înalte auspicii, la scurtă vreme după proclamarea Republicii Populare Socialiste Ruritane.

Buna-credinţă ne obligă totuşi să spunem că haidu­cul a fost prins de proprii compatrioţi, iar preşedintele tribunalului care l-a condamnat la o moarte atroce era un alt compatriot Ba mai mult, la scurtă vreme după ce Ruritania şi-a dobândit pentru întâia oară

50

C E ESTE O N AŢIUNE? 93

independenţa, o circulară plimbată prin Ministerele de Interne, Justiţie şi al Educaţiei ridica întrebarea dacă nu cumva ar fi mai politic pe moment să se omagieze unităţile de rezistenţă populară care s-au opus haidu­cului şi bandelor sale decât să fie omagiat însuşi hai­ducul, în ideea de a nu încuraja rezistenţa la acţiunile poliţiei.

O analiză minuţioasă a cântecelor populare atât de trudnic adunate în secolul 19, şi acum incluse în reper­toriul mişcării pentru tineret, turism şi sport din Ruri- tania, nu prea dezvăluie vreo nemulţumire acută a ţără­nimii în legătură cu situaţia sa culturală şi lingvistică, oricât de afectată s-ar arăta ea de alte probleme, mai pământeşti. Dimpotrivă, conştientizarea pluralismului lingvistic se face în versurile cântecelor de o manieră ironică, glumeaţă, cu bună dispoziţie şi constă parţial în jocuri de cuvinte bilingve, uneori de un gust îndoiel­nic. Trebuie de asemenea recunoscut că unul dintre cele mai mişcătoare cântece - l-am cântat adesea şi eu la focul de tabără din tabăra în care eram trimis în vacanţa de vară - plânge soarta unui ciobănaş care paşte trei boi pe islazul boierului (sic) de lângă pădure şi este surprins de trei haiduci care îi cer să le dea mantaua. Nebuneasca îndrăzneală şi lipsa conştiinţei politice îşi dau mâna, ciobănaşul refuză şi este omorât. Nu ştiu dacă acest cântec a fost rescris cum trebuie după ce Ruritania a devenit socialistă. Oricum, să revin la tema principală: deşi cântecele adesea cuprind jeluiri asupra stării ţărănimii, ele nu ridică problema naţionalismului cultural.

Acesta era însă departe şi, după câte se pare, poste­rior compunerii amintitelor cântece. In secolul 19 a avut loc o explozie a populaţiei simultană cu

51

94 C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ?

industrializarea rapidă a altor zone ale Imperiului Me­galomaniei, dar nu şi a Ruritaniei. Ţăranii ruritani au fost nevoiţi să caute de lucru în zonele mai dezvoltate industrial şi unii au şi căpătat, în condiţiile îngrozitoare ale epocii. Ca oameni de la ţară, vorbind o limbă obscură şi rareori scrisă ori predată în şcoli, le-a venit foarte greu în oraşele în ale căror mahalale se muta­seră. Totodată, unii flăcăi ruritani hărăziţi preoţiei şi educaţi atât în limba curţii cât şi în cea liturgică, au fost influenţaţi în seminar de noile idei liberale şi au trecut la învăţământul laic universitar, devenind nu preoţi, ci ziarişti, învăţători şi profesori. Ei au fost încurajaţi şi de unii etnografi, muzicologi şi istorici străini, neruriiani, veniţi să exploreze Ruritania. Continua migrare a mâinii de lucru, educaţia primară şi serviciul militar obligatoriu tot mai răspândite le-au adus acestor deşteptători ai ruritanilor o audienţă în creştere.

Desigur, era perfect posibil ca ruritanii, dacă o do­reau (şi mulţi au dorit-o), să se asimileze limbii domi­nante a Megalomaniei. Nici o trăsătură transmisă genetic, nici o profundă tradiţie religioasă nu deosebea un ruritan educat de un megaloman aşişderea. în fapt, mulţi s-au asimilat, deseori nesinchisindu-se nici măcar să-şi schimbe numele, şi cartea de telefon a vechii capitale a Megalomaniei (acum Republica Fede­rală a Megalomaniei) e plină de nume ruritane, chiar dacă de multe ori comic transcrise în megalomană şi adaptate la regulile fonetice megalomane. După un început aspru şi dureros al primei generaţii, şansele odraslelor muncitorilor ruritani migratori nu erau ne­meritat de slabe, ci probabil cel puţin la fel de bune ca şi cele ale concetăţenilor megalomani neruritani (dată fiind disponibilitatea lor de a munci din greu). Aşa că

52

C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ? 95

aceste odrasle şi-au avut partea lor în ulterioara cres­cândă prosperitate şi îmburghezire generală a regiu­nii. Prin urmare, cel puţin în privinţa şanselor indivi­duale, poate nu era nevoie de un naţionalism ruritan violent.

Şi totuşi el a apărut. Ar fi greşit să le atribuim parti­cipanţilor la mişcare un calcul conştient. Subiectiv, am putea presupune că aveau motivele şi sentimentele atât de stăruitor exprimate în literatura deşteptării naţionale. Că deplângeau sărăcia şi părăsirea văilor natale, deşi vedeau în ele şi virtuţile rustice pe care încă le mai păstrau; că deplângeau discriminarea la care erau supuşi conaţionalii lor şi înstrăinarea de cul­tura natală la care aceştia erau condamnaţi în subur­biile proletare ale oraşelor industriale. Că predicau îm­potriva acestor rele şi că mulţi conaţionali îi ascultau. Felul în care Ruritania şi-a dobândit până la urmă independenţa, atunci când situaţia internaţională s-a arătat prielnică, este de acum istorie şi nu mai e nece­sar să-l repetăm aici.

Nu trebuie, repet, să presupunem vreo calculare a intereselor pe termen lung la nimeni. Intelectualii naţionalişti erau plini de o caldă şi generoasă ardoare pentru conaţionali. Când îmbrăcau costume populare şi străbăteau dealurile în care cu boi, scriind poezii în luminişuri, ei nu visau că într-o bună zi vor deveni funcţionari puternici, ambasadori şi miniştri. La fel, ţăranii şi muncitorii pe care au reuşit să-i mişte au avut resentimente faţă de condiţia lor, dar n-au nutrit reverii despre planuri de dezvoltare industrială care să aducă într-o zi un combinat metalurgic (inutil, după cum s-a dovedit mai apoi) în inima văilor ruritane, ruinând astfel total o mare arie înconjurătoare de terenuri

53

96 C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ?

arabile şi păşuni. Ar fi cu totul greşit să încercăm să reducem aceste sentimente la calculări ale avantajelor materiale şi mobilităţii sociale. Această teorie se travesteşte uneori în reducerea sentimentului naţional la calcularea perspectivelor de ascensiune socială. Dar ea reprezintă o eroare. în timpurile vechi nu avea sens să te întrebi dacă ţăranii îşi iubesc cultura: ei o luau de- a gata, ca aerul pe care îl respirau şi nu erau conştienţi nici de una, nici de celălalt. Dar când migrarea în cău­tarea locurilor de muncă şi angajarea ca funcţionari au devenit trăsături majore ale orizontului lor social, au învăţat repede diferenţa dintre a avea de a face cu un conaţional care înţelege şi este solidar cu propria lor cultură şi aceea de a avea de a face cu cineva ostil acesteia din urmă. Această experienţă extrem de con­creta i-a învăţat să fie conştienţi de cultura lor şi s-o iubească (sau să dorească să scape de ea) fără vreo calculare conştientă a avantajelor şi perspectivelor de mobilitate socială. în comunităţile introvertite şi sta­bile cultura este adesea aproape invizibilă, dar când mobilitatea şi comunicarea desprinsă de context ajung să ţină de esenţa vieţii sociale, cultura în care ai fost invadat să comunici devine miezul identităţii tale.

Aşa că dacă ar fi existat un asemenea calcul (care nu a existat) în multe cazuri (deşi nu în toate), el ar fi fost foarte sănătos. Dat fiind numărul relativ mic de intelectuali ruritani, acei ruritani cu calificări mai înalte dobândeau în Ruritania independentă posturi mult mai bune decât cele la care majoritatea lor ar fi îndrăznit vreodată să viseze în Megalomania Mare unde ar fi concurat cu grupuri etnice mai dezvoltate educaţional, în ceea ce-i priveşte pe ţărani şi muncitori, ei nu au profitat imediat dar trasarea unei frontiere politice în

54

C e e s t e o n a ţ i u n e ? 97

jurul proaspăt definitei Ruritanii etnice a implicat susţinerea şi protejarea industriilor din zonă şi în cele din urmă a diminuat drastic necesitatea migraţiei spre locuri de muncă.

Din toate acestea rezultă că în timpul primei pe­rioade a industrializării cei care intră în noua ordine şi provin din grupuri culturale şi lingvistice depărtate de cele ale centrului mai avansat suferă considerabile dezavantaje care sunt şi mai mari decât cele ale altor noi proletari lipsiţi de forţă economică, dar care au avantajul de a împărtăşi cultura conducătorilor econo­mici şi politici. Dar distanţa culturală lingvistică şi capacitatea de a se diferenţia de alţii, care constituie un imens handicap pentru indivizi, pot fi - şi adesea sunt - în cele din urmă un cert avantaj pentru colecti­vităţile întregi, sau potenţialele colectivităţi ale acestor victime ale proaspăt apărutei lumi. Ele le îndreptăţesc să-şi conceapă şi să-şi exprime resentimentele şi ne­mulţumirile în termeni inteligibili. Ruritanii gândiseră şi simţiseră înainte la nivel de familie şi sat, cel mult la nivelul unei văi şi poate al unei religii. Dar acum, aruncaţi în creuzetul unei dezvoltări industriale inci­piente, nu mai existau pentru ei vale ori sat, şi uneori nici familii. Dar existau alţi indivizi sărăciţi şi exploa­taţi, şi mare parte dintre ei vorbeau dialecte apropiate, în vreme ce majoritatea celor mai bine situaţi vorbeau ceva cu totul străin; noul concept de naţiune ruritană s-a născut din acest contrast şi cu încurajarea acelor ziarişti şi dascăli. Şi nu era o iluzie: atingerea unora dintre scopurile mişcării naţionale ruritane chiar a di­minuat relele care contribuiseră la apariţia ei. Poate ele s-ar fi diminuat oricum, dar această formă naţională a adus cu ea şi o nouă înaltă cultură şi statul ei păzitor.

55

98 C e e s '.'e o n a ţ i u n e ?

Acesta este unul dintre cele două importante prin­cipii de fisiune care determină apariţia noilor unităţi, când se naşte lumea industrială cu rezervoarele sale culturale izolate. Ar putea fi numit principiul barierelor de comunicare, bariere bazate pe culturi precedente, preindustriale; şi el operează extrem de puternic în cursul perioadei timpurii a industrializării. Celălalt principiu, la fel de important, ar putea fi numit al inhibitorilor entropiei sociale şi merită să fie tratat separat.

56

Cultural Roots

N o more arresting emblems o f the modern culture o f nationalism

exist than cenotaphs and tombs o f U n k n o w n Soldiers. The public

ceremonial reverence accorded these monuments precisely because

they are either deliberately empty or no one knows w h o lies inside

them, has no true precedents i n earlier times. T o feel the force o f

this modernity one has only to imagine the general reaction to the

busy-body w h o 'discovered' the U n k n o w n Soldier's name or insisted

on fi l l ing the cenotaph w i t h some real bones. Sacrilege o f a strange,

contemporary kind! Yet v o i d as these tombs are o f identifiable mortal

remains or immortal souls, they are nonetheless saturated w i t h ghostly

national imaginings. (This is w h y so many different nations have such

1. The ancient Greeks had cenotaphs, but for specific, known individuals whose

bodies, for one reason or another, could not be retrieved for regular burial. I owe this

information to my Byzantinist colleague Judith Herrin.

2. Consider, for example, these remarkable tropes: 1. 'The long grey line has never

failed us. Were you to do so, a mi l l ion ghosts i n olive drab, i n b rown khaki, i n blue and

grey, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, honour,

country.' 2. ' M y estimate o f [the American man-at-arms] was formed on the battlefield

many, many years ago, and has never changed. I regarded h i m then, as I regard h i m

now, as one o f the world's noblest figures; not only as one o f the finest military

characters, but also as one o f the most stainless [sic]. . . . He belongs to history as

furnishing one o f the greatest examples o f successful patriotism [sic]. He belongs to

posterity as the instructor o f future generations i n the principles o f liberty and freedom.

9

57

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

tombs wi thout feeling any need to specify the nationality o f their

absent occupants. What else could they be but Germans, Americans,

Argentinians . . .?)

The cultural significance o f such monuments becomes even clearer i f

one tries to imagine, say, a Tomb o f the U n k n o w n Marxist or a

cenotaph for fallen Liberals. Is a sense o f absurdity avoidable? The reason

is that neither Marxism nor Liberalism is much concerned w i t h death

and immortality. I f the nationalist imagining is so concerned, this

suggests a strong affinity w i t h religious imaginings. As this affinity is

by no means fortuitous, i t may be useful to begin a consideration o f the

cultural roots o f nationalism w i t h death, as the last o f a whole gamut o f

fatalities.

I f the manner o f a man's dying usually seems arbitrary, his

mortality is inescapable. H u m a n lives are full o f such combinations

o f necessity and chance. W e are all aware o f the contingency and

ineluctability o f our particular genetic heritage, our gender, our l ife-

era, our physical capabilities, our mother-tongue, and so forth. The

great merit o f traditional religious world-views (which naturally must

be distinguished f rom their role i n the legitimation o f specific systems

o f domination and exploitation) has been their concern w i t h man- in-

the-cosmos, man as species being, and the contingency o f life. The

extraordinary survival over thousands o f years o f Buddhism, Chris­

tianity or Islam i n dozens o f different social formations attests to their

imaginative response to the overwhelming burden o f human suffer­

ing — disease, mutilat ion, grief, age, and death. W h y was I born

blind? W h y is m y best friend paralysed? W h y is my daughter

retarded? The religions attempt to explain. The great weakness o f

all evolutionary/progressive styles o f thought, not excluding Marx¬

ism, is that such questions are answered w i t h impatient silence. A t

He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and his achievements.' Douglas

Mac Arthur, 'Duty, Honour, Country, ' Address to the U.S. Mili tary Academy, West

Point, May 12, 1962, i n his A Soldier Speaks, pp. 354 and 357.

3. Cf. Regis Debray, 'Marxism and the National Question,' New; Left Review, 105

(September-October 1977), p. 29. I n the course o f doing fieldwork i n Indonesia i n the

1960s I was struck by the calm refusal o f many Muslims to accept the ideas o f Darwin. A t

first I interpreted this refusal as obscurantism. Subsequently I came to see i t as an

honourable attempt to be consistent: the doctrine o f evolution was simply not

compatible w i t h the teachings o f Islam. What are we to make o f a scientific materialism

10

58

CULTURAL ROOTS

the same time, i n different ways, religious thought also responds to

obscure intimations o f immortal i ty, generally by transforming fatality

into continuity (karma, original sin, etc.). I n this way, i t concerns

itself w i t h the links between the dead and the yet unborn, the

mystery o f re-generation. W h o experiences their child's conception

and bi r th w i thou t dimly apprehending a combined connectedness,

fortuity, and fatality i n a language o f 'continuity'? (Again, the

disadvantage o f evolutionary/progressive thought is an almost Her -

aclitean hostility to any idea o f continuity.)

I br ing up these perhaps simpleminded observations primarily

because i n Western Europe the eighteenth century marks not only

the dawn o f the age o f nationalism but the dusk o f religious modes o f

thought. The century o f the Enlightenment, o f rationalist secularism,

brought w i t h i t its o w n modern darkness. W i t h the ebbing o f

religious belief, the suffering which belief i n part composed did

not disappear. Disintegration o f paradise: nothing makes fatality more

arbitrary. Absurdity o f salvation: nothing makes another style o f

continuity more necessary. What then was required was a secular

transformation o f fatality into continuity, contingency into meaning.

As we shall see, few things were (are) better suited to this end than an

idea o f nation. I f nation-states are widely conceded to be new' and

'historical,' the nations to wh ich they give political expression always

l o o m out o f an immemorial past,4 and, still more important, glide

which formally accepts the findings o f physics about matter, yet makes so little effort to

l ink these findings w i t h the class struggle, revolution, or whatever. Does not the abyss

between protons and the proletariat conceal an unacknowledged metaphysical con­

ception o f man? But see the refreshing texts o f Sebastiano Timpanaro, On Materialism

and The Freudian Slip, and Raymond Williams' thoughtful response to them i n

'Timpanaro's Materialist Challenge,' New Left Review, 109 (May-June 1978), pp. 3-17.

4. The late President Sukarno always spoke w i t h complete sincerity o f the 350

years o f colonialism that his 'Indonesia' had endured, although the very concept

'Indonesia' is a twentieth-century invention, and most o f today's Indonesia was only

conquered by the Dutch between 1850 and 1910. Preeminent among contemporary

Indonesia's national heroes is the early nineteenth-century Javanese Prince Diponegoro,

although the Prince's own memoirs show that he intended to 'conquer [not liberate!]

Java,' rather than expel 'the Dutch. ' Indeed, he clearly had no concept of ' the Dutch ' as

a collectivity. See Harry J. Benda and John A. Larkin, eds. , The World of Southeast Asia,

p. 158; and A n n Kumar, 'Diponegoro (1778?-1855),' Indonesia, 13 (April 1972), p. 103.

11

59

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

into a limitless future. I t is the magic o f nationalism to turn chance

into destiny. W i t h Debray we might say, 'Yes, i t is quite accidental

that I am born French; but after all, France is eternal.'

Needless to say, I am not claiming that the appearance o f nation­

alism towards the end o f the eighteenth century was 'produced' by the

erosion o f religious certainties, or that this erosion does not itself

require a complex explanation. N o r am I suggesting that somehow

nationalism historically 'supersedes' religion. What I am proposing is

that nationalism has to be understood by aligning i t , not w i t h self­

consciously held political ideologies, but w i t h the large cultural

systems that preceded i t , out o f which — as well as against wh ich

- i t came into being.

For present purposes, the two relevant cultural systems are the religious

community and the dynastic realm. For both o f these, i n their heydays,

were taken-for-granted frames o f reference, very much as nationality is

today. I t is therefore essential to consider what gave these cultural

systems their self-evident plausibility, and at the same time to underline

certain key elements i n their decomposition.

T H E R E L I G I O U S C O M M U N I T Y

Few things are more impressive than the vast territorial stretch o f the

U m m a h Islam from Morocco to the Sulu Archipelago, o f Christen­

dom from Paraguay to Japan, and o f the Buddhist w o r l d from Sri

Lanka to the Korean peninsula. The great sacral cultures (and for our

purposes here i t may be permissible to include 'Confucianism')

incorporated conceptions o f immense communities. But Christendom,

the Islamic Ummah, and even the Middle Kingdom — which , though

we think o f i t today as Chinese, imagined itself not as Chinese, but as

Emphasis added. Similarly, Kemal Atatiirk named one o f his state banks the Eti Banka

(Hittite Bank) and another the Sumerian Bank. (Seton-Watson, Nations and States, p.

259). These banks flourish today, and there is no reason to doubt that many Turks,

possibly not excluding Kemal himself, seriously saw, and see, i n the Hittites and

Sumerians their Turkish forebears. Before laughing too hard, we should remaind

ourselves o f Arthur and Boadicea, and ponder the commercial success o f Tolkien's

mythographies.

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CULTURAL ROOTS

central - were imaginable largely through the medium o f a sacred

language and wri t ten script. Take only the example o f Islam: i f

Maguindanao met Berbers i n Mecca, knowing nothing o f each other's

languages, incapable o f communicating orally, they nonetheless under­

stood each other's ideographs, because the sacred texts they shared

existed only i n classical Arabic. I n this sense, wri t ten Arabic functioned

like Chinese characters to create a community out o f signs, not sounds.

(So today mathematical language continues an old tradition. O f what

the Thai call + Rumanians have no idea, and vice versa, but both

comprehend the symbol.) A l l the great classical communities con­

ceived o f themselves as cosmically central, through the medium o f a

sacred language l inked to a superterrestrial order o f power. Accord­

ingly, the stretch o f wri t ten Latin, Pali, Arabic, or Chinese was, i n

theory, unlimited. (In fact, the deader the wri t ten language - the

farther i t was from speech - the better: i n principle everyone has access

to a pure w o r l d o f signs.)

Yet such classical communities l inked by sacred languages had a

character distinct from the imagined communities o f modern nations.

One crucial difference was the older communities' confidence i n the

unique sacredness o f their languages, and thus their ideas about

admission to membership. Chinese mandarins looked w i t h approval

on barbarians w h o painfully learned to paint Middle K ingdom

ideograms. These barbarians were already halfway to full absorption. 5

Half-civilized was vastly better than barbarian. Such an attitude was

certainly not peculiar to the Chinese, nor confined to antiquity.

Consider, for example, the fol lowing 'policy on barbarians' formulated

by the early-nineteenth-century Colombian liberal Pedro Fe rmín de

Vargas:

To expand our agriculture it would be necessary to hispanicize our

Indians. Their idleness, stupidity, and indifference towards normal

endeavours causes one to think that they come from a degenerate race

which deteriorates in proportion to the distance from its origin . . . it

would be very desirable that the Indians be extinguished, by miscegenation with

5. Hence the equanimity w i t h which Sinicized Mongols and Manchus were accepted as Sons o f Heaven.

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

the whites, declaring them free of tribute and other charges, and giving them

private property in land.6

H o w striking i t is that this liberal still proposes to 'extinguish' his

Indians i n part by 'declaring them free o f tribute' and 'giving them

private property i n land', rather than exterminating them by gun and

microbe as his heirs i n Brazil, Argentina, and the Uni ted States began to

do soon afterwards. Note also, alongside the condescending cruelty, a

cosmic optimism: the Indian is ultimately redeemable — by impreg­

nation w i t h white , 'civilized' semen, and the acquisition o f private

property, like everyone else. ( H o w different Fermin's attitude is from the

later European imperialist's preference for 'genuine' Malays, Gurkhas,

and Hausas over 'half-breeds,' 'semi-educated natives,' 'wogs', and the

like.)

Yet i f the sacred silent languages were the media through wh ich the

great global communities o f the past were imagined, the reality o f

such apparitions depended on an idea largely foreign to the

contemporary Western mind : the non-arbitrariness o f the sign. The

ideograms o f Chinese, Latin, or Arabic were emanations o f reality,

not randomly fabricated representations o f i t . W e are familiar w i t h

the long dispute over the appropriate language (Latin or vernacular)

for the mass. I n the Islamic tradition, un t i l quite recently, the Qur 'an

was literally untranslatable (and therefore untranslated), because

Allah's t ruth was accessible only through the unsubstitutable true

signs o f wri t ten Arabic. There is no idea here o f a w o r l d so separated

from language that all languages are equidistant (and thus inter­

changeable) signs for i t . I n effect, ontological reality is apprehensible

only through a single, privileged system o f re-presentation: the t ru th -

language o f Church Latin, Qur'anic Arabic, or Examination Chinese.

A n d , as truth-languages, imbued w i t h an impulse largely foreign to

6. John Lynch, The Spanish-American Revolutions, 1808-1826, p. 260. Emphasis

added.

7. Church Greek seems not to have achieved the status o f a truth-language. The

reasons for this 'failure' are various, but one key factor was certainly the fact that Greek

remained a living demotic speech (unlike Latin) i n much of the Eastern Empire. This

insight I owe to Judith Herein.

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CULTURAL ROOTS

nationalism, the impulse towards conversion. By conversion, I mean

not so much the acceptance o f particular religious tenets, but alchemic

absorption. The barbarian becomes 'Middle Kingdom' , the R i f

Mus l im, the Ilongo Christian. The whole nature o f man's being is

sacrally malleable. (Contrast thus the prestige o f these old w o r l d -

languages, towering high over all vernaculars, w i t h Esperanto or

Volapiik, w h i c h lie ignored between them.) I t was, after all, this

possibility o f conversion through the sacred language that made i t

possible for an 'Englishman' to become Pope and a 'Manchu ' Son o f

Heaven.

But even though the sacred languages made such communities as

Christendom imaginable, the actual scope and plausibility o f these

communities can not be explained by sacred script alone: their readers

were, after all, t iny literate reefs on top o f vast illiterate oceans.9 A fuller

explanation requires a glance at the relationship between the literati and

their societies. I t wou ld be a mistake to v iew the former as a k ind o f

theological technocracy. The languages they sustained, i f abstruse, had

none o f the self-arranged abstruseness o f lawyers' or economists'

jargons, on the margin o f society's idea o f reality. Rather, the literati

were adepts, strategic strata i n a cosmological hierarchy o f wh ich the

apex was d iv ine . 1 0 The fundamental conceptions about 'social groups'

were centripetal and hierarchical, rather than boundary-oriented and

horizontal. The astonishing power o f the papacy i n its noonday is only

comprehensible i n terms o f a trans-European Lat in-wri t ing clerisy, and a

conception o f the wor ld , shared by virtually everyone, that the bilingual

intelligentsia, by mediating between vernacular and Latin, mediated

8. Nicholas Brakespear held the office o f pontiff between 1154 and 1159 under

the name Adrian I V .

9. Marc Bloch reminds us that 'the majority o f lords and many great barons [in

mediaeval times] were administrators incapable o f studying personally a report or an

account.' Feudal Society, I , p. 81.

10. This is not to say that the illiterate did not read. What they read, however, was

not words but the visible world . ' I n the eyes o f all who were capable o f reflection the

material wor ld was scarcely more than a sort o f mask, behind which took place all the

really important things; it seemed to them also a language, intended to express by signs a

more profound reality.' Ibid. p. 83.

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

between earth and heaven. (The awesomeness o f excommunication

reflects this cosmology.)

Yet for all the grandeur and power o f the great religiously imagined

communities, their unselfconscious coherence waned steadily after the late

Middle Ages. A m o n g the reasons for this decline, I wish here to

emphasize only the two which are directly related to these commu­

nities' unique sacredness.

First was the effect o f the explorations o f the non-European wor ld ,

wh ich mainly but by no means exclusively i n Europe 'abruptly widened

the cultural and geographic horizon and hence also men's conception o f

possible forms o f human life.' The process is already apparent i n the

greatest o f all European travel-books. Consider the fol lowing awed

description o f Kublai Khan by the good Venetian Christian Marco Polo

at the end o f the thirteenth century:

The grand khan, having obtained this signal victory, returned wi th

great pomp and triumph to the capital city o f Kanbalu. This took

place in the month o f November, and he continued to reside there

during the months of February and March, in which latter was our

festival o f Easter. Being aware that this was one o f our principal

solemnities, he commanded all the Christians to attend him, and to

bring wi th them their Book, which contains the four Gospels o f the

Evangelists. After causing it to be repeatedly perfumed wi th incense,

in a ceremonious manner, he devoutly kissed it , and directed that the

same should be done by all his nobles who were present. This was his

usual practice upon each o f the principal Christian festivals, such as

Easter and Christmas; and he observed the same at the festivals o f the

Saracens, Jews, and idolaters. Upon being asked his motive for this

conduct, he said: 'There are four great Prophets who are reverenced

and worshipped by the different classes o f mankind. The Christians

regard Jesus Christ as their divinity; the Saracens, Mahomet; the Jews,

Moses; and the idolaters, Sogomombar-kan, the most eminent

among their idols. I do honour and show respect to all the four,

11. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis, p. 282.

12. Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, pp. 158-59. Emphases added. Notice

that, though kissed, the Evangel is not read.

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CULTURAL ROOTS

and invoke to my aid whichever amongst them is in truth supreme in

heaven' But from the manner in which his majesty acted towards

them, it is evident that he regarded the faith of the Christians as the

truest and the best . . .

What is so remarkable about this passage is not so much the great

M o n g o l dynast's calm religious relativism (it is still a religious relativism),

as Marco Polo's attitude and language. I t never occurs to h im, even

though he is wr i t ing for fellow-European Christians, to term Kublai a

hypocrite or an idolater. (No doubt i n part because ' i n respect to

number o f subjects, extent o f territory, and amount o f revenue, he

surpasses every sovereign that has heretofore been or that now is i n the 13

world. ' ) A n d i n the unselfconscious use o f ' o u r ' (which becomes

'their '), and the description o f the faith o f the Christians as 'truest,'

rather than 'true,' we can detect the seeds o f a territorialization o f faiths

wh ich foreshadows the language o f many nationalists ('our' nation is

'the b e s t ' - i n a competitive, comparative field).

What a revealing contrast is provided by the opening o f the letter

wri t ten by the Persian traveller 'Rica' to his friend 'Ibben' from Paris i n

'1712 ' : 1 4

The Pope is the chief o f the Christians; he is an ancient idol,

worshipped now from habit. Once he was formidable even to

princes, for he w o u l d depose them as easily as our magnificent

sultans depose the kings o f Iremetia or Georgia. But nobody fears h im

any longer. He claims to be the successor of one o f the earliest

Christians, called Saint Peter, and it is certainly a rich succession, for

his treasure is immense and he has a great country under his control.

The deliberate, sophisticated fabrications o f the eighteenth century

Catholic mirror the naive realism o f his thirteenth-century predecessor,

but by now the 'relativization' and 'territorialization' are utterly self-

conscious, and political i n intent. Is i t unreasonable to see a paradoxical

13. The Travels of Marco Polo, p. 152.

14. Henr i de Montesquieu, Persian Letters, p, 81 . The Lettres Persanes first appeared

i n 1721.

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

elaboration o f this evolving tradition i n the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomei ­

ni's identification o f The Great Satan, not as a heresy, nor even as a

demonic personage (dim little Carter scarcely fitted the bill) , but as a nation?

Second was a gradual demotion o f the sacred language itself. Wr i t i ng o f

mediaeval Western Europe, Bloch noted that 'Latin was not only the

language i n which teaching was done, i t was the only language taught'

(This second 'only' shows quite clearly the sacredness o f Latin - no other

language was thought wor th the teaching.) But by the sixteenth century

all this was changing fast. The reasons for the change need not detain us

here: the central importance o f print-capitalism w i l l be discussed below. I t

is sufficient to remind ourselves o f its scale and pace. Febvre and Mart in

estimate that 77% o f the books printed before 1500 were still i n Latin

(meaning nonetheless that 23% were already i n vernaculars). 1 6 I f o f the 88

editions printed i n Paris i n 1501 all but 8 were i n Latin, after 1575 a

majority were always i n French. Despite a temporary come-back

during the Counter-Reformation, Latin's hegemony was doomed.

N o r are we speaking simply o f a general popularity. Somewhat later,

but at no less dizzying speed, Latin ceased to be the language o f a pan-

European high intelligentsia. I n the seventeenth century Hobbes (1588¬

1678) was a figure o f continental renown because he wrote i n the t ruth-

language. Shakespeare (1564—1616), on the other hand, composing i n the

vernacular, was virtually unknown across the Channel. A n d had

English not become, two hundred years later, the pre-eminent wor ld -

imperial language, might he not largely have retained his original insular

obscurity? Meanwhile, these men's cross-Channel near-contemporaries,

Descartes (1596-1650) and Pascal (1623-1662), conducted most

o f their correspondence i n Latin; but virtually all o f Voltaire's (1694¬

1778) was i n the vernacular. 1 9 'After 1640, w i th fewer and fewer

books coming out in Latin, and more and more i n the verna­

cular languages, publishing was ceasing to be an international [sic]

15. Bloch, Feudal Society, I , p. 77. Emphasis added.

16. Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Mart in, The Coming of the Book, pp. 248—49.

17. Ibid., p. 321.

18. Ibid., p. 330.

19. Ibid., pp. 331-32.

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CULTURAL ROOTS

enterprise.' I n a word, the fall o f Latin exemplified a larger process i n

which the sacred communities integrated by old sacred languages were

gradually fragmented, pluralized, and territorialized.

THE D Y N A S T I C R E A L M

These days i t is perhaps difficult to put oneself empathetically into a

w o r l d i n wh ich the dynastic realm appeared for most men as the only

imaginable 'political ' system. For i n fundamental ways 'serious' m o n ­

archy lies transverse to all modern conceptions o f political life.

Kingship organizes everything around a high centre. Its legitimacy

derives from divini ty, not from populations, who , after all, are

subjects, not citizens. I n the modern conception, state sovereignty

is fully, flatly, and evenly operative over each square centimetre o f a

legally demarcated territory. But i n the older imagining, where states

were defined by centres, borders were porous and indistinct, and 21

sovereignties faded imperceptibly into one another. Hence, para­

doxically enough, the ease w i t h wh ich pre-modern empires and

kingdoms were able to sustain their rule over immensely heteroge­

neous, and often not even contiguous, populations for long periods o f 22

t ime. One must also remember that these antique monarchical states

20. Ibid. , pp. 232-33. The original French is more modest and historically exact:

'Tandis que l 'on édite de moins en moins d'ouvrages en latin, et une proportion

toujours plus grande de textes en langue nationale, le commerce du livre se morcelle en

Europe.' L'Apparition du Livre, p. 356.

21 . Notice the displacement i n rulers' nomenclature that corresponds to this

transformation. Schoolchildren remember monarchs by their first names (what was

W i l l i a m the Conqueror's surname?), presidents by their last (what was Ebert's

Christian name?). I n a wor ld o f citizens, all o f w h o m are theoretically eligible for

the presidency, the l imited pool o f 'Christian' names makes them inadequate as

specifying designators. In monarchies, however, where rule is reserved for a single

surname, i t is necessarily 'Christian' names, w i t h numbers, or sobriquets, that supply

the requisite distinctions.

22. W e may here note i n passing that Nairn is certainly correct i n describing the

1707 Act o f U n i o n between England and Scotland as a 'patrician bargain,' i n the sense

that the union's architects were aristocratic politicians. (See his lucid discussion i n The

Break-up of Britain, pp. 136f). Still, i t is difficult to imagine such a bargain being

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

expanded not only by warfare but by sexual politics - o f a k ind very

different from that practised today. Through the general principle o f

verticality, dynastic marriages brought together diverse populations

under new apices. Paradigmatic i n this respect was the House o f

Habsburg. As the tag went, Bella gerant alii, tufelix Austria nube! Here, 23

i n somewhat abbreviated form, is the later dynasts' titulature.

Emperor o f Austria; King o f Hungary, o f Bohemia, o f Dalmatia,

Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria, and Illyria; King o f Jerusalem,

etc; Archduke of Austria [sic]; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow;

Duke o f Loth[a]ringia, o f Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and

Bukovina; Grand Duke o f Transylvania, Margrave o f Moravia; Duke

o f Upper and Lower Silesia, o f Modena, Parma, Piacenza, and

Guastella, o f Ausschwitz and Sator, o f Teschen, Friaul, Ragusa,

and Zara; Princely Count o f Habsburg and Tyrol, o f Kyburg, Gorz,

and Gradiska; Duke o f Trient and Brizen; Margrave o f Upper and

Lower Lausitz and in Istria; Count o f Hohenembs, Feldkirch,

Bregenz, Sonnenberg, etc.; Lord o f Trieste, o f Cattaro, and above

the Windisch Mark; Great Voyvod o f the Voyvodina, Servia . . . .

etc.

This, Jaszi justly observes, was, 'not wi thou t a certain comic aspect . . .

the record o f the innumerable marriages, hucksterings and captures o f

the Habsburgs.'

I n realms where polygyny was religiously sanctioned, complex

systems o f tiered concubinage were essential to the integration o f

the realm. I n fact, royal lineages often derived their prestige, aside

from any aura o f divinity, from, shall we say, miscegenation? 2 4 For such

struck between the aristocracies o f two republics. The conception o f a United Kingdom

was surely the crucial mediating element that made the deal possible.

23. Oscar Jaszi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, p. 34.

24. Most notably i n pre-modern Asia. But the same principle was at work i n

monogamous Christian Europe. I n 1910, one Otto Forst put out his Ahnentafel Seiner

Kaiserlichen und Königlichen Hoheit des durchlauchtigsten Hern Erzherzogs Franz Ferdinand,

listing 2,047 o f the soon-to-be-assassinated Archduke's ancestors. They included

1,486 Germans, 124 French, 196 Italians, 89 Spaniards, 52 Poles, 47 Danes, 20

Englishmen/women, as well as four other nationalities. This 'curious document' is

cited i n ibid. , p. 136, no. 1. I can not resist quoting here Franz Joseph's wonderful

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mixtures were signs o f a superordinate status. I t is characteristic that

there has not been an 'English' dynasty ruling i n London since the

eleventh century ( i f then); and what 'nationality' are we to assign to the or

Bourbons?

Dur ing the seventeenth century, however - for reasons that need

not detain us here - the automatic legitimacy o f sacral monarchy

began its slow decline i n Western Europe. I n 1649, Charles Stuart was

beheaded i n the first o f the modern world's revolutions, and during

the 1650s one o f the more important European states was ruled by a

plebeian Protector rather than a king. Yet even i n the age o f Pope and

Addison, Anne Stuart was still healing the sick by the laying on o f

royal hands, cures committed also by the Bourbons, Louis X V and

X V I , i n Enlightened France t i l l the end o f the ancien regime. But after

1789 the principle o f Legitimacy had to be loudly and self-consciously

defended, and, i n the process, 'monarchy' became a semi-standardized

model. Tenno and Son o f Heaven became 'Emperors. ' I n far-off Siam

Rama V (Chulalongkorn) sent his sons and nephews to the courts o f

St. Petersburg, London and Berl in to learn the intricacies o f the w o r l d -

model. I n 1887, he instituted the requisite principle o f succession-by-

legal-primogeniture, thus bringing Siam ' into line w i t h the "civi l ized"

monarchies o f Europe.' The new system brought to the throne i n

1910 an erratic homosexual who w o u l d certainly have been passed

over i n an earlier age. However, inter-monarchic approval o f his

ascension as Rama V I was sealed by the attendance at his coronation o f

princelings f rom Britain, Russia, Greece, Sweden, Denmark - and

Japan! 2 8

reaction to the news o f his erratic heir-apparent's murder: Tn this manner a superior

power has restored that order which I unfortunately was unable to maintain' (ibid., p.

125).

25. Gellner stresses the typical foreignness o f dynasties, but interprets the phe­

nomenon too narrowly: local aristocrats prefer an alien monarch because he w i l l not

take sides i n their internal rivalries. Thought and Change, p. 136.

26. Marc Bloch, Les Rois Thaumaturges, pp. 390 and 398-99.

27. Noe l A . Battye, 'The Mili tary, Government and Society i n Siam, 1868-1910,'

PhD thesis, Cornell 1974, p. 270.

28. Stephen Greene, 'Thai Government and Administration i n the Reign o f

Rama V I (1910-1925),' PhD thesis, University o f London 1971, p. 92.

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

As late as 1914, dynastic states made up the majority o f the

membership o f the w o r l d political system, but, as we shall be not ing

i n detail below, many dynasts had for some time been reaching for a

'national' cachet as the old principle o f Legitimacy withered silently

away. Whi l e the armies o f Frederick the Great (r. 1740-1786) were

heavily staffed by 'foreigners', those o f his great-nephew Friedrich

W i l h e l m I I I (r. 1797-1840) were, as a result o f Scharnhorst's, Gnei-

senau's and Clausewitz's spectacular reforms, exclusively 'national-

Prussian.' 2 9

APPREHENSIONS OF T I M E

I t w o u l d be short-sighted, however, to think o f the imagined com­

munities o f nations as simply growing out o f and replacing religious

communities and dynastic realms. Beneath the decline o f sacred com­

munities, languages and lineages, a fundamental change was taking place

i n modes o f apprehending the wor ld , which , more than anything else,

made i t possible to ' think' the nation.

T o get a feeling for this change, one can profitably turn to the

visual representations o f the sacred communities, such as the reliefs

and stained-glass windows o f mediaeval churches, or the paintings o f

early Italian and Flemish masters. A characteristic feature o f such

representations is something misleadingly analogous to 'modern

dress'. The shepherds w h o have fol lowed the star to the manger

where Christ is born bear the features o f Burgundian peasants. The

V i r g i n Mary is figured as a Tuscan merchant's daughter. I n many

paintings the commissioning patron, i n full burgher or noble cos­

tume, appears kneeling i n adoration alongside the shepherds. What

seems incongruous today obviously appeared whol ly natural to the

eyes o f mediaeval worshippers. W e are faced w i t h a w o r l d i n w h i c h

29. More than 1,000 o f the 7,000-8,000 men on the Prussian Army's officer list i n

1806 were foreigners. 'Middle-class Prussians were outnumbered by foreigners i n their

own army; this lent colour to the saying that Prussia was not a country that had an army,

but an army that had a country.' I n 1798, Prussian reformers had demanded a 'reduction

by one half o f the number o f foreigners, who still amounted to about 50% o f the

privates. . . .' Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism, pp. 64 and 85.

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the figuring o f imagined reality was overwhelmingly visual and aural.

Christendom assumed its universal form through a myriad o f specifi­

cities and particularities: this relief, that w indow, this sermon, that

tale, this morali ty play, that relic. W h i l e the trans-European Lat in-

reading clerisy was one essential element i n the structuring o f the

Christian imagination, the mediation o f its conceptions to the

illiterate masses, by visual and aural creations, always personal and

particular, was no less vital . The humble parish priest, whose fore­

bears and frailties everyone w h o heard his celebrations knew, was still

the direct intermediary between his parishioners and the divine. This

juxtaposit ion o f the cosmic-universal and the mundane-particular

meant that however vast Christendom might be, and was sensed to

be, i t manifested itself variously to particular Swabian or Andalusian

communities as replications o f themselves. Figuring the V i r g i n Mary

w i t h 'Semitic' features or 'first-century' costumes i n the restoring

spirit o f the modern museum was unimaginable because the med­

iaeval Christian m i n d had no conception o f history as an endless chain

o f cause and effect or o f radical separations between past and 30

present. Bloch observes that people thought they must be near

the end o f t ime, i n the sense that Christ's second coming could occur

at any moment: St. Paul had said that 'the day o f the L o r d cometh

like a th ief i n the night. ' I t was thus natural for the great twelf th-

century chronicler Bishop Ot to o f Freising to refer repeatedly to 'we

w h o have been placed at the end o f t ime. ' Bloch concludes that as

soon as mediaeval men 'gave themselves up to meditation, nothing

was farther f rom their thoughts than the prospect o f a long future for 31

a young and vigorous human race.' Auerbach gives an unforgettable sketch o f this form o f conscious-

32 ness:

30. For us, the idea of 'modern dress,' a metaphorical equivalencing o f past w i t h

present, is a backhanded recognition o f their fatal separation.

31 . Bloch, Feudal Society, I , pp. 84-86.

32. Auerbach, Mimesis, p. 64. Emphasis added. Compare St. Augustine's descrip­

t ion o f the O l d Testament as 'the shadow o f [i.e. cast backwards by] the future.' Cited i n

Bloch, Feudal Society, I , p. 90.

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

I f an occurrence like the sacrifice of Isaac is interpreted as prefiguring

the sacrifice o f Christ, so that in the former the latter is as it were

announced and promised and the latter 'fulfills' . . . the former, then a

connection is established between two events which are linked neither

temporally nor causally - a connection which it is impossible to

establish by reason in the horizontal d imens ion . . . It can be established

only i f both occurrences are vertically linked to Divine Providence,

which alone is able to devise such a plan o f history and supply the key to

its understanding . . . the here and now is no longer a mere link in an

earthly chain o f events, i t is simultaneously something which has always

been, and w i l l be fulfilled in the future; and strictly, in the eyes o f God, it

is something eternal, something omnitemporal, something already

consummated in the realm o f fragmentary earthly event.

He rightly stresses that such an idea o f simultaneity is whol ly alien to our

own. I t views time as something close to what Benjamin calls Messianic 33

time, a simultaneity o f past and future i n an instantaneous present. I n

such a view o f things, the w o r d 'meanwhile' cannot be o f real

significance.

Our o w n conception o f simultaneity has been a long time i n the

making, and its emergence is certainly connected, i n ways that have yet

to be wel l studied, w i t h the development o f the secular sciences. But i t is

a conception o f such fundamental importance that, wi thout taking i t

fully into account, we w i l l find i t difficult to probe the obscure genesis

o f nationalism. What has come to take the place o f the mediaeval

conception o f simultaneity-along-time is, to borrow again from Ben­

jamin , an idea of'homogeneous, empty time, ' i n which simultaneity is,

as i t were, transverse, cross-time, marked not by prefiguring and

fulfilment, but by temporal coincidence, and measured by clock and

calendar. 3 4

W h y this transformation should be so important for the bir th o f the

imagined community o f the nation can best be seen i f we consider the

basic structure o f two forms o f imagining which first flowered i n

33. Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, p. 265.

34. Ibid. , p. 263. So deep-lying is this new idea that one could argue that every

essential modern conception is based on a conception o f 'meanwhile'.

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CULTURAL ROOTS

Europe i n the eighteenth century: the novel and the newspaper. For

these forms provided the technical means for 're-presenting' the kind o f

imagined community that is the nation.

Consider first the structure o f the old-fashioned novel, a structure

typical not only o f the masterpieces o f Balzac but also o f any con­

temporary dollar-dreadful. I t is clearly a device for the presentation o f

simultaneity i n 'homogeneous, empty time, ' or a complex gloss upon

the w o r d 'meanwhile'. Take, for illustrative purposes, a segment o f a

simple novel-plot, i n wh ich a man (A) has a wife (B) and a mistress (C),

w h o in turn has a lover (D). W e might imagine a sort o f time-chart for

this segment as follows:

Time: I I I I I I

Events: A quarrels w i t h B A telephones C D gets drunk in a bar

C and D make love B shops A dines at home w i t h B

D plays pool C has an ominous dream

Notice that during this sequence A and D never meet, indeed may not

even be aware o f each other's existence i f C has played her cards

right. What then actually links A to D? T w o complementary

conceptions: First, that they are embedded i n 'societies' (Wessex,

Lubeck, Los Angeles). These societies are sociological entities o f such

f i rm and stable reality that their members (A and D) can even be

described as passing each other on the street, wi thou t ever becoming 37

acquainted, and still be connected. Second, that A and D are

35. Whi le the Princesse de Cleves had already appeared in 1678, the era o f

Richardson, Defoe and Fielding is the early eighteenth century. The origins o f the

modem newspaper lie i n the Dutch gazettes o f the late seventeenth century; but the

newspaper only became a general category o f printed matter after 1700. Febvre and

Mart in , The Coming of the Book, p. 197.

36. Indeed, the plot's grip may depend at Times I , I I , and I I I on A , B, C and D not

knowing what the others are up to.

37. This polyphony decisively marks off the modem novel even from so brilliant a

forerunner as Petronius's Satyricon. Its narrative proceeds single file. I f Encolpius bewails

his young lover's faithlessness, we are not simultaneously shown Gito i n bed w i t h

Ascyltus.

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

embedded i n the minds o f the omniscient readers. On ly they, like God,

watch A telephoning C, B shopping, and D playing pool aH at once.

That all these acts are performed at the same clocked, calendrical time,

but by actors w h o may be largely unaware o f one another, shows the

novelty o f this imagined wor ld conjured up by the author i n his

readers' minds . 3 8

The idea o f a sociological organism moving calendrically through

homogeneous, empty time is a precise analogue o f the idea o f the

nation, wh ich also is conceived as a solid community moving steadily

down (or up) history. A n American w i l l never meet, or even k n o w

the names o f more than a handful o f his 240,000,000-odd fellow-

Americans. He has no idea o f what they are up to at any one time. But

he has complete confidence i n their steady, anonymous, simultaneous

activity.

The perspective I am suggesting w i l l perhaps seem less abstract i f we

turn to inspect briefly four fictions from different cultures and different

epochs, all but one o f which , nonetheless, are inextricably bound to

nationalist movements. I n 1887, the 'Father o f Filipino Nationalism',

Jose Rizal, wrote the novel Noli Me Tangere, which today is regarded as

the greatest achievement o f modern Filipino literature. I t was also

almost the first novel wri t ten by an ' I n d i o . ' 4 0 Here is h o w i t marvel­

lously begins: 4 1

Towards the end o f October, D o n Santiago de los Santos, popularly

known as Capitan Tiago, was giving a dinner party. Although,

38. I n this context i t is rewarding to compare any historical novel w i t h documents

or narratives from the period fictionalized.

39. Noth ing better shows the immersion o f the novel in homogeneous, empty

time than the absence o f those prefatory genealogies, often ascending to the origin o f

man, which are so characteristic a feature o f ancient chronicles, legends, and holy

books.

40. Rizal wrote this novel i n the colonial language (Spanish), which was then the

lingua franca o f the ethnically diverse Eurasian and native elites. Alongside the novel

appeared also for the first time a 'nationalist' press, not only i n Spanish but i n such

'ethnic' languages as Tagalog and Ilocano. See Leopoldo Y . Yabes, 'The Modern

Literature o f the Philippines,' pp. 287-302, i n Pierre-Bernard Lafont and Denys

Lombard (eds), Littératures Contemporaines de l'Asie du Sud-Est.

41 . José Rizal, Noli Me Tangere (Manila: Instituto Nacional de Historia, 1978), p.

1. M y translation. A t the time o f the original publication o f Imagined Communities, I

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CULTURAL ROOTS

contrary to his usual practice, he had announced it only that after­

noon, it was already the subject o f every conversation in Binondo, in

other quarters o f the city, and even in [the walled inner city of]

Intramuros. In those days Capitan Tiago had the reputation of a lavish

host. I t was known that his house, like his country, closed its doors to

nothing, except to commerce and to any new or daring idea.

So the news coursed like an electric shock through the community

o f parasites, spongers, and gatecrashers whom God, in His infinite

goodness, created, and so tenderly multiplies in Manila. Some hunted

polish for their boots, others looked for collar-buttons and cravats.

But one and all were preoccupied wi th the problem o f how to greet

their host wi th the familiarity required to create the appearance o f

longstanding friendship, or, i f need be, to excuse themselves for not

having arrived earlier.

The dinner was being given at a house on Anloague Street. Since

we do not recall the street number, we shall describe it in such a way

that it may still be recognized - that is, i f earthquakes have not yet

destroyed it . We do not believe that its owner wi l l have had it torn

down, since such work is usually left to God or to Nature, which,

besides, holds many contracts wi th our Government.

Extensive comment is surely unnecessary. I t should suffice to note that

right from the start the image (wholly new to Filipino writing) o f a dinner­

party being discussed by hundreds o f unnamed people, who do not know

each other, i n quite different parts o f Manila, in a particular month o f a

particular decade, immediately conjures up the imagined community. A n d

i n the phrase 'a house on Anloague Street' which 'we shall describe i n such a

way that i t may still be recognized,' the would-be recognizers are we-

Filipino-readers. The casual progression o f this house from the 'interior'

time o f the novel to the 'exterior' time o f the [Manila] reader's everyday life

gives a hypnotic confirmation o f the solidity o f a single community,

embracing characters, author and readers, moving onward through

calendrical t i m e . 4 2 Notice too the tone. Whi le Rizal has not the faintest

had no command o f Spanish, and was thus unwitt ingly led to rely on the instructively

corrupt translation o f Leon Maria Guerrero.

42. Notice, for example, Rizal's subtle shift, i n the same sentence, from the past

tense of'created' (crio) to the all-of-us-together present tense of 'multiplies ' (multiplied).

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

idea o f his readers' individual identities, he writes to them w i t h an ironical

intimacy, as though their relationships w i t h each other are not i n the

smallest degree problematic. 4 3

N o t h i n g gives one a more Foucauldian sense o f abrupt disconti­

nuities o f consciousness than to compare Noli w i t h the most cele­

brated previous literary w o r k by an ' Indio ' , Francisco Balagtas

(Baltazar)'s Pinagdaanang Buhay ni Florante at ni Laura sa Cahariang

Albania [The Story o f Florante and Laura i n the K ingdom o f Albania],

the first printed edition o f w h i c h dates f rom 1861, though i t may have

been composed as early as 1838 . 4 4 For although Balagtas was still alive

when Rizal was born, the w o r l d o f his masterpiece is i n every basic

respect foreign to that o f Noli. Its setting - a fabulous mediaeval

Albania — is utterly removed i n time and space from the Binondo o f

the 1880s. Its heroes - Florante, a Christian Albanian nobleman, and

his bosom-friend Aladin, a M u s l i m ( 'Moro ' ) Persian aristocrat -

remind us o f the Philippines only by the Christ ian-Moro linkage.

Where Rizal deliberately sprinkles his Spanish prose w i t h Tagalog

words for 'realistic', satirical, or nationalist effect, Balagtas unselfcon­

sciously mixes Spanish phrases into his Tagalog quatrains simply to

heighten the grandeur and sonority o f his dict ion. Noli was meant to

be read, whi le Florante at Laura was to be sung aloud. Most striking o f

all is Balagtas's handling o f t ime. As Lumbera notes, 'the unravelling

o f the plot does not fol low a chronological order. The story begins in

medias res, so that the complete story comes to us through a series o f

speeches that serve as flashbacks.' 4 5 Almost half o f the 399 quatrains

are accounts o f Florante's childhood, student years i n Athens, and

subsequent mili tary exploits, given by the hero i n conversation w i t h

43. The obverse side o f the readers' anonymous obscurity was/is the author's

immediate celebrity. As we shall see, this obscurity/celebrity has everything to do w i t h

the spread o f print-capitalism. As early as 1593 energetic Dominicans had published i n

Manila the Doctrina Christiana. But for centuries thereafter print remained under tight

ecclesiastical control. Liberalization only began i n the 1860s. See Bienvenido L .

Lumbera, Tagalog Poetry Í510—1898, Tradition and Influences in its Development, pp.

35, 93.

44. Ibid. , p. 115.

45. Ibid. , p. 120.

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CULTURAL ROOTS

Aladin. The 'spoken flashback' was for Balagtas the only alternative

to a straightforward single-file narrative. I f we learn o f Florantè 's and

Aladin's 'simultaneous' pasts, they are connected by their conversing

voices, not by the structure o f the epic. H o w distant this technique is

f rom that o f the novel: ' I n that same spring, whi le Florante was still

studying i n Athens, Aladin was expelled from his sovereign's court

. . .' I n effect, i t never occurs to Balagtas to 'situate' his protagonists i n

'society,' or to discuss them w i t h his audience. N o r , aside f rom the

mellifluous flow o f Tagalog polysyllables, is there much 'Fi l ip ino '

about his t ex t . 4 7

I n 1816, seventy years before the wr i t ing o f Noli, José Joaquin

Fernandez de Lizardi wrote a novel called El Periquillo Sarniento [The

Itching Parrot], evidently the first Latin American w o r k i n this genre. I n

the words o f one critic, this text is 'a ferocious indictment o f Spanish

administration i n Mexico: ignorance, superstition and corruption are

seen to be its most notable characteristics.'4 8 The essential form o f this

'nationalist' novel is indicated by the fol lowing description o f its 49

content:

From the first, [the hero, the Itching Parrot] is exposed to bad

influences — ignorant maids inculcate superstitions, his mother i n ­

dulges his whims, his teachers either have no vocation or no ability to

46. The technique is similar to that o f Homer, so ably discussed by Auerbach,

Mimesis, ch. 1 ('Odysseus' Scar').

47. 'Paaiam Albaniang pinamamayanan

ng casama, t, lupit, bangis caliluhan,

acong tangulan mo, i , cusa mang pinatay

sa iyo, i , malaqui ang panghihinayang.'

'Farewell, Albania, kingdom now

o f evil, cruelty, brutishness and deceit!

I , your defender, w h o m you now murder

Nevertheless lament the fate that has befallen you. '

This famous stanza has sometimes been interpreted as a veiled statement o f Filipino

patriotism, but Lumbera convincingly shows such an interpretation to be an

anachronistic gloss. Tagalog Poetry, p. 125. The translation is Lumbera's. I have

slightly altered his Tagalog text to conform to a 1973 edition o f the poem based on

the 1861 imprint .

48. Jean Franco, An Introduction to Spanish-American Literature, p. 34.

49. Ibid. , pp. 35-36. Emphasis added.

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IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

discipline him. And though his father is an intelligent man who wants

his son to practise a useful trade rather than swell the ranks o f lawyers

and parasites, i t is Periquillo's over-fond mother who wins the day,

sends her son to university and thus ensures that he w i l l learn only

superstitious nonsense . . . Periquillo remains incorrigibly ignorant

despite many encounters wi th good and wise people. He is unwilling

to work or take anything seriously and becomes successively a priest,

a gambler, a thief, apprentice to an apothecary, a doctor, clerk in a

provincial town . . . These episodes permit the author to describe

hospitals, prisons, remote villages, monasteries, while at the same time

driving home one major point - that Spanish government and the

education system encourage parasitism and laziness . . . Periquillo's

adventures several times take h im among Indians and Negroes . . .

Here again we see the national imagination' at work i n the movement o f a

solitary hero through a sociological landscape o f a fixity that fuses the wor ld

inside the novel w i t h the wor ld outside. This picaresque tour d'horizon —

hospitals, prisons, remote villages, monasteries, Indians, Negroes - is

nonetheless not a tour du monde. The horizon is clearly bounded: i t is

that o f colonial Mexico. No th ing assures us o f this sociological solidity

more than the succession o f plurals. For they conjure up a social space full o f

comparable prisons, none i n itself o f any unique importance, but all

representative (in their simultaneous, separate existence) o f the oppres­

siveness o f this co lony. 5 0 (Contrast prisons i n the Bible. They are never

imagined as typical o f this or that society. Each, like the one where Salome

was bewitched by John the Baptist, is magically alone.)

Finally, to remove the possibility that, since Rizal and Lizardi both

wrote i n Spanish, the frameworks we have been studying are somehow

'European', here is the opening o f Semarang Hitam [Black Semarang], a

tale by the ill-fated young Indonesian communist-nationalist Mas 51 52

Marco Kartodikromo, published serially i n 1924:

50. This movement o f a solitary hero through an adamantine social landscape is

typical o f many early (anti-)colonial novels.

51 . After a brief, meteoric career as a radical journalist, Marco was interned by the

Dutch colonial authorities i n Boven Digul , one o f the world's earliest concentration

camps, deep in the interior swamps o f western N e w Guinea, There he died i n 1932,

after six years confinement. Henri Chambert-Loir, 'Mas Marco Kartodikromo (c.

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It was 7 o'clock, Saturday evening; young people in Semarang never

stayed at home on Saturday night. O n this night however nobody

was about. Because the heavy day-long rain had made the roads wet

and very slippery, all had stayed at home.

For the workers in shops and offices Saturday morning was a time

o f anticipation - anticipating their leisure and the fun o f walking

around the city in the evening, but on this night they were to be

disappointed - because o f lethargy caused by the bad weather and the

sticky roads in the kampungs. The main roads usually crammed wi th

all sorts o f traffic, the footpaths usually teeming wi th people, all were

deserted. N o w and then the crack o f a horse-cab's whip could be

heard spurring a horse on its way - or the clip-clop of horses' hooves

pulling carriages along.

Semarang was deserted. The light from the rows o f gas lamps

shone straight down on the shining asphalt road. Occasionally the

clear light from the gas lamps was dimmed as the wind blew from the

east. . . .

A young man was seated on a long rattan lounge reading a

newspaper. He was totally engrossed. His occasional anger and at

other times smiles were a sure sign o f his deep interest in the story. He

turned the pages of the newspaper, thinking that perhaps he could

find something that would stop h im feeling so miserable. A l l o f a

sudden he came upon an article entitled:

PROSPERITY

A destitute vagrant became i l l

and died on the side of the road from exposure.

The young man was moved by this brief report. He could just

imagine the suffering o f the poor soul as he lay dying on the side o f

the road . . . One moment he felt an explosive anger well up inside.

Another moment he felt pity. Yet another moment his anger was

1890-1932) ou L'Education Politique,' p. 208, i n Littératures contemporaines de l'Asie du

Sud-Est. A brilliant recent full-length account o f Marco's career can be found in Takashi

Shiraishi, An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912-1926, chapters 2-5 and 8.

52. As translated by Paul Tickell in his Three Early Indonesian Short Stories by Mas

Marco Kartodikromo (c. 1890-1932), p. 7. Emphasis added.

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directed at the social system which gave rise to such poverty, while

making a small group o f people wealthy.

Here, as i n El Periquillo Sarniento, we are i n a wor ld o f plurals: shops,

offices, carriages, kampungs, and gas lamps. As i n the case of Noli, we -

the-Indonesian-readers are plunged immediately into calendrical time

and a familiar landscape; some o f us may wel l have walked those 'sticky'

Semarang roads. Once again, a solitary hero is juxtaposed to a socioscape

described i n careful, general detail. But there is also something new: a

hero who is never named, but who is frequently referred to as 'our

young man'. Precisely the clumsiness and literary naivety o f the text

confirm the unselfconscious 'sincerity' o f this pronominal adjective.

Neither Marco nor his readers have any doubts about the reference. I f i n

the jocular-sophisticated fiction o f eighteenth- and nineteenth-century

Europe the trope 'our hero' merely underlines an authorial play w i t h

a(ny) reader, Marco's 'our young man,' not least i n its novelty, means a

young man w h o belongs to the collective body o f readers o f Indonesian,

and thus, implici t ly, an embryonic Indonesian 'imagined community. '

Notice that Marco feels no need to specify this community by name: i t

is already there. (Even i f polylingual Du tch colonial censors could j o i n

his readership, they are excluded from this 'ourness,' as can be seen from

the fact that the young man's anger is directed at 'the,' not 'our,' social

system.)

Finally, the imagined community is confirmed by the doubleness o f

our reading about our young man reading. He does not find the corpse

o f the destitute vagrant by the side o f a sticky Semarang road, but

imagines i t from the print i n a newspaper. N o r does he care the

slightest who the dead vagrant individually was: he thinks o f the

representative body, not the personal life.

I t is fitting that i n Semarang Hitam a newspaper appears embedded i n

53. I n 1924, a close friend and political ally o f Marco published a novel titled Rasa

Merdika [Feeling Free/The Feel o f Freedom]. O f the hero o f this novel (which he

wrongly attributes to Marco) Chambert-Loir writes that 'he has no idea o f the meaning

o f the w o r d "socialism": nonetheless he feels a profound malaise i n the face o f the social

organization that surrounds h i m and he feels the need to enlarge his horizons by two

methods: travel and reading.' ('Mas Marco', p. 208. Emphasis added.) The Itching Parrot

has moved to Java and the twentieth century.

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fiction, for, i f we n o w turn to the newspaper as cultural product, we w i l l

be struck by its profound fictiveness. What is the essential literary

convention o f the newspaper? I f we were to look at a sample front page

of, say, The New York Times, we might find there stories about Soviet

dissidents, famine i n Ma l i , a gruesome murder, a coup in Iraq, the

discovery o f a rare fossil i n Zimbabwe, and a speech by Mitterrand.

W h y are these events so juxtaposed? What connects them to each

other? N o t sheer caprice. Yet obviously most o f them happen inde­

pendently, wi thout the actors being aware o f each other or o f what the

others are up to. The arbitrariness o f their inclusion and juxtaposition (a

later edition w i l l substitute a baseball t r iumph for Mitterrand) shows that

the linkage between them is imagined.

This imagined linkage derives from two obliquely related sources.

The first is simply calendrical coincidence. The date at the top o f the

newspaper, the single most important emblem on i t , provides the

essential connection — the steady onward clocking o f homogeneous,

empty t i m e . 5 4 W i t h i n that time, 'the wor ld ' ambles sturdily ahead. The

sign for this: i f M a l i disappears from the pages o f The New York Times

after two days o f famine reportage, for months on end, readers do not

for a moment imagine that Ma l i has disappeared or that famine has

wiped out all its citizens. The novelistic format o f the newspaper assures

them that somewhere out there the 'character' M a l i moves along

quietly, awaiting its next reappearance i n the plot.

The second source o f imagined linkage lies i n the relationship

between the newspaper, as a form o f book, and the market. I t has

been estimated that i n the 40-odd years between the publication o f the

Gutenberg Bible and the close o f the fifteenth century, more than

20,000,000 printed volumes were produced i n Europe. 5 5 Between

1500 and 1600, the number manufactured had reached between

54. Reading a newspaper is like reading a novel whose author has abandoned any

thought o f a coherent plot.

55. Febvre and Mart in, The Coming of the Book, p. 186. This amounted to no less

than 35,000 editions produced in no fewer than 236 towns. As early as 1480, presses

existed i n more than 110 towns, o f which 50 were i n today's Italy, 30 i n Germany, 9 i n

France, 8 each in Holland and Spain, 5 each i n Belgium and Switzerland, 4 i n England,

2 i n Bohemia, and 1 i n Poland. 'From that date i t may be said o f Europe that the printed

book was i n universal use.' (p. 182).

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150,000,000 and 200,000,000. 'From early on . . . the print ing shops

looked more like modern workshops than the monastic workrooms o f

the Middle Ages. I n 1455, Fust and Schoeffer were already running a

business geared to standardised production, and twenty years later large

print ing concerns were operating everywhere i n all [sic] Europe.' I n a

rather special sense, the book was the first modern-style mass-produced

industrial commodi ty . 5 8 The sense I have i n mind can be shown i f we

compare the book to other early industrial products, such as textiles,

bricks, or sugar. For these commodities are measured i n mathematical

amounts (pounds or loads or pieces). A pound o f sugar is simply a

quantity, a convenient load, not an object i n itself. The book, however

— and here i t prefigures the durables o f our time — is a distinct, self-

contained object, exactly reproduced on a large scale.5 9 One pound o f

sugar flows into the next; each book has its o w n eremitic self-

sufficiency. (Small wonder that libraries, personal collections o f mass-

produced commodities, were already a farniliar sight, i n urban centres

like Paris, by the sixteenth century.) 6 0

I n this perspective, the newspaper is merely an 'extreme form' o f the

book, a book sold on a colossal scale, but o f ephemeral popularity.

56. Ibid., p. 262. The authors comment that by the sixteenth century books were

readily available to anyone who could read.

57. The great Antwerp publishing house o f Plantin controlled, early i n the

sixteenth century, 24 presses w i t h more than 100 workers i n each shop. Ib id . ,

p. 125.

58. This is one point solidly made amidst the vagaries o f Marshall McLuhan's

Gutenberg Galaxy (p. 125). One might add that i f the book market was dwarfed by the

markets i n other commodities, its strategic role in the dissemination o f ideas nonetheless

made i t o f central importance to the development o f modern Europe.

59. The principle here is more important than the scale. U n t i l the nineteenth

century, editions were still relatively small. Even Luther's Bible, an extraordinary best­

seller, had only a 4,000-copy first edition. The unusually large first edition o f

Diderot's Encyclopédie numbered no more than 4,250. The average eighteenth-

century run was less than 2,000. Febvre and Mar t in , The Coming of the Book, pp.

218—20. A t the same time, the book was always distinguishable from other durables by

its inherently l imited market. Anyone w i t h money can buy Czech cars; only Czech-

readers w i l l buy Czech-language books. The importance o f this distinction w i l l be

considered below.

60. Furthermore, as early as the late fifteenth century the Venetian publisher Aldus

had pioneered the portable 'pocket edition.'

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M i g h t we say: one-day best-sellers? The obsolescence o f the

newspaper on the m o r r o w o f its pr in t ing - curious that one o f

the earlier mass-produced commodities should so prefigure the

inbui l t obsolescence o f modern durables - nonetheless, for just this

reason, creates this extraordinary mass ceremony: the almost precisely

simultaneous consumption ('imagining') o f the newspaper-as-fiction.

W e k n o w that particular morning and evening editions w i l l over­

whelmingly be consumed between this hour and that, only on this

day, not that. (Contrast sugar, the use o f w h i c h proceeds i n an

unclocked, continuous flow; i t may go bad, but i t does not go out o f

date.) The significance o f this mass ceremony - Hegel observed that

newspapers serve modern man as a substitute for morning prayers -

is paradoxical. I t is performed i n silent privacy, i n the lair o f the

skull. Yet each communicant is we l l aware that the ceremony he

performs is being replicated simultaneously by thousands (or m i l ­

lions) o f others o f whose existence he is confident, yet o f whose

identity he has not the slightest not ion. Furthermore, this ceremony

is incessantly repeated at daily or half-daily intervals throughout the

calendar. Wha t more v i v i d figure for the secular, historically clocked, 63

imagined community can be envisioned? A t the same time, the

newspaper reader, observing exact replicas o f his o w n paper being

consumed by his subway, barbershop, or residential neighbours, is

continually reassured that the imagined w o r l d is visibly rooted i n

61. As the case o f Semarang Hitam shows, the two kinds o f best-sellers used to be

more closely linked than they are today. Dickens too serialized his popular novels i n

popular newspapers.

62. 'Printed materials encouraged silent adherence to causes whose advocates

could not be located i n any one parish and who addressed an invisible public from afar.'

Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, 'Some Conjectures about the Impact o f Printing on Western

Society and Thought, ' Journal of Modern History, 40: 1 (March 1968), p. 42.

63. Wr i t i ng o f the relationship between the material anarchy o f middle-class

society and an abstract political state-order, Nairn observes that 'the representative

mechanism converted real class inequality into the abstract egalitarianism o f citizens,

individual egotisms into an impersonal collective w i l l , what would otherwise be chaos

into a new state legitimacy.' The Break-up of Britain, p. 24. N o doubt. But the

representative mechanism (elections?) is a rare and moveable feast. The generation

o f the impersonal w i l l is, I think, better sought i n the diurnal regularities o f the

imagining life.

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everyday life. As w i t h Noli Me Tangere, fiction seeps quietly and

continuously into reality, creating that remarkable confidence o f

communi ty i n anonymity w h i c h is the hallmark o f modern nations.

Before proceeding to a discussion o f the specific origins o f nationalism,

i t may be useful to recapitulate the main propositions put forward thus

far. Essentially, I have been arguing that the very possibility o f imagining

the nation only arose historically when, and where, three fundamental

cultural conceptions, all o f great antiquity, lost their axiomatic grip on

men's minds. The first o f these was the idea that a particular script-

language offered privileged access to ontological truth, precisely because

i t was an inseparable part o f that truth. I t was this idea that called into

being the great transcontinental sodalities o f Christendom, the Islamic

Ummah, and the rest. Second was the belief that society was naturally

organized around and under high centres — monarchs w h o were persons

apart from other human beings and w h o ruled by some form o f

cosmological (divine) dispensation. Human loyalties were necessarily

hierarchical and centripetal because the ruler, like the sacred script, was a

node o f access to being and inherent i n i t . T h i r d was a conception o f

temporality i n wh ich cosmology and history were indistinguishable, the

origins o f the w o r l d and o f men essentially identical. Combined, these

ideas rooted human lives firmly i n the very nature o f things, giving

certain meaning to the everyday fatalities o f existence (above all death,

loss, and servitude) and offering, i n various ways, redemption from

them.

The slow, uneven decline o f these interlinked certainties, first i n

Western Europe, later elsewhere, under the impact o f economic

change, 'discoveries' (social and scientific), and the development o f

increasingly rapid communications, drove a harsh wedge between

cosmology and history. N o surprise then that the search was on, so

to speak, for a new way o f l inking fraternity, power and time mean­

ingfully together. No th ing perhaps more precipitated this search, nor

made i t more fruitful, than print-capitalism, which made i t possible for

rapidly growing numbers o f people to think about themselves, and to

relate themselves to others, i n profoundly new ways.

36

84

The Origins of National Consciousness

I f the development o f print-as-commodity is the key to the

generation o f whol ly new ideas o f simultaneity, still, we are simply

at the point where communities o f the type 'horizontal-secular,

transverse-time' become possible. W h y , w i t h i n that type, did the

nation become so popular? The factors involved are obviously

complex and various. Bu t a strong case can be made for the

primacy o f capitalism.

As already noted, at least 20,000,000 books had already been printed

by 1500, signalling the onset o f Benjamin's 'age o f mechanical

reproduction. ' I f manuscript knowledge was scarce and arcane lore,

print knowledge lived by reproducibility and dissemination. If, as

Febvre and Mar t in believe, possibly as many as 200,000,000 volumes

had been manufactured by 1600, i t is no wonder that Francis Bacon

believed that print had changed 'the appearance and state o f the

w o r l d . ' 3

One o f the earlier forms o f capitalist enterprise, book-publishing

1. The population o f that Europe where print was then known was about 100,000,000. Febvre and Mart in , The Coming of the Book, pp. 248-49.

2. Emblematic is Marco Polo's Travels, which remained largely unknown t i l l its first printing i n 1559. Polo, Travels, p. x i i i .

3. Quoted i n Eisenstein, 'Some Conjectures,' p. 56.

3 7

85

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

felt all o f capitalism's restless search for markets. The early printers

established branches all over Europe: ' i n this way a veritable

"international" o f publishing houses, wh ich ignored national [sic]

frontiers, was created.' 4 A n d since the years 1500-1550 were a

period o f exceptional European prosperity, publishing shared i n

the general boom. 'More than at any other t ime' i t was 'a great

industry under the control o f wealthy capitalists.'5 Naturally, 'book­

sellers were primarily concerned to make a profit and to sell their

products, and consequently they sought out first and foremost those

works wh ich were o f interest to the largest possible number o f their

contemporaries.

The ini t ial market was literate Europe, a wide but th in stratum

o f Latin-readers. Saturation o f this market took about a hundred

and fifty years. The determinative fact about Latin — aside f rom its

sacrality - was that i t was a language o f bilinguals. Relatively few

were born to speak i t and even fewer, one imagines, dreamed i n i t .

I n the sixteenth century the propor t ion o f bilinguals w i t h i n the

total population o f Europe was quite small; very l ikely no larger

than the propor t ion i n the world's population today, and -

proletarian internationalism notwithstanding - i n the centuries to

come. Then and n o w the bulk o f mankind is monoglot . The logic

o f capitalism thus meant that once the elite Latin market was

saturated, the potentially huge markets represented by the m o n o ­

glot masses w o u l d beckon. T o be sure, the Counter-Reformation

encouraged a temporary resurgence o f Latin-publishing, but by the

mid-seventeenth century the movement was i n decay, and fervently

Catholic libraries replete. Meantime, a Europe-wide shortage o f

money made printers th ink more and more o f peddling cheap

editions i n the vernaculars.

4. Feb vre and Mart in , The Coming of the Book, p. 122. (The original text, however,

speaks simply of'par-dessus les frontières.' L'Apparition, p. 184.)

5. Ibid. , p. 187. The original text speaks o f 'puissants' (powerful) rather than

'wealthy' capitalists. LApparition, p. 281.

6. 'Hence the introduction o f printing was i n this respect a stage on the road to our

present society o f mass consumption and standardisation.' Ibid. , pp. 259-60. (The

original text has 'une civilisation de masse et de standardisation,' which may be better

rendered 'standardised, mass civilization.' LApparition, p. 394).

7. Ibid., p. 195.

38

86

THE ORIGINS OF N A T I O N A L CONSCIOUSNESS

The revolutionary vernacularizing thrust o f capitalism was given

further impetus by three extraneous factors, two o f wh ich contributed

directly to the rise o f national consciousness. The first, and ultimately

the least important, was a change i n the character o f Latin itself. Thanks

to the labours o f the Humanists i n reviving the broad literature o f pre-

Christian antiquity and spreading i t through the print-market, a new

appreciation o f the sophisticated stylistic achievements o f the ancients

was apparent among the trans-European intelligentsia. The Latin they

n o w aspired to write became more and more Ciceronian, and, by the

same token, increasingly removed from ecclesiastical and everyday life.

I n this way i t acquired an esoteric quality quite different from that o f

Church Latin i n mediaeval times. For the older Latin was not arcane

because o f its subject matter or style, but simply because i t was wri t ten at

all, i.e. because o f its status as text. N o w i t became arcane because o f

what was wri t ten, because o f the language-in-itself.

Second was the impact o f the Reformation, wh ich , at the same

time, owed much o f its success to print-capitalism. Before the age o f

print , R o me easily w o n every war against heresy i n Western Europe

because i t always had better internal lines o f communication than its

challengers. Bu t when i n 1517 Mar t i n Luther nailed his theses to the

chapel-door i n Wittenberg, they were printed up i n German

translation, and ' w i t h i n 15 days [had been] seen i n every part o f

the country. ' I n the two decades 1520—1540 three times as many

books were published i n German as i n the period 1500—1520, an

astonishing transformation to w h i c h Luther was absolutely central.

His works represented no less than one th i rd of all German-language

books sold between 1518 and 1525. Between 1522 and 1546, a total

o f 430 editions (whole or partial) o f his Biblical translations ap­

peared. ' W e have here for the first t ime a truly mass readership and a

popular literature w i t h i n everybody's reach.' 9 I n effect, Luther

became the first best-selling author so known. Or , to put i t another

way, the first wri ter w h o could 'sell' his new books on the basis o f

his name.

8. Ibid. , pp. 289-90.

9. Ibid. , pp. 291-95.

10. From this point i t was only a step to the situation i n seventeenth-century

39

87

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

Where Luther led, others quickly followed, opening the colossal

religious propaganda war that raged across Europe for the next century.

I n this titanic 'battle for men's minds', Protestantism was always

fundamentally on the offensive, precisely because i t knew h o w to

make use o f the expanding vernacular print-market being created by

capitalism, while the Counter-Reformation defended the citadel o f

Latin. The emblem for this is the Vatican's Index Librorum Prohibitorum -

to wh ich there was no Protestant counterpart - a novel catalogue made

necessary by the sheer volume o f printed subversion. No th ing gives a

better sense o f this siege mentality than François I's panicked 1535 ban

on the print ing of any books i n his realm — on pain o f death by hanging!

The reason for both the ban and its unenforceability was that by then his

realm's eastern borders were ringed w i t h Protestant states and cities

producing a massive stream o f smugglable print. T o take Calvin's

Geneva alone: between 1533 and 1540 only 42 editions were published

there, but the numbers swelled to 527 between 1550 and 1564, by

which latter date no less than 40 separate printing-presses were work ing

over t ime. 1 1

The coalition between Protestantism and print-capitalism, exploiting

cheap popular editions, quickly created large new reading publics - not

least among merchants and women, who typically knew little or no

Latin - and simultaneously mobilized them for politico-religious

purposes. Inevitably, i t was not merely the Church that was shaken

to its core. The same earthquake produced Europe's first important

non-dynastic, non-city states i n the Du tch Republic and the C o m ­

monwealth o f the Puritans. (François I's panic was as much political as

religious.)

T h i r d was the slow, geographically uneven, spread o f particular

vernaculars as instruments o f administrative centralization by certain

well-positioned would-be absolutist monarchs. Here i t is useful to

remember that the universality o f Latin i n mediaeval Western

Europe never corresponded to a universal political system. The

France where Corneille, Molière, and La Fontaine could sell their manuscript tragedies

and comedies directly to publishers, who bought them as excellent investments i n view

o f their authors' market reputations. Ibid. , p. 161.

11. Ibid., pp. 310-15.

40

88

THE ORIGINS OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

contrast w i t h Imperial China, where the reach o f the mandarinal

bureaucracy and o f painted characters largely coincided, is instruc­

tive. I n effect, the political fragmentation o f Western Europe after

the collapse o f the Western Empire meant that no sovereign could

monopolize Latin and make i t his-and-only-his language-of-state,

and thus Latin's religious authority never had a true political

analogue.

The b i r th o f administrative vernaculars predated both print and the

religious upheaval o f the sixteenth century, and must therefore be

regarded (at least initially) as an independent factor i n the erosion o f

the sacred imagined community. A t the same time, nothing suggests

that any deep-seated ideological, let alone proto-national, impulses

underlay this vernacularization where i t occurred. The case o f 'Eng­

land' - on the northwestern periphery o f Latin Europe — is here

especially enlightening. Prior to the Norman Conquest, the language

o f the court, literary and administrative, was Anglo-Saxon. For the

next century and a half virtually all royal documents were composed i n

Latin. Between about 1200 and 1350 this state-Latin was superseded

by Norman French. I n the meantime, a slow fusion between this

language o f a foreign rul ing class and the Anglo-Saxon o f the subject

population produced Early English. The fusion made i t possible for the

new language to take its turn, after 1362, as the language o f the courts

- and for the opening o f Parliament. Wycliffe's vernacular manuscript

Bible followed i n 1382. I t is essential to bear i n mind that this

sequence was a series of'state,' not 'national,' languages; and that the

state concerned covered at various times not only today's England and

Wales, but also portions o f Ireland, Scotland and France. Obviously,

huge elements o f the subject populations knew little or nothing o f 13

Latin, Norman French, or Early English. N o t t i l l almost a century

after Early English's political enthronement was London's power swept

out of 'France ' .

O n the Seine, a similar movement took place, i f at a slower pace.

12. Seton-Watson, Nations and States, pp. 28-29; Bloch, Feudal Society, I , p. 75.

13. W e should not assume that administrative vernacular unification was i m ­

mediately or fully achieved. I t is unlikely that the Guyenne ruled from London was ever

primarily administered in Early English.

41

89

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

As Bloch w r y l y puts i t , 'French, that is to say a language which ,

since i t was regarded as merely a corrupt form o f Latin, took several

centuries to raise itself to literary d i g n i t y ' , 1 4 only became the official

language o f the courts o f justice i n 1539, when François I issued the

Edict o f Vil lers-Cotterêts . I n other dynastic realms Latin survived

much longer — under the Habsburgs wel l into the nineteenth

century. I n still others, 'foreign' vernaculars took over: i n the

eighteenth century the languages o f the Romanov court were

French and German.

I n every instance, the 'choice' o f language appears as a gradual,

unselfconscious, pragmatic, not to say haphazard development. As

such, i t was utterly different f rom the selfconscious language

policies pursued by nineteenth-century dynasts confronted w i t h

the rise o f hostile popular linguistic-nationalisms. (See below,

Chapter 6). One clear sign o f the difference is that the old

administrative languages were just that: languages used by and

for officialdoms for their o w n inner convenience. There was no

idea o f systematically imposing the language on the dynasts' various

subject populations. Nonetheless, the elevation o f these verna­

culars to the status o f languages-of-power, where, i n one sense,

they were competitors w i t h Latin (French i n Paris, [Early] English

i n London), made its o w n contr ibut ion to the decline o f the

imagined community o f Christendom.

A t bot tom, i t is l ikely that the esotericization o f Latin, the

Reformation, and the haphazard development o f administrative

vernaculars are significant, i n the present context, primarily i n a

negative sense — i n their contributions to the dethronement o f Latin.

I t is quite possible to conceive o f the emergence o f the new imagined

national communities w i thou t any one, perhaps all, o f them being

present. What , i n a positive sense, made the new communities

imaginable was a half-fortuitous, but explosive, interaction between

14. Bloch, Feudal Society, I , p. 98.

15. Seton-Watson, Nations and States, p. 48.

16. Ibid., p. 83.

17. A n agreeable confirmation o f this point is provided by François I , who, as we

have seen, banned all printing o f books i n 1535 and made French the language o f his

courts four years later!

42

90

THE ORIGINS OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

a system o f product ion and productive relations (capitalism), a

technology o f communications (print), and the fatality o f human 18

linguistic diversity.

The element o f fatality is essential. For whatever superhuman feats

capitalism was capable of, i t found i n death and languages two tenacious

adversaries.19 Particular languages can die or be wiped out, but there

was and is no possibility o f humankind's general linguistic unification.

Yet this mutual incomprehensibility was historically o f only slight

importance unt i l capitalism and print created monoglot mass reading

publics.

Whi le i t is essential to keep i n mind an idea o f fatality, i n the sense o f a

general condition o f irremediable linguistic diversity, i t w o u l d be a

mistake to equate this fatality w i t h that common element i n nationalist

ideologies wh ich stresses the primordial fatality o f particular languages

and their association w i t h particular territorial units. The essential thing is

the interplay between fatality, technology, and capitalism. In pre-print

Europe, and, o f course, elsewhere i n the wor ld , the diversity o f spoken

languages, those languages that for their speakers were (and are) the

warp and w o o f o f their lives, was immense; so immense, indeed, that

had print-capitalism sought to exploit each potential oral vernacular

market, i t w o u l d have remained a capitalism o f petty proportions. But

these varied idiolects were capable o f being assembled, w i t h i n definite

limits, into print-languages far fewer i n number. The very arbitrariness 20

o f any system o f signs for sounds facilitated the assembling process. (At

the same time, the more ideographic the signs, the vaster the potential

18. I t was not the first 'accident' o f its kind. Febvre and Mart in note that while a

visible bourgeoisie already existed i n Europe by the late thirteenth century, paper did

not come into general use unti l the end o f the fourteenth. Only paper's smooth plane

surface made the mass reproduction o f texts and pictures possible - and this did not

occur for still another seventy-five years. But paper was not a European invention. I t

floated in from another history - China's - through the Islamic world . The Coming of the

Book, pp. 22, 30, and 45.

19. W e still have no giant multinationals i n the wor ld o f publishing.

20. For a useful discussion o f this point, see S. H . Steinberg, Five Hundred Years of

Printing, chapter 5. That the sign ough is pronounced differently i n the words although,

bough, lough, rough, cough, and hiccough, shows both the idiolectic variety out o f

which the now-standard spelling o f English emerged, and the ideographic quality o f the

final product.

43

91

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

assembling zone. One can detect a sort o f descending hierarchy here

from algebra through Chinese and English, to the regular syllabaries o f

French or Indonesian.) No th ing served to 'assemble' related vernaculars

more than capitalism, which , w i t h i n the limits imposed by grammars

and syntaxes, created mechanically reproduced print-languages capable 21

o f dissemination through the market.

These print-languages laid the bases for national consciousnesses i n

three distinct ways. First and foremost, they created unified fields o f

exchange and communication below Latin and above the spoken

vernaculars. Speakers o f the huge variety o f Frenches, Englishes, or

Spanishes, w h o might find i t difficult or even impossible to understand

one another i n conversation, became capable o f comprehending one

another via print and paper. I n the process, they gradually became

aware o f the hundreds o f thousands, even millions, o f people i n their

particular language-field, and at the same time that only those hundreds

o f thousands, or millions, so belonged. These fellow-readers, to w h o m

they were connected through print, formed, in their secular, parti­

cular, visible invisibility, the embryo o f the nationally imagined

community.

Second, print-capitalism gave a new fixi ty to language, wh ich i n

the long run helped to bu i ld that image o f antiquity so central to the

subjective idea o f the nation. As Febvre and Mar t in remind us, the

printed book kept a permanent form, capable o f virtually infinite

reproduction, temporally and spatially. I t was no longer subject to

the individualizing and 'unconsciously modernizing' habits o f

monastic scribes. Thus, whi le twelfth-century French differed

markedly f rom that wr i t ten by V i l l o n i n the fifteenth, the rate o f

change slowed decisively i n the sixteenth. 'By the 17th century 22

languages i n Europe had generally assumed their modern forms.'

21 . I say 'nothing served . . . more than capitalism' advisedly. Both Steinberg and

Eisenstein come close to theomorphizing 'print ' qua print as the genius o f modern

history. Febvre and Mar t in never forget that behind print stand printers and publishing

firms. I t is wor th remembering i n this context that although printing was invented first

i n China, possibly 500 years before its appearance in Europe, i t had no major, let alone

revolutionary impact - precisely because o f the absence o f capitalism there.

22. The Coming of the Book, p. 319. Cf. L'Apparition, p. 477: ' A u X V I I e siècle, les

langues nationales apparaissent un peu partout cristallisées.'

44

92

THE ORIGINS OF NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

T o put i t another way, for three centuries n o w these stabilized

print-languages have been gathering a darkening varnish; the words

o f our seventeenth-century forebears are accessible to us i n a way

that to V i l l o n his twelfth-century ancestors were not.

Th i rd , print-capitalism created languages-of-power o f a k ind dif­

ferent f rom the older administrative vernaculars. Certain dialects

inevitably were 'closer' to each print-language and dominated their

final forms. Their disadvantaged cousins, still assimilable to the

emerging print-language, lost caste, above all because they were

unsuccessful (or only relatively successful) i n insisting on their o w n

print-form. 'Northwestern German' became Piatt Deutsch, a largely

spoken, thus sub-standard, German, because i t was assimilable to pr in t -

German i n a way that Bohemian spoken-Czech was not. H i g h

German, the King's English, and, later, Central Thai , were corre­

spondingly elevated to a new politico-cultural eminence. (Hence the

struggles i n late-twentieth-century Europe by certain 'sub-' nation­

alities to change their subordinate status by breaking firmly into print -

and radio.)

I t remains only to emphasize that i n their origins, the fixing

o f print-languages and the differentiation o f status between them

were largely unselfconscious processes resulting f rom the explo­

sive interaction between capitalism, technology and human

linguistic diversity. Bu t as w i t h so much else i n the history

o f nationalism, once 'there,' they could become formal models

to be imitated, and, where expedient, consciously exploited i n a

Machiavellian spirit. Today, the Thai government actively dis­

courages attempts by foreign missionaries to provide its hi l l - t r ibe

minorities w i t h their o w n transcription-systems and to develop

publications i n their o w n languages: the same government is

largely indifferent to what these minorities speak. The fate o f the

Turkic-speaking peoples i n the zones incorporated into today's

Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and the USSR is especially exemplary. A

family o f spoken languages, once everywhere assemblable, thus

comprehensible, w i t h i n an Arabic orthography, has lost that

uni ty as a result o f conscious manipulations. T o heighten

Turkish-Turkey 's national consciousness at the expense o f any

wider Islamic identification, Ata t i i rk imposed compulsory

45

93

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES

romanization. The Soviet authorities fol lowed suit, first w i t h

an anti-Islamic, anti-Persian compulsory romanization, then, i n , • . . . . 24

Stalin's 1930s, w i t h a Russifying compulsory Cyri l l icizat ion.

W e can summarize the conclusions to be drawn from the argument thus

far by saying that the convergence o f capitalism and print technology on

the fatal diversity o f human language created the possibility o f a new

form o f imagined community, wh ich i n its basic morphology set the

stage for the modern nation. The potential stretch o f these communities

was inherently Hmited, and, at the same time, bore none but the most

fortuitous relationship to existing political boundaries (which were, on

the whole, the highwater marks o f dynastic expansionisms).

Yet i t is obvious that while today almost all modern self-conceived

nations - and also nation-states - have national print-languages', many

o f them have these languages i n common, and i n others only a t iny

fraction o f the population 'uses' the national language i n conversation or

on paper. The nation-states o f Spanish America or those o f the 'Anglo-

Saxon family' are conspicuous examples o f the first outcome; many ex-

colonial states, particularly i n Africa, o f the second. I n other words, the

concrete formation o f contemporary nation-states is by no means

isomorphic w i t h the determinate reach o f particular print-languages.

T o account for the discontinuity-in-connectedness between pr int-

languages, national consciousness, and nation-states, i t is necessary to

turn to the large cluster o f new political entities that sprang up i n the

Western hemisphere between 1776 and 1838, all o f which self­

consciously defined themselves as nations, and, w i t h the interesting

exception o f Brazil, as (non-dynastic) republics. For not only were they

historically the first such states to emerge on the w o r l d stage, and

therefore inevitably provided the first real models o f what such states

should ' look l ike, ' but their numbers and contemporary births offer

fruitful ground for comparative enquiry.

23. Hans Kohn , The Age of Nationalism, p. 108. I t is probably only fair to add that

Kemal also hoped thereby to align Turkish nationalism wi th the modern, romanized

civilization o f Western Europe.

24. Seton-Watson, Nations and States, p. 317.

46

94

National Identity and Myths of Ethnic Descent*

While the study of ethnic identity and national movements has flourished in the last decade, little attention has been devoted to the meanings and visions underlying them in the social consciousness. These meanings and visions are encapsulated in distinctive ethnic myths which, like all myth, bring together in a single potent vision elements of historical fact and legendary elaboration to create an overriding commitment and bond for the community. Of course, such myths often change their symbolic forms and content over time in relation to different perceptions of significant others outside the community and varying degrees of conflict or competi-tion with those outsiders (Kriesberg 1982). Yet no national movement and no persisting ethnic identity can emerge without a bedrock of shared meanings and ideals, which guide action and determine the direction of social change. Even an 'instrumentalist' view of ethnicity, which sees ethnic ties as largely situational, must come to terms with the basic myths and symbols which endow popular perceptions of ethnic boundaries and identities with meaning and sentiments, and which mediate changes in those identities set in motion by external forces (Brass 1979; Armstrong 1982). It is the structure and content of these neglected myths, and their role in social movements, that provide the main focus of this chapter.

Naturally, such myths and symbols possess many features—formal, aesthetic, psychological, social, and political—which merit attention; but in a chapter of this kind, it is only possible to focus on certain aspects. Here I am interested in their potentialities for group identity and collective action; and that is why I accord considerable importance to the distinction between different modes of ethnic myth-making. Broadly speaking, it is possible and useful to distinguish myths that cite genealogical ancestry from those which trace a more ideological descent, between 'biological' and

* Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, vol. 7, pp. 95-130.

95

58 Ethno-history and National Identity

'cultural-ideological' myths. In the former, filiation is the basic principle of myth-construction: the chroniclers and poets trace generational lineages, and rest their claims for high status and power on a presumed biological link with a hero, a founder, or even a deity. The community, according to this mode of myth-making, is descended from a noble and heroic ances-tor, and for that reason is entitled to privilege and prestige in its own and other peoples' estimations. The biological link also ensures a high degree of communal solidarity, since the community is viewed as a network of interrelated kin groups claiming a common ancestor, and thereby mark-ing them off from those unable to make such a claim. Thus alleged ties of 'blood' form the basis for a strictly 'primordialist' sense of belonging and identity (Fishman 1980).

Against such biological modes of tracing descent, we find another equally important set of generational linkages: those that rest on a cul-tural affinity and ideological 'fit' with the presumed ancestors. What counts here are not blood ties, real or alleged, but a spiritual kinship, proclaimed in ideals that are allegedly derived from some ancient exemplars in remote eras. The aim is to recreate the heroic spirit (and the heroes) that animated 'our ancestors' in some past golden age; and descent is traced, not through family pedigrees, but through the persistence of certain kinds of'virtue' or other distinctive cultural qualities, be it of language, customs, religion, institutions, or more general personal attributes.

What I shall argue is that within given ethnic communities since the French Revolution (or slightly earlier), both kinds of national myth-making emerge and persist in an often contrapuntal relationship. They thus both divide, and unite, the communities whose identity and con-sciousness they underpin. They divide them, because, as the case-studies make clear, different modes of myth-making are embraced by opposing strata; and they unite them because, out of this tension of opposites, there emerges a greater sense of dynamic activism, and an enhanced com-munal self-consciousness. Beyond that, myths of ethnic descent are vital both for territorial claims and for national solidarity; a section of the essay is devoted to showing how, in England, France, Turkey, Greece, and Israel, these myths have not merely underwritten, but have actually inspired such claims and solidarities, acting as 'title-deeds' and as ideals guiding action. There are several other issues arising out of a consideration of the struc-ture and content of myths of descent; but it is not possible, within the space allowed, to analyse all or even most of them. The last section, how-ever, is devoted to a brief examination of the conditions of emergence, and the adherents or 'bearers', of the myths; as well as to a restatement, with

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Myths of Ethnic Descent 59

some elaborations, of the principal themes and arguments, in the hope of stimulating further studies of these and other aspects of the role of eth-nic myths of descent.

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY AND MEANING

The passion for tracing pedigrees is not a peculiarly modern pastime nor a passing fashion. Both individually and collectively, it has a venerable his-tory. From the Alcmaeonids to Alex Haley, families and individuals have traced and publicized their ancestry; the desire to 'know whence we came' is not confined to particular civilizations or epochs. Reasons for the quest vary. Noble families like the Alcmaeonids, the Farnese, or the Tudors used their pedigrees to justify their 'right' to wield political or ecclesiastical power; the author of Luke traced back Jesus' ancestry to the house of King David to vindicate his claim to messianic kingship in Judea. Claims to illustrious lineage may help to legitimate newfound wealth, or bolster the shaky prestige of families entering novel and unrecognized occupations. More recently, we find an affirmation of lowly origins as a legitimation of sta-tus; in an ostensibly egalitarian milieu with a puritanical ideology it may be wiser to trace one's ancestry to the peasantry, the working-class or kidnapped slaves.

But, behind the ever-changing needs and purposes of individuals, a more obstinate question obtrudes. It is well summed up by King Oedipus in the moment that precedes the shattering revelation of his true origins; into his mouth Sophocles has put these words:

Let all come out, However vile! However base it be, I must unlock the secret of my birth. The woman, with more than woman's pride, is shamed by my low origin. I am the child of Fortune, The giver of good, and I shall not be shamed. She is my mother; my sisters are the Seasons; My rising and my falling march with theirs. Born thus, I ask to be no other man Than that I am, and will know who I am. (Sophocles 1947: 55)

It is the question of individual identity, which is always a matter of social and spiritual location. For in that location lies a sense of security, so indis-pensable to the much-desired individuality and uniqueness of persons and families alike; it is through such claims to uniqueness that dignity and power are conferred in society. And when we speak of the 'crisis of identity' felt by so many marginal and powerless intellectuals, especially in the Third World, it is just this loss of security and location within a traditional milieu and its stable value-system that we have in mind (Shils 1960).

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As with families, so with ethnic communities and nations. Here, too, we witness the same passion for tracing origins and pedigrees, the same quest to discover a true identity, to 'know who I am'. Nor is the quest confined to the modern era. Hesiod's Theogony charts the origins of the Greek people in antiquity, along with lineages of the gods; the Bible sim-ilarly presents detailed genealogies of Abraham's ancestors and descendants to locate the children of Israel among the 'families' of the earth.1 Ancestry and foundation myths were widespread in Africa and Asia from early times; we meet them again among the Romans and Franks, who both claimed Trojan descent, and later among several medieval kingdoms which thereby legitimated their claims to rule a cohesive community.2

It is well to bear this widespread practice and its antiquity in mind, when we turn to the modern era, which is the focus of my concern. Not only does it attest the importance of ethnic myths of descent in themselves, a dimension often neglected by historians and social scientists alike; it also suggests links between premodern and modern eras, which must modify to some extent, at least, the generally held view that national sentiment and nationalism are exclusively modern phenomena (Kohn 1967; Kedourie 1960; Hayes 1931; Carr 1945; Emerson 1960; Kamenka 1976; Gellner 1964, ch. 7).

Nevertheless, when due allowance has been made, there are some novel elements in the modern era of myth-making and pedigree-tracing. To begin with, these activities are far more widely diffused; no aspirant ethnic group can be without its myth of descent, if it is to secure any recognition from competitors. Since the late eighteenth century, spokesmen for every eth-nic community have made frequent appeals to their alleged ancestry and histories, in the struggle for recognition, rights, and independence. In the course of these struggles, ethnic spokesmen have drawn on, or in some cases invented, a 'myth of origins and descent' which then inspired writers and artists to recreate for their publics the events, atmosphere, and heroic examples of remote, archaic eras found in the epics and sagas of Homer and Aeschylus, Dante, Ossian, and the Edda. By 1800 most of Western Europe was caught in the romantic quest for origins; by 1850 it had spread to Eastern Europe, and during the next century was diffused to Asia and Africa (Honour 1968; Vaughan 1978; Irwin 1966).

Second, the new era of myth-making was united by a common ideo-logy, nationalism, which embodied a global vision of the 'true' relations between social and political units and of the relations between members or 'citizens' and their collectivities. Ethnic myths of descent figure pro-minently in the nationalist Weltanschauung. As a community of culture

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and a distinctive unity, the nation not only has a past; the roots of its unique identity must reside in its origins and genealogy. In order to claim the new status of'nation', a community's spokesmen had therefore to advance a case which rested, at least in part, on the conviction of ethnic ancestry and common history. And third, a revolutionary element was injected into the new era of ethnic myth-making. Nationalism became a vehicle for rapid social change, for mobilizing people, for claiming a 'homeland' by redrawing the map, and for destroying local, and regional ties in the interests of the centre and the whole community. So the ethnic myth became a charter for revolution, for turning established arrangements upside down, and creating new political communities on the basis of a sense of community derived from historic memories and a myth of com-mon descent. Where previously, these myths were utilized to uphold cul-tures and kingdoms, today they can just as easily be made to serve the interests of forgotten and submerged communities aspiring to national status and territorial recognition (Deutsch & Foltz 1963; Mayo 1974; Esman 1977).

Insofar as these myths are accorded separate treatment, they are usually assumed to serve and legitimate the needs and special interests of ethnic groups or particular strata within them. Much of what I have claimed so far, can be read as support for this view. But the 'instrumental' approach leaves a good deal unexplained. Why is it really necessary to return to the past in order to legitimate present actions? How does unearthing archaic epochs satisfy the desire for a blueprint for the future? Why is such myth-making so universal and intensely felt? In a secular age of rationalism, capitalism, and bureaucracy, why should so many feel the need to trace out their collective roots and genealogies? Why, in short, root society and politics in culture and biology?

If, on the other hand, we posit with Weber a universal drive for mean-ing and inner consistency, we may be in a better position to illuminate those areas left unexplained by instrumental approaches.3 Nationalism, after all, has emerged as an ideological movement in an era of widespread religious doubt and secularism, in which many traditional myths, and beliefs are under challenge. Given the processes of widespread mobility, uprooting and emigration, many of the old values and beliefs are unable to satisfy this drive for meaning and consistency or guide significant sections of the population. The old cognitive homeland is no longer habitable; and exile, which in earlier times had been successfully incor-porated into traditional belief-systems, has become too fluctuating and unstable a state to endure without benefit of a compass. In this respect,

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some communities are more fortunate than others. Their ethnic ties have been preserved into the modern era, along with their sense of common ancestry. Others have felt the need to reforge, or even invent, those ties and myths which had dissolved or become forgotten. In all cases, how-ever, the descent myths themselves, once unearthed and disseminated, have come to exercise a powerful fascination, and not just for intel-lectuals, because they provide a framework, albeit a malleable one, for social solidarity and a resolution of the crisis of insecurity through the provision of collective identities. It is only in terms of a myth of ethnic descent that both groups and individuals can 'make sense' of their relocation, and the challenge posed by the bureaucratic state to the old cosmic images. By placing the present in the context of the past and of the community, the myth of descent interprets present social changes and collective endeavours in a manner that satisfies the drive for meaning by providing new identities that seem to be also very old, and restoring locations, social and territorial, that allegedly were the crucibles of those identities.4

But the provision of myths of descent to counter insecurity and mean-inglessness, is apt to prove a difficult and controversial undertaking. For one thing, the historical record is often scanty or biased. For another, altern-ative narratives and interpretations may have been handed down the gen-erations. The myths themselves, as we shall see, are made up of several components, with differing sources, and they may well come to possess alternative meanings, and uses, for the various classes and status groups that comprise the ethnic community or nation. This is often a source of persistent conflict, so much so that the national tradition may be marked by a deep-seated cleavage based on rival concepts of identity, as occurred in England, France, and nineteenth century Greece. In these cases, two modes of interpreting 'descent' come into conflict, the one cultural and ideolo-gical, the other more strictly genealogical and biological. Yet, even this con-flict fails to break the overall mould of ethnic myth-making, or the sense of meaning and security engendered by it.

COMPONENTS OF ETHNIC MYTHS

Every nationalist movement will possess myths of descent that are, in some respects, unique. Nevertheless, they possess a common form that can be usefully broken down into its component myths. I shall consider each, briefly.

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A Myth of Temporal Origins, or When We Were Begotten

One of the main tasks of nationalist historians is to date the community's origins, and so locate it in time and in relation to other relevant communities. Fixed points in time act as barriers to the flood of meaninglessness; they are essential gauges of collective development; and they place the 'generations of our ancestors' in a definite linear succession stretching back to the sacred moment of birth (Debray 1977). It is no wonder that dramatists and artists eagerly turned back to the legends of primeval ori-gins recounted in the biblical story of Creation, in Hesiod's Theogony, and in the creation myths of the Edda and the Veda. Nor is the popularity of such foundation-myths as the Oath of Brutus, which led to the expulsion of the Tarquins and the founding of the Roman republic, or the Oath of the Rutli, by which the three Swiss forest cantons around Lake Lucerne swore to drive out the Habsburgs from their valleys in 1307, surprising; Zurich town hall commissioned Fussli to paint the confederates in 1778, while the Oath of Brutus became immensely popular in late eighteenth-century England and France, as the tide of republicanism began to run high.5

Of course, even here there may be deep divisions over the antiquity of the community. The date of 'foundation' may vary between classes and epochs; for some, Hengist and Horsa were the true founders of Saxon liberties and English rights, for others the Norman Conquest marked the foundation of the state and monarchy, not to mention the claims for ancient Britons (Kohn 1940; Hill 1958: ch. 3). Given the paucity and unreliabil-ity of the evidence, particularly in the seventeenth century, the conflict over the 'Norman Yoke' was ideological rather than genealogical. A similar conflict was to develop in France a century later. Yet in these and other cases, nobody questioned the need to establish the antiquity and ancestry of the com-munity; the demonstration was vital, both for self-esteem and security, and for external recognition.

A Myth of Location and Migration, or W\\ere We Came from and How We Got Here

Not all ethnic communities possess a fully elaborated myth of spatial origins, but all have some notions. Space is, after all, the other dimension necessary for a framework of self-identification, and assumes special importance where claims to 'territory' are being pressed. Here, historicism furnishes the nationalist with 'evidence' in his struggle for autonomy and

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independence. A large part of the cultural history of the Arab-Israel dispute, for example, can be written in terms of historicist claims to the strip of territory between the Jordan and the Mediterranean from Dan to Beersheba or Eilat; especially as regards the original habitat of the contending parties, with 'evidence' from archaeology, linguistics, history, and anthropology often selectively interpreted (Haim 1962; Hertzberg 1960). Indeed, where the community has been divorced from what it regards as its original habitat, as with Jews, Armenians, and Greeks, or where an original territory has been renounced for another, as with the Ottoman Turks, the question of spatial origins looms especially large.

Spatial origins, of course, legitimate control over land and scarce resources, even where mass migration memories are lacking (Weber 1968). Equally important, however, is their role in controlling change by locat-ing it firmly in a distinctive area and niche. In this way, uprooted indi-viduals are 'restored', if not physically, at least symbolically, to 'their' homeland; they become true citizens of a nation with an acknowledged and distinctive territory, which fixes the place of the community in the 'family of nations'. To counter the 'homelessness' characteristic of mod-ern life, the nationalist constructs out of the sense of spatial origins and a given territory a 'homeland'; this homeland will help to define the nation, by marking its boundaries and providing its 'home'. So another barrier is created against flux, in this case the flux of aimless movement and cease-less wanderings (Debray 1977; Johnson 1968).

A Myth of Ancestry, or Who Begot Us and How We Developed

It does not really matter whether the common ancestor or founding father is mythical or quasi-historical; Hellen served for the ancient Greeks as well as Abraham for the Jews, Arminius for the Germans as much as Oguz Khan for the Turks. What is important about the ancestor myth is the symbolic kinship link between all members of the present gen-eration of the community, and between this generation and all its fore-bears, down to the common ancestor. The power of this myth can be felt in writers as far apart as Blyden and Edmond Fleg, with their reverence for Ethiopian and Israelite ancestors; neither claimed a real kinship relation-ship. On the contrary, the quest for genealogical roots in family or clan is transposed to the communal level, and thereby becomes symbolic. What these men, and so many others, appear to be affirming is the principle of filiation as the key to historical development from a common source, the transmission of certain spiritual values within the lines of descent, and

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thereby the solution to the problems of relationships and cohesion in mod-ern, complex societies (Wilson 1968; Hertzberg 1960; Fleg 1943).

Once again, the search for roots and ancestry is not without its prob-lems. The metaphor of the tree, with its organic intimations, may prove problematic, especially for communities marked by temporal or spatial dis-continuities; it is not easy to accommodate revolution and dispersion within this schema, let alone immigration and intermarriage. There is, again, the problem of, evidence, so much of it conflicting or simply lacking. Alternatively, there is the possibility of constructing rival genealogies, used for opposite purposes by different strata.

Yet, all these problems are more than outweighed by the sense of loca-tion and security conferred by a myth of ancestry with its comforting metaphor of family ties recreated among dispersed city migrants and trans-posed to the communal level. Such myths afford a means of rooting and classifying the uprooted and declassified in what can so easily appear a chaotic social world, and thereby of identifying one's friends as 'kinsmen' in opposition to unfriendly outsiders, who are excluded from belonging by the absence of roots and kinship ties. In fact, the satisfaction of the drive for meaning and security afforded by these myths is even more important than their short-run uses as instruments of immediate mobi-lization and integration. A sense of common ancestry confers sentiments of prestige and dignity through an 'ethnic' fraternity, one based upon alleged kinship ties; and herein lie the seeds of that transformation, through a biological or genetic interpretation, by which the 'ethnic community' becomes the 'race' (van den Berghe 1967; Cohen 1976).

A Myth of the Heroic Age, or How We Were Freed and Became Glorious

While definitions of grandeur and glory vary, every nationalism requires a touchstone of virtue and heroism, to guide and give meaning to the tasks of regeneration. The future of the ethnic community can only derive meaning and achieve its form from the pristine 'golden age' when men were 'heroes'. Heroes provide models of virtuous conduct, their deeds of valour inspire faith and courage in their oppressed and decadent descend-ants. The epoch in which they flourished is the great age of liberation from the foreign yoke, which released the energies of the people for cul-tural innovation and original political experiment. The most influential examples reach back into Near Eastern antiquity: the Mosaic liberation of the Israelites from Egypt and the subsequent glories of the Davidic king-dom; the liberation of Athens and Greece from the tyrants and Persian

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invasions, culminating in the Periclean age; the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome, and the founding of the Republic with its selfless heroes, Brutus the consul, Scaevola and Cincinnatus; and the Hegira of Muhammad and the Age of the Companions, which witnessed the great Islamic conquests.

In the wake of these exemplars, many nationalist historians tried to recon-struct equivalent 'golden ages' for their communities, using sagas like the Edda and Kalevala and the lays of 'Ossian' and the Nibelunglied.6 Very often, no great distinction was made between myth and history, since for the sophisticated 'myth' signified a poetic form of history, an archetypal set of motifs thought to embody the real 'essence' of the people and the true character and individuality of the community. Archaeology, too, was treated in this same 'reconstructive' and 'regenerative' mode; Frankish, Saxon, Etruscan, Mycenaean, Hittite, Assyrian, and Egyptian artefacts and sites were quickly assimilated into the romanticizing mainstream of ethnic myth-making, to buttress a particular vision of history and destiny (Daniel 1971).

Similar selectivity was employed for that key concept of nineteenth-century Europe, the hero. Thus early Greek nationalists might liken certain klephtic leaders during the War of Independence to Achilles; what mat-tered was not any actual similarity, let alone the historicity of Achilles, only the qualities attributed to the hero and his ability to inspire emulation and guide action. It would be wrong to say that antique heroes were mani-pulated or distorted, let alone invented, to serve present ends, as some main-tain.7 Rather, the heroes of old brought into the open, at least for the literate classes, those qualities of courage, wisdom, self-sacrifice, zeal, and stoicism, which they felt to be so conspicuously lacking in the present generation, and which seemed to act as an antidote to oppression and a spur to lib-eration. In these alleged qualities of the hero were mirrored the best of the community's traditions, its authentic voice in the moment of its first flowering, so sadly silent today, so badly needed to halt exile and decline.

The golden age served yet another purpose. As a vehicle of historical and archaeological reconstructions, it could be used to dramatize the 'atmosphere' and picturesque uniqueness of the people's past, and of the events and per-sonages which composed it. That way historicists underlined a theme dear to their hearts: the diversity of history and the potential for active inter-vention in a world of cultural pluralism. For, if ethnic uniqueness is the stuff of history, change and growth proceed at different rates and ways in the different communities, and these may also influence each others' progress; this leaves more room for elements of subjective choice, active liberation, and conscious mastery than in a determinate scheme of universal growth, such as the evolutionists posited (Nisbet 1969; A. D. Smith 1976, chs. 3-4).

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A Myth of Decline, or How We Fell into a State of Decay

Unlike unilinear evolutionism, nationalism stresses the reality of retrogres-sions and the role of human volition. The tree never grows straight, the river always meanders, even turns back in erratic loops. But, if seized with ethnic consciousness, men can unbend the tree and set the river back on course. Then, of course, the golden age will be renewed and the heroes will return. But how did that glorious age pass away, why have the heroes become the generations of the oppressed? Because, the old virtues were forgotten, moral decay set in, pleasure and vice overcame discipline and self-sacrifice, the old certainties and hierarchies dissolved, the barbarians burst through.... The myth of decline tells us how the community lost its anchor in a living tradition, how the old values became ossified and meaningless, and how, as a result, common sentiments and beliefs faded to give way to rampant individualism and the triumph of partisan interests over col-lective ideals and communal solidarity. The form of the explanation may be Durkheimian, but the reasons for the decline and the solutions prof-fered by the nationalists are quite different. To the nationalist myth-maker, present alienation is simply an inner exile or homelessness, literal or figurat-ive, and mirrors external oppression or lack of self-rule. We are strangers to ourselves because we have no clear idea of the real, the historic, self, the collective identity formed many generations back, from which each and every individual identity takes its life and meaning. Hence, self-exile and communal aimlessness. It is the leitmotif of so many intellectuals who bewailed the sad plight of their community, from Korais and Afghani to Banerjea and Blyden. In each case, their point of departure was the degen-erate state of their country, in comparison not only with a technologically and educationally superior Western civilization, but with the underlying genius of the community, revealed in its purest form during the golden age of authentic heroism (Kedourie 1971).

A Myth of Regeneration, or How to Restore the Golden Age and Renew Our Community as 'in the Days of Old'

Here we move from the sphere of explanatory myth to that of prescript-ive ideology: from an idealized, epic history to an account of 'required actions', or rationale of collective mobilization. But, even here, myth is not absent: it informs the central concept of nationalism, that of regeneration, together with the associated notions of authenticity and autonomy. But these notions can only represent ideal states, unattainable in an imperfect

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world; given the nature of social and geopolitical relations, they must always remain unfulfilled. Psychologically compelling if logically incoherent, they present the 'drama' of nationalism and its quasi-messianic promises alongside other quite realistic and concrete goals, such as attaining inde-pendence, creating the conditions for self-sustaining growth, building up national institutions, pursuing cultural homogenization and social integ-ration, demarcating the 'homeland', and creating a world of cultural divers-ity and pluralism.

Of especial interest, from the standpoint of ethnic myths of descent, are the notions of authenticity and regeneration. The first is illuminated by myths of origins and descent, since they furnish the criteria for judg-ing what is inauthentic or impure; that was the function that Fichte and his followers conferred on philology, a discipline which traced out linguistic descent and origins to reveal what was instrinsic to the pure, authentic language group, and what was foreign and extraneous (Kohn 1965; Reiss 1955). The second, regeneration, with its metaphors of'rebirth' and 'reawakening', continues this drama of self-purification, so necessary to collective salvation, by placing the act of liberation in an ideal world of heroic imagery and naturalistic metaphor. A fundamentally historical event is thereby endowed with a deeper symbolic significance, derived from the re-enacting of the early drama of liberation and the subsequent golden age. By returning to one's origins, the links in the long chain of the generations are reforged.8

Having rehearsed and analysed the components that typically make up the substratum of ethnic 'myths of origins and descent', on which nation-alisms base their ideals and programmes, we are now in a better position to grasp the consequences of collective action entailed by nationalism's belief-system. These are:

Special Identity

The claim to a special identity, in virtue of the principle of cultural divers-ity and the uniqueness of the community's golden age and heroism. The nationalist spokesmen claim the right to a particular freedom, that of developing a specific culture through an ethnically responsive press, judiciary, church and educational system, and an ethnically aware liter-ature and art. This is the typical demand of cultural nationalism and its intellectual representatives, which in turn requires the cultivation of an individual style of creation and action—in food, dress, customs, leisure activities, work, morals, and politics. Herder's influence is especially

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apparent in this sphere, since he, above all, argued the need for cultural individualism and populism, for the creation of a living style of doing things, born of popular experience and activity (Berlin 1976).

Obviously the quest for a special identity serves the 'need' for communal solidarity and fraternity; for it sharpens boundaries between commun-ities and points up similarities between members and differences with non-members. Moreover, the myth of descent suggests a rationale for these differences. Equally, however, quests for identity require certain types of action and behaviour—in education, recreation, worship, habits, politics and so on—which in turn heighten solidarity and exclusiveness. To iden-tify oneself with particular others entails a range of actions, associations, and sacrifices that bind one to the chosen and sever one from those out-side the circle (Barth 1969, Introduction; Armstrong 1982).

Special Dignity

The claim to a special dignity, in virtue of antiquity and pedigree. What is often sought is a status confirmation—for dominant communities— or status reversal—for suppressed minorities. Dating and periodizing the history of the community become essential tools for these ends; so does the pursuit of genealogies. But these activities and their results also define a status; once you concede the validity of this sort of reasoning and activ-ity, once it becomes widely practised, it automatically entails a special sta-tus, the conferring of a definite prestige on those for whom it is utilized. The chosen community becomes a 'victim' of the claims made on its behalf, its members come to 'feel' they are entitled to a certain respect.

Specific Territories

The claim to specific territories, in virtue of spatial origins, migrations or history. Ethnic myths are vital 'evidence' for territorial 'title-deeds'; asso-ciation of the people with historic events and persons resident within a particular terrain is a sine qua non of the quest for a recognized 'home-land' (Smith 1981a; also Breuilly 1982: ch. 3). But, equally, the title-deeds which derive their meaning from ethnic myths are charters for collective aspirations and actions; they validate, even direct, the struggle for land and recognition.

Any title-deed refers to an historically denned terrain, for which valida-tion is by 'historic right' rather than actual possession; hence the Lib-erian ('back-to-Africa'), Armenian, and Zionist restorative movements, whose title-deeds were based on ancient 'right' and which required mass

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migrations of community members (Wilson 1968: Pt. I; Hovannisian 1967; Halpern 1961). Title-deeds are also used to validate population transfers and direct their course, as with the Greco-Turkish population exchange of 1922 (Campbell & Sherrard 1968: ch. 5); alternatively, they may influence the course of action in multiethnic states towards territorial division or partition, as in Ulster and Cyprus, or at least pro-mote intractable territorial disputes, as have occurred in Alsace, Tyrol, Transylvania, the Jura, and the Ogaden. In each case historic title-deeds derived from a special reading of history based upon ethnic myths of descent, have given content to other needs and grievances; the solidarity that they have inspired has given the ensuing conflict its peculiar form and intens-ity of commitment.

Specific Autonomy

The claim to a specific autonomy, in virtue of a previous, distant era of liberty, the heroic, golden age, now lost through oppression and neglect. Independence and autarchy are important channels for communal auto-nomy, but they do not exhaust it; such freedom, once attained, has its own imperatives for action. But it is not any freedom; it is a collective liberty in which the self's laws are those of the nation-to-be, and a specific liberty for that community in those conditions. The demands of that freedom are peculiar to an historic era and community and they vary according to the aspects that appear to be deficient. Such quests for autonomy are often felt to represent merely a 'restoration' of ancient, lost rights and freedoms; thus the Basques today seek a return of their fueros, their statutes of auto-nomy which men of noble blood once enjoyed (Greenwood 1977). The struggle for autonomy is always specific; and it is always conditioned, and given its meaning, by a lingering sense of the heroic era before the community's decline, and by the desire to recover the liberties and rights enjoyed in that golden age.

IDEOLOGICAL AND GENEALOGICAL MYTHS

Identity; dignity; territory; autonomy: these are the basic aspirations and dimensions of the drama of regeneration which the ethnic myth of descent explains and inspires in the participants. Not only does it legit-imize these aspirations and unite these dimensions; it energizes and feeds them like an explosive charge, whose roots seem indeed quite 'primordial'

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to members of ethnic communities and immune to the process of ration-alization (Shils 1957; Geertz 1963).

Yet, deep within what appears to the outside as a unifying myth, are hidden many tensions and contradictions, which parallel and illuminate the social contradictions within most communities. Just as national solid-arities are often flawed by class conflicts, religious cleavages, or regional divisions, so the ethnic myth itself reveals divergent traditions from which different strata and groups within the ethnic community may draw strength, identity, and meaning. Of particular importance is the distinc-tion between ideological and genealogical myths, between ethnic myths that trace descent through cultural and ideological affinity with presumed ancestors and epochs, and those that draw on a more strictly genealogical pedigree and links of alleged kinship. These differences become important, both for claims to territory or 'title-deeds', and for conceptions of national solidarity through regeneration. They may, indeed, lead to quite distinct, even opposed courses of action, with serious repercussions for the community. In the examples that follows, I shall concentrate particularly upon this twofold aspect, the territorial and the regenerative, and upon how these aspirations were influenced by competing types of ethnic myth.

England

It is sometimes contended that a specifically English nationalism succumbed during the eighteenth century to a grander British nationalism, founded on the Union with Scotland and the British empire; and that today a pecu-liarly English nationalism is hardly visible (Seton-Watson 1979; cf. Seton-Watson 1977: ch. 2). It is true that since 1707, English nationalism has added new dimensions of vast scope, yet these have always been harnessed to the English core. Even that core has several layers, and these are reflected, and given their meaning, by rival ethnic myths of origin cur-rent at different periods and within different strata.

Thus, in 1658 Sir Thomas Browne, discussing the Walsingham urns, could speak about 'our British, Saxon and Danish forefathers'; a century earlier, Englishmen had claimed Brutus as their ancestor (cf. Dixon 1976: 25). In the seventeenth century, Levellers and others opposed their Saxon birth-rights to the oppressive 'Norman Yoke' of the monarchy; in the eighteenth, Sir William Stukeley argued the case for British ancestry (Dixon 1976: 26; Kohn 1940).

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the American and French wars stimulated a powerful revival of national sentiment, particularly

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under the leadership of the younger Pitt; it was heralded and accompan-ied by the rise of such new national institutions as the British Museum and Royal Academy, and the neo-classical school of patriotic art, especially 'history painting', led by Benjamin West, Fiissli, Hamilton, Blake, and Flaxman; the Roman and medieval motifs chosen by these artists ante-dated the analogous movement in France (Plumb 1965: Pt. Ill, ch. 6; Irwin 1966; Smith 1979a).

But it was in the nineteenth century that full-scale interpretations of English development based upon myths of ancestry and descent gained wide currency; following Burke's emphasis upon tradition and freedom embodied in parliamentary institutions, the Whigs and the Loyal Asso-ciations, founded by Arthur Young in 1792, looked back with nostalgia to the image of peaceful evolution and liberty represented by the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the gradual growth of representative government, and the origins of Parliament in the 'free' institutions of Germanic tribes. This image of ancient origins was opposed to the medievalism of Tory views. Disraeli, for example, looked to the medieval paternalism of the noble classes to solve the problem of the 'two nations'; this was also the function of his concept of race. It was in this context that Galton's views became pop-ular, as Mosse puts it:

Since the idea of inherited genius could be ascribed to a whole people who had proved so adept at governing themselves, it was a mere step to ascribing this to the hereditary genius of a race. (Mosse 1963: 60)

But, although racism had a considerable following in the later nineteenth century in Britain, the liberal ideal of self-government, so integral a part of English national consciousness, tended to preclude the kind of extreme biological racialism found in France, Germany or Austria at this time (Banton 1967; Weiss 1977). At the same time, debates in archaeology, particularly with regard to the Saxon origins traced by men like Kemble and Wright in England and Germany/Denmark, lent support for a strong English ethnic identity operating within the wider imperial circle.9

This sense of Englishness, moreover, is by no means dead. Enoch Powell, at least, has been quite explicit about the need to sustain an English consciousness, which, he believes, has survived within the bosom of empire. Tom Nairn cites his speech to the appropriately-named Royal Society of St. George, founded in 1894, a society that has consistently championed the 'indefeasible birthright' of the Englishman, and his 'ever-present, far down and deeply-rooted; too dormant, too unassertive, unaggressive yet uneradicable' racial instinct.10 Powell argued that, unlike

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other empires, the British empire left the 'nationhood of the mother country' unaltered and continuous; so the present generation discovers affinities with earlier generations of English; they find themselves 'once more akin to the old English'. Nairn, indeed, links this latterday romantic English nationalism with that of the intelligentsia in the early part of this century, with Housman and Vaughan-Williams and the Georgians, and with the pageantry of empire (Nairn 1977: 262-5). But he also claims that Powellite romantic nationalism, with its easy descent into racism, serves to compensate for a lack, not of national traditions and institutions, but of a popular myth of the mobilized people. English history since 1688 can boast no such myth; its course has been predominantly patrician, and con-stitutional. Hence, a romantic conservative nationalism, without a trace of populism." Whether, of course, a Bennite populism might excite the kind of nationalism that Nairn feels to be absent in England and present almost everywhere else, is open to doubt. So is its necessity. There are signs, after all, that such a popular nationalism does exist, albeit without overt political voice. In the love of rural England; in such pageants as the State opening of Parliament, Trooping the Colour, the Cenotaph Service for the World Wars' Dead or the last night of the Promenade concerts; in the widespread adulation of monarchy and royalty; in the powerful hold exerted by memories of two World Wars, especially the Dunkirk spirit; in the recurrent lamentations over national economic performance and praise of parliamentary liberties; in the national union traditions of the English working class; we find here fragmented, but powerful, elements of a popular English national consciousness. Perhaps the lack of a 'significant other' to serve as a traditional enemy, coupled with an island location, and the continuing prevalence of alternative class images of Englishness, has muted this consciousness (Birch 1977: ch. 3 and 136-8; Marwick 1974: 153-99). Yet, in time of danger, even the deep-seated opposition between a more genealogical myth of descent found among Tories and the upper classes, and based upon monarchical and aristocratic tradition, and the ideological myth which, stemming from Puritan rad-icalism, looks back to Saxon liberties and birthrights and forward to working class socialism, can coalesce to present to the outside world a clear image of English identity, if not yet of regeneration.

France

English ethnic myths since the eighteenth century have been potent sources in the shaping of a national sense of solidarity which surfaces in

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times of crisis; but, on the whole, they have not helped to foster or guide radical social change. It has been otherwise in France. Since the mid-eighteenth century French history has witnessed a competitive interplay between the genealogical myths of the monarchy and upper classes, and the more ideological myths of the third and fourth estates. Together, these myths inspired drives towards territorial expansion, and communal regeneration. Thus, the Crown, long engaged in a process of territorial consolidation from the times of Philip Augustus, acquired in 1733 the territory of Lorraine; during the Revolution, the patriot governments of the third estate acquired Avignon and Venaissin through plebiscite, and advanced French borders through war to what Danton preached were France's 'natural frontiers' (Kohn 1967: Pt. I). Similar motives of the territorial expansion of French civilization and ethnic culture under-pinned the acquisition of colonies in America, Africa and southern Asia under both monarchical and republican regimes, and was fed by Anglo-French rivalries and periodic threats to the integrity and safety of the patrie. Whereas ethnic history tended towards the territorial unity and expansion of France, whatever the regime or class in power, its impact upon communal regeneration was more complex. During the mid-eighteenth century both Crown and parlements vied for legal supremacy and looked to historical precedent to bolster their claims (Palmer 1940; Palmer 1959: Pt. I, 89, 449-51). It was, in fact, in the propaganda of the parlements that the concept of the 'nation' and its ancient liberties (now being allegedly undermined by centralizing royal governments) became pro-minent. Partly to counteract this propaganda, and link the monarchy more closely with the concept of a French nation, the Crown and its ministers of the arts and public works from de Tournehem onwards (in 1746) initiated a series of educational and artistic reforms designed to produce a generation of patriotic propagandists for the regime (Loquin 1912; Leith 1965). In addition, Marigny and especially his successor, d'Angiviller, commissioned some important series of paintings on national themes from medieval French history, notably the 1773 series on St. Louis, and the 1776-7 series on the Anglo-French Wars and the virtues of Du Guesclin and Bayard (Cummings 1975). French heroic motifs like the Entry of the French into Paris in 1436 or the Burghers of Calais entered the artistic repertoire alongside depictions of episodes from the reign of Henri IV.12 These 'medieval' national themes found favour again under the Restoration; even after Napoleon's Concordat, troubadour medievalism became increasingly popular, linked as it was with ideas of sacred

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kingship and the Catholic revival (Detroit 1975; also Markham 1975: 67-70, 108-110, 177-8).

At the same time, the ancient idea that Frenchmen were descended from the Trojans and Romans, took root and presaged a deep-seated rift in French national consciousness. In the early part of the eighteenth century, the Comte de Boulainvilliers had lamented the decline of the Frankish aristocracy; at the end of the century Sieyes inverted the idea, holding that the Frankish aristocracy were little better than foreign usurpers of a Gallic realm linked to the great Roman empire (Barzun 1932; Poliakov 1967). The 'real' nation, the Third Estate, were true descendants of those republican heroes of ancient Rome who had in their day sworn to abolish tyranny, just as their latterday successors were preparing to do. Like Rousseau and David, Sieyes and the Jacobins after him saw in Cato, Brutus, and the Horatii exemplars of a republican virtue and martial heroism that was also quin-tessentially French; and in the period preceding the outbreak of Revolu-tion, writers and artists like David and Lemierre looked to the historians of classical antiquity, above all to Charles Rollin, for patriotic inspiration and the sources of a new ethnic myth of primordial simplicity and civic solidarity that would release and mobilize the energies necessary for social change (Crow 1978; Rosenblum 1967: ch. 2).

Both the 'Roman' and the 'medieval' ethnic myths served to promote the claims to special identities, dignity and autonomy. At the same time, their rivalry, repeated throughout the nineteenth century and especially during the prolonged Dreyfus Affair, and mirroring class cleavages, weak-ened national social cohesion, while reinforcing the sense of French iden-tity in the long run and helping to stimulate a radicalism of both Left and Right. Both myths were 'regenerative' in impulse, if for different strata; in their rites and celebrations, especially during the moments of revolution, the French rehearsed their sense of identity and destiny in periodic acts of self-renewal (Durkheim 1915: 346, 427, esp. 214). Moreover, the genealogical and ideological myths overlapped, in intent if not content. Both aimed to inculcate 'virtue', albeit through different models; both aimed to inspire self-sacrifice, if for differently conceived communities. The noble deaths of a Bayard or Du Guesclin are, after all, only the medieval counterparts of those of a Cato, Germanicus or Seneca. Of course, the 'medieval' genealogical myth promoted the ideals of hierarchy, organic social order and the sacred, the whole tradition of counter-revolution from Bonald to Maurras (Weiss 1977; Nolte 1969); but even that was a radical, mobilizing myth, compared to the conservative myth of Norman England.

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As for the 'Roman' myth, which proclaimed the spiritual affinity of patriot Frenchmen with republican Romans, the enthusiasm and sense of solid-arity it inspired stemmed directly from its belief in a common ideological ancestor and a golden age of virtue, which we Frenchmen, as true patriots and brothers of the patrie, will restore. Together, these myths have created an ideal of France which, even today, is capable of radical self-renewal and of generating new movements for social change and national self-assertion, whether in the radical elements in Gaullism or in student revolts.

Turkey

Myths of origin have played a particularly important role in shaping Turkish national identity, since until the end of the nineteenth century, the very word 'Turk' had pejorative connotations (Lewis 1968: 343). Its rehabilitation was due, in the first place, to the 'outside Turks', mainly Tatars and Azeris in Tsarist Russia, and was then adopted by Turks within the Ottoman empire. Its restoration parallels exactly the growing sense of identity and dignity of the submerged Turkic-speaking communities (Karal 1965).

Under the impact of Russia's southward thrust and its pan-Slavic, Christian ideology, Ottoman statesmen and intellectuals began to reform the edifice of empire and search for new modes of solidarity (Davison 1963). At the same time, Western scholars and orientalists began to take an inter-est in Ottoman studies, and in the Turkish and Mongol ancestry of the Ottomans. Important in this respect were the theories of men like Joseph de Guignes, whose General History of Huns, Turks, Mongols and other Western Tatars appeared in 1756-58; Arthur Lumley Davids, whose Grammar of the Turkish Language was published in 1832; Celaleddin Pasa, a converted Polish exile, whose Ancient and Modern Turks was published in 1869; and especially the Hungarian scholar, Arminius Vambery (1832-1913), whose account of his Journey to Central Asia was published in 1879, and the im-portant French Orientalist, Leon Cahun (1841-1900), who summed up his 'Turanian' theories in his Introduction to the History of Asia, published in 1896 (Kushner 1977: 9-10). All these works lavished praise upon the Turkic-speaking peoples, and located their original 'home' in Central Asia; sev-eral of them linked the Turkish language with the Hungarian, Finnish, Mongol, Estonian, and other 'Finno-Ugric' languages. The Ottomans themselves were traditionally traced (by Ottoman writers) to the tribe of Khayi Khan, a branch of the Oguz Turks, who had been forced by the Mongols to migrate westwards to the domains of the Seljuk Turks, at the

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time of Ertugrul. Towards the end of the century, these traditional Ottoman themes were coupled with European research to produce a consciousness in Ottoman intellectuals that Turkish history was their own history; this was evident in Suleyman Pasa's Universal History (1877), Ahmed Midhat's History of Modern Times (1887) and especially Necib Asim's History of the Turks (1900) (Kushner 1977: 28-33; Lewis 1968: 345-8).

This historicism was both genealogical and ideological in character. On the one hand, men like Midhat and Tevfik were keen to trace the pedigree of the Ottomans among the Turkish tribes of Central Asia; on the other, they were intent on tracing a cultural and ideological affinity with the qualities and virtues of their alleged Turkish ancestors, whose antiquity vied with the Greeks, Jews and Persians in the ancient Near East, according to the circle of writers around Ahmed Cevdet's paper, Ikdam (founded in 1894) (Kushner 1977: 18-19, 31, 37-40). There were also clear territorial implications. Even if pan-Turanianism was rejected, pan-Turkism implied a strong concern for, if not actual union between, the Ottoman Turks and those of Russia and Central Asia; and it led inevitably to attempts to join the 'new' Anatolian homeland of the Turks with their 'original' Central Asian one, with disastrous consequences for Young Turk policies during the First World War (Landau 1981: ch. 2; Lewis 1968: ch. 7). Here the influence of Mehmed Tevfik, who had extolled Oguz Khan already in 1889, and of Murad, who later became a leading Young Turk, was all too evident; genealogy and ideology alike promoted that racial myth of descent which enabled grandiose title-deeds to be drawn up on behalf of a soon-to-be-revived Turkish people, whose Ottoman state bastion was no longer tenable. (Landau 1981: 32; Kushner 1977: 29). In all this, one aim of these Turkist historians was clear: to free their people of self-contempt and self-ignorance through his-toricist education. The temporary bifurcation between a wider racial and linguistic pan-Turanianism and a more strictly ethnic pan-Turkism was soon settled in favour of the latter, but both served to raise the pride in self of Turkish intelligentsia and restore the credibility of the Turkish community. In the end, a more limited westernizing Anatolian Turkism won out; Ataturk turned his back on foreign adventures and the Central Asian homeland, yet his followers remained profoundly influenced by their pan-Turkist background, including the Hittite myth and the belief in a 'Turkification' of Anatolia and its peasant stock (Kushner 1977: ch. 5; Lewis 1968: 357-61; cf. also Berkes, 1964). Nor is the pan-Turkist social myth dead today; it lives on in the extreme Right parties in Turkey, and in organizations like the Association of Pan-Turkists (founded in 1962), even

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if its territorial implications have given way to its regenerative potential (Landau 1981: chs. 4-6).

Greece

Whereas Turkish myths of descent tended to blur the lines between genea-logical and ideological impulses and promote an ethnic myth with strong racial and territorial implications, Greek myths were counterposed to each other in often open rivalry. On the one hand, there was the 'Hellenic' myth which can be traced back to the neo-Platonist Pletho in the early fifteenth century, developed by Theophyllus Corydaleus in the early seventeenth cen-tury, and finally elaborated by Adamantios Korais in the late eighteenth century; according to it, present-day inhabitants of Greece were descended from the ancient Hellenes, since they shared their language and culture, and only the values of classical Athenian antiquity could therefore serve as the basis for Greek self-renewal today (Campbell and Sherrard 1968: 22-43). Language played an important role in this ideological myth; unfortunately, the intellectuals disagreed on the appropriate version of Greek, some like Katartzis and Rhigas favouring the more 'demotic' forms spoken in the Morea, and others like Korais throwing their weight behind a 'purified' form which was a mixture of classical Greek and the modern Greek spoken by the educated middle classes (Koumarianou 1973). This difference mirrored a split between intelligentsia and peasantry, and be-came intertwined with the claims of the alternative 'Byzantine' imperial myth, which the Orthodox clergy and their congregations (most of whom were peasants and shepherds) espoused. In this more traditional image, the restoration of Christ's kingdom on earth was coeval with the wresting of power from infidels, Turks or Franks, and the restoration of the Byzantine hierocratic imperium (Frazee 1969: 20-25; Sherrard 1959). Within this empire, Greek was the natural language of religious communion and the Greeks would once again become its spiritual and temporal rulers, as, in fact, with the advance of the Phanariots in the administration of the Porte, they already appeared to be doing. Here, too, genealogical elements became intertwined with religio-ideological myths; for, despite the fact that the leading 'princely' Phanariot families can be shown to have originated in the provinces during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, claims of aristocratic Byzantine ancestry were made by and for them, and their self-image and vision of the world was saturated by Byzantinism. Like the Orthodox Patriarchate, they dreamed not of the regeneration of Greece, (with a few exceptions like Rhigas Velestinlis, whose 'Balkan federation'

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of 1796-7 was little more than a semi-secular Byzantine democracy), but of the impending restoration of the Byzantine empire and its religious culture (Mango 1973; Stavrianos 1961: ch. 9; Dakin 1972: chs. 1-2).

But, as Rhigas' example shows, Hellenism and Byzantinism were not mutually exclusive, even though their inspiration and spirit was mutually opposed. In a sense, both were 'revolutionary', since even the restoration of Byzantium demanded popular mobilization (and foreign interven-tion). Both, too, had dramatic territorial consequences, though here they led in opposite directions. The Hellenic ideal, centered on Athens, was west-ern in orientation and based upon mainland Greece; the Byzantine myth, centred on Constantinople, looked to the east and spanned the area from Moscow to Alexandria (Henderson 1971; Demos 1958). In the event, however, Western intervention, by confining the new Greek state to the Morea and southern central Greece and thereby excluding so many Greek-speaking communities, helped to promote the 'Megale Idea (Great Idea), the quest for a much larger, inclusive Greek state stretching into Thrace and Asia Minor, which had been the dream of the Byzantine restoration, with disastrous consequences, both military and economic, for Greek regeneration (Dakin 1972; Campbell and Sherrard 1968: chs. 4-5; also Jelavich 1977: chs. 5, 12, 18).

Even the Hellenic ideal has been sharply criticized for holding back economic and educational development in Greece, despite the romantic claims of Korais and his followers; both Hellenism and Byzantinism appear to be backward-looking ideologies, characteristic of the Greek intelligentsia and clergy (Pepelassis 1958). In their time, however, both myths provided vital foci of identity; even if they collided at times, they helped to rally purely sectional interests—clerical, bourgeois, intellectual, klephtic— into a single struggle for national regeneration. In terms of enhanced dig-nity, territorial expansion and autonomy, both ethnic myths initiated and guided subsequent policies, even when they later promoted internal divi-sions. Of course, the content of the myths differed greatly; their golden ages, the heroes they revered, the reasons for decline they propounded, were entirely divergent. Even the location of origins, in the one case Asia Minor, in the other the Peloponnese, differed, as did their mythic genealogies of descent. In the end, too, an ideological Hellenism, geared to western thought and rational institutions, won out, mainly through force of external circumstances. Yet, in the origins and development of the Greek nation-state during the nineteenth century, both myths played a vital for-mative role in identifying the nature of 'Greek' character and guiding its regeneration in the light of their theories of origins.

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Israel

As with the Greeks, a myth of descent was preserved among the Jews, enshrined in their sacred traditions. It traced Jewish origins to the land of Canaan, whither Abram of Ur had wandered at God's command; it preserved the memory of collective slavery and deliverance from Egypt, a return to Canaan under Moses, the promulgation of a divine Law, and the flowering of a golden age under David and Solomon. Thereafter, despite the efforts of Temple priests, the land was divided, Israel carried into Assyrian captivity and oblivion, and Judah ultimately also deported for its sins to Babylon. The myth suggested a second renaissance after the return to Jerusalem, another war of liberation under the Maccabees and a final decline and captivity under the Romans in A.D. 70 (Baron 1960: ch. 7; Noth 1960).

Thereafter, a bifurcation appears. The traditional interpretation, advanced by most rabbis, traced the line of descent through Talmudic Judaism to the medieval and Polish (Ashkenazi) rabbis; likewise, they traced the descent of their East European communities in the Diaspora through the fleeing German medieval communities back to those late Roman exiles in Gaul and Germany. On the other hand, during the early nineteenth century, the Jewish enlightenment intellectuals {Maskilim) tended to omit the medieval genealogical links and extol the cultural renaissance of Iberian Jewry, in which it saw a later reflection of that of ancient Israel and Judah in its own land (cf. Greenberg 1944: vol. I, chs. 2-3; Eisenstein-Barzilay 1959). Thus, the nineteenth-century conflict between rabbis and enlight-eners, between a 'western' and 'eastern' outlook in Jewry, was guided and given meaning by two contrasting myths of descent, one more genealo-gical in character, the other more cultural and ideological in intent.

Again, as in the case of Greece, it was the secular and more ideological of these images that provided the main stimulus to territorial innovation and social regeneration. During the epoch of the Berlin and Galician enlight-enment in the early nineteenth century, the Davidic kingdom and the Mosaic liberation assumed the status of the golden age for thinkers and novelists alike; it was re-education in that (more secular) image that was to be the key to national regeneration (Meyer 1967; Eisenstein-Barzilay 1959a). Again, the parallel with Korais is illuminating; both in matters of educa-tion and language reform, the Jewish and Greek intelligentsia pursued similar courses, sustained by their interpretations of history, especially the myth of origins and descent. In this development, they received unexpected support from the wealthier sections of Western Jewry, whose Reform

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Judaism likewise sought to return to 'purer' forms and dispense with rabbinic accretions (Plaut 1963; Meyer 1967); in this they followed the 'evolutionary' thrust of philosophers and historians like Zunz, Graetz, Krochmal and Samuel Luzzatto, who began to forge the notion of a 'Jewish community' divorced from 'Judaism', that is, of an ethnic com-munity one of whose creative expressions is the Jewish religion (Katz 1958; Dinur 1969). Such a separation was an essential precondition of any political movement of the Jewish people, including the Zionism of Moses Hess and, later, Leo Pinsker; in this context, Hess' revolutionary concern with the liberation of the Exodus and with the 'Sabbath of History' to be achieved by a mass return to Jerusalem, becomes a natural extension of the 'ideological' myth propounded by the Jewish intelligentsia which he had temporarily forsaken for world socialism (Hess 1958).

Since that time, two currents have been at work within Zionism: a strictly secular myth, at once territorial and liberal, such as Herzl and Nordau embraced; and a more socio-cultural myth, based upon a return to the Zion of traditional hopes, of which Achad Ha'am and Russian Jewry were the exponents (Vital 1975: chs. 6-7, 9-10). These two currents reflected differing concerns and the demographic split in European Jewry: on the one hand, a 'Western' outlook (based upon western European Jewry) whose object was to save individual Jews in a 'homeland' of their own, be it in Uganda, Argentina, or any politically convenient territory, as Zangwill argued; on the other, an 'Eastern' concern with 'Jewishness' as well as Jews, and therefore, a commitment to Palestine as the only 'homeland' capable of regenerating a 'distorted' Jewish diaspora into a true nation (Halpern 1961: 4-5; Herzberg 1960, Introduction). If the Western vision was attuned to the needs of wealthy, educated elites in process of assimilation (albeit che-quered), the Eastern ideal spoke to and for the Jewish masses of Russia and Poland.

Within the latter ideal, however, two historicist myths were at work. The one was a traditional, religious myth of Jewish descent which we have traced; it was represented by a variety of Orthodox Zionists from Mohilever and Kalischer to Rabbi Avraham Kook. (Hertzberg 1960: Pt. VII) Its focus is the continuity of Israel. It refuses to reject the millennial diaspora, or the divinely-ordained two thousand year exile that links ancient Israel with its modern rebirth. It even seeks to remould the modern state into a quasi-theocracy, using the medieval diaspora canons of Orthodox Judaism; under the Begin government, and especially through the vanguard Gush Emunim movement, this myth has succeeded in moving and guiding both territorial policy in the West Bank and social and cultural programmes of

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religious regeneration (Gutman 1979; Segre 1980). The other great myth, which linked up with the secular, ideological concerns of the nineteenth-century enlighteners, was espoused by the various labour and socialist move-ments of the second and third immigrations (Aliyot). They all sought to 'overleap' the two thousand years of diaspora 'servitude' and oppression, so as to link up ideologically with an idealised Palestinian commonwealth of ancient Israelite peasants, shepherds and warriors, whose agrarian egalitarianism furnished a truly Rousseauan basis for that Davidic cultural and political renaissance, now being so memorably sung by the Hebrew revival poetry of a Bialik or Tchernikowski (Elon 1971: chs. 4-5; Halkin 1970). By returning to Palestine and working on and 'with' the land, as recommended by that mystic socialist A.D. Gordon, modern and alien-ated Jews might come to feel a deep kinship and affinity with their ances-tors, whose material culture was now being unearthed in a romantic fervour of archaeological rediscovery; and would thereby come to ex-perience a personal and collective regeneration (Hertzberg 1960: Pt. VI, 368-87). A few of these messianic pioneers even went so far as to pro-claim themselves 'Canaanites'; most, however, aimed to slough off their petit-bourgeois 'pariah' status in an increasingly oppressive diaspora, to rediscover their ancestral roots in the land of their forefathers, and thereby create a new Israeli secular nation, free of the burden of the dias-pora they had evacuated. But it was not to be. The terrible realization of the meaning of Hitler's Holocaust forced these socialist heirs of the enlightenment spiritually back towards the diaspora; and they embarked on an often painful quest to reassess the diaspora and reintegrate the 'lost' two thousand years into their Zion-centred ideological myth (Elon 1971: ch. 8; Hertzberg 1960, Introduction).

SOCIAL CLEAVAGE AND ETHNIC REGENERATION

From this brief survey, some recurrent features of ethnic myths of descent become apparent. They may be summarized as follows:

1. They designate the basic cultural entities of social relations; 2. They link past to future states of the unit, and act as models; 3. They possess external referents of comparison, even implicitly; 4. They designate a space and time for action, a territorial programme; 5. They contain impulses for collective action, mobilizing people; 6. They are developmental, assuming the possibility of change;

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7. They are partly voluntaristic, in that successive generations may add to the heritage and even regenerate themselves;

8. They tend to be multiple, even competing, for any one entity.

Obviously, it would be possible to analyse each of these dimensions in some detail. I shall confine my attention to the last four, and especially the role of conflicting myths in creating frameworks of meaning and impulses for national regeneration; in other words the achievement of an ever devel-oping identity, even solidarity, through social tensions and conflicts.

The Location of Ethnic Myths

In order to grasp the functions of ethnic myths, we need to have some idea of their characteristic location. Historically and sociologically, these myths emerge into the political daylight at certain junctures; these are usually periods of profound culture clash, and accelerated economic and social change. Very often, too, there is a definite threat, political or military, from outside to the viability of the community. That occurred, for example, during the prophetic and the Hellenistic periods in ancient Judea, and no doubt brought into the open the priestly myths of descent among the Jews of antiquity (Weber 1952; Tcherikover 1970). A similar conjunction of culture clash, economic change and military conflict (this time between Ptolemies and Seleucids) stirred a Pharaonic myth of descent, particularly in the writings of Manetho the priest, as the core of a strong Egyptian national sentiment under the Ptolemies (Grimal 1968: 210-41). A similar myth surfaced in the Egypt of Zaghlul and Taha Husain some two millennia later, again under the impact of rapid westernization, economic development and political turbulence in the Middle East after the First World War (Safran 1961). More generally, the vast increase in the political emergence of ethnic myths all over Europe from 1800 onwards, can be attributed to the same complex of factors, culture clash, commer-cialization and the Napoleonic and Russo-Turkish wars (Kohn 1967: ch. 8). We may also observe the tendency for such myths to emerge during periods of incipient secularization, or the threat thereof. Even in the anci-ent examples I have cited, it was Hellenic rationalism that appeared to pose an insidious threat to traditional Jewish and Egyptian religion (or Phoenician-inspired paganism before 600 B.C.) (Tcherikover 1970; Hengel 1980). This is hardly surprising. As indicated earlier, ethnic myths of descent, often contained within their religious chrysalis, become auto-nomous and prevalent at the moment when tradition is under attack, and

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men seek alternative antidotes to their sense of estrangement and insecur-ity. In that sense, the myths represent a means of adapting to rapid change, of mediating between an untenable but much-regretted religious tradition and an ardently-sought but often fearful social change and modernization. That these myths also reflect the hopes and possibilities of social develop-ment mirrors the involvement of the community in new economic net-works of commerce, and, in the modern era, of capitalist industrialism, and the breakdown of traditional economic isolation and subsistence structures (Geertz 1963).

Hence, we may say that typical conditions for the emergence and social location of ethnic myths are:

1. prolonged periods of warfare, involving the community directly or as an affected 'third party' and threatening it;

2. incipient secularization or its threat, as the nub of a wider clash of cul tures, usually between a technologically superior, more 'rationalistic' civilization and a more traditional backward one, a clash that divides the community over the value of its tradition today;

3. incipient commercialization, breaking down the community's isolation and involving it in an external economic network based upon a super ior material culture and technology.

The Appeal of Ethnic Myths

Cui bono? Whom do the myths serve? Broadly speaking, in the first place, the intellectuals, the humanistic ones at the outset, the more technically oriented ones later; and secondly, the professional intelligentsia, both humanistic and technical.

Historicism is the special preserve of intellectuals, whose status and social role is thereby greatly enhanced. No wonder Weber held them to be the missionaries of the national ideal; for everywhere the intellectuals have special access to 'culture values' and hence they 'usurp the leadership of a "culture community"' (Weber 1947: 176). The intellectual is the inter-preter, par excellence, of historical memories and ethnic myths. By tracing a distinguished pedigree for his nation, he also enhances the position of his circle and activity; he is no longer an ambiguous 'marginal' on the fringes of society, but a leader of the advancing column of the reawakened nation, the leaven in the movement of national regeneration. And since myths and memories are capable of infinite interpretation and multiform dissemination, the educator-intellectuals, especially historians and linguists, help to 'recreate' a sense of ethnicity out of the chronicles, traditions,

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memories and artefacts at their disposal. In this way, the intellectual leaves his study to enter upon a new social role as national pedagogue and artist (Smith 1981: ch. 5; Feuer 1975: 202).

Whom does he teach and enchant? In the first place, the ever-growing stratum of the intelligentsia, whose new professional skills require an arena, openings and recognition (Gella 1976; Gouldner 1979). But these are exactly the needs to which the historicist myth of descent can minister. To begin with, it provides a territorial arena, the 'homeland', free of interference from church, aristocracy or bureaucracy, one in which the professionals can find employment and use their diplomas and talents. Second, the regenerated community which the myth inspires furnishes openings for their skills in its schools, hospitals, laboratories, press, and legal practices, and latterly in its corporations and mass party machines. And finally, by legitimating social change and demanding social regeneration, the ethnic myth creates a new climate in which the skills and talents of the intelligentsia are eagerly sought and rewarded. This is not to deny the role of other factors in this process of restratification; it is only to underline the part played by such historicist myths in providing new frameworks in which the intelligentsia can gain recognition. There are, therefore, quite practical reasons why the ethnic myth should have such resonance among professionals and why it becomes an almost unquestioned assumption, once the national ideal has been achieved (Smith 1981: ch. 6).

The intelligentsia are not the only constituency of the ethnic message of the intellectuals. The bourgeoisie may be attracted by such myths; not so much for historical features and artistic resonance, as for the culture and education they inspire in literature and the arts, which satisfy the bourgeoisie's need for cultivation to counteract their (and their children's) nouveau-riche status. Besides, the myths are important in legitimating territorial claims and national integration; hence in the formation of adequate markets for their products. And, on a more general level, the myths help to define the national 'public' which forms the audience for intel-lectuals and intelligentsia; they foster a sense of ethnic community and citizenship among the 'middle classes'.

And finally, such is the malleability of an historical myth, we may find it being adapted by populist intellectuals to the alleged needs of peasants and workers; the peasants, especially, become quasi-sacred objects of nationalist concern, since they carry many memories and myths (ballads, dances, crafts, customs, social organisations, tales, and dramas) which the nationalist intel-lectuals draw upon for the construction of their ethnic myth of descent, and its programme of regeneration (Smith 1979: ch. 5; Nairn 1977: ch. 2).

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Social Cleavage and Competing Myths

As we saw, each nationalism usually contains more than one myth of descent. This split in their images of past and future tells us much about the divi-sions in the social and cultural life of a community experiencing rapid change, and the difficulties it faces in trying to achieve social integration. On one level, competing myths of ethnic regeneration constitute an index of the failure to achieve social cohesion, of the persistence of old divisions and the emergence of new ones. The calls to unity in England, France, Turkey, Greece, and Israel are sounded at exactly the point at which this unity is gravely imperilled by external forces of change. Different strata seize on rival myths and competing modes of myth-making to serve their 'ideal interests'; and in their hands, the myths themselves gradually become modified to suit their interests. Identities and descent-patterns come to serve the outlooks and interests of competing classes and status-groups within the community in the struggle for leadership of the emergent nation (cf. Weber 1947, Introduction).

Of special importance is the distinction between ideological modes of myth-making and genealogical pedigrees. Generally speaking, conservat-ively-oriented groups tend to stress the union of generations of descent and the patterns of family lineage, to shore up their power and prestige; such groups include the upper clergy, aristocracy, upper bourgeoisie intent on intermarriage with the upper classes, and sometimes the higher bur-eaucrats. On the other side, radical aspirant strata will trace their line-age through some ideological affinity with a model of antique nobility, from which they claim spiritual descent; that was the case with the Third Estate in 1789 who looked back to the Romanized Gauls against the Frankish usurpers and identified with Roman mores and ideals, seeing in Cato, Regulus, and Brutus their heroic ancestors. Similarly, radical strata among Greeks and Jews identified, not with their immediately traceable ancestors whom they tended to reject with all they stood for, but with a remote, idealized classical era of heroes and virtue, with Periclean Athens or Davidic Israel.13 Indeed, the more revolutionary the stratum, the more does ideological affinity appear to outweigh genealogical pedigree.

In support of this contention, we may cite the case studies analysed and other examples. Of the former, the prototype is the Third Estate in 1789, mentioned above: their cult of Brutus encapsulated the drive for liberty from tyrants, for a republican solidarity and for the heroic nobility of stoic Romans (Herbert 1972; Antal 1939). The radical Greek intelligentsia, similarly, identified with the liberal ideals of classical Athens against the

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claims of a Byzantine clerical Orthodoxy; the more revolutionary among them, like Rhigas Pheraios and Korais, traced the ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment to what they regarded as their com-mon spiritual ancestor, the philosophical and artistic heritage of ancient Greece (Koumarianou 1973; Mouzelis 1978). In England, the radical tradition of the Levellers, taken up by the circle around Godwin and Blake over a century later, looked to the ancient Saxon liberties as their bulwark against foreign, i.e. Norman, usurpation (Hill 1958; Bindman 1977). And the radical socialist Zionist pioneers who went out to work the land in Palestine in the early years of this century, were equally inspired by a vision of egalitarian independence in ancient agrarian Davidic Israel or post-Exilic Judea under Ezra and Nehemiah (Elon 1971, ch. 8; Vital 1975). Other ex-amples are furnished by India, where the radicalism of Tilak's appeal to the lower middle and incipient working classes in Bombay and Calcutta around 1900, took its inspiration from the cults of Shivaji and Kali, and a special reading of the Bhagavad-Gita, in which a spiritual descent to mod-ern India from the ancient heroes served to inspire the Hindu masses to activist fervour (Adenwalla 1961; Crane 1961; Heimsath 1964); and by Ireland, where the Gaelic revival, fostered by radical and mainly Catholic strata in the 1890s, sought to recreate an organic vision of a 'lost' island civilization which has been a spiritual beacon to Europe in the early Middle Ages (Lyons 1979: chs. 2, 4; Sheehy 1980: ch. 6). And in early twentieth-century Egypt, the radical-liberal Coptic and Muslim middle classes led by Zaghlul, looked back to the myth of the Pharaonic past and its splendours as an impulse towards freedom and dignity, and a heroic inspiration in the struggle for a liberated modern Egyptian community (Ahmed 1960; Safran 1961; Vatikiotis 1968).

The Regenerative Potential of Ethnic Myths

In the short term, then, competing myths mirror and accentuate social cleavages. But in the longer term, their tension and interplay serves to mobilize popular action and regenerate the community. Rival myths may push policy in different directions; but they also limit the options and present a circle of assumptions and dynamic impulses which help to raise the self-consciousness of ethnic members. Hence, at another level, ethnic myths of descent provide frameworks of developmental meaning which underpin the sense of community among all strata, and answer to the problems of insecurity shared by members. In the longer term, the rival definitions of national identity tend to merge; by provoking encounters

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with other national communities, by seeking title-deeds to disputed ter-ritories, they coalesce to form a community which, while still riven by social conflicts, has become more unified at the level of history and culture, and more sharply differentiated from other cultural communities.

Seen in this light, competing myths of descent and the social cleavages they highlight, are analogous to family feuds in which each branch or individual aims to achieve its due within the overall nexus of kin security and status. By reaching back into an ideal antiquity, myths of descent confer grandeur and glamour upon the often banal strivings for sectional interests characteristic of most national communities today. Even more, images of a distant past, and the ethnic myths that form their heart, achieve a hold over the perceptions of various strata and an almost sacred and magical status in the minds of their members. But, since in the final analysis, the myths, for all their differences, refer to the selfsame community and its history, different sections of the community find themselves enclosed within one national circle, a single orbit of common security and destiny, a clearly bounded social and territorial identity. From this orbit and identity it becomes progressively more difficult to opt out. The myths not only inspire, and even require, certain kinds of regenerative collective action; they answer the all-important questions of identity and purpose which religious tradition no longer seems able to resolve. In the shape of the ancient heroes, they give us our standards of collective morality; in the promise of new modes of solidarity and fraternity, they provide cures for our home-lessness and alienation; in the return to primordial origins of kinship, they seem to minister to our need for security. By telling us who we are and whence we came, ethnic myths of descent direct our interests like Weber's 'switchmen' and order our actions towards circumscribed but exalted goals. By 'replacing' us as links in an unbroken chain of generations, the myths of descent disclose our national destinies.

Notes

Hesiod: Theogony 211-32, and Works and Days 109-201, for the Creation myth and the Five Ages of Man; the flood of Deucalion and Pyrrha, and the story of their son, Hellen, and his offspring, Dorus, Aeolus, Ion and Achaeus, is told by Apollodorus and Pausanias; for Abraham's ancestry back to Shem, cf. Genesis 11: 10-27.

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2. For the Trojan ancestry myth of the Romans, cf. the Aeneid. I am indebted to Susan Reynolds for pointing to the existence of such a myth among the Franks in the early medieval era. (S. Reynolds: 'The political theory of nationalism: a medieval variant?', unpub. mss. 1981).

3. Weber himself links this drive for meaning with the growth of intellectual- ism: it is the intellectual who transforms the concept of the world into the problem of meaning. As intellectualism suppresses belief in magic, the world's processes become disenchanted, lose their magical significance, and henceforth simply 'are' and 'happen' but no longer signify anything. As a con sequence, there is a growing demand that the world and the total pattern of life be subject to an order that is 'significant and meaningful' (Weber 1966: ch. 8, p. 125).

4. This survival of elements of what Durkheim called the 'conscience collective' and even of 'mechanical solidarity' into modern, industrial society, forms the essential background to his study of the functions of myth and ritual in all societies; Durkheim (1964, esp. Bk. 11/2, and Conclusion); and idem (1915, esp. Conclusion).

5. For the Brutus tale, cf. Livy II, 5, and Valerius Maximus V, viii, 1. For an analysis of its portrayals in late eighteenth century art, cf. Rosenblum (1961, 8-16). On the Oath of the Riitli, cf. Thiirer (1970, 25); its so-called 'judges' clause' contains the typical nationalist sentiment that 'we will accept no judge in our valleys who shall have obtained his office for a price, or who is not a native and resident among us'; cf. also Steinberg (1976, 13-15). On Fiissli's painting in the Zurich Rathaus, Antal (1956, pp. 71-4).

6. On these myths, Guirand 1968; 232-4, 245-80, 299-308; the 'Ossianic' lays of Macpherson (1760-63) were very popular in late eighteenth-century Europe (cf. Okun 1967).

7. This incident, in which the klephtic leader, Nicotsaras is said to have replied to a Greek scholar who likened his prowess to that of Achilles: 'What non sense is this and who is Achilles? Did the musket of Achilles kill many?', is cited by Stavrianos (1961, ch. 9); for the debate about 'manipulation' of the past and of mass emotions, cf. the essays by Brass and Robinson in Taylor & Yapp (eds.) (1979); Kedourie (ed.) (1971, Introduction).

8. The metaphor of'links in the chain' of generations comes from Dubnow (1958, 326). Examples of'regenerationist' nationalism can he found in Thaden (1964); Binder (1964); and Heimsath (1964).

9. Saxon themes had also figured in the English national revival in the arts of the 1780's, in the work of Fiissli, Kauffmann, Mortimer, Blake and Flaxman, based on Hume's popular History of England (1763), and Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1762); cf. Irwin (1979, 14-17); Bindman (1977, 22-26).

10. Nairn (1977, 258-9), discusses this Society and its journal, The English Race; for other champions of the Right before and after 1914, including

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Chamberlain, Milner, Belloc, Chesterton, Beaverbrook and Mosley, cf. J. R. Jones: 'England', in Rogger and Weber (eds.) (1966).

11. From another political standpoint, the same charge of English national pride, nostalgia and complacency is made by Birch (1977, 135-8).

12. Both themes were painted by Berthelemey in 1787 and 1782, respectively; Brenet painted the death of Du Guesclin in 1777, and Beaufort depicted Bayard's death in 1781; Danloux, Suvee and later Ingres treated incidents from the reign of Henri IV. On these and other paintings, cf. Rosenblum (1967, chs. 1-2) and Cummings (1975).

13. It may, of course, be a 'Right revolutionary' myth, as with Mussolini's return to antique Roman models (cf. Nolte 1969).

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CHAPTER 2

The Ethnic Basis of National Identity

The origins of what we have termed national identity are as complex as its nature. I am not saying simply that the origins of each nation are in many ways unique and that there is great variation in the starting-points, trajectories, rates and timings of modern nations. The very question 'what are the origins of nations?' needs to be broken down into several further questions, such as: who is the nation? Why and how is the nation? When and where is the nation?

In fact we can conveniently use these questions to seek a general explanation of the origins and development of modern nations in three parts.

1. Who is the nation? What are the ethnic bases and models of modern nations? Why did these particular nations emerge?

2. Why and how does the nation emerge? That is, what are the general causes and mechanisms that set in motion the proces­ses of nation-formation from varying ethnic ties and memories?

3. When and where did the nation arise? What were the specific ideas, groups and locations that predisposed the formation of individual nations at particular times and places?

Through answers to these questions, albeit of a general and necess­arily incomplete nature, we may hope to shed some light on the vexed problem of national origins and development.

ETHNIE AND ETHNO-GENESIS

If myths like that of Oedipus can be seen as widely believed tales told in dramatic form, referring to past events but serving present purposes and/or future goals, then the nation stands at the centre of one of the most popular and ubiquitous myths of modern times: that of nationalism. Central to this myth is the idea that nations exist from time immemorial, and that nationalists must reawaken

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them from a long slumber to take their place in a world of nations. The hold of the nation lies, as we shall see, partly in the promise of the nationalist salvation drama itself. But this power is often immeasurably increased by the living presence of traditions embody­ing memories, symbols, myths and values from much earlier epochs in the life of a population, community or area. So it is these pre-modern ethnic identities and traditions that we must first explore.'

The concept of 'ethnicity' has received a good deal of attention in recent years. For some it has a 'primordial' quality. It exists in nature, outside time. It is one of the 'givens' of human existence (this is a view that has received some backing recently from socio-biology, where it is regarded as an extension of processes of genetic selection and inclusive fitness). At the other extreme ethnicity is seen as 'situational'. Belonging to an ethnic group is a matter of attitudes, perceptions and sentiments that are necessarily fleeting and mutable, varying with the particular situation of the subject. As the individual's situation changes, so will the group identification; or at least, the many identities and discourses to which the individual adheres will vary in importance for that individual in successive periods and different situations. This makes it possible for ethnicity to be used ' instrumental ' ' to further individual or collective inter­ests, particularly of competing élites who need to mobilize large followings to support their goals in the struggle for power. In this struggle ethnicity becomes a useful tool.2

Between these two extremes lie those approaches that stress the historical and symbolic—cultural attributes of ethnic identity. This is the perspective adopted here. An ethnic group is a type of cultural collectivity, one that emphasizes the role of myths of descent and historical memories, and that is recognized by one or more cultural differences like religion, customs, language or institutions. Such collectivities are doubly 'historical' in the sense that not only are historical memories essential to their continuance but each such ethnic group is the product of specific historical forces and is there­fore subject to historical change and dissolution.

At this point it is useful to distinguish between ethnic categories and ethnic communities. The former are human populations whom at least some outsiders consider to constitute a separate cultural and

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historical grouping. But the populations so designated may at the time have little self-awareness, only a dim consciousness that they form a separate collectivity. Thus Turks in Anatolia before 1900 were largely unaware of a separate 'Turkish' identity — separate, that is, from the dominant Ottoman or the overarching Islamic identities - and besides, local identities of kin, village or region were often more important. The same can be said for the Slovak inhabi­tants of the Carpathian valleys before 1850, despite their common dialects and religion. In both cases a myth of common origins, shared historical memories, a sense of solidarity or an association with a designated homeland were largely absent.3

An ethnic community, on the other hand, can be distinguished by just these attributes, even if they are firmly held and clearly enunciated by only small segments of the designated population and even if some of these attributes are more intense and salient than others at a given period. We may list six main attributes of ethnic community (or ethnie, to use the French term):

1. a collective proper name 2. a myth of common ancestry 3. shared historical memories 4. one or more differentiating elements of common culture 5. an association with a specific 'homeland' 6. a sense of solidarity for significant sectors of the popula­

tion.4

The more a given population possesses or shares these attributes (and the more of these attributes that it possesses or shares), the more closely does it approximate the ideal type of an ethnic com­munity or ethnie. Where this syndrome of elements is present we are clearly in the presence of a community of historical culture with a sense of common identity. Such a community must be sharply differentiated from a race in the sense of a social group that is held to possess unique hereditary biological traits that allegedly determine the mental attributes of the group.5 In practice, ethnies are often confused with races, not only in this social sense but even in the physical, anthropological sense of subspecies of Homo sapiens such as Mongoloid, Negroid, Australoid, Caucasian and the like. Such a confusion is the product of the widespread influence of racist ideolo­gies and discourses, with their purportedly 'scientific' notions of

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

racial struggle, social organisms and eugenics. In the hundred years from 1850 to 1945 such notions were applied to the purely cultural and historical differences of ethnies, both inside Europe and in col­onial Africa and Asia, with results that are all too well known.6

But a glance at the above list of ethnic attributes reveals not only their largely cultural and historical content, but also (with the excep­tion of number 4) their strongly subjective components. Most im­portant, it is myths of common ancestry, not any fact of ancestry (which is usually difficult to ascertain), that are crucial. It is fictive descent and putative ancestry that matters for the sense of ethnic identification. Indeed, Horowitz has likened ethnic groups to 'super-families' of fictive descent because members view their ethnie as composed of interrelated families, forming one huge 'family' linked by mythical ties of filiation and ancestry. Such a linkage between family and nation reappears in nationalist mythologies and testifies to the continuing centrality of this attribute of ethnicity. Without such descent myths it is difficult to see ethnies surviving for any length of time. The sense of 'whence we came' is central to the definition of 'who we are'.7

What I have termed 'shared historical memories' may also take the form of myth. Indeed, for many pre-modern peoples the line between myth and history was often blurred or even non-existent. Even today that line is not as clear-cut as some would like it to be; the controversy over the historicity of Homer and the Trojan War is a case in point. So are the tales of Stauffacher and the Oath of the Riitli, and of William Tell and Gessler, which have entered the 'historical consciousness' of every Swiss. It is not only that widely believed dramatic tales of the past serving present or future purposes grow up readily around kernels of well-attested events: in addition, myths of political foundation, liberation, migration and election take some historical event as their starting-point for subsequent interpretation and elaboration. The conversion of Vladimir of Kiev to Christianity (in AD 988) or the founding of Rome (in 753 BC?) may be treated as historical events, but their significance resides in the legends of foundation with which they are associated. It is these associations that confer on them a social purpose as sources of political cohesion.8

Similarly, attachments to specific stretches of territory, and to

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

certain places within them, have a mythical and subjective quality. It is the attachments and associations, rather than residence in or possession of the land that matters for ethnic identification. It is where we belong. It is also often a sacred land, the land of our forefathers, our lawgivers, our kings and sages, poets and priests, which makes this our homeland. We belong to it, as much as it belongs to us. Besides, the sacred centres of the homeland draw the members of the ethnie to it, or inspire them from afar, even when their exile is prolonged. Hence, an ethnie may persist, even when long divorced from its homeland, through an intense nostalgia and spiritual attachment. This is very much the fate of diaspora com­munities like the Jews and Armenians.9

It is only when we come to the varying elements of a common culture that differentiate one population from another that more objective attributes enter the picture. Language, religion, customs and pigmentation are often taken to describe objective 'cultural markers' or differentiae that persist independently of the will of individuals, and even appear to constrain them. Yet it is the signifi­cance with which colour or religion is endowed by large numbers of individuals (and organizations) that matters more for ethnic identification even than their durability and independent existence, as the growing political significance of language and colour over the last two or three centuries demonstrates. It is only when such markers are endowed with diacritical significance that these cultural attributes come to be seen as objective, at least as far as ethnic boundaries are concerned.10

All of this suggests that the ethnie is anything but primordial, despite the claims and rhetoric of nationalist ideologies and dis­courses. As the subjective significance of each of these attributes waxes and wanes for the members of a community, so docs the cohesion and self-awareness of that community's membership. As these several attributes come together and become more intense and salient, so does the sense of ethnic identity and, with it, of ethnic community. Conversely, as each of these attributes is attenuated and declines, so does the overall sense of ethnicity, and hence the ethnie itself would dissolve or be absorbed."

How docs an ethnie form? We can give only some very tentative answers. Where such processes are visible in the historical record

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

they suggest certain patterns of ethnic formation. Empirically, these arc of two main kinds: coalescence and division. On the one hand, wc can trace ethnic formation through the coming together of separate units, and this in turn can be broken down into processes of amalgamation of separate units, such as city-states, and of absorption of one unit by another, as in the assimilation or regions or 'tribes'. On the other hand, ethnies may be subdivided through fission, as with sectarian schism, or through what Horowitz calls 'prolifera­tion', when a part of the ethnic community leaves it to form a new group, as in the case of Bangladesh.12

The frequency of such processes suggests the shifting nature of ethnic boundaries and the malleability, within certain limits, of their members' cultural identity. It also reveals the 'concentric' nature of ethnic, and more generally collective cultural, affiliations. That is to say, individuals may feel loyalty not only to their families, villages, castes, cities, regions and religious communities, as well as to class and gender identifications; they may also feel allegiances to different ethnic communities at different levels of identification simul­taneously. An example of this in the ancient world would be the sentiment of ancient Greeks as members of a polis, or the 'sub-ethnie' (Dorians, Ionians, Aeolians, Boeotians, etc. — really ethnic identities in their own right) and of the Hellenic cultural ethnie.11 In the modern world the various clans, languages and ancestral 'sub-ethnies' of the Malays or Yoruba furnish examples of the concentric circles of ethnic identity and allegiance. Of course, at any one time one or other of these concentric circles of allegiance may be to the fore for political, economic or demographic reasons; but this serves only to reinforce 'instrumentalist' arguments against the primordial nature of ethnic communities and to highlight the importance of boundary changes.1'*

At the same time this is the only part of the story. We must not overstate the mutability of ethnic boundaries or the fluidity of their cultural contents. To do so would deprive us of the means of accounting for the recurrence of ethnic ties and communities (let alone their original crystallizations) and their demonstrable dura­bility over and above boundary and cultural changes in particular instances. It would dissolve the possibility of constituting identities that were more than successive fleeting moments in the perceptions,

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

attitudes and sentiments of identifying individuals. Worse, we would be unable to account for any collectivity, any group formation, from the myriad moments of individual sentiment, perception and memory. But the fact remains that, as with other social phenomena of collective identity like class, gender and territory, ethnicity ex­hibits both constancy and flux side by side, depending on the purposes and distance of the observer from the collective phenom­enon in question. The durability of some ethnies, despite changes in their demographic composition and some of their cultural dis­tinctiveness and social boundaries, must be set against the more instrumentalist or phenomenological accounts that fail to consider the importance of antecedent cultural affinities that set periodic limits to the redefinitions of ethnic identities.'5

Any realistic account of ethnic identity and ethno-genesis must, therefore, eschew the polar extremes of the primordialist-instru-mentalist debate and its concerns with, on the one hand, fixity of cultural patterns in nature and, on the other, 'strategic' manipu-lability of ethnic sentiments and continuous cultural malleability. Instead we need to reconstitute the notion of collective cultural identity itself in historical, subjective and symbolic terms. Col­lective cultural identity refers not to a uniformity of elements over generations but to a sense of continuity on the part of successive generations of a given cultural unit of population, to shared memories of earlier events and periods in the history of that unit and to notions entertained by each generation about the collective destiny of that unit and its culture. Changes in cultural identities therefore refer to the degree to which traumatic developments dis­turb the basic patterning of the cultural elements that make up the sense of continuity, shared memories and notions of collective des­tiny of given cultural units of population. The question is how far such developments disrupt or alter the fundamental patterns of myth, symbol, memory and value that bind successive generations of members together while demarcating them from 'outsiders' and around which congeal the lines of cultural differentiation that serve as 'cultural markers' of boundary regulation.16

We may illustrate these points by considering briefly some cases of disruptive culture change that nevertheless renewed, rather than destroyed, the sense of common ethnicity and its identity as we

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

defined it above. Typical events that generate profound changes in the cultural contents of such identity include war and conquest, exile and enslavement, the influx of immigrants and religious conversion. The Persians, at least from the Sassanid period, were subjected to conquest by Arabs, Turks and others, were gradually converted to Islam and experienced more than one influx of immi­grants. Yet, despite all the changes of collective cultural identity consequent on these processes, a Persian sense of distinctive ethnic identity persisted, and at times received a new lease of life, notably in the renaissance of the New Persian linguistic and literary revival of the tenth and eleventh centuries.'7 The Armenians too experienced traumatic events that had profound consequences for the cultural contents of their ethnic identity. They were the first constituted kingdom and people to convert to Christianity, were fought over by Sassanids and Byzantines, were defeated, excluded and partly exiled, received considerable influxes of immigrants and were finally subjected to mass deportation and genocide in part of their home­land. Yet, despite changes in location, economic activities, social organization and parts of their culture over the centuries, a sense of common Armenian identity has remained throughout their diaspora, and the forms of their antecedent culture, notably in the sphere ot religion and language/script, have ensured a subjective attachment to their cultural identity and separation from their surroundings.'8

These examples suggest the further observation that a combina­tion of often adverse external factors and a rich inner or 'ethno'-history may help to crystallize and perpetuate ethnic identities. If the origins of cultural differentiation itself are lost in the last states of prehistory, we may at least attempt to isolate those recurrent forces that appear to coalesce the sense of ethnic identification and ensure its persistence over long periods.

Of these, state-making, military mobilization and organized re­ligion appear to be crucial. Long ago Weber commented on the importance of political action for ethnic formation and persistence, arguing 'It is primarily the political community, no matter how artificially organized, that inspires the belief in common ethnicity.'19

It is possible to exaggerate the role of state-making in ethnic crystal­lization (one thinks of the failure of Burgundy, and the qualified success of Prussia); yet, clearly, the foundation of a unified polity, as

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

in ancient Egypt, Israel, Rome, Sassanid Persia, Japan and China, not to mention France, Spain and England, played a major role in the development of a sense of ethnic community and, ultimately, of cohesive nations.20

Warfare is, if anything, even more important. Not only does 'war make the state (and the state makes war)', as Tilly declared; it fashions ethnic communities not only from the contestants but even from third parties across whose territories such wars arc often con­ducted. The case of ancient Israel is only the most striking, caught as it was between the great powers of the ancient Near East, Assyria and Egypt. Armenians, Swiss, Czechs, Kurds and Sikhs afford other instances of strategically located communities whose sense of common ethnicity, even when it did not originate from these events, was crystallized time and again by the impact of protracted warfare between foreign powers in which they were caught up. As for the contestants themselves, we need note only the frequency with which ethnies are antagonistically paired: French and English, Greeks and Persians, Byzantines and Sassanids, Egyptians and Assyrians, Khmers and Vietnamese, Arabs and Israelis . . . While it would be an exag­geration to deduce the sense of common ethnicity from the fear of the 'outsider' and paired antagonisms, there is no denying the central role of warfare, not, as Simmel suggested, as a crucible of ethnic cohesion (war may fracture that cohesion, as it did in the Great War in some European countries) but as a mobilizer of ethnic sentiments and national consciousness, a centralizing force in the life of the community and a provider of myths and memories for future genera­tions. It is perhaps this last function that enters most deeply into the constitution of ethnic identity.21

As for organized religion, its role is both spiritual and social. The myth of common ethnic origins is often intertwined with creation myths - such as that of Deucalion and Pyrrha in Hesiod's Theogony and that of Noah in the Bible — or at least presupposes them. Very often the heroes of the ethnic community are also those of religious lore and tradition, albeit treated as 'servants of God' rather than ethnic founders or leaders, as was the case with Moses, Zoroaster, Muhammad, St Gregory, St Patrick and many others. The liturgy and rites of the Church or community of the faithful supply the texts, prayers, chants, feasts, ceremonies and customs, sometimes

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

even the scripts, of distinctive ethnic communities, setting them apart from neighbours. And over all this heritage of cultural differ­ence stand the 'guardians of the tradition', the priests, scribes and bards who record, preserve and transmit the fund of ethnic myths, memories, symbols and values encased in sacred traditions command­ing the veneration of the populace through temple and church, monastery and school, into every town and village within the realm of the culture—community.22

State-making, protracted warfare and organized religion, though they figure prominently in the historical record of ethnic crystalliz­ation and persistence, may also operate to break up, or cut across, ethnic identifications. This happened when empires like those of Assyria and Achaemenid Persia created the conditions for a sustained intermingling of ethnic categories and communities in an Aramaic-speaking and syncretistic civilization, and when prolonged wars and rivalries put an end to ethnic states and communities like the Car­thaginians and Normans (in Normandy). Ethnic identity also de­veloped when religious movements burst across ethnic frontiers and founded great supra-territorial organizations, Buddhist, Catholic or Orthodox, or conversely, through schism, divided the members of ethnic communities such as the Swiss or Irish. Yet, for all these cases, we may find many more that confirm the close links between ethnic crystallization and the antecedent role of states, warfare and organized religion.

ETHNIC CHANGE, DISSOLUTION AND SURVIVAL

The importance of these and other factors can also be seen when we turn to the closely related questions of how ethnies change in charac­ter, dissolve or survive.

Let me start with ethnic change and with a well-known example, that of the Greeks. Modern Greeks are taught that they are the heirs and descendants not merely of Greek Byzantium, but also of the ancient Greeks and their classical Hellenic civilization. In both cases (and there have in fact been two, rival, myths of descent at work since the early nineteenth century), 'descent' was seen in largely demographic terms; or rather, cultural affinity with Byzantium and ancient Greece (notably Athens) was predicated on demographic

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

continuity. Unfortunately for the classicist Hellenic myth, the demographic evidence is at best tenuous, at worst non-existent. As Jacob Fallmereyer demonstrated long ago, Greek demographic con­tinuity was brutally interrupted in the late sixth to eighth centuries AD by massive influxes of Avar, Slav and, later, Albanian immi­grants. The evidence from the period suggests that the immigrants succeeded in occupying most of central Greece and the Péloponnèse (Morea), pushing the original Greek-speaking and Hellenic inhabi­tants (themselves already intermingled with earlier Macedonian, Roman and other migrants) to the coastal areas and the islands of the Aegean. This shifted the centre of a truly Hellenic civilization to the cast, to the Aegean, the Ionian littoral of Asia Minor and to Constantinople. It also meant that modern Greeks could hardly count as being of ancient Greek descent, even if this could never be ruled out.23

There is a sense in which the preceding discussion is both relevant to a sense of Greek identity, now and earlier, and irrelevant. It is relevant in so far as Greeks, now and earlier, felt that their 'Greekncss' was a product of their descent from the ancient Greeks (or Byzantine Greeks), and that such filiation made them feel themselves to be members of one great 'super-family' of Greeks, shared sentiments of continuity and membership being essential to a lively sense of iden­tity. It is irrelevant in that ethnies are constituted, not by lines of physical descent, but by the sense of continuity, shared memory and collective destiny, i.e. by lines of cultural affinity embodied in distinctive myths, memories, symbols and values retained by a given cultural unit of population. In that sense much has been retained, and revived, from the extant heritage of ancient Greece. For, even at the time of Slavic migrations, in Ionia and especially in Con­stantinople, there was a growing emphasis on the Greek language, on Greek philosophy and literature, and on classical models of diought and scholarship. Such a 'Greek revival' was to surface again in the tenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as subsequently, provid­ing a powerful impetus to the sense of cultural affinity with ancient Greece and its classical heritage.24

This is not to deny for one moment cither the enormous cultural changes undergone by the Greeks despite a surviving sense of common ethnicity or the cultural influence of surrounding peoples

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

and civilizations over two thousand years. At the same time in terms of script and language, certain values, a particular environment and its nostalgia, continuous social interactions, and a sense of religi­ous and cultural difference, even exclusion, a sense of Greek identity and common sentiments of ethnicity can be said to have persisted beneath the many social and political changes of the last two thou­sand years.35

I shall return in a moment to the role of ethnic exclusion in ensuring ethnic persistence. For the present I want to look at the other side of the coin: ethnic dissolution. We say how ethnies can be dissolved through fission or proliferation. But in a sense the ethnic community remains in some form in such cases — smaller, perhaps, or reduplicated, but none the less still 'in the field'. Can we then speak of ethnic extinction — the disappearance of an ethnie, not just in the form it possessed until that point but in any form?

I think we can if we hold to the historical, cultural and symbolic criteria of ethnic identity I have been employing. There are two main kinds of ethnic extinction in the full sense: genocide and ethnocide, which is sometimes - at times misleadingly — called 'cultural genocide'. In one sense genocide is a rare and probably modern phenomenon. It includes those cases where we know that mass death of a cultural group was premeditated and the basis of that targeting was exclusively the existence and membership of that cultural group. Nazi policies towards the Jews and a part of the Gypsies were of this kind; so perhaps were European actions towards the Tasmanian Aborigines, and the Turkish actions in Turkish Ar­menia.26 Other policies and actions were genocidal in their conse­quences rather than their intentions; such ethnic destruction occurred when the American Whites encountered the American Indians, and when the Spanish conquistadors encountered the Aztec and other Indian populations of Mexico (though here disease played a larger part). In these cases ethnic extinction was not deliberately aimed at, yet no attempt was made to mitigate those policies whose side-effect was genocidal. These genocidal actions need to be distin­guished again from large-scale massacres like those by the Mongols in the thirteenth century or in modern times by the Soviets and Nazis of selected populations (for example, the Katyn massacre or the reprisals of Lidice and Oradour), which are designed to break a

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

spirit of resistance by terrifying the civilian population or rendering it leaderless.27

The interesting point about genocide and genocidal actions, at least in modern times, is how rarely they achieve their stated goals or unintended consequences. They rarely extinguish ethnies or ethnic categories. In fact they may do the opposite, reviving ethnic co­hesion and consciousness, or helping to crystallize it, as they did with the Aborigines' movement or Romany Gypsy nationalism. Perhaps there are deep-rooted facets of modernity that both encourage and preclude successful genocide (where success is measured by total extinction), and this may have much to do with the conditions and diffusion of nationalism. It may have been easier to destroy an ethnie in pre-modern times. At any rate, when at last the Romans decided to destroy Carthage once and for all they erased the city and mass­acred three quarters of its population, selling off the rest into slavery. Though vestiges of Punic culture persisted till the time of St Augus­tine, the Carthaginians as a western Phoenician ethnie and ethnic state were extinguished.28

The same fate awaited several peoples of the ancient world, includ­ing the Hittites, Philistines, Phoenicians (of Lebanon) and Elamites. In each case loss of political power and independence presaged ethnic extinction, but usually through cultural absorption and ethnic intermingling. These are cases of ethnocide rather than genocide, despite the drama of the political events that precipitated them. When he destroyed Susa and eliminated the Elamite state from politics in 636 BC Asshur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, did not set about exterminating every Elamite (the Assyrians in fact usually deported the élites of the peoples they conquered). Yet so massive was the act of destruction that Elam never recovered, new peoples settled within its borders, and, though its language persisted into the Achaemenid Persian period, no Elamite community or state re-emerged to sustain the myths, memories, values and symbols of Elamite religion and culture.29

The fate of Assyria itself was even more swift and dramatic. Nineveh fell in 612 BC to a combined onslaught of Cyaxares' Medes and Nabopolassar's Babylonians, and her last prince, Asshur-uballit, was defeated at Harran three years later. Thereafter, we hear little of 'Assyria'. Its gods were received by Cyrus back into the pantheon at

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Babylon, but there is no further mention of state or people, and when Xenophon's army marched through the province of Assyria he found all her cities in ruins with the exception of Erbil. Was this a case of genocidal actions or even genocide? 3°

It is unlikely. The goal of Assyria's enemies was destruction of her hated rule. That meant destroying her major cities so that there was no chance of a revival of her political fortunes. True, Nabo-polassar talked about 'turning the hostile land into heaps and ruins', but this did not mean exterminating every Assyrian, even if this had been feasible. Perhaps the Assyrian élites were evicted; but, in any case, in terms of religion and culture they were less and less differ­entiated from the Babylonian civilization they sought to emulate. Besides, the latter days of the vast Assyrian empire witnessed severe social divisions both in the army and the countryside, and consider­able ethnic intermingling in the empire's heartlands, and use of an Aramaic lingua franca for commercial and administrative purposes following a large influx of Arameans. Hence the ethnic dis­tinctiveness of the Assyrians was severely compromised well before the downfall of the empire, and cultural syncretism and ethnic intermingling helped to ensure the attenuation and absorption of the Assyrian ethnic community and its culture by the surrounding peoples and cultures.31

As with the Phoenicians, Elamites and others, the relatively swift disappearance of an Assyrian culture and community must be seen as an example of ethnocide. In the ancient world at least, destruction of a community's or state's gods and temples was seen as the means of destroying the community itself; that seems to have been the aim of the Persians when they destroyed the Babylonian temples in 482 BC, and perhaps of the Romans when they destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70.1Z The aim in all such cases was the eradication of the group's culture, rather than the group itself, and it differs in its intended effects from the much slower, unplanned processes of cultural absorption which have undermined many small ethnic categories and communities.

History is replete with instances of unintended cultural absorption and ethnic dissolution. Engels, surveying the ethnic map of Europe in 1859, referred to these dying ethnic cultures and communities as so many 'ethnographic monuments', which he hoped would soon

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THE ETHNIC BASIS OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

disappear to make way for the large capitalist nation-state. He has, in fact, been largely disappointed. At the same time the diminution of many former ethnies, and the attenuation of their sentiments, as in the cases of the Occitanic, Sorbs, Wends and many others, dem­onstrates these widespread processes of gradual absorption through incorporation and fragmentation.

But, equally, they suggest the other side of the coin - the dura­bility of ethnic tics, the longevity of their cultures and the persistence of collective identities and even communities over several centuries. If ethnic boundaries and cultural contents undergo periodic change, how shall we account for ethnic survival potential, sometimes across millennia?

Again, it is useful to consider a well-known example. Jews trace their ancestry to Abraham, their liberation to the Exodus, their founding charter to Mount Sinai, and their golden age to (vari­ously) the Davidic and Solomonic kingdom or the era of the sages in the late Second Temple period and after. These arc all myths in the sense outlined above, and they retain their religious potency today. But their potency is not only religious. They remain, even for secular Jews, charters of their ethnic identity. Here, too, as with the Greeks and Armenians, the Irish and Ethiopians, there is a felt filiation, as well as a cultural affinity, with a remote past in which a community was formed, a community that despite all the changes it has undergone, is still in some sense recognized as the 'same' com­munity. To what is this sense of continuity, of shared memory and of collective destiny owed?

The simple answer, that peoples survive in some form because they are rooted in their homelands and enjoy a large measure of independ­ent statehood, will clearly not do in the Jewish case. The Jews have been exiled from both for nearly two thousand years. Not that either is unimportant to the Jewish sense of identity; but both figure more as symbol than as living memory. Certainly this is true of statehood, the Hasmonean being the last truly independent Jewish state — unless we include the kingdom of the Khazars. The land of Israel was at times more than a symbol of messianic restoration; groups of Jews made their way there from time to time and founded synagogues. Yet here too the yearning for Zion was often more spiritual than actual, a vision of perfection in a restored land and city.33

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Another common view, which this time is directed specifically to diaspora peoples, is that their survival depends on their ability to find a distinct economic niche in host societies, usually as middlemen or artisans, between military and agrarian elites and the peasant masses. That Jews, Greeks and Armenians, like Lebanese and Chinese traders, found such niches in medieval European and early modern societies is not in question and neither is the role of such occupational niches in reinforcing residential patterns and cultural segregation where these already exist. What is at issue is the method by which the category 'occupational niche' is separated from the nexus of conditions that make up typical diasporas and assigned a prior casual weight in ensuring ethnic survival and status. Rather, as Armstrong has argued, archetypal diasporas that stem from religious and cultural differences must be seen as a totality of interrelated aspects and dimensions in which occupational segregation and middleman status serves to reinforce and articulate, but not necessarily to ensure, ethnic difference and survival. Certainly, in Moorish Spain Jews held every kind of occupational position, but their ethnic survival was bound up with more fundamental religious and cultural distinc­tions from their neighbours.34

A more basic consideration stems from the earlier emphasis on organized religion. In the case of diaspora communities, as of sects-turned-ethnies like the Druse, Samaritans, Maronites and Sikhs, religious rituals, liturgy and hierarchies have played a powerful conserving role, ensuring a high degree of formal continuity between generations and from community to community. Add to this the sep­arating power of sacred languages and scripts, texts and calendars, and the apparent mystery of millennial diaspora survival appears soluble.

But there are difficulties here, too. For one thing this says nothing about the shape, size or location of the surviving community. The Samaritans, for example, were till quite recently heading for ethnic extinction, because after centuries of decimation endogamy could no longer replenish their numbers. In the case of the Beta Israel (or Falasha) of northern Ethiopia the attrition of their numbers in war, and the isolation of their craftsman community, might have spelt absorption had it not been for a wider Jewish ethnic self-renewal and the rise of Zionism and the state of Israel.35

This thesis also says nothing about the vitality of the community.

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Religion may become petrified and antiquarian, as did the Assyrian state religion; in that case, as we saw, it contributed nothing to the chances of ethnic survival. The same inner decay can be found in later Roman religion, as in the Pharaonic religion of Ptolemaic Egypt. In neither case could we hang an argument for ethnic sur­vival, let alone ethnic vitality, on any movement within the tra­ditional religion.3fi

Religion, then, may preserve a sense of common ethnicity as if in a chrysalis, at least for a period, as was the case with Greek Or­thodoxy for the self-governing Greek Orthodox millet under Otto­man rule. But unless new movements and currents stir the spirit within the religious framework, its very conservatism may deaden the ethnie or it may become a shell for an attenuated identity.37

Clearly, organized religion by itself is not enough. What then are the characteristic mechanisms of ethnic self-renewal? I would single out four such mechanisms:

1. Religious reform Having accepted the importance of organized religion for ethnic survival potential, we need to consider the role of movements of religious reform in stimulating ethnic self-renewal. In the case of the Jews there are a number of instances. These range from the Prophetic and Deuteronomic movements in eighth-century and seventh-century BC Judah to Ezra's reforms in the mid-fifth century BC, the rise of Pharisaism and Mishnaic rabbinism in the second century AD, right up to the Chassidic and neo-Orthodox movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In each case religious reform was intertwined with ethnic self-renewal; the com­munity's mode of renewal was religiously inspired.38

Conversely, failure of religious reform or petrified conservatism may turn the modes of ethnic self-renewal elsewhere. This occurred among the Greeks at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Greek Orthodox hierarchy in Constantinople became increasingly remote from middle-class and popular aspirations, including those of the lower clergy who supplied the revolt in the Morea with some of its leaders. Here Greek aspirations found increasingly secular ideological discourses for their goals.39

2. Cultural borrowing In the wider field of culture ethnic survival finds sustenance not from isolation but from selective borrowing

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and controlled culture contact. Here again we can find an example from Jewish history. The stimulus of Hellenistic culture, from the time of Alexander on, provoked a lively encounter between Greek and Jewish thought that, though it had fierce political repercussions, strengthened through enrichment the whole field of Jewish culture and identity.40 There are many other examples of the ways in which external cultural stimuli and contacts have renewed the sense of ethnic identity through selective cultural appropriation; nineteenth-century Japan, Russia and Egypt afford well-known cases.

3. Popular participation Socially, too, we can discern modes of ethnic self-renewal in the movements of social strata and classes. Of these, the most relevant are popular movements for greater participation in the cultural or political hierarchy. The great socio-religious popu­lar movement of the Mazdakites in fifth-century Sassanid Persia renewed the severely damaged fabric of Sassanid Persian and Zoro-astrian community at the same time as it undermined the foun­dations of the Sassanid state. This in turn provoked a repressive, but also ethnically regenerative, movement under Chosroes I in the sixth century, which included the codification of the basis of the Book of Kings, a return to Iranian mythology and ritual, and a national revival in literature, protocol, learning and the arts.41 The popular move­ments in Judaism, from the Mosaic era to the Chassidim just men­tioned, also served to renew a demotic ethnie through enthusiastic popular participation and missionary zeal. The same is true of various popular movements in Islam, including its foundation and the move­ments of Sunni or Shi'ite purification and messianism to this day, such as Wahhabism, Mahdism and the Shi'ite revolution in Iran.42

4. Myths of ethnic election In many ways myths of ethnic chosenness go to the heart of the modes of ethnic self-renewal and hence survival. What we notice, first of all, is that ethnies that, for all their cthnocentrism towards others, lacked such myths (or failed to instil them in the general population) tended to be absorbed by other communities after losing their independence. This may of course be an argument from silence. Generally speaking, it is ethnies with religious myths of ethnic election that possess the specialist classes whose position and outlook are so heavily bound up with the success and influence of election myths — and it is they who are often our

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only literary witnesses. Nevertheless, when we consider the fate of many ethnies that possessed such classes but boasted no such myth of ethnic election (as opposed to royal election), then, as the cases of Assyria, Phoenicia and the Philistines reveal, it is clear that their chances of ethnic survival were considerably diminished.

This, of course, merely puts the onus of explanation back on to the conditions which foster and sustain myths of ethnic election. Yet such a method short-circuits the process of ethnic survival through exclusive election. For what the myth of election promises is a conditional salvation. This is vital for grasping its role in survival potential. Its locus classicus is found in the book of Exodus: 'Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me from all the peoples; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.' 43 To see oneself as potentially 'an holy nation' is to link chosenness indissolubly with collective sanctifica­tion. Salvation is accessible only through redemption, which in turn requires a return to former ways and beliefs, which are the means of sanctification. Hence the recurrent note of 'return' in many ethno-religious traditions that inspire movements of both religious reform and cultural restoration. Given the ineluctable subjectivity of ethnic identification, this moral summons to re-sanctify the potential elect provides a powerful mechanism for ethnic self-renewal and hence long-term survival. This is certainly one key to the problem of Jewish survival in the face of adversity, but we can also trace its revitalizing effects among other peoples - Amharic Ethiopians, Ar­menians, Greeks converted to Orthodoxy, Orthodox Russians, Druse, Sikhs, as well as various European ethnies like the Poles, Germans, French, English, Castilians, Irish, Scots and Welsh, to name a few. So widespread a phenomenon clearly bears more thorough-going investigation.44

'ETHNIC CORES' AND THE FORMATION OF NATIONS

Religious reform, cultural borrowing, popular participation and myths of ethnic election: these are some of the mechanisms that, along with location, autonomy, polyglot and trading skills and organized religion, help to ensure the survival of certain ethnic

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communities across the centuries despite many changes in their social composition and cultural contents. These cases again bring us up sharply against the central paradox of ethnicity: the coexistence of flux and durability, of an ever-changing individual and cultural expression within distinct social and cultural parameters. The latter take the form of a heritage and traditions received from one genera­tion to another, but in slightly or considerably changed form, which set limits to the community's outlook and cultural contents. A certain tradition of images, cults, customs, rites and artefacts, as well as certain events, heroes, landscapes and values, come to form a distinctive repository of ethnic culture, to be drawn upon selectively by successive generations of the community.

How do such traditions influence subsequent generations? In pre­modern communities it is the priests, scribes and bards, often or­ganized into guilds and castes, who recount, re-enact and codify traditions. Often as the only literate strata, and being necessary for intercession with divine forces, priests, scribes and bards achieve considerable influence and prestige in many communities. Organized in their brotherhoods and temples and churches, they form a net­work of socialization in the major towns and much of the surround­ing countryside - depending upon their degree of organization and mental monopoly in the community's territory. Indeed, in many ancient and medieval empires priesthoods and their temple and scribal infrastructure formed indispensable partners in government and/or rival centres of power to the Court and bureaucracy, especially in ancient Egypt and Sassanid Persia.45

Even in diaspora communities we find the priests, rabbis and doctors of law, organized along more or less centralized lines, form­ing an encompassing network of tribunals and counsel, and endow­ing far-flung enclaves with religious, legal and cultural unity in the face of an often hostile environment. Especially among Jews and Armenians, as Armstrong has demonstrated, this highly evolved network of religious officials and institutions was able to ensure the subjective unity and survival of the community and its historical and religious traditions.46

It is through such unifying and embracing mechanisms that what we may term 'ethnic cores' are gradually built up. These are fairly cohesive and self-consciously distinctive ethnies which form the

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kernel and basis of states and kingdoms such as the barbarian regna of the early medieval era. Among the kingdoms of the Franks, Lombards, Saxons, Scots and Visigoths the sense of a community of customs and common descent played a vital role, despite the fact that many of their inhabitants did not belong to the dominant ethnic community. Nevertheless, in popular perception, such regna were seen as increasingly communal and possessed of a unifying cultural basis.47 By the later medieval period these subjectively unified communities of culture formed the core around which large and powerful states erected their administrative, judicial, fiscal and military apparatus, and proceeded to annex adjacent territories and their culturally different populations. Under Edward I, for example, the English (Anglo-Norman) state expanded into Wales, destroying the Welsh kingdoms and bringing most Welshmen into the realm as a peripheral cultural community under the domination of the English state. Something similar happened in France under Louis VIII to the pays d'oc, notably the County of Toulouse, at the time of the Albigensian Crusade.48

Locating such ethnic cores tells us a good deal about the subse­quent shape and character of nations - if (and when) such nations emerge. It helps us to answer in large part the question: who is the nation? and to some extent: where is the nation? That is to say, a state's ethnic core often shapes the character and boundaries of the nation; for it is very often on the basis of such a core that states coalesce to form nations. Though most latter-day nations are, in fact, polyethnic, or rather most nation-states are polyethnic, many have been formed in the first place around a dominant ethnie, which annexed or attracted other ethnies or ethnic fragments into the state to which it gave a name and a cultural charter. For, since ethnies are by definition associated with a given territory, not infrequently a chosen people with a particular sacred land, the presumed boundaries of the nation are largely determined by the myths and memories of the dominant ethnie, which include the foundation charter, the myth of the golden age and the associated territorial claims, or ethnic title-deeds. Hence the many conflicts, even today, for sundered parts of the ethnic homeland, — in Armenia, in Kosovo, in Israel and Palestine, in the Ogaden, and elsewhere.

Both the close relationship and the differences between the

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concepts of ethnie and nation and their historical referents may also be seen by recalling our definition of the nation. A nation, it was argued, is a named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members. By definition the nation is a community of common myths and memories, as is an ethnic. It is also a territorial community. But whereas in the case of ethnies the link with a territory may be only historical and symbolic, in the case of the nation it is physical and actual: nations possess territories. In other words nations always require ethnic 'elements'. These may, of course, be reworked; they often are. But nations are inconceivable without some common myths and memories of a territorial home.

This suggests a certain circularity in the argument that nations are formed on the basis of ethnic cores. There is, indeed, considerable historical and conceptual overlap between ethnies and nations. Never­theless, we are dealing with different concepts and historical forma­tions. Fthnic communities do not have several of the attributes of the nation. They need not be resident in 'their' territorial homeland. Their culture may not be public or common to all the members. They need not, and often do not, exhibit a common division of labour or economic unity. Nor need they have common legal codes with common rights and duties for all. As we shall see, these attri­butes of nations are products of particular social and historical con­ditions working upon antecedent ethnic cores and ethnic minorities.

On the other side of the picture we should note the possibility of forming nations without immediate antecedent ethnie. In several states nations are being formed through an attempt to coalesce the cultures of successive waves of (mainly European) immigrants — in America, Argentina and Australia. In other cases states were formed out of the provinces of empires which had imposed a common language and religion, notably in Latin America. Here, too, creole élites began a process of nation-formation in the absence of a dis­tinctive ethnie. In fact, as nation-formation proceeded it was found necessary to fashion a distinctively Mexican, Chilean, Bolivian, etc. culture, and to emphasize the specific characteristics - in terms of separate symbols, values, memories, etc. — of each would-be nation/9

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The dilemma is even sharper in sub-Saharan Africa, whose states were created, if not deliberately across ethnies, at least with little reference to them. Here the colonial states had to foster a purely territorial patriotism, a sense of political loyalty to the newly created states and their embryonic political communities. In the independent states born of these territorial communities several ethnies, ethnic fragments and ethnic categories were drawn together by political regulation and social boundaries that had come to include previously unrelated groups in the post-colonial political system, and had brought them, even against their will, into a new struggle for scarce resources and political power. In these circumstances the ruling élites, who may often have been recruited from a dominant ethnie or coalition of ethnic groupings, were tempted to fashion a new political mythology and symbolic order not only to legitimate their often authoritarian regimes, but also to head off threats of endemic ethnic conflict and even movements of secession. In these cases the state is utilized to fashion the 'civil religion' whose myths, memories, symbols and the like will provide the functional equivalent of a missing or defective dominant ethnie. So the project of nation-formation in sub-Saharan Africa suggests the creation of the com­ponents of a new ethnic identity and consciousness that will sub­sume, by drawing together, some of the loyalties and cultures of the existing ethnies. At least that has been the national 'project' of many Africian and Asian élites.50

This means that the relationship of modern nations to any ethnic core is problematic and uncertain. Why then should we seek the origins of the nation in pre-modern ethnic ties when not every modern nation can point back to an ethnic base? There are, I think, three reasons why we should do so.

The first is that, historically, the first nations were, as we shall sec, formed on the basis of pre-modern ethnic cores; and, being powerful and culturally influential, they provided models for subsequent cases of the formation of nations in many parts of the globe.

The second reason is that the ethnic model of the nation became increasingly popular and widespread not only for the foregoing reason, but also because it sat so easily on the pre-modern 'demotic' kind of community that had survived into the modern era in so many parts of the world. In other words the ethnic model was sociologically fertile.

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And third, even where a nation-to-be could boast no ethnic antecedents of importance and where any ethnic tics were shadowy or fabricated, the need to forge out of whatever cultural components were available a coherent mythology and symbolism of a com­munity of history and culture became everywhere paramount as a condition of national survival and unity. Without some ethnic lineage the nation-to-be could fall apart. These three factors in the formation of nations provide the point of departure for our analysis in the next two chapters.

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National Prejudices, Mass Media and History Textbooks: The Mitu Controversy

RÃZVAN PÂRÂIANU

Introduction

At the end of the First World War, Western public opinion greeted theemergence, after a long period of imperial domination, of the new

nation-states in East Central Europe as the triumph of liberalism. Very soon,however, this initial sympathy was followed by disillusionment as, except forthe Masarykian Czechoslovak Republic, none of the new “nation-states”proved to be liberal. Nobody expected that the young national intelligentsiain these countries, marked by such an impressive and, sometimes, heroic his-tory of opposing the autocratic regimes, would turn out to be less liberal anddemocratic than the imperial political culture they so ardently fought against.

The annus mirabilis of 1989 is a similar historical moment. Commu-nism is gone and new regimes, which presented themselves as democraticand liberal, have been installed in the former East-European satellites ofthe Soviet Union. These countries are striving for integration in the Euro-pean Union and NATO, all of them are trying hard to escape their com-munist past and, most striking, all of them are seeking to “overscore” theirneighbors, considering them unpleasant competitors. At the same time,East-Europeans turned to ideas from the interwar period as the most con-venient cultural references to counteract the legacy of communism. Thus,nationalism came to be identified with the program of returning to the glo-rious days of the interwar period, described as a National Heaven on Earthin view of the subsequent ordeals.

In this uncomfortable situation, the requirements of European Unionto relax state centralism, national homogenization, and nationalizing educa-tional policy in view of the minorities are in most cases perceived as anunpleasant interference of outsiders in internal affairs. More than that, thisuneasiness to renounce the main ingredients of nation-state building isa salient point of reference for those political forces that do not dare to dis-play their nostalgia for communism, but choose to express the frustrationsof their transitional societies.

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These are the general coordinates of the scandal around the first post-communist generation of history textbooks in Romania, which erupted inthe fall of 1999, and involved many prominent intellectuals. Almost all com-mentators considered that the scandal was initiated by the publication ofalternative textbooks for the last grade of high school. In reality, this scan-dal brought to light very deep cultural tensions. The fact that the direct andpalpable results of the educational policy, namely the new textbooks, pro-voked the popular imagination to such an extent is one of the main justifi-cations for the present paper.1 Besides, the scandal forced Romanian pub-lic life to focus on questions of national history. While revisiting some of thecomments, it is possible to create an overall perspective of the Romaniancultural landscape, a sort of thick description, in which each individual hashis own distinct position. It is too early to judge the effects of this reform,which tried to update the Romanian education to “European standards.”Nevertheless, the principal presupposition of this paper is that a radicalreform of history-teaching is painful and troublesome without an importantchange in the cultural sphere and in the public opinion.

An Outline of the Debate

On 5 October 1999, Petru Bejinariu, at the time deputy of the oppositionPDSR (Party of Social Democracy in Romania, currently in power underthe name of the Social Democratic Party), called the Minister of Nation-al Education to answer concerning one of the five alternative history text-books, stating that “the history textbook for the twelfth grade is an attackagainst our national history.” The very same day, Sergiu Nicolaescu, anindependent senator and vice-president of the Committee of Culture,Arts and Mass Media, said in the Senate that “this textbook should beburned in a public square.” 2

In the evening of the same day, the historian Sorin Mitu, the coordi-nator of the incriminated textbook, was invited to the Marius Tucã Show,a popular talk show of Antena 1 TV channel. Marius Tucã, together withCristian Tudor Popescu, editor-in-chief of the daily Adevãrul, launcheda personal attack against Mitu. They denounced him as being the enemy ofthe nation. This presentation set the main coordinates and the tone for thedebates that followed. In the next two weeks, the polemic was sustained bythe main newspapers (Adevãrul, România Liberã, Jurnalul Naþional, Eveni-mentul Zilei, Cotidianul), some cultural magazines (Dilema, Revista 22,România Literarã) and some party journals (Dimineaþa and România Mare).Very soon, the main accusations started to implicate the Minister of Nation-al Education, Andrei Marga, and the viability of his education reform.

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On 18 October 1999, Anghel Stanciu, a Greater Romania Party(PRM) deputy, questioned the Minister about education policy imple-mented in the curricula, in view of the general coordinates established bythe law of education. The same day, Adrian Nãstase, then vice-presidentof PDSR, gave an interview to Cotidianul. Nãstase described the textbookas being a result of “Hungarian revisionism and the radically homogeniz-ing internationalism.” In the next weeks, the main arguments were orient-ed along two main directions. On the one hand, the coordinator of thetextbook was accused of being supported by external forces, mainly Hun-garian ones. On the other hand, the Minister of National Education wasaccused of “taking too literally” the Recommendation 1283 of the Councilof Europe. During November 1999, the scandal erupted again and again.Finally, 64 deputies signed a motion, entitled “The educational policy pro-moted through the textbooks of Romanian history.” This episode signaledthe political interests behind the scandal. Nevertheless, some of the con-sequences went far beyond the political conflict.

The Incriminated Aspects of the New Textbooks

As already mentioned, it was the textbook coordinated by Sorin Mitu thatbecame the center of contention.3 In the eyes of the opposition, it was a pal-pable proof for the claim that the government was profoundly anti-national.Very soon, the commentators, the critics and the politicians involved in thedebate turned to the issue of the curricula and to the way in which the text-books were designed. In this way, the other textbooks came into scrutiny aswell, especially concerning the goals of national education. In this section,I review the main arguments against Mitu’s textbook. Most of them wereindicating some divergences from the ethno-national “vulgata.”

A. The first contested sentence was the title of the second lesson.4

The keyword was “imagine”, as all commentators underlined that thisimplies that ethno-genesis is not true but a phantasm: “The next sub-chap-ter is much more relevant (chap. 2): ‘Ethno-genesis: How do Romaniansimagine their origins.’ Consequently, in the author’s perspective, does‘imagination’ successfully replace the historical proof?”5

B. On the next page, a Roman sculpture representing Decebal, theDacian king, is reproduced. The text devoted to this picture says: “TheRoman artist wished to emphasize the eyes of a committed person, his del-icate but still powerful nose, his raised and protuberant cheeks, as well ashis sensual lips. Thus, his face combines nobleness and decided character,qualities attributed to Decebal by his Roman enemies.”6

It is difficult to estimate how many people actually read this, butthere was a huge wave of anger against the text that dared to describe

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Decebal as having “sensual lips.” The rest of the description was ignoredin favor of this detail. It is worth saying that the figures of Decebal andTraianus, the Roman emperor who conquered Dacia, became symbols ofthe Romanian ethno-genesis in the last decades of the communist period.They symbolized the noble origins of the Romanian people. They alsorepresented the myth of the common origins, as Anthony D. Smith wouldsay, but a myth highly personalized.

C. A few pages later, another “infamy:” the authors questioned theveracity of Menumorut, Gelu and Glad. They were three rulers from thetenth century, supposedly Romanians, who were eventually defeated bythe Hungarians. The story was told in the thirteenth century by the anony-mous chronicler of the Hungarian king, Béla III. The importance of thesethree figures is due to two crucial points around which Romanian histori-ography has developed. One is that the Romanians were autochthonousin Transylvania, the other is that when the Hungarians came to Transylva-nia, Romanians had already developed some political entities, i.e., the ter-ritory was neither ethnically nor politically empty. And yet, the iconoclastauthors dare to claim:

The first information about the political entities from Transylvania,which might have existed here in the tenth century when the Hungarianscame, were put forward by an anonymous chronicler, the notary of theHungarian king in the thirteenth century. Some researchers believe thatthe Romanian rulers mentioned by him (Menumorut, Glad and Gelu)did not truly exist. This is possible because the historians of that timeused to mix the truth with fiction. Other sources, from the beginning ofthe thirteenth century, this time much more reliable, are mentioningother political establishments under Romanian control; they are “thecnezat of cneaz Bela’s sons” or Maramureº.7

Once again, the textbook was not properly read by its vehement critics.Theoretically, Romanian-speakers were there, and were defeated byHungarians, during their conquest of Transylvania. The embarrassingproblem is not the information given by the textbook, but the fact thatit reveals the weakness of the construction. Of course, the perspectiveof the Hungarian counterpart is a permanent reference. The questionis, why to choose such an iconoclastic approach while the neighbors,Hungarians or Bulgarians, with the same aspirations to European inte-gration, do not agree to bring into derision their heroic history.8

D. The next issue is that the heroic medieval history of Romaniansis given scant attention in the textbook. The names of great voivods arescarce and with insufficient commentaries. The most outrageous cases are

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Michael the Brave and Vlad the Impaler. For the current understandingof glorious Romanian past, the fact that only one sentence was consecrat-ed to Michael the Brave, who unified Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylva-nia three centuries before the Great Union, is unpardonable.9 On thesame page, Vlad the Impaler is referred to as a figure, who

happened to gain international fame and became the most popular fig-ure of Romanian medieval history under the name of Dracula. Contem-porary movies present him as a vampire reborn in modern times. Hisfame, which generated many legends, originated from the cruelty withwhich he was punishing the outlaws or adversaries.10

To accentuate the derisory place allotted by Mitu to these heroic figures,many commentators made a parallel between this page and the section oncontemporary history where some TV stars were presented. Titles such as“Andreea Esca overshadows Michael the Brave” made it to the first pageof journals.11

Why these two figures of Romanian history are important for thepresent identity of Romanians? It is because they personify two themes ofthe national history. One is the “millenary dream of Romanians” aboutunifying the historical provinces into a national state (see the case ofMichael the Brave), the other is that Romanians happened to be in a back-ward position precisely because rulers like Vlad the Impaler foughtagainst the Ottomans instead of polishing Romanian civilization. Conse-quently, Europe owes much to the Romanians:

Had Romanians been defeated and obliged to join the Sultan’s army, likeSerbians, the way to Rome would have been just a promenade over theinsignificant troops of Italian condottieri and the fate of Moorish Spainor the Balkans would have reached the Italian peninsula as well. ThenMichelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael would haven been Janissaries,and Bramante would have built mosques, as in Cordoba! This essentialmoment of Romanian history and of Southeast Europe, the momentwhen Islam ... was stopped at the Danube, you will never find in any ofthe five textbooks.12

E. If the medieval rulers were badly treated, the second chapter,concerning the modern history of Romania, is probably even more repul-sive for a respectable nationalist. “The ‘invention’ of the modern nation”is the title of the fifth section in the chapter. The textbook states that:

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In the first half of the nineteenth century, Romanian intellectuals“invented” the modern Romanian nation, in other words, they wrotea beautified history of the nation, a history centered on the common ori-gins and unity of all Romanians. They devised grammars and dictionar-ies in order to create a unique and coherent literary language. They con-structed the self-image of the nation, identifying those traits thatdifferentiate Romanians from other nations. They were searching thisspecificity predominantly in the popular culture, considering that peas-ants expressed most accurately the way of being Romanian. All thesetraits came to form the Romanian national identity.13

In a country, where the recent academic discussions in the West are large-ly unknown, where there was virtually no public debate about the processof nation-building and nineteenth-century romantic nationalism, theseexpressions shocked the audience. No argument was brought against theseclaims except for the like of “how do you dare to call people like Kogãl-niceanu or Bãlcescu romantics?” For the interlocutor, “romantic” isapparently only a person who is daydreaming, absent-minded, silly, andgiddy. The ultimate question posed by this critique was: “What are thesepeople, romantics or patriots?” 14

F. The last point concerns the image of the Revolution of 1989 in thetextbook. Considering that it is not legitimate to come so close to the presentand to politicize history, many commentators, most of them politicallyengaged, criticized the way in which the Revolution was described by the text-books. The clue to this debate was the presumption that the high school stu-dents who used these textbooks during the academic year of 1999-2000 wereto vote in the general election of October 2000. The Revolution is obviouslyan important element of social legitimacy for many parties and politicians,especially in the case of PDSR and Ion Iliescu, the first president of post-com-munist Romania.15 For Iliescu and his party it was quite embarrassing to readthat no revolution took place, but a revolt, subsequently seized by the secondechelon of the former communist party and reinforced by a military diversion.This interpretation is not new or unusual. Most of the supporters of the oppo-sition during the ascendance of the Democratic Convention, between 1990-1996, shared this opinion.16 It is not surprising that, one year before the elec-tions, PDSR did not want to let its image be spoiled by a textbook.

The Legacy of the National-Communist Discourse

In the following section, I will concentrate on three public figures: a filmdirector, a professor of legal studies and a journalist; the first two areactive politicians. Their cases are relevant because they launched the most

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violent attacks against the government, the Ministry of Education, and thetextbook coordinated by Sorin Mitu. Their ideas illustrate the core of thenational “vulgata” of history, since they employed, in a peculiarly coher-ent way, the majority of nationalist stereotypes.

The first public figure is Sergiu Nicolaescu, a prominent film direc-tor and politician, who was an independent senator at the moment of thepublic debate, while currently represents the governing party. The factthat Nicolaescu started the scandal is relevant for two reasons. First, thisaccentuated a basic feature of the debate: the main prosecutors of theincriminated textbook were not historians. Therefore, very soon after thefirst attacks, many historians reacted – in order to protect their professionand not necessarily to defend the textbook. Second, it threw light on theroots of the ethno-national “vulgata.” All media personalities involved inthis debate, in spite of their questionable training in this respect, displayedan extraordinary vision of a national teleology, a vision much strongerthan the one offered by historians. Both reasons made many historiansfeel like they were under siege by “the dictatorship of mass media.”

Senator Sergiu Nicolaescu was instrumental in the establishment ofthe national-communist historical canon. Born in 1930 in Tîrgu Jiu, hegraduated from the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute, Faculty of Mechanics,but soon engaged himself with cinematography. Nicolaescu directed, in1967, one of the first Romanian historical super-productions Dacii(Dacians), in 1970 Mihai Viteazul (Michael the Brave), in 1986, Noi cei dinlinia întâi (We, those from the front line), and several other movies. Actu-ally, many important and heroic moments of Romanian history were rep-resented in his works. In 1989, Nicolaescu participated in the revolution.Close to the newly-established Front of National Salvation and associatedto many ambiguous moments of those events, he was often ironicallyaccused as being the director and the scriptwriter of the Romanian revo-lution. Thereafter, he managed to secure his senatorial seat from 1990until present.

What is the connection between this person and the history text-books? The answer is that his story exemplifies the communist instrumen-talization of nationalism. Speaking of the power strategy of the commu-nist parties in Eastern Europe, the French sociologist, BernardPaqueteau, pointed out the centrality of nationalism in legitimizing theseauthoritarian and totalitarian regimes.17 It is not by chance that Gomulka,Jaruzelski, Gheorghiu-Dej, Honecker, Hoxha, and Zhivkov all turned toa nationalist discourse at some point.

The nationalistic exacerbation reached its peak under the rule of the Alban-ian and Romanian communist parties, led by Enver Hoxha and Nicolae

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Ceauºescu. In the case of Romania (most known otherwise), the communistpractice of developing nationalist themes and rites became perfect. ...An essential instrument of power was the maintenance and fortification ofthe governmental structures on a national basis, with the help of national-communist centralized parties. This was independent of the centralizing ordecentralizing pressures manifested within the communist block. The sys-tem of the communist power was implemented through breaking the oldsocial forms and through replacing them with others, adjusted to the proj-ect of totally controlling all social activities. The communist regime createda culture of social seclusion that did not negate but, on the contrary, adopt-ed the nation-state. The nation-state represented one of the levels of thisstructure and one of the rare edifices of power to preserve the prestige offormer symbols.18

Paqueteau refers to the national politics of the communist parties and totheir cultural policies. Nicolaescu received political and public recognitionprecisely during the period when the Romanian party nationalized itselfwithout any previous de-Stalinization. This period started in the late1960s, with the first nationalist deviations of Ceauºescu, and culminated in1974, when the Program of the Romanian Communist Party includeda preamble with an outline of the history of Romanians.

From that moment, historical interpretation ceased to be a matter ofacademic research. Paqueteau was correct in indicating the nation-state asthe instrument of totalitarian control. This ideology reinforced a siegementality in a large part of the society. It is not accidental that in the sameyear, 1974, Edgar Papu developed the theory of Romanian “protochro-nism.”19 The historical meta-discourse was conquered by the totalitarianstate. Historians were doomed to deal with small and more or less insignif-icant details, and to perpetually negotiate their “micro-historical” dis-course with the all-encompassing national meta-discourse. The place ofNicolaescu is thus very significant. Cultural personalities like him createda sensibility toward statehood and leadership. In spite of the Marxist the-ory focusing on class struggle, dilettante and “nonconformist” historianswere busy forging a traditionalist reinterpretation of history. Romanticheroes entered the canon in order to substantiate the Idea, and this ideawas that of a unitary and independent nation-state.

This historical narrative became one of the most important, if notthe only, source of social identity. It was extremely suitable for the nation-al-communist ideology. The first crucial feature is the inherent teleologyof historical interpretation. The rationalist Marxian “law of historicalchange” was substituted by a revealing continuity of a spiritual substance,the dream of national independence, which came true in the present.

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The second feature is a centralizing narrative of history. The holistic per-spective on the nation, “closely united around the flag,” contains a strongcentralizing element of identification, making a sharp distinction betweenus and them. The third feature, and maybe the most important, is the largepotential of this type of history to be instrumentalized as a tool for a per-sonality cult. The long row of national heroes ending with Ceauºescu washard to explain with the classical model of class-struggle or other Marxistconcepts.

As the communist regime of Ceauºescu reoriented its rhetoric alongnationalist lines, national history became a matter of the Party’s concern,a process that culminated in the party program of 1974. Outside the polit-ical establishment, convergent processes occurred. There was a kind ofsocial enthusiasm in favor of the communist regime that became morenationalist and less communist in appearance. Many people, true believ-ers or opportunists, were engaged in public projects for supporting theregime. The ideological reinterpretation that offered a new perspective onreality in which nation equaled society, state, and party. Precisely in theperiod of this transformation, Nicolaescu established his authority in his-torical iconography. His case exemplified a new fashion of “doing,” andnot writing, history outside of the academic scene.

In the following, I turn to two case studies illustrative of the role thenational communist canon came to play in contemporary public discourse.My first subject is Adrian Nãstase, vice-president of PDSR at the momentof the debate, Prime Minister of Romania from 2001 onwards. Among allarticles and interviews related to the public debate on education and thenew history textbooks, his opinions were particularly revealing. Nãstasehas had an impressive public career after 1989, based on his achievementsunder the communist regime. His biography is very telling in this respect.He graduated from the Faculty of Law in 1973, Sociology in 1978, andreceived his Ph.D. in 1987. His career has been related to important aca-demic institutions in the country and some respectable ones abroad,including membership in many national and international boards, com-mittees, and clubs.20

Yet, his interview shows another side of his personality: a markedlynationalistic inclination. Some of his assertions are quite radical for a per-son trained in diplomacy where each word has its importance. His inter-view could be considered an accident, or an attempt to gain popularity onthe eve of the elections. However, revisiting some of his recent activities,the defense of the nation seems to be a constant preoccupation for him.He signed the preface of a book, edited by Zeno Millea, 1989-1998:A Hungarian-Hungarian History in Documents,21 an attack against HDURand its relations with Hungary. There, Nãstase wrote:

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I do not want to believe that the partisans of intrigues, of all kind ofsecessions, can be successful. This belief helps me not to become overlysad reading this book. However, I consider that this book must be known,having the utility of a self-defense manual, as a guide of protection thatmust be known by everybody.22

As he stated, “there is no dichotomy between the intellectual and thepolitician.”23 In his case, it is difficult to determine how much politicalopportunism24 and how much real conviction are behind his statements.It is not the goal of the present paper, however, to explore the conscious-ness or the subconscious of Romanian politicians. What is important is therole played by the nationalist doctrine in their public discourse. Denation-alization, the loss of state sovereignty and Huntington are favorite topicsfor Nãstase – be it at a PDSR conference, or a seminar organized by theRomanian Academy of Sciences:

I am very confident that a real analysis of this textbook by honest schol-ars will reveal surprising aspects. ... I am pretty sure, because I spent mylast weekend reading this textbook. [I did this] not as a specialist, becauseI am neither a historian, nor a high school teacher, but an intellectualwith solid knowledge of Romanian and universal history. And whatI found is fantastic: this book, which I cannot call a textbook, is anti-national – developing the theses of the Hungarian historiography ofRoeslerian origins. It uses efficient means of professional misinforma-tion, from omissions and malevolent interpretations to the false [ideas]dressed in half-true information. It is a true arsenal of conscious manip-ulation, of ideas vividly promoted nowadays by revisionist circles aimingat the autonomy of Transylvania and the dismemberment of the Roma-nian state.25

Such an extreme danger indeed deserves an extreme vocabulary. Nãstase,in the good old tradition of the 1970s, indicated the way a real historyshould be written. Doing this, he reiterated the most vulgar version ofRomanian history.

Following the chronological order chosen by Nãstase, there is incon-testable evidence of the national treason committed by the authors of theincriminated textbook. The first such proof concerns the ethno-genesis ofRomanians. In Nãstase’s opinion, several important elements are missingfrom the story of the formation of the Romanian ethnicity. One is that theDacian roots of Romanians are not sufficiently underlined, and are evendiscarded, because they would disturb the “Hungarian version” of history.In this reading, the role of Dacians in Romanian historiography is to pre-

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vent any claim about a total withdrawal of the population in 274, when theRoman army left the territories North of the Danube. In this logic, anyelement of discontinuity must be removed. The logic is simple: concerningthe history of the territories inhabited by Romanians, the Romanians mustbe a priori on the side of continuity, while Hungarians on the side of dis-continuity.

This vision is based on three essential premises: the right of the onewho came first; the refusal to question the established narration of theethno-genesis and to express any doubt concerning its scientific basis; anda racial definition of Romanian Latinity. Some excerpts are illustrative:

Why do you think this [that the Romans had exterminated the Daciansand thereafter withdrew to the south of Danube]? Because in the ninthcentury, when Hungarians reached the Romanian soil, this territoryshould had been empty and Hungarians should have obtained the rightof the first comer. ... It is true [that autochthonous Dacians are men-tioned as participants in the Romanian ethno-genesis]. But the title is:“Ethno-genesis: How do Romanians imagine their origins.” Besides thefact that the one who wrote this title is professionally disqualified for therest of his life, let me note that where there is imagination, there is nocertitude. Or, this title is about the fundamental act of birth of the Roma-nian people as resulting from imagination. I do assure those interestedthat in Hungarian textbooks the [historical] fact that Dacians were exter-minated and did not participate in the [Romanian] ethno-genesis isasserted with a very “scientific” certitude. ... The repeated mentioning of“the Latin-speaking population from the North of Danube,” as a smoke-screen, does not confirm but rejects the Romanization [process], exclud-ing from any discussion the proto-Romanians resulting from the Dacian-Roman symbiosis who inhabited the region between the NorthCarpathians and the Balkans in the sixth century.26

Another major aspect of the Romanian history allegedly missing from thetextbook is the emergence of Romanian statehood. Two titles and twomap-titles especially disturbed Nãstase. These are: “Transylvania and theVlacho-Bulgarian state of the Assanides,” “The two Romanian Countriesruled by natives,” the map of “The Romanian Principalities and Transyl-vania in the seventeenth century,” and the map of “The Romanian Princi-palities and Transylvania in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century.”This means that:

There are two Romanian states and they are governed by natives – Wal-lachia and Moldavia – , while the Bulgarian Tsardom and Transylvania

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are different (political) structures, the Romanian element being only oneamong others. This declared dichotomy between the two Romanianstates and the third, non-Romanian one, is almost a leitmotif of the “text-book,” and it is not just an allusion but an explicit statement, if we takethe map titles no. 2 and 3 at the end of the “textbook”... To treat Transyl-vania in this manner means to promote the idea of so-called “Transyl-vanism,” through which the Hungarian revisionists are supporting theidea – a commonplace for many people today – that Transylvania has itsseparate history, tradition, constitutional and juridical life. For centuries– they claim, such as the authors of this “textbook” – Transylvania devel-oped its “own soul,” a certain specificity in the preservation of which theHungarians as well as the Romanians are interested.27

This issue of rejecting any idea that may lead to a fragmented vision of theRomanian nation-state is related to the problem of envisioning this stateas a unitary entity long before its historical emergence. Mapping Romaniais not an easy task for a Romanian historian and not at all free of ideolo-gy. A map was for a very long time, and still is, a political statement.

Two collateral observations might be interesting. There is a popularconfusion between Ardeal (Transylvania) and the entire territory acquiredby Romania from the Hungarian half of the Habsburg Empire in 1918.The reason for considering such an expanded version of Transylvania is toacquire historical legitimacy for a map that was drawn on ethnic princi-ples. Second, there is a popular anxiety against any kind of autonomy. Thenationalist creed in the unitary nation-state was extensively used by total-itarian regimes to enforce the monolithic understanding of society.By default, the present discourse of Nãstase seems to allude to preciselythis register. It is not surprising that the emergence of the Romaniannation-state is in the center of Nãstase’s incriminatory monologue:

There are two essential moments of the Romanian evolution, the treat-ing of which proves that this “textbook” is a deliberate attack against thefoundations of Romanian identity:

1. By asserting that the creation of the Great Union of 1918 was pri-marily due to the European ideological, politic and military context, andthe right of Greater Romania for the territory inhabited by Romanianswas equal to the “consecration” of an “extremely advantageous situationfor the Romanian Kingdom,” by the Peace Conference of Paris, theauthors promote another favorite thesis of Hungarian revisionists whoask for the “revision” of the decisions taken at the Peace Conference,claiming that the union was due to military force and not to a populardecision. It is exactly what the “textbook” is saying.

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2. The second moment is the creation of the modern Romaniannation in the nineteenth century. It is derided, minimized and falsified,starting even with the lesson’s title: “The ‘invention’ of the modernnation.” ... The crown on the arch of this “textbook” is supported by twopillars: Hungarian revisionism and the radical homogenizing internation-alism that, at the present moment, is in expansion. These two decrepitstrains of thought are using the present context of redefining the geopol-itics of Europe and of the World for their own purposes. I do think thatthey are wrong because I am positive that the European Union will bea union of nations and not a union of anti-national integration. ...To assert that a real identity, such as a nation, that is the people, was theinvention of some persons, be they intellectuals, is not only stupidity butalso a certain interested obedience. ... Such a mode of presenting issimultaneously illogical and illicit, because it mixes up the effect with thecause, being addressed to young people, potential students in faculties ofpublic relations, communication, political sciences and so on. Just listento how historical reality is presented, in a falsified way: “there is an amor-phous mass of people; a bunch of intellectuals are overflowing them withtheir convictions ‘invented’ by themselves; these convictions are accept-ed by the population to such an extent that they begin to like everyonewho is talking about these ideas; seeing this, the politicians start to attractthe population disseminating the ‘invented’ ideas, by which they realizedtheir importance, in view of the already contaminated population.”

Can you say what normal human mind can write in such a way with-out asking yourself: qui prodest? It is useful precisely to those alreadymentioned. Anyway, it is not useful to Romania, be it ethnic nation orcivic nation, as it is once again artificially theorized, with “natural”echoes in this “textbook” too.28

This long passage shows how far the level of this discussion was fromWestern academic standards. In spite of his academic training, includingsociology, the beliefs advocated by Nãstase fall under the same siege cul-ture.29 Talking about a siege, the universal conspiracy must be somewherein the subtext. Indeed, the “alliance” between the Hungarian extremenationalism and the internationalist forces cannot be explained withoutpresuming a universal conspiracy, a Jolly Joker of all such constructionsbased on prejudices, aversion, and frustration.

The subject of my last case study is Cristian Tudor Popescu, a popularfigure in the Romanian mass media and editor-in-chief of the newspaperAdevãrul.30 As many other journalists, Popescu also moved towards a nation-alist position and radicalized his opinion particularly after the NATO bomb-ing of Yugoslavia. His main arguments concerned the dissolution of a sover-

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eign state and the unjustifiability of external intervention. These themesevoked certain elements of the public discourse under the former commu-nist regime.31 In the following, I refer to four articles written by Popescu inAdevãrul, identifying his arguments against the textbook, the Ministry ofNational Education and what he perceived to be an “anti-national” reformof education. The first article appeared on the very day of the outburst of thescandal, 6 October. It was entitled “How many histories does Romaniahave?”32 Popescu raised five problems he considered important at first sight.One concerned the fact that he was included in the textbook.33 He indeedappeared in the textbook, together with other journalists, being referred toas the “tough guy” of Romanian mass media: “His merciless stance towardsvarious politicians was very popular and brought him recognition.”34

He expressed his puzzlement about this, claiming that the textbook isdesigned to contain factual information on the past. He asked in his article:“Did I die and do not know of it?” Next, he went further in identifying otherproblems, all of them related to some important moments of Romanian his-tory. They are significant in order to understand not only Popescu’s person-al historical horizons, but that of a large segment of the society, partially ofhis readers, sharing the same historical “vulgata.”

The first problem concerns the Romanian ethno-genesis. The rela-tivism of Mitu’s interpretation of the Romanian ethno-genesis provokedPopescu’s “national sensibility.” The immanent substance that transgressestime and space in order to unite all Romanians was in danger and, there-fore, even the personal identity of Popescu was threatened: “It is said thatwe can presuppose the formation of Romanian nation around a Dacian-Roman nucleus. You start to ask yourself if you, the Romanian Popescu,exist at all, and, if the answer is yes, if you are not Costoboc, Iazig, Marco-man or Hun.”35

The second problem is how this textbook depicts the first Romanianvoivods. Again, Mitu’s version seems to relativize the roots of statehood. Thisissue is rooted in the discomfort concerning the genesis of the Romanianstates. Obviously, there is an intimate relation between national identity andstatehood. In Popescu’s next articles, this etatist identity became even moreevident. The other element is the persistent conviction that the History of theRomanians has to counterweigh the History of the Hungarians. The fear ofHungarian revisionism is a serious element of Romanian public discourse andit can also be found to some extent in academic writings. Ironically, the deepdistrust in Hungarian history and historians has to face an embarrassing fact,namely that the only source for the Romanian state-formation in the early-medieval period is a Hungarian chronicle. Therefore, in spite of any normalcaution concerning this kind of history-writing, this chronicle has to be true:

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On page 16, you are told that “some present researchers believe that theRomanian rulers mentioned by him36 (Menumorut, Glad, Gelu) did notexist because the historians (the chroniclers) at that time were accustomedto mix reality with fiction.” But the Hungarians of Árpád, those who killedGelu, were they reality or fiction in Transylvania, if the death of Gelu didnot happen?37

The third problem was the presentation of the great Romanian voivods,Vlad the Impaler and Michael the Brave. In Popescu’s opinion, it is unpar-donable for such central figures of Romanian history to be treated as leg-endary:

On page 27, the authors produce the most fabulous explanations about theportraits of Vlad the Impaler and Michael the Brave. ... About Vlad we aretold that he became popular around the world because of movies, underthe name of Dracula, and that he was cruel. That’s it. We are witnessinga unique performance in the worldwide didactic of history: about a realperson, a first rank personality of the history of a given country, exclusive-ly literary and cinematographic references are given to us. And this in a his-tory textbook for high schools. About Michael the Brave, things are muchclearer: he is a character! That means a fiction, a construction preferred byRomanian historians.38

Finally, Popescu claims that any attack against canonized Romanian history isan attack against nation and state. This concerns the last problem formulatedby Popescu regarding this textbook: How was it possible for the Ministry ofNational Education to approve such a book as an official textbook? He goeseven further: “How is it possible to conceive of the history of Romania in sev-eral alternatives?”39 He accused directly this textbook as being idiotic, subver-sive and anti-national.

There is still a Romanian Academy, there are still many scholars, promi-nent historians – what can be more logical and normal than to forma National Commission with people like them who agree upon a certaintextbook, an unique book for teaching Romanian History for the pupilsof this country? If whatever publishing house edits a textbook on its ownmoney and risk, this doesn’t matter, we cannot care less – if they manageto sell it, very well. But, to puzzle the minds of such young people, whodon’t have references and models in the Romanian society any longer, topuzzle them, giving official sanction to such dirty subversives who clearlyattack the historical foundation-myths of the Romanian people, it isa real anti-national and anti-state action.40

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This article was written on the first day of the scandal. It is evident that Popes-cu did not have time to read the entire textbook properly and to formulatea more coherent criticism. These were his opinions at first sight, referring tothe most visible elements of the incriminated textbook. On the same day, hewas invited to participate in a public debate hosted by Tucã Show, a debatethat scandalized many intellectuals through its verbal violence.

Two days later, Popescu re-launched his attack, this time using an inter-pretative framework symptomatic for many commentators. His article, “Theanti-national history textbook – a premeditated crime of the Ministry ofNational Education,” is a clear case of conspiracy theory. The textbook is notan accident, but a result of the subservience of the Romanian government toAmerican imperialism. First of all, “political correctness and multicultural-ism are ideologies that accompany the expansion of American imperialism.”Second, this “ideological wave” (similar to Stalinism) reached the “empty,parvenu and obedient minds” of the governors of this country. 41

Some more details were necessary for giving a reality effect to thewhole story and, meanwhile, to identify the instrument of such an “infamoustreason.” Popescu referred to the seminar organized by the Project on Eth-nic Relations, in collaboration with the Ministry of National Education.Activists, trained in Washington and Romania, designed the curricula forsuch textbooks. These activists are not Romanian or, if they are, they are for-mer communists. He reveals that people like Maria Korek from Tîrgu Mureºor Dan Pavel, “former activist in the communist party,” signed the invitationto Sorin Mitu to participate in this seminar.

Identifying the conspiracy, the result was predictable, taking intoconsideration the organizers and the audience of this seminar. Bothorganizers and participants are openly anti-national.

It becomes obvious that national loyalty is seen as something evil, a diseasethat has to be eliminated – an old dream of Stalin and Madeleine Albright.Here are the directives listed by the Ministry of National Education, whichis not just the blind administrator of this textbook and of others like that ...but a perfectly conscious co-instigator of their promotion.42

Soon, some intellectuals attacked this kind of reasoning.43 But, in reality,very few reacted to his journalistic aggression.44 Popescu was invitinga response from his critiques:

A howling of beasts was stirred by my opinion, expressed, in the name ofTruth, about the question of the textbook. ... Scholars on stipend, mem-bers of the Group for Social Dialogue, the so-called intelligentsia, expec-torated injuries on all channels ...: Fascist, Bolshevik, Ceauºescuist, ultra-

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reactionary, anti-democratic, eastern socialist, Goebbels, Vishinsky, etc.... None of these above-mentioned jerks, barking dogs, and paid cyborgsanswered my question. 45

His new article developed the main topic of the previous texts with somespecifications. The first one concerns the education policy of the govern-ment. In his opinion, “the Ministry of National Education, as a state insti-tution, is not allowed to approve something that many people reject.”46

The second one is that the edition of alternative textbooks is a veryhazardous venture at the moment because Romania is in a crisis and itmight lose its internal social coherence. For Popescu, it is very clear that:“The history of a nation is an important unifying and stabilizing elementindispensable in moments of crisis threatening with political instability,dissolution of authority and economic collapse, such as the momentswhich Romania is living through.”47 Popescu envisioned a “unique text-book, elaborated under the conditions of full professional autonomy anddeliberative democracy, by a wide collective of scholars.”48 After somepublic clashes, Popescu found another tone, much more politically cor-rect. But very soon he reverted to sheer aggression. His inner convictionsare obviously based on the slogan, “one state, one history.” The very ideaof having multiple histories is abnormal for him, and directly hints at themutilation of the Romanian state. He literally said that many historieswould be equivalent to many constitutions:

If the branch of historians is unable to elaborate through consultationsa textbook expressing the indisputable fundaments of the history ofRomania, a minimum existential baggage for any Romanian who wantsto be called as such, this means that we can start to think about alterna-tive constitutions as well!49

Of course, the national-communist formulations are detectable in the sub-text of these ideas. The Fundamental Problems of Romanian History wasthe title of a collection that replaced the ordinary textbooks in highschools in the late 1970s. These “fundamental problems” were the mainmoments of Romanian state-building and independence. In the prefaces,a strong accent was put on the scientific quality of socialist history and onits univocal result, the history of Romania.

Finally, concerning one critique raised by the philosopher, GabrielLiiceanu, Popescu reopened the “file” of world conspiracy against Roma-nia. Similar to a science fiction movie, the European cyborgs attackRomania:

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Romanians are facing nowadays a creature without any face, a piece ofplasma snaking soundless from the West, very close to the ground. It isthe new man, Homo Europaeus, who has Romanian features. Made in theEuropean genetic laboratories, under the strict surveillance of the Unit-ed States and Great Britain, the new man does not have anymore whatwe call a country.50

For a better understanding of what Homo Europaeus means, Popescu por-trayed him in a very relevant manner. Europe is in an advanced stage ofdecomposition. National pride and the lack of patriotism are predomi-nant. The army is no longer a national army and, therefore, it lost its pres-tige. The deficit of patriotism parallels another deficit. Religiosity is alsolacking in Homo Europaeus. Of course, without the holy triangle State –Army – Church, not only the nation is endangered, but even humankindis under threat: “An entire series of notions, still living notions for manyRomanians, are in an advanced stage of decomposition in Europe: state,nation, national army, the fight for your country, religion, national churchand historical past.”51

More than that, being less national, Europe is about to become lessdemocratic, because nation means the people: “The supranational institu-tions are so strong compared to [European] states, not to mention thepeoples, that it is imaginable that in the near future voting will be exclud-ed from the democratic procedures, the election of high officials beingbased on drawing lots, like in ancient Athens.”52 To have a complete pic-ture, Popescu states that the European conspiracy was directed by theUnited States and Great Britain. In these countries, the popular trust inthe army is intact, the cult of nation, of banner and of national anthem isstill alive. Protestantism is still the same powerful religion. Since theBritish-American conspiracy of Europeanism is not so tangible for ordi-nary people, it needs to be related to other more suggestive dangers: Hun-garian revisionism.

Faced with this sinister European interference, Romania is ready torevolt against these horrors. “I am defending my poverty, my needs, and mykin,” as Eminescu, the national poet, put it in a famous poem, depictingthe confrontation between Mircea the Brave, a fourteenth century Wal-lachian prince, and the Ottoman Sultan Beyazit I. The European ideolo-gy is helpless in face of Romanian poverty, a proud poverty. This povertyis an obstacle for the formation of the “new man.” Once again, the newEuropean man is similar to the communist new man because it affects thenational heritage. Poor societies are much stronger in defending theirnational identity because it is the last thing they are left with.53 Denation-alization, ethnic autonomy, demilitarization, facultative military service,

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exclusion of the “national” attributes from the orthodox church, and,finally, destroying the past with the help of the new history textbooks,these are the chief enemies of Romania as identified by Popescu.

The last article written by Popescu, “The textbook that makes theteacher feel ashamed,”54 is also illustrative. One of his claims was thata textbook should be a normative reference for a given discipline; anoth-er one was that the reform of education in Romania was supported bysome privileged intellectuals who neglected the cultural level of ordinarypeople. What is interesting in this article is that the main objects of hiscriticism turned out to be the new literature textbooks. One has to addthat in Romania literary studies are a more advanced field than historiog-raphy because the leadership was more tolerant with it in the 1970-1980s,as it was much less intertwined with the legitimacy of the regime. There-fore, the field of literary studies was much closer to contemporary West-ern developments than its historical counterpart.

In this context, Popescu was outraged by some texts belonging to theyoungest generation of authors, which were introduced in the literaturetextbooks for the eleventh grade. In Popescu’s opinion, these texts are notappropriate for educational purpose. It is “trash put next to a diamond[Ion Creangã] to prove that the diamond is shining.” Modern literature istoo abstract, nonfigurative, illiterate, and idiotic. The authors of the text-books were guilty because they introduced “the 1980s group.”55 ProfessorsNicolae Manolescu and Mircea Martin are accused of subverting thenational canon: “the biggest danger is the obstinacy of prestigious special-ists involved in this affair of alternative textbooks, trying to support whatis evidently bad, wrong, dubious, and fraudulent. That they will be dishon-ored and dismissed is the smallest possible harm.”56

Popescu’s reaction against the educational reform and the new text-books may be seen as trivial to this discussion, but his ideas provide a per-fect example of the still very powerful ethno-national “vulgata.” Theseideas were reiterated in some other journals, much more politicallybiased, as well as in the parliamentary debates.

Conclusions

Cultural reproduction is an important element of the cohesion and sta-bility of a society. At the same time, for those societies that are in tran-sition, cultural reproduction is a highly conservative element and anobstacle for societal change. Cultural reproduction, in this case, repro-duces the former structures of power and becomes cultural capital inthe hands of the former elite. What is more, in the particular case ofhistoriography, cultural reproduction is enforcing the inherent conser-

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vatism of history as a discipline. Considering this, the teaching of histo-ry and the contents of history textbooks are important issues for post-communist democracies. Nationalism, usually suppressed by the com-munist regimes, has played an important role in the anti-communistsocial and cultural movements. At the same time, this silenced nation-alism has been instrumentalized by the communist regimes themselvesin order to acquire popular support and legitimacy. Therefore, it isquite logical that ultra-nationalists are often in the same camp with for-mer communists.

The debate about textbooks has revealed a growing distancebetween the new generation of historians and the ethno-national “vulga-ta.” After the scandal of 1999, it could be argued that young historiansbecame frightened by the possible pressure of the ethno-national “vulga-ta” that tends to underpin the former establishment and hierarchies. Inthe context of the diminishing of state funds for historical research andstudies, young historians, who are less integrated into state institutions,are forced to rely on external resources. The state is not a valuable sourcefor professional recognition any more and these young intellectuals areinclined much more toward democratic values. At the same time, the cri-sis of the system jeopardizes the possibility of cultural reproduction.Therefore, the anxiety about a national history tends to be decreased infavor of a more open attitude about this issue. The professional mobilityhelps this phenomenon and may be a valuable source of change.

A favorable political context could strengthen the reformist main-stream. A public debate could probably offer a better framework forobtaining social support for a political reform of education, history teach-ing, cultural settings of the democratic political culture of Romania, butthe present circumstances do not support any euphoric attitude. After the2000 elections, politicians, who have criticized the Sigma textbook, cameto power, and the conservative historians who are close to them havetaken control over numerous academic institutions. Therefore, it seemsthat, for the moment at least, the historical “vulgata” is in no danger to beoverthrown; it remains nevertheless to be seen if the polemic over“national” history will surface again.

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NOTES

1 This text is part of an ongoing research project, entitled “The ethno-nationalvulgata vs. the historians.” My present paper is a collection of samples con-cerning the textbook scandal.

2 In the spring of 2000, Senator Sergiu Nicolaescu rejoined the PDSR aftera long period of being an independent senator.

3 Sorin Mitu, Lucia Copoeru, Ovidiu Pecican, Liviu Þîrãu, and Virgiliu Þârãu,Istoria Românilor: Manual pentru clasa a XII-a (Romanian history: Twelfthgrade textbook) (Bucharest: Sigma, 1999).

4 The title of the chapter was “Ethno-genesis: How do Romanians imagine theirorigins.” See Mitu et al., Istoria Românilor, p. 10.

5 Prof. Dr. Doina Florica Ignat (Senator between 1992-1996), “Mafia ma-nualelor de istorie: Parlamentul intervine energic!” (The Mafia of history text-books: The Parliament firmly intervenes!), România Mare (10 November1999), p. 3.

6 Mitu et al., Istoria Românilor, p. 11.7 Mitu et al., Istoria Românilor, p. 16.8 See “O istorie a Bulgariei de care nimãnui nu-i e ruºine” (A history of Bulgar-

ia, of which nobody is ashamed), Adevãrul (18 October 1999), p. 2.9 The sentence is the following: “Michael the Brave, the favorite character of

Romanian historians, as he is depicted in a contemporary reproduction.” SeeMitu et al., Istoria Românilor, p. 27.

10 Mitu et al., Istoria Românilor, p. 2711 Andreea Esca is a popular TV speaker, who presents the evening news for

ProTV.12 Professor Dan Zamfirescu, interviewed by Florin Condurãþeanu, “Dacã

Mircea nu-i oprea pe otomani, Michelangelo ar fi devenit ienicer” (If Mirceadid not stop the Ottomans, Michelangelo would have become a janissary), Jur-nalul Naþional (28 October 1999), p. 3.

13 Mitu et al., Istoria Românilor, p. 40. 14 It was the argument brought by Marius Tucã, the moderator of a talk show host-

ed by Antena 1 on 6 October 1999. See Liviu Papadima, “Tribunalul Poporului”(The Tribunal of the People), Dilema 349 (15-21 October 1999), p. 14.

15 PDSR derived from the former FSN (National Salvation Front) that took thepower in December 1989. Initially a heterogeneous political entity around IonIliescu, FSN gradually became a party of former reform-communists and tech-nocrats. During the radical political and social confrontations of 1990-1992,the legend of a group that “stole” the revolution was very fashionable.

16 Between 1996 and 2000, the Democratic Convention in Romania formed thegovernmental coalition with the Social Democratic Union and the HungarianDemocratic Union in Romania.

17 Bernard Paqueteau, “‘Congelatorul’ ideilor false: Naþionalism ºi comunism înEuropa de Est” (The “refrigerator” of false ideas: Nationalism and commu-nism in Eastern Europe), Revista 22 34 (24-30 August 1994), p. 7; 35 (31August – 6 September 1994), p. 10; 36 (7-13 September 1994), p. 13; 37 (14-20September 1994), p. 12; and 38 (21-27 September 1994), p. 12. The article wasrepublished in France few months later as “Sous la glace. L’histoire: Les rap-

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ports du nationalism et du communisme en Europe de l’Est,” Le Débat 84(March – April 1995), pp. 105-120.

18 Paqueteau, “‘Congelatorul’ ideilor false,” Revista 22 36 (7-13 September 1994),p. 13.

19 In this respect see Katherine Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Iden-tity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania, (Berkeley: University of Cal-ifornia Press, 1991), pp. 167-214.

20 Associate Professor of Public International Law, Paris I – Panthéon, SorbonneUniversity, 1994-; Professor of International Law: Faculty of Law, Universityof Bucharest, 1990-; Associate Professor of International Law, Academy ofEconomic Studies, Bucharest, 1977-1979, 1984-1985; Director of Studies,International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg, 1984; Visiting Fellow,Division of Human Rights and Peace, UNESCO, 1980; Visiting Research-Fel-low, International Peace Institute, Norwegian Institute of InternationalAffairs, Oslo, 1980; Research-Fellow, Institute of Legal Research, Bucharest,1973-1990.

21 Zeno Millea, ed., 1989-1998: Istoria Maghiaro-Maghiarã în citate (1989-1998:A Hungarian-Hungarian history in documents) (Bucharest: Asociaþia pentruEducaþie Democraticã, 1999).

22 “A fost lansatã lucrarea 1989-1998: Istoria Maghiaro-Maghiarã în citate”(The book, entitled 1989-1998: A Hungarian-Hungarian history in documents,has been launched), Dimineaþa (17 September 1999), p.3.

23 Adrian Nãstase, “Aceastã lucrare este antinaþionalã, dezvoltând toate tezeleistoriografiei maghiare” (This work is anti-national, developing all theses ofHungarian historiography), Timpul (26 October – 1 November 1999), pp. 8-9.

24 One interpretation was offered by Cornel Nistorescu. He considered thenationalist virulence of PDSR an attempt to attract the electorate of thenationalist parties in Transylvania, and not only there. See Cornel Nistorescu,“Drobul de sare” (The salt block), Evenimentul Zilei (14 October 1999), p. 1.

25 Nãstase, “Aceastã lucrare este antinaþionalã,” p. 8. Robert Roesler was an Aus-trian historian of the nineteenth century, who negated the theory of Daco-Romanian territorial continuity in his Romänische Studien (Leipzig, 1871). Hisarguments were criticized by the Romanian historian, A. D. Xenopol.

26 Nãstase, “Aceastã lucrare este antinaþionalã,” p. 8.27 Nãstase, “Aceastã lucrare este antinaþionalã,” p. 9.28 Nastase, “Aceasta lucrare este antinaþionalã,” p. 9.29 Then, one might find an explanation why “for the first time in the history of

Romania, the prisoners and academicians agreed on something?” See AdrianCioroianu, “Puºcãriaºi ºi academicieni” (Prisoners and academicians), Dilema351 (29 October – 4 November 1999), p. 4.

30 Recently, Cristian Tudor Popescu (born in 1956) published several books.Copiii fiarei: Scrieri (The children of the beast: Collection of articles), (Iaºi:Polirom, 1998), Timp mort: Scrieri (Dead time: Collection of articles) (Iaºi:Polirom, 1998), Vremea mânzului sec (The time of the dry colt) (Iaºi: Polirom,1998). Until 1989, Popescu was mainly known as a science fiction writer.

31 It was called “non-interfering policy in the domestic affairs of a sovereignstate.”

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32 Cristian Tudor Popescu, “Câte istorii are România?” (How many historiesdoes Romania have?), Adevãrul (6 October 1999), p. 6.

33 The national curriculum contains a case study called “Mass-Media AfterDecember 1989.” See The school curriculum approved by the ministerial orderNo. 3371 at March 2, 1999, XII Grade, Content of chapter 11: State and civilsociety after 1989; available from http://www.edu.ro/pist.htm; Internet;accessed 5 January 2000.

34 Mitu et al., Istoria Românilor, p. 141.35 Popescu, “Câte istorii are România?” p. 2.36 It is about Anonymus, the notary of King Béla III, who wrote three centuries

later (c. 1210, Gesta Hungarorum) about the conquest of Transylvania by Hun-garians.

37 Popescu, “Câte istorii are România?” p. 2.38 Popescu, “Câte istorii are România?” p. 2. It is impressive how Popescu manip-

ulated the term personaj (in English: character). Taking into consideration thedefinition given by The Explicative Dictionary of Romanian Language(Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 1996), personaj means “an important per-son of the political, social and cultural life, a personality”, and its second mean-ing “a hero of literarature, music, cinema, or fine arts.”

39 Popescu, “Câte istorii are România?” p. 2.40 Popescu, “Câte istorii are România?” p. 2.41 Cristian Tudor Popescu, “Manualul de istorie antinaþionalã – crima cu pre-

meditare a Ministerului Educaþiei Naþionale” (The anti-national history text-book – a premeditated crime of the Ministry of National Education), Adevãrul(8 October 1999), p. 2.

42 Popescu, “Manualul de istorie antinaþionalã,” p. 2.43 Florin Þurcanu, “Domnul Popescu ºi istoria” (Mr. Popescu and history),

Revista 22 41 (12-18 October 1999), p. 1, and Adrian Cioroianu, “ªo pã SorinMitu!” (Get Sorin Mitu!), Dilema 349 (15-21 October 1999), p. 5.

44 Except for the two articles mentioned before, there are no other reactions toPopescu’s accusations.

45 Cristian Tudor Popescu, “Omul nou” (The new man), Adevãrul (18 Octombrie1999), p. 1 and p. 16.

46 Popescu, “Omul nou,” p. 1.47 Popescu, “Omul nou,” p. 1.48 Popescu, “Omul nou,” p. 1.49 Popescu, “Omul nou,” p. 16. 50 Popescu, “Omul nou,” p. 16.51 Popescu, “Omul nou,” p. 16.52 Popescu, “Omul nou,” p. 16.53 “In the case of Romania, it is possible that the clash with the new man will

make sparks. The motive is very simple: in Romania there is no peace andprosperity. It is exactly the same motive for which the previous attempt of cre-ating the new man, i.e., the communist one, failed. A country that suffers bypoverty and premature death is difficult to anaesthetize. She can desperatelyhold to such old ideas as country, nation, banner, church, history.” Popescu,“Omul nou,” p. 16.

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54 Cristian Tudor Popescu, “Manualul care crapã obrazul dascãlului” (The text-book that makes the teacher feel ashamed), Adevãrul (22 October 1999), p. 2.

55 The case of Simona Popescu is cited for the perverse effects of introducing the1980s group in the textbooks. Mrs. Popescu came under the public opprobriumbecause of her appearance in these textbooks.

56 Popescu, “Manualul care crapã obrazul dascãlului,” p. 2.

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