Nationalism class

So Im taking a class this semester titled "Nations and Nationalism". Basically, theres eight of us and the professor sitting around and trying to define what a nation actually is. Eventually we will try and use these theories to determine which one best fits the rise of tsarist Russia (very early on, before Soviet Union). There are a ton of different theories on what a nation is, and I'll link some sites here for your own reading, if interested.

 

Stanford University

Wikipedia

 

Now basically there are two main schools of thought, each with its own branchings of more defined thought. The first is primordialist, and they believe that nations have always been around, since the dawn of time. The people were always there, and it is inevitable that that nation would be formed where it is with those people.

 

The other school of thought is modernist, and they believe that nations (and the idea of nationalism- having pride in your nation, believing in your nation) are a relatively new idea. While there are different ideas within the modernest school of thought, most believe that the first "true" nation, was France in the early 1800s, after the Revolution.

 

Right now, Im not sure which school of thought I follow. The modernist one makes a lot of sense, with the idea that enlightened elites stepped up and helped mold/create the nation. However, then I think about Rome, and I cant help but think of it as a nation. I mean, it had a culture, military, organized state, language, set territory...its a nation if you ask me. It even had elites who helped create it (such as the myth of Romulus and Remus) and instill nationalism in the people. But I cant help but think something isn't right about that feeling, because the majority of historians hold a modernist theory. So how can they discount Rome? I mean, the people were there a long time ago, and are still there today.

 

This class is insane. I never even thought about what makes a nation a nation, and took it for granted, I guess. But there are just so many ideas out there, so many definitions...it blows my mind. However, it is a really interesting class, and Im glad I put in the extra effort to take it this semester instead of a lower-lever history course that wouldn't be as interesting, or thought-provoking.

For me, the definition is:

 

-Nation: certain people(s) with common attributes (usually language, but also culture in general) generally consenting to a common authority, especially government

 

-Country: the geographical area controlled by a state and/or inhabited by a nation of people(s)

 

-State: the governmental system which administers a certain area and/or peoples

 

And these may be separate or all combined.

Exactly. I definitely think the concept of a set territory along with an established government is necessary. But as for the people and culture, that is not one of them. There are many nations today that are multi-ethnic. Just look at the US. We have so many different cultures here, and depending on where in the country you are, you will find people who do not speak English, but just Spanish or another language.

For me, the definition is:

 

-Nation: certain people(s) with common attributes (usually language, but also culture in general) generally consenting to a common authority, especially government

 

-Country: the geographical area controlled by a state and/or inhabited by a nation of people(s)

 

-State: the governmental system which administers a certain area and/or peoples

 

And these may be separate or all combined.

You missed my point. I didn't say a nation had anything to do with government. What you're referring to is a nation-state.

I guess i would say that a nation is when people of a certain area consider themselves to belong to a same culture and all think they are part of one same thing.

And that gives nationalism which is the feeling that if people feel it you may classify them as a nation.

Right now, Im not sure which school of thought I follow.

Why follow one? Why not dub them both as - say - aspect of tsarist Russia?

Right now, Im not sure which school of thought I follow. The modernist one makes a lot of sense, with the idea that enlightened elites stepped up and helped mold/create the nation. However, then I think about Rome, and I cant help but think of it as a nation. I mean, it had a culture, military, organized state, language, set territory...its a nation if you ask me. It even had elites who helped create it (such as the myth of Romulus and Remus) and instill nationalism in the people. But I cant help but think something isn't right about that feeling, because the majority of historians hold a modernist theory. So how can they discount Rome? I mean, the people were there a long time ago, and are still there today.

 

I think you're taking a wrong approach, Rob. Nationalism isn't studied in order to find the right and only theory, but in order to better understand human society, it's dynamic nature and evolution. So the modernist theory simply cannot fit the ancient Rome and the primordialist theory cannot fit your nation.

 

Btw. I aways tend to think of term nation as of the invention of the western world, probably due to histrical and political context (eg. creation of nation-states after the French Revolution). It seems kinda weird to me to define african or asian "nations" based on western philosophy and western criteria. Hehe, effects of globalization might be a nice topic for a discussion in a class like yours

Right now, Im not sure which school of thought I follow.

Why follow one? Why not dub them both as - say - aspect of tsarist Russia?

 

I dunno. I think he wants the class to get into a debate, and have us pick a side, and then a theory from that side. Its something I have to get together soon. Its all so crazy, because most of them make at least some sort of sense.

In my History-Geography class we studied the origins of nationalism so as to better understand its repercussions through history (such as WW1).

Nationalism is as individual as every human being and thus evolve along different lines--increasingly so at distance. I think it would be a serious mistake, as already expressed by other members, to consider there being one "correct" form of nationalism or even one correct line of evolution for nationalism. What has clearly worked out for American society has not worked out for most other countries. Not to say that nationalism is government (though it certainly is an important aspect, government being one way nationalism is expressed), but a Presidential system of government like the one in the United States virtually untenable for what we in the Western countries term "third world countries" as it leads to dictatorships which in many instances are the result of personality cults around those powerful individuals within the state. Parliaments have been, in fact, more successful, but each country arrives at the decision for parliament in a different order or under different circumstances, and even then each parliamentary system is unique and individual in its own way, a characteristic of that specific individualism I mentioned before, they aren't all just modified Westminster systems.

The relationship between nationalism and nations is sort of like the "chicken and the egg" debate", as to which came first. You can say that nationalism does, because a true nation cannot be created unless the people want it to, and have a desire to be labeled together. But on the other hand, one can argue that certain elites can create a nation first, and then work on creating programs which promote nationalistic sentiment from the people living there.

 

Anywho, I still have to select the theory which I most agree with, and then apply it to the creation of Russia as a nation for my research paper. So I can say that Russia was a nation when the tribes living in that area inviting the Vagarians to rule over them, or I can say it became a nation when Peter I started his massive "modernization" program, or I can mention other key events in Russia's history and say that this is when Russia first became considered a nation. It all depends on which of these theories I decide to follow for the purposes of the paper.

I'd say that a nation is a lot like what everyone else has defined it to be- common culture, people that are willing to work toward a common goal, a clear leader, and a settlement upon an area. In most simplistic sense, I'd say that a small village in the middle of nowhere can be considered its own nation if it isn't subordinate to anyone or anything.

 

As time went on nations became more complex, included more people, and expanded. I think that they started as alliances between hunter-gatherer groups, but eventually through childbirth and the like they became more tied together and expanded outward from one point to other points that could sustain life. They kept up good trade relations and eventually cared enough to have military alliances to help each other compete for food and the like. I'd say that the first nations came along before France or Rome, all the way back in the pre-historic times.

Another thing I thought about in that respect was Native Americans. They were called "nations", and they had separate political and territorial entities, and each one tended to have a different culture. They all had different languages, and their geography directly affected each tribes culture. I consider them nations also.

Still no clue as to which theory to choose?

Still no clue as to which theory to choose?

 

Not really. Though Im sure it will be one of the primordialist views, since Im dealing with Russia. The first people of Russia started way back in the the day, and their original establishment of Kieven Rus could definitely be argued as the beginnings of a nation. Im probably gonna browse through my notes from last semester's Tsarist Russia class and look more into Russia's beginning history. But yeah, Im thinking one of those approaches.

I still have to read through the Stanford and Wikipedia links you posted but, as soon as I have, I would be happy to lend you a hand.

I still stick to the notion that the concept of a nation is rooted in the concept of a peoples united by a common culture and (usually, but not always) a common language or language-group. Russia is called "Russia" because it contains Russians (yes, I know, that's an oversimplification of extraordinary proportion, but just bear with it) and Germany is called Germany because the people speak German. In fact, I think Germany is a great example of what defines a nation and what defines a state. Germany, until 1870, was a geographical expression that encompassed a variety of states, but these weren't nations unto themselves int that the people of this geographical expression were, in fact, the actual nation; Prussia, for instance, was a state, but not a nation (or at least with regard to totality). In 1870, with the unification of the German states under Prussian leadership led to the German Empire under the Kaiser, forming the first German nation-state; that is to say, a nation (people of who share a similar culture and language) under a single state (i.e. system of government). This is, of course, an old definition, but one that should, in my opinion, be used more often, though hardly so since the emergence of most states are nation-states and, in the postmodern world, the emergence of cosmopolitan states. In this regard, though a common language is not required, the de facto nature of all this makes the United States a nation-state in that common cultural beliefs and language are generally shared (there are always exceptions in all instances of example).

 

If we go back to the ancient concept of the city-state, you'll note the term does not make use of the "nation". In this regard, as far as the ancient Greeks go, the concept of a nation encompassed the whole of the Greek people, from Athens to Corinth to Sparta, and yet these people had vastly different world-views and systems of government (states) centered around single cities; thus the concept of city-state. Not even the Romans were a nation-state as they at no point only encompassed all of the peoples of Latium exclusively; indeed, the Romans were bred from the same city-state concept I cited above and though they did come to control the Latin people, it would only be with the addition of other, non-national (i.e. non-related or "foreign") peoples including Samnites, Oscans, Umbrians, etc. Thus, the Romans in many ways skipped the nation-state entity and went from city-state to imperial-state, though this is generally inherent in the concept of empire as a whole. One would hardly say the British Empire of the 18th and 19th Century encompassed within its nation the peoples of India and South Africa.

 

Yet the concept of nation evolves over time as overtime the barriers of integration collapse. Great Britain is perhaps a great example of this in that the national entities of Great Britain were once divided between three primary groups: English, Welsh, and Scottish. Though indeed this differentiation is still known and acknowledged, the common language and culture resounds quite heavily so that national entities defuse to what can nearly be described as nostalgia and cease to function in the way they once did centuries ago. This is the same in the United States because, though it is noticeable who is Latino, who is white, who is Asian, who is Black, the diffusion of cultures continues. Indeed, the reason I didn't capitalize "white" and yet did for the all the others is the diffuse of these primarily European peoples into a single, dominant majority-group who have a tendency to share the same culture and language despite some being of English descent, others of Irish descent, or German descent or French descent, they have diffused far enough that the state's nationality becomes more important than the cultural nationality.

 

I'll stop there for now.

Edited February 14, 2008 by SOCL
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This is another test.

 

Edit:

Ok, for some reason, if I write more than like 2 paragraphs worth of text, this thread wont post it. I had no problem posting this other stuff. Is there a text limit per page or something? What Im writing is not as big as SOCL's last post. I dunno whats going on here..

That happens to me every so often, too, Rob, but with mine I've noticed a pattern: if I mention social!sm a few too many times or democrat!c principles, it locks up.

 

No, I'm not kidding.

Interesting.

 

Basically, Im writing one research paper comparing U.S.S.R. eastward expansion to U.S. westward expansion, for my Nationalism class. For my Soviet class, Im writing a paper comparing Nazi concentration camps to Soviet forced labor camps during WWII.

 

Edit: FINALLY I WAS ABLE TO POST THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That happens to me every so often, too, Rob, but with mine I've noticed a pattern: if I mention social!sm a few too many times or democrat!c principles, it locks up.

 

No, I'm not kidding.

The same thing happens with the word "U.N.I.O.N." I added the periods so it would actually print

Sounds like the word censor of this board is a bit too effective. The same happened to me on another board while I was referiing to a very famous director of the 60s.

 

Gotta check if it works: Hitchcock.

 

Edit: Works!

Guess why the word above was in the word censor there.

Well, I finished up my research paper for this class. Basically, he wanted us to do research either proving or disproving a historians idea on nationalism.

 

I did mine on Hans Kohn. Kohn believed that there was good and bad nationalism (this was during WWII mind you). Kohn said that good nationalism were from nations in Western Europe and the United States, and they were good because they were founded off the ideals of the Enlightenment. He then said that Eastern Nationalism (Germany, Russia, other Eastern Europe countries, and Asia) were bad nationalism, which rather than create new democratic nations, they remained authoritarian and kept their nations together based on ancient cultural ties and folk lore.

 

Anywho, I wanted to disprove his idea of "good" and "bad" by comparing American and Russian expansion. Basically, I researched the history of American expansion west and Russian expansion east into Siberia. I then researched and compared the policies that both nations had towards the natives living there. From that perspective, it appeared that America's nationalistic policies in regard to the Americanization of Native Americans made it "bad", and Russias policies made it "good". Within a little more than 100 years, America went from protecting (though not enforcing) to relocating to killing to Americanizing the Native Americans. In Siberia, the natives were generally protected by Russian law for almost 300 years before they began getting Russified.

 

So thats my story. It was a short paper, only 13 pages (supposed to be 10). Not as advanced as my last research paper last semester on Yuri Gagarin, but still good stuff. Im just glad its done, and I can enjoy the rest of my semester stress-free.

Interesting topic indeed. I wish you all the best for your research paper!

 

Talking about Russia you meant the old zaristic Russia, right? Though the soviet Russia wasn´t that nice while expanding.

Yah, I did Tsarist Russia starting with the early 1600s. The Tsar gave permission for the invasion of Siberia in 1558, and in 1600 he started issuing laws that protected the natives. Periodically, until the late 1800s, additional laws were issued to protect the natives. They were never forced to "Russify" until the the 1870s. The United States obviously started expanding after the American Revolution, and initially passed legislation that protected the Native Americans and stated that the U.S. Army would remove any Americans who encroached on Native land. The difference was that, while Russia enforced their laws, the U.S. did not. Thus, when Native Americans obviously fought back, the U.S. started warring with them and relocation them. Then in the 1890s the idea came about to start "Americanizing" them. Thus my paper spanned from initial contact of both nations with natives until the late 1800s, when both began to force their cultures upon them.

 

There are two reasons I believe explain this difference in policies. The first is that the Russians expanded east for money. They wanted to open up trade routes, trap furs (sable in particular), and collect tribute from the natives. Thus the Russians only wanted to collect tribute from the natives, and not their land. Secondly, when Muscovy (before Russia was established) was conquered by Mongols, they were forced under similar policies. The Mongols never tried to "Mongolize" them, and only collected tribute from them. Thus, Russia was used to this concept already, and used it when they conquered peoples.

 

As for the U.S., money wasn't the goal of expansion, but land for American settlers. The idea of manifest destiny and the Homestead Act encouraged Americans to move west and start farms. Thus, they would have to take Native American land, since land was their goal.

 

So yeah, this was the general gist of my paper.

 

Edit:

I submitted my research paper from last semester on Gagarin into a scholarship contest for the History Department. I received second place (honorable mention), which unfortunately did not include any moneys...