Reconfiguring Nationalism: The Roll Call of the Fallen Soldiers (1800–2001) (original) (raw)
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The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-communist Poland
2006
In the summer and fall of 1998, ultranationalist Polish Catholics erected hundreds of crosses outside Auschwitz, setting off a fierce debate that pitted Catholics and Jews against one another. While this controversy had ramifications that extended well beyond Poland’s borders, Geneviève Zubrzycki sees it as a particularly crucial moment in the development of post-Communist Poland’s statehood and its changing relationship to Catholicism. In The Crosses of Auschwitz, Zubrzycki skillfully demonstrates how this episode crystallized latent social conflicts regarding the significance of Catholicism in defining “Polishness” and the role of anti-Semitism in the construction of a new Polish identity. Since the fall of Communism, the binding that has held Polish identity and Catholicism together has begun to erode, creating unease among ultranationalists. Within their construction of Polish identity also exists pride in the Polish people’s long history of suffering. For the ultranationalists, then, the crosses at Auschwitz were not only symbols of their ethno-Catholic vision, but also an attempt to lay claim to what they perceived was a Jewish monopoly over martyrdom. This gripping account of the emotional and aesthetic aspects of the scene of the crosses at Auschwitz offers profound insights into what Polishness is today and what it may become. AWARDS *Distinguished Book Award, Sociology of Religion Section, American Sociological Association, 2007. *AAASS/Orbis Books Outstanding Book Award Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, 2007 *Biennial Kulczycki Book Prize, Polish Studies Association, 2008. Finalist: *Norbert Elias Book Prize, Norbert Elias Foundation (Netherlands), 2007. * Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award, Political Sociology Section, American Sociological Association, 2007. * Best First Book in the History of Religions, American Academy of Religion, 2007. *Best Book in Analytical-Descriptive Category, American Academy of Religion, 2007.
Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
2016
This clever little book has all that it takés to become a primary source of inspiration to anyone interested in the issue of nationalism, its causes and transformations. Written with admirable clarity and a good deal of humor, its nine chapters present the reader with a refreshing way of looking at this Modern Age universal. To the student of East Central Europe this work offers the possibility of seeing his favorite subject matter placed within a comparative framework (one that goes beyond the usual West European perspective) by an author whose own 'expertise' lies with Indochina and who feels comfortable using the work of anthropology and literary theory to draw insight on political history. Nation-ness remains as legitimate a political value today as it has been for the past two centuries. It has, equally, remained an enigma to social analysis. Rather than seeing it as another ideological 'ism', Anderson prefers to treat the related phenomena of nationality, Nationalism and nation-ness as cultural artifacts, akin to kinship and religion. He defines the nation as "an imagined political Community," since it is impossible for all members to know each other 'personally'. What distinguishes it from other kinds of imagined communities is "the style by which it is imagined." (p. 15) It is imagined as limited since it rests on the notion of membership and thus exclusion. And it is sovereign; the nation connotes the sense of freedom within its protective shell (the reality of oppression notwithstanding). Anderson is certainly not the first to trace the cultural roots of nationalism to the development of mercantile capitalism, to the increased contact with non-European worlds and to the invention of the printing press, both of which gradually undermined the vast imagined dynastie and religious communities of the Middle Ages. The originality of the author's argument comes from showing how print-capitalism aecounts for the development of a new sense of co-presence, a key component in the "obscure genesis of nationalism." The vertical world of the Middle Ages was one in which the 'now' coexisted with the past and future in one simultaneity of presence given by Divine Providence. "In such a view of things, the word 'meanwhile' cannot be of real significance." (p. 30) The medieval 'simultaneity-along-time' is replaced "by an idea of 'homogeneous, empty time,' in which simultaneity is, as it were, transverse, crosstime, marked not by prefiguring and fulfillment, but by temporal eoineidence, and measured by clock and calendar." (p. 30) The novel and the newspaper provided, in different ways, the possibility of presenting an earthly simultaneity in which the reader is made present to a multiplicity of actions and actors who coexist as a 'sociolo-gicaP Community 'in time'. The newspaper draws together events related often only
Symposium. Religious dimensions of nationalism: Interdisciplinary perspectives
2021
The relationship between nationalism and religion is characterised by strong tension due to the universalist tendencies present in many religions, which challenge collective identities based on ethnic or cultural divisions. Moreover, modernist interpretations of nationalism have insisted on the close association between nationalism and secularisation. In recent years, however, these perspectives have become as problematic as the concept of secularisation itself, because they fail to grasp that religion, far from dying out in modern societies, has simply gone through a series of changes, such as individualisation and privatisation, on one hand, and new forms of public presence, on the other. Nationalism can easily be associated with forms of prophetism, messianism, millenarianism and, more generally, mysticism, esotericism and alternative spiritualities. The old religious concept of a divine covenant with a “chosen people” has taken new forms in nationalist but also imperialist and colonialist discourses. The study of the relationship between nationalism and religion has been relatively neglected and has not yet received due attention in the specific field of nationalist studies. The conference will bring together scholars from different disciplines who are interested in this relationship. The symposium is curated and organized by the Center for Comparative Studies of Civilization and Spiritualities, directed by Francesco Piraino, in collaboration with Joep Leerssen and Marco Pasi (University of Amsterdam).
Since the emergence of the debate on the relationship between nationalism and archaeology, mainly in the 1990s, most discussions have focused on the place that material culture dating from the prehistoric to the medieval period occupied, and still does, in nationalist narratives. In contrast, this volume goes beyond the chronological span usually dealt with by archaeologists to focus on the modern period. In its pages it is possible to find a range of examples of how material culture has been used (or prevented from being used) to reinforce nationalist narratives, from the fourteenth century until today. The way in which these narratives were and still are being developed is also a matter for discussion. An important focus of the book is to show how historical archaeologists potentially are exceptionally well-placed to analyse how the development of modern nationalism and national identity is reproduced in the post-medieval archaeological record, as it was during this period that political nationalism evolved. Moreover, this volume challenges the state of the art, because―by studying the failed nation, the aspiring nation, the nation-tobe, and the region as an intricate part of the nation―the authors have taken a starting point that is hard to find in other studies (which usually start with the idea of the successful nation). Geographically, this book demonstrates an emphasis on Europe, debating a few nationalist movements in northern and north-western Europe— Scotland, Manx, Ireland, Denmark—and Central Europe, as illustrated by Bavaria, Slovenia, and Carinthia. However, it also moves beyond that part of the world to include examples from Turkey, New Sweden, and New Mexico in the United States of America (US) and, finally, Easter Island.
Nationalities Papers, 2016
In chapter four, Yosmaoglu deals with statistics and census practices in the region of Macedonia. She demonstrates how statistical knowledge became the basis for formulating a legitimate territorial claim. By focusing on the Ottoman "Census of 1903," she demonstrates how it acted as a force of mobilization in making people aware of their new collective identity (134). Yosmaoglu argues that establishing demographic supremacy had become part of the struggle for Macedonia. Her main point here is that the politicization of religious and linguistic differences was invented by the Ottoman administration and the European patron states (149). In the fifth chapter, Yosmaoglu analyzes the escalation of the sectarian tension within the Orthodox Church through struggles over sacred spaces. Yosmaoglu argues that "the most important element that consolidated national identity and nationhood in popular conception was the politicization of religion and religious identity after they became intricately linked with violence" (170). Thus, the church became the only medium through which the peasants experienced the imagined community (207). In the final chapter, Yosmaoglu deals critically with approaches to political violence through utilizing theoretical literature on political violence, most notably the work of Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War. She analyzes the process through which neighbors in Serres became enemies and people lost their trust in all of the institutions they were supposed to rely upon for protection. She demonstrates how "the violence was a necessary condition for, and not a natural by-product of, a strong ethnonational consciousness among the rural population" (217). By bringing multiple examples, from the region of Serres, Yosmaoglu demonstrates that violence became a precondition to the politicization of communal difference. One important criticism about the book is that it tends to concentrate on one region. Would the author get the same result if she included such regions as Skopje, Ohri, Prizren, or Dibra, or undertook a comparative approach with other regions in Macedonia? Blood Ties opens new doors of thinking about ethnic violence in the late nineteenth century. Rather than describing violence as the outcome of politicization of ethnic boundaries and the amalgamation of nation-ness and nationhood, Blood Ties argues that violence was a major factor in the formation of these different imagined communities. Yosmaoglu's book should be considered as a major contribution not only to the fields of Ottoman and Middle Eastern studies, but also to European studies, genocide studies, ethnic conflict, and nationalism. The book surpasses other books that were written on the subject by introducing a refined theoretical and conceptual approach. The book is a must for every graduate student, scholar, historian, and social scientist interested in understanding the complexities of Balkan history, religious conflict, and ethnic violence.
Nationalism in a Global Era, 2007
For many modernist theories of nationalism, symbols and ceremonies belong to the world of myths and legends and are of marginal importance. I wish to argue to the contrary: symbolism is, as far as nationhood is concerned, as important as economic and political factors. In fact, social life is a repository of symbols and ceremonies, whether in the form of totems, golden ages, flags, heroes, icons, capitals, statues, war memorials, football teams, national festivities or ceremonies, which are -at the core -symbolic markers of national groups. Symbols or ceremonials provide short cuts to the community it represents, and is by nature self-referential, subjective and boundary-creating. The usage of symbols and the performance of ceremonies are also a public thing, i.e. manifested in and sustained by public ceremonies performed in a public space. 1 Moreover, and within the theoretical frame of this volume, national symbols and ceremonies provide us with a powerful testimony about the persistence of nations and of the appeal of nationhood.
The aim of this article is to explore the interaction between local, national, and transnational frames of memory as it manifests itself in the contemporary commemoration of the Jewish past. Focusing on the case study of Poland, I argue that articulations of transnational memory still remain deeply rooted in local and national interests and mythologies, reflecting the fears, desires, or longings of memory makers. Ranging from digital media which stress the interactive and agency-based dimension of transnational memory, through to vernacular "stumbling blocks" inspired by German citizens and subsequently transplanted onto the Polish ground, to public memorials which are either embraced or contested by a variety of social actors, these initiatives urge us to rethink traditional approaches to memory. In particular, these different scales and locations of remembrance question the common perception of collective memory as rooted in rigid nation-state frameworks in favor of memories that travel, move, and transgress multiple boundaries and affect multiple communities.