Volume 12 - Issue 67
/ July 2023
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.67.07.26
How to Cite:
Stovpets, O., Borinshtein, Y., Rubskyi, V., Shpachynskyi, I., Soloviova, I., & Kozlenko, P. (2023). The evolution of 'Nation'
concept and its relevance for contemporary historical moment. Amazonia Investiga, 12(67), 293-304.
https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.67.07.26
The evolution of 'Nation' concept and its relevance for contemporary
historical moment
La evolución del concepto de Nación y su relevancia para el momento histórico
contemporáneo
Received: June 9, 2023 Accepted: July 15, 2023
Written by:
Oleksandr Stovpets1
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8001-4223
Yevhen Borinshtein2
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0323-4457
Viacheslav Rubskyi3
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3225-8287
Ihor Shpachynskyi4
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3946-7164
Iryna Soloviova5
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-1926-4758
Pavlo Kozlenko6
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4660-852X
Abstract
Understanding the evolution of the concept of
"nation" is crucial in comprehending the shifting
dynamics of identity, national policy, and global
interactions. By tracing the historical development
of this concept, from its early origins to its
contemporary manifestations, the article aims to
shed light on how the idea of the Nation has
transformed and adapted to social, political, and
ideological changes. The retrospective analysis of
'national' discourse makes possible to demonstrate
how the Nation concept expanded its content during
the recent centuries. The philosophical and
historical study of the Nation provided in the article,
and its research from the functional and axiological
standpoints, drives us to make a few general
assumptions: Nation still can be that kind of
mobilizing force that helps unite people in
resistance to external aggression; the concept of
1
Doctor Hab. in Philosophical Sciences, Professor of the Social & Humanitarian Studies department, Odessa National Maritime
University, Ukraine. Researcher ID: AAK-5150-2020
2
Doctor Hab. in Philosophical Sciences, professor, Head of the department of Philosophy, Sociology and Management of
sociocultural activities, the state institution “South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K.D. Ushynsky”, Ukraine.
Researcher ID: HTR-3070-2023
3
Doctor Hab. in Philosophical Sciences, practicing psychologist, professor of the Practical Psychology department, Odessa National
Maritime University, Ukraine. Researcher ID: HNC-4376-2023
4
PhD in Philosophical Sciences, associate professor of the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology, Mykolaiv National University
named after V. Sukhomlynskiy, Ukraine. Researcher ID: JEF-0570-2023
5
PhD in Philosophical Sciences, associate professor of the Philosophy department, Odessa National Maritime University, Ukraine.
Researcher ID: FXV-6783-2022
6
PhD in Philosophical Sciences, Chairman of Board Odesa Holocaust Research Center, Ukraine. Researcher ID: JEF-0625-2023
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Nation presumably does not have enough resources
to influence the highly developed countries, but still
preserves its potential to transform the societies in
the developing countries. Some findings and
insights presented in this article may contribute into
further theoretical research, as well as policy
development, and a deeper understanding of the
role of nations in an increasingly interconnected
world.
Keywords: nation, aristocracy, estate, society,
unification, function, culture, politics, values.
Introduction
The concept of "nation" has been an influential
aspect of human societies for the last four
centuries, shaping the course of history, politics,
and culture. However, in today's rapidly
changing global landscape, the meaning and
relevance of the nation have become increasingly
complex and contested. This article seeks to
examine the evolution of the concept of "nation"
over time and explore its current meaning.
In the present historical moment characterized by
globalization, digitalization, migration, and
multiculturalism, the concept of "nation" remains
extremely significant, and continues to play a
vital role in shaping individual and collective
identities, as well as influencing social,
economic, and political systems. The actuality of
this research is connected with the multifaceted
significance of the "nation" concept, studied in
comparative-historical way retrospectively, and
in contemporary world, exploring its
implications for governance, national identity
formation, and international relations.
The object of this study is the concept of 'Nation'
as sociocultural, political, and ideological
phenomenon.
The purpose of this study is to show how the
Nation was changing its content during centuries,
and what point it has come to nowadays. To
achieve the mentioned purpose, we have to
complete the following tasks: to trace the main
stages of the "nation" concept evolution (we limit
this study to the European cultural and political
space); to identify the key characteristics of such
a concept as a Nation from a functional and
axiological points of view; to evaluate the
influence prospects of the "nation" concept in the
modern world.
The importance of given research, as we believe,
is connected with the need to provide critical
examination of the concept of "nation", studying
the milestones of its evolution and trying to
evaluate its contemporary relevance. Thus, this
article aims to contribute to the scholarly
discourse surrounding the complex nature of
national identities and their impact on the present
historical context.
Theoretical Framework or Literature Review
The current knowledge of the topic is presented
in some publications from different fields of
social studies. There are a lot of challenges and
complexities in the interpretation of Nation's
relevance at contemporary historical moment,
considering the controversial outcomes of
migration processes, erosion of national identity,
issues of equality of opportunity and social
justice, etc. To understand the concept of Nation
correctly, we should keep in mind its historical
background, and look carefully at various aspects
of its implication in today's life. Among the
publications, meaningful for better
understanding of the researched subject, there
should be mentioned: the works focused on the
matters of national culture (Pickel, 2013; Orgad,
2015), nationalism (Jensen & Mouritsen, 2017;
Johnston, 2017; Larin, 2019; Tamir, 2021),
migration and related issues (Joppke, 2007;
Antonsich, 2016; Antonsich, 2018; Waal, 2020),
multicultural nation and universal values
(Wilson, 2015; Borinshtein et al., 2021; Schutter,
2021), national identity (Henderson & McEwen,
2005; Huddy & Khatib, 2007; Huang et al.,
2023), ethno-cultural diversity (Smith, 1988;
Antonsich & Petrillo, 2018; Matthews & Zain,
2022), the educational system influence on the
national consciousness (Borinshtein et al., 2022),
national self-affirmation through the scientific
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and technological leadership (Stovpets, 2012;
Svyrydenko & Stovpets, 2020), nations as
justified substate authorities (Silva, 2022).
Methodology
Of the research is based on a systematic
approach, comparative-historical, deductive and
dialectical methods, axiological and
functionalistic approaches. The abovementioned
methodology allows to trace all the main stages
in the development of the concept of "nation",
and to compare semantic changes within each
stage.
Results and discussion
When we want to start with the question "what is
a nation?" we immediately encounter a certain
problem, since the nation is a polysemantic word.
The nation arises as an idea in various contexts.
Secondly, the idea of a nation changes in the path
of history: between the 17th and 20th centuries
this concept shifts, varies its meanings; it is
unsteady and fluid. For the Roman civilization,
when they translated the Greek words "ethnos",
"ethne" in lingua Latina as "nationes", nations
were a naturalistic pre-state (before-state)
concept, and often a synonymous with barbarian:
there were full Roman citizens (cives Romani),
but there were also representatives of various
non-Roman nations (called: Provinciales,
Peregrini). Something similar happened in early
Christianity: the so-called "nationes" were
deemed as pagans, people who had not yet risen
to the level of Civilization. Now we shall try to
unfold the ambiguity and dynamism of the
Nation concept, by showing the four main
contexts of modern understanding for the Nation.
The first understanding is a "nation of estates" or
"nation of aristocrats". For example, let's take the
German word combination Adel Nation
(aristocratic nation): "der Adel" could be
translated as Noble, Aristocracy, so here's the
aristocratic understanding of a Nation, also called
the "Nation of Estates", meaning by that only the
first and the second estates (clerical nobility and
secular nobility). Such an interpretation for the
Nation (as a community of nobles) is typical for
16-17th centuries, and this idea is directed
against the absolute power of the
monarch (Wrede, et al., 2016).
After the religious wars of the 16th century,
under the influence of Luther and Calvin, and
other Protestant theologians and thinkers, the
importance of secular power increases and the
modern state itself arises, the vertical
strengthens: the monarch centralizes and unifies
the system of government. Of course, the
absolutism oppresses the aristocrats, going
against the interests of those who used to be
almost equal to the king. Therefore, this political
conflict gives rise to the idea of a Nation in
circles of the aristocracy. It becomes a kind of
instrument for limiting absolutism. And in minds
of the aristocratic camp, there's a will to remind
the king that he is not the only one in charge of
this system, and there is a more complex system
of relations around political power.
We should emphasize how conflicting this
concept was: the "Nation of Estates" was directed
against the power of an absolute monarch. But
still that was a very small fraction of the entire
population. For instance, if we take the history of
Rzeczpospolita - the Polish-Lithuanian-
Commonwealth, and if we even take the 17th
century, we should ask ourselves: who was the
Nation in this large territory? - only the nobility
(Szlachta, i.e. gentry, aristocracy, the nobles),
and they were mainly in the Polish and
Lithuanian segments of the whole populations
(we say it approximately, because then neither
Poland nor Lithuania nor Ukraine did not exist in
their current form, just as neither Italy existed
then as a single state, nor Germany).
Trying to answer, who made up the "nation" at
those times Rzeczpospolita, we use T. Snyder's
work "The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland,
Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999". He
expresses an opinion, that the nobles were only
about 10 percent of entire population (who called
Szlachta) in the Kingdom of Poland and the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in the Ukrainian
territory (before and after so-called
Het'manshyna) - only about 2 % of
population (Snyder, 2003: 112), so at that time
they were the "blood of the nation". Therefore,
the concept of "a Nation of estates", typical for
the 16th century, was associated with privileges
and freedoms, which had to be defended.
In the middle of the 17th century (1648-1654)
Ukrainian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky was
fighting against Poland, or Rzeczpospolita. This
struggle, in historiography being often called as
the "national liberation war", in reality was the
struggle for the rights, freedoms and privileges of
the estate, to which hetman Khmelnytsky
belonged, and the spokesman of whose interests
he naturally was. It is clear, that hetman
Khmelnytsky relied on the broader masses of
people, not only on the nobles. But in his mind,
probably, there was no idea of the liberation for
the entire Ukrainian nation, since such a concept
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had not yet been formed. Those times, they
thought in other categories, class-estate.
By the way, Rzeczpospolita (1569-1795), located
on the lands of modern Poland, Lithuania,
Belarus and Ukraine, was quite comparable to
those times France. For comparison: France, in
the middle of 17th century, had a territory of
about five hundred thousand square kilometers,
with a population up to seventeen million people.
Rzeczpospolita, in the same historical period,
had a territory more than eight hundred thousand
square kilometers, with a population about
eleven million people (1650). And only around
12 % of people in Rzeczpospolita could be
identified as a Nation - the bearers of privileges
and freedoms. Meanwhile, peasants were not a
"nation", only an aristocratic minority belonged
to the "nation". And they were arguing with the
King, in order to defend their status.
The second understanding of Nation is a so-
called "nation of the people" that originates from
the end of the 18th century to the middle of the
19th century, in a non-aristocratic environment,
but inside of the emerging third estate (they were
scientists, thinkers, writers, lawyers, bankers,
merchants, entrepreneurs - all those who
previously lacked a place in politics, since all
these places was belonging only to aristocrats).
The idea of "political nation", "nation of the
People" was shaped in 18th century France, first
in the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert.
"Encyclopedia" was firstly published in 1751,
and such authors as Diderot, Voltaire,
Montesquieu, Rousseau and other Enlightenment
thinkers were reconsidering the concepts of
"people", "nation", "citizenship", "political
power". But the definition of the Political Nation,
its theoretical concept, arises only in 1789, in
conditions of The French Revolution, when
Abbé Sieyès has published his famous pamphlet
"What Is the Third Estate?" (Sieyès, 2014).
When a conflict with the king arisen, which led
to the beginning of the French Revolution,
Abbé Sieyès was one of the trumpets of the
newborn idea of the People's Nation. By this
time, there were several pamphlets written by
Sieyès about the upcoming convocation of the
Estates General. These writings of Sieyès have
made a significant impact on the people, in
particular, his "An Essay on Privilege" (1788),
the brochure "Recognition and exposure of
human and civic rights" (1789), and the
mentioned famous pamphlet that contains the
following theses: "...What is the Third Estate? -
Everything. What has it been hitherto in the
political order? - Nothing. What does it desire to
be? - To become something..." (Sieyès, 2014).
I.e. in the understanding of the bourgeois
revolutionaries, the third estate was the whole
nation, but it was not given a place in politics, it
was not given a word, and now they are entering
the arena. Later, Emmanuel Sieyès, being elected
to the Convent, has supported the execution of
King Louis XVI (1792), and after that, during the
'18th Brumaire coup' in France (1799) has
supported rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte.
It's rather symbolic that during the execution of
the 'Old Order France' last monarch, the crowd
was shouting "Vive la Nation!".
The idea of a "People's Nation" is sometimes
called a Political Nation (FR: Nation politique,
DE: Volksnation), and in many sources one can
find the thesis that it was the French who
invented the concept of the 'nation' in the modern
sense. For them, the nation is a civil and
civilizational concept, not the question of blood
(ethnos) or language. Thus, if in the first sense
we observed "a nation of aristocrats", "a nation
of the noble estate", then the second incarnation
of the idea of a nation is the revolutionary
bourgeois ideas of the middle 18th century.
Among the results of The French Revolution was
a creation of the concept of "political nation",
where citizenship (or allegiance) becomes the
key feature.
But the Germans didn't think like the French.
They had totally different political situation, and
other forms of nationhood. And when the
Germans were reflecting on the political situation
before and during Napoleonic wars, Kant's
students - famous philosophers Herder and
Fichte - were thinking like that: in France, it
seems everything clear - single state, common
borders, and the French are rather "old nation";
they have the core territory formed a very long
time ago. But the Germans live in many different
German states. For a long time, the Germans
have been nurturing the idea of unification, and
it is gradually being embodied in the form of the
'Second Reich' (i.e. the German Empire in 1871-
1918). But as a result of the First World War,
their empire collapsed. In a distorted form, the
idea of national resurrection has found its terrible
incarnation in the 'Third Reich' (1933-1945).
What was the German idea about the Nation? In
the middle of the 19th century, the Germans were
living in many regions across Central Europe.
And they have formulated an idea of
"Kulturnation", meaning by that not an estate-
based, and not a political, but "a culture-based
nation". It's a kind of community, which lies
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upon a cognate culture. Thus, there were many
political state formations, which seemed to be
scattered and decentralized, but they were
spiritually united by a common culture and one
language - German. So, "Kulturnation", or "a
culture-based nation", was explained as a nation,
whose cultural history could be traced back over
a long period of time, and whose bearers have
had an appropriate mentality and imagination of
their own common culture.
If the abovementioned French idea of the nation
is based upon the citizenship principle, then
German concept of the nation means: one
language, single culture, common spiritual space
that unites different people living in many states.
That implied, the Germans were feeling
themselves as a single nation for that they
belonged to the same culture. But they still
needed a single state, so they began building their
'Reich'. This idea was reinforced, on the one
hand, by representatives of the romanticism in art
and literature, and on the other hand, by German
thinkers. Among them was an outstanding
philosopher J. Fichte, sometimes called "the
father of German nationalism". He proclaimed
his "Speeches to the German Nation" (Reden an
die deutsche Nation) in 1807, calling Germans to
national self-consciousness (Fichte, 2008). Here
we contemplate the third context in
understanding the Nation.
And finally, the fourth context could be
mentioned when we interpret the Nation as a
sovereign state, or the national state (the German
word for this notion is "Staatsnation"). Such an
understanding arises only in the second half of
the 19th century, when the idea of nations' self-
determination emerges. That was a time, when
European politics was in total chaos. Several
concepts overlaid: the construct "nation - empire
- colonial power" arose all in one. Additionally,
in the 19th century, there were renewed the
attempts to restore the old estate system, also
known as the "sacred order". It happened after
the Congress of Vienna (1815), finalized with
agreements on restoration of the feudal-absolutist
monarchies, seriously destroyed by the French
Revolution (1789-1799) and the Napoleonic
wars. New borders of European states were
defined.
During this period, the four great systems -
Austria, Russia, England and France - ensured
the European order and balance of power. But
simultaneously, in the same 19th century, began
a so-called «Spring of Nations», a succession of
European revolutions 1848-1849, which were
anti-feudal and national liberation directed.
These events influenced the fate of Italy, and the
fate of Germany, and the political fate of
Ukraine, which was torn between the
Rzeczpospolita and the Russian Empire. The
fourth partition of Poland (following the results
of the Vienna Congress 1815) and the
suppression of the Polish uprisings changed the
balance of power, and led to a surge in the
national liberation movement of the Ukrainian
people.
In Kyiv, there had emerged a secret political
society "The Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and
Methodius", established in 1846 under the
leadership of Mykola Kostomarov. In 1847, he
wrote his conceptual work - "The Books of
Genesis of the Ukrainian Nation" (Kostomarov,
2021) that was officially published just in 1918
because of the Russian censorship.
The Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood was
established a few years before the "Spring of
Nations" in Eastern Europe. Its formation in 1846
aimed to rekindle the principles of traditional
Ukrainian brotherhoods and to envision a
resurgence of Ukrainian national identity,
including the aspiration for national autonomy
within a united and equitable Slavic federation.
However, in March 1847, the Russian Empire's
authorities swiftly quashed the Brotherhood,
which was accompanied by the exile or
imprisonment of the majority of its members
(Glyz, 1990: 37). Among key members of the
Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius were
Ukrainian political thinkers, historians,
ethnographers, and writers: Mykola Kostomarov
(1818-1885), Panteleimon Kulish (1819-1897),
Yurii Andruzky (1827-1864), Vasyl Bilozersky
(1825-1899), Mykola Hulak (1821-1899),
Opanas Markovych (1822-1867), Oleksandr
Navrotsky (1823-1892), Ivan Posiada (1823-
1894), Dmytro Pylchykov (1821-1893), and
Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861).
The Cyril and Methodius Society's objectives
encompassed the liberalization of Imperial
Russia's political and social framework, aligning
with its members' Christian values and the rising
Slavophilic ideologies embraced by the nation's
progressive intellectual community. The society
derived its name from Saints Cyril and
Methodius, esteemed as ideological authorities
of Slavic nations, for their roles in disseminating
Christianity and creating the Cyrillic alphabet,
which continues to be in use among Slavic
languages. Additionally, the Society aspired to
eradicate serfdom, promote widespread public
education, and reshape the Russian Empire into a
federation of liberated Slavic peoples, with
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Russians being one of the equal - rather than the
dominant nation (along with Ukrainians,
Belarusians, Poles, and even Czechs, Slovaks,
Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, and Bulgarians), with
the implementation of the liberal democratic
principles of freedom of speech, thought and
religion (Glyz, 1990: 38).
Among other national movements, there was an
Italian Unification movement, il Risorgimento
(1815-1861), which has also inspired the
participants of the Ukrainian national liberation
movement to strengthen a Ukrainian political
nation. In particular, they were inspired by ideas
of Giuseppe Mazzini (Bayly & Biagini, 2008).
The penetration of Mazzini's ideas (Mazzini,
1965) into Ukraine took place almost
simultaneously with their emergence. Despite the
"danger" of his works, as they were interpreted in
the Russian Empire, there was their limited
access to the circles of Ukrainian intellectuals. In
those times, one of the "gates" of revolutionary
ideas, along with St. Petersburg, Warszawa,
Kyiv, was also the "free city of Odessa", porto
franco, where Italian sailors were the numerous
foreigners. A lot of English, French, Italian and
German-language magazines appeared in the
capital cities of the Russian Empire via the port
of Odessa, albeit after being censored. Therefore,
legally and illegally, Mazzini's name and his
works were publicized, and make their influence
together with the ideas of German political
philosophers J. Herder with his 1773 manifesto
"Of German Character and Art" (Herder &
Goethe, 1964), J. Fichte with his famous
"Addresses to the German Nation", 1808, and
with the literary works of Romanticism authors
who inspired Ukrainian intellectuals laid the
foundations of its own modern nation-building
process in the middle of 19th century.
If we take a pan-European context, as a result of
national movements, a strange symbiosis arises:
on the one hand, large empires (Austria, the
Russian and Ottoman Empires, France, Britain)
restrain national movements. Back in 1815, the
so-called "Holy Alliance" was proclaimed, a
reactionist coalition between the Emperor
Franz I of Austria, King Friedrich Wilhelm III of
Prussia, and the Russian Emperor Alexander I.
On the other hand, new big systems are being
created under the auspices of the national revival:
this is Italy in 1861, and this is a united Germany
in 1871. In addition, small nation-states arise,
such as Belgium, which takes shape as an
independent state in 1830 as a Catholic
revolution against Protestant Holland. The
creation of national states (Staatsnation) can be
illustrated very vividly by the examples of Italy
unification, and after ten years - the Germany.
So, in the 19th century Europe, all these turbulent
changes would become the basis of global future
historical events and upheavals.
Thus, we can trace this intricate ideological
movement from the nation as estate-based
structure, in the 17th century, to the idea of the
"state-nation" in the 19th century. Then, also
arose the idea of class, the idea of race, and the
idea of internationalism. All this together - the
ideas of "political nation", "cultural nation", the
movement of romanticism, national revival,
nationalism, inter-nationalism - was combined
on various grounds, and began to operate within
the framework of centralized large states, in
some cases as colonial empires.
An important term here is the concept of "state-
forming nation" (titular nation). At this stage,
four main principles of national identification
stand out: the school, the army, the language, and
the writing of national history. European powers
were seeking to strengthen their influence by
shaping the identity of the nation-state within the
framework of school and university curricula,
with an emphasis on history of a nation, the
development of the literary language. Because,
when in 1861 Italy was created as a single state,
only two percent of Italians used literary Italian
language on a regular basis. It is widely known
the statement of famous Italian politician,
Massimo d’Azeglio: "We have made Italy, now
we have to be Italians" (Hom, 2013).
It is notable that after the Risorgimento, when the
first parliament of Italy was convened in Torino
on March 17, 1861, Italians from different
regions gathered - from Piemonte, from Toscana,
from Basilicata, from Sicilia, from everywhere.
But what language could they speak to each
other? - in French! As those times literary Italian
was spoken by an absolute minority. There were
many languages and dialects. The Italian
language had to be recreated. And the same way
as today's language of universal communication
is English, but in previous eras it was Koine
Greek, then lingua Latina, and later the French
took over this function in Europe.
Another example was France itself. Being an
"older" nation with a centralized single state,
France faced the similar language matter: when
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
was proclaimed and printed in 1789, out of 85
French departments, only 15 departments could
read it in French! Only a small percentage of the
French spoke literary French, the rest used local
dialects (Forrest & Jones, 1991). The same
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problem will later arise in Italy at the time of
unification. And the situation was approximately
the same in all the newly created nation-states of
the second half of the 19th century.
Building a nation is unification, including the
matters of language. That is why, since the
middle of the 19th century, nation-states have
been implementing the principles of unification
through schools, universities, the army, and other
social institutions. Ironically, all these principles
of patriotic education and narratives of national
identity were created in order to know clearly:
which commissariat, what military enlistment
office should people go to, when there's a call to
arms, declaring a general mobilization (in the
name of the national interests protection).
Obviously, here we should also mention such a
hybrid that takes place in the United States,
because the Americans call themselves a "nation
of nations", meaning an incredible mixture of
different ethnic communities, social groups,
different waves of emigration. Their unification
is based on the socio-political ideals of America.
Of course, every nation-building process has its
unique details, its cultural, historical and regional
features, and some geopolitical imperatives
depending on their neighbors. Some of these
issues were shown in research works of several
authors (Diamond, 2020; Snyder, 2003; Snyder,
2022), demonstrating the total diversity of
nation-building tracks.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world
was spectating the emergence of new political
systems, due to the awakening of nations in
Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic countries, Georgia,
Armenia, the countries of Central Asia. I.e. after
the restraints of the socialist supranational
system, explosions of national self-
consciousness were taking place everywhere in
the post-Soviet space. Simultaneously, in Europe
we observe processes of "smoothing" the idea of
a nation, processes of unification in the name of
supranational projects, such as the European
Union.
Now we should mention how the idea of a Nation
is defined by leading theorists and researchers of
nationalism in our time. T. Parsons believes that
the nation is a system of value orientations,
which are common to members of a given social
system. E. Gellner thinks that Nation is a
function of the Modern era society (Gellner,
1983). It's important to draw attention that he is
not talking about any type of society, but only
about "modern society" that arose in the era of
Modernity, from about the 18th century. The
term "modern" used as a concept, meaning a
society changed as a result of industrialization,
urbanization, secularization, the development of
institutions of the state and civil society.
While T. Parsons proposes an axiological
approach to unfold the nature of a Nation,
E. Gellner focuses on the functionalist one.
Gellner says, the "function" is the key word in
understanding a nation. The main task of
nationalism, according to Gellner, is the function
of mobilizing the community, organizing it and
directing it towards the transformation of the
entire socio-economic system. Thus, the nation
becomes a political instrument for renewing the
economic system.
E. Gellner also says that, principally, the carriers
of the national idea in the second half of the 19th
century were small groups of intellectuals. He
gives an example about Ukraine. What was Kyiv
or Kharkiv as centers of the Ukrainian national
idea in the middle of the 19th century? There
were only a few dozen houses of local elite, and
only several thousand people, the intellectuals
who dared to write texts and speak openly about
the national idea. Only a few thousand people,
considering that the population of Kyiv at that
time was already about six hundred thousand.
The same was true for Poland and Romania. And
this was a pan-European tendency: there were
some enlightened minority who were "sick" with
an important mission - to wake up the Nation.
Gellner believes that the modern idea of the
Nation arises only in the industrial system of
economic relations. The process of
industrialization brings to life the idea of the
nation, because it became necessary to mobilize
the productive forces, and it is easiest to group
them around a certain political center, on the
basis of the national idea. Thus, the Nation is
assessed as a kind of mobilizing function in
socio-economic context.
A powerful wave of national unification is
happening in Ukraine since 2022 due to the direct
military invasion of Russian troops. Of course, it
is not a national movement as it was on the eve
of the First World War. But the mobilizing
function of the National idea is rather obvious:
Ukraine uses national rhetoric as a tool for
strengthening Ukrainian defense potential. Here
the Nation concept is not only a means to show
cultural uniqueness (in the meaning that
Ukrainians are not a kind of Russians, and
Ukraine is not a part of Russia), but it's also
becoming a function to unite efforts in resisting
the imperial ambitions of Russia, in Ukraine's
desire to save its statehood, and to follow the
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vector in the development chosen by Ukrainian
society. From the one hand, Ukraine is trying to
survive as a political nation. From the other hand,
most of Ukrainian society aspire to a
supranational structure because the European
Union, being a union of European Nations, stays
above any nation, though Ukraine considers such
integration as a "key national interest". This
picture looks rather complicated.
B. Anderson interprets the nation as an imagined
political community, an image, which is the
result of a collective imagination. Nationalism, -
he says, - is not the awakening of nations to self-
consciousness: it invents nations where they did
not exist before (Anderson, 2016). Thus, under
the metaphor of "awakening nations" we are
talking about their construction, about the
creation of nations for some purpose, not natural,
but artificial.
H. Schulze says, at the beginning of the 20th
century, the idea of the Nation takes possession
of the masses (Schulze, 2004). In other words:
what in the middle of the 19th century was the
deed of educated minorities, with the beginning
of the 20th century becomes a mass
phenomenon, and this mass movement spreads
over various countries and territories. The pan-
European military-political crisis, which has
become a global crisis in 1914, has led everyone
to realization of the need to create some kind of
universal levers for managing political processes,
and broad institutions for coordinating national
interests, associated with a collective security
policy. We can recall W. Wilson's "14 points".
One explicit result of his efforts was the creation
of the League of Nations in 1920. Though it
didn't cope with its task to prevent the Second
World War, but it became a predecessor of the
United Nations. And the very names of the
mentioned organizations - the League of Nations,
the United Nations - is an obvious recognition of
the importance of the Nation concept at the
global level.
We have already mentioned Abbé Sieyès (1748-
1836) who wrote a pamphlet "What Is the Third
Estate?" (1789), changing discourse from
'aristocratic' one to the 'revolutionary': not the
nobles are the core of Nation, but people's
masses. In the Romanticism epoch, the emphasis
was finally transferred from "three estates" to the
people as such, and the whole people became a
system-forming element. The Ukrainian
historian and politician M. Hrushevsky in his
monograph "History of Ukraїna-Rus' " (1898)
was already writing about the People (of all
classes) as the main subject of
history (Hrushevsky, 2021: 418), not only about
the third estate.
A significant role in this expansion of the
interpretation of the "nation" concept was played
by E. Renan (1823-1892). His lecture at the
University of Sorbonne in 1882 - “What is a
Nation?” - is known for the statements that a
nation is not identical to a race (at that time
racism is gaining momentum, forming a kind of
triangle: empire - nation - race). Any nation is an
ethnic mixture. The nation is also not identical to
the language, otherwise how to explain the
separation of the United States from Britain, or
the countries of Latin America from Spain? A
nation is not a religious unity either, since Europe
is multi-confessional. And a nation is not a
geography. Then what is a nation? - Renan asks.
- This is a great solidarity established by the
feeling of sacrifice.
Renan says about it: "Man is not a slave neither
to languages, nor religions, neither to river flows,
nor mountain ranges. Mountains don't know how
to carve out countries... Only a great gathering of
people with common sense and a burning heart
creates a moral consciousness called a
nation" (Renan, 2018: 102).
The existence of a Nation implies a "continued
consent". E. Renan uses a metaphor that a nation
is "a daily referendum". . A crucial aspect of
national identity involves the ongoing
willingness of individuals to be a part of their
nation. Renan characterizes a nation as a
perpetual "daily plebiscite". Switzerland serves
as a notable illustration of a nation created
through the collective choice of its
people (Renan & Hapgood, 2010). The same
argument could be properly defined by the
German term "Willensnation" ("nation-by-
volition"), used to describe the status of any
federal state created by people's choice, not
necessary along ethnic boundaries or religious
belonging.
Another thought-provoking proposition is that
nations are founded not only on collective
memory but also on what they deliberately
choose to forget together. This idea is commonly
cited in studies related to history and political
science that explore nationalism and national
identity issues. The act of intentionally
forgetting, especially when it involves
unpleasant historical truths, can sometimes play
a pivotal role in the establishment of a nation, or
its strengthening. Such an idea derives not only
from Renan's works, but also from some resent
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works related to national questions (Westover,
2004).
Among significant things Renan says about a
nation's nature, there is frequent confusion
between the idea of nationhood and of racial or
linguistic groupings. Renan believes that nations
developed from the common needs of the people,
who consisted of different social and cultural
groups seeking a "collective identity". Renan
discredits the theory that race is the basis for the
unification of people. It is important to note that
France was quite ethnically diverse during the
French Revolution, but it nevertheless managed
to set the stage for nationalism. Renan also
asserts that neither language nor religion are
basis for solidarity because language invites
people to unite, but does not force them to do so,
while religion has become an individual
matter (Renan, 2018: 147). Any nation-forming
experience is the mixture of races, origins and
religions, where conquering people often
adopted the religion and manners of the people
they conquered. The classical example is China
during the Yuan Dynasty (Stovpets, 2020: 63).
E. Renan comes to several profound conclusions:
a Nation is "a will", which is superior to
language, ethnicity, and religion; a Nation is "a
soul, a spiritual principle" that constitutes on the
past and the present. The past contains the
moments of national glory and national dishonor,
the common possession of a rich legacy of
historical memories. And the present consent
means people's desire to continue living together,
their wish to keep on making investments in the
heritage they have jointly received. In other
words, the Nation is a regularity. And the
national unity rests upon common memory of
past glories, and shared ambitions for future
collective achievements.
E. Renan foresees that nations may leave the
scene for a while, he sees the future of Europe as
a confederation. He reflects on this just several
decades before the First World War, when these
nation-empires clash with each other in brutal
massacre. Important characteristic features of the
development of European nations at the
beginning of the 20th century were imperialism,
colonialism, authoritarianism: in Europe, there
was practically no country where wasn't
authoritarian regime, maybe excepting Britain,
but it was imperialistic and promoted the idea of
"British superiority".
On the eve, and after the First World War,
nations (both old and new) disputed priority and
fought for their "living space" (DE:
'Lebensraum'). Here we mean not only Germany,
France, Britain, Russian Empire, but also those
nations that were reborn on the ruins of the
Ottoman Empire: Greece, Bulgaria, Romania,
Serbia, Albania, etc. The Wilsonian principle of
the "right of nations to self-determination" found
expression in the surge of nationalism in the first
half of the 20th century, when a lot of new states
formed on the basis of 'national identity'
suddenly appeared in Europe. The fact that it is
dangerous was understood even before the First
World War, since the Balkans had shown - what
is the national idea in action! Having freed
themselves from the power of Ottoman Turkey,
the Balkan peoples immediately made the
Second Balkan War (1913) between each other.
And each of these nations believed that their time
had come: the Bulgarians began to revive the
"great Bulgaria", the Greeks - the "great Ellada",
the Romanians - the "great Romania", and the
Serbs - "the Great Serbia". As we know from
history, that was not for a long time, as the
geopolitical balance has changed after 1918.
After the Second World War, the stage of
aggressive building of nation-states faded
somewhat, giving way to two supranational
systems - the socialistic and liberal-capitalistic.
One of the hegemons, the Soviet Union, was
building a supranational system. At the same
time, the revival of the national cultures of the
Soviet republics was imitated, while an active
external work was being carried out to support
national liberation movements in the colonies of
the West. This ideological game of the Soviet
Union, known as "national liberation
movements", nowadays transformed into anti-
colonialism, was a naturally disadvantageous
ideology for the West (as European countries still
continued to exploit the developing countries all
over the world). So, on contrary, the West began
to make main focus on human rights and
fundamental freedoms, i.e. on universal values,
which are all above any nation.
Conclusions
Reflections on the meaning of various works on
the origins of nations as political and
sociocultural structures exemplify a social-
constructivist understanding of the nation. The
retrospective analysis of 'national' discourse
allows us to conclude that, during the recent five
centuries, the humankind observes a gradual shift
in the Nation concept interpretation. In the ideas
of the 16th - 17th centuries, only the aristocracy
represented the nation, being its intellectual,
political, financial and ideological core. In the
18th century, the 'third estate' was attached to the
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nation and constituted its majority. In the 19th -
early 20th centuries, the concept of nation has
been expanded to the whole people (any citizen
regardless their social class). Although we can
evaluate this intricate path that some nations have
overcome, and we're even able to extract certain
commonalities and general regularities, but still
we cannot say clearly - what conceptually awaits
the Nation in the next round of globalization.
We tend to support the position that nationhood
is not an eternal concept, but changes over time.
Apparently, at some point in history, regional
confederations in different parts of the world will
replace the nations of today, or at least will gather
them into alliances based on similarity of some
kind. But at the current time, however, the
existence of separate nations seems reasonable,
as long as this state of affairs serves to guarantee
diversity and liberty, in a way which probably
would be lost in the unified world without many
nations. Each nation brings its uniqueness to our
compound humanity.
In the context of the existential crisis that
Ukraine is currently experiencing, the nation still
can be that mobilizing force that helps unite
people in opposition to external aggression. The
principle "nation as a function" becomes primary
in the geopolitical situation of Ukraine, or any
nation like Ukrainians (i.e. those who have a
solid historical tradition and cultural background,
and long-time experience of living in a single
state). In times of peace, the nation could rather
be evaluated as a regularity, as an aspiration to
preserve people's collective identity, with the
support of shared spiritual traditions, cultural
values, and social-economic benefits of being
together by volition.
Another vision about the Nation's perspectives is
though nowadays it seems rather stable and
persistent, nevertheless, globally the concept of
nation does not have enough resources to
influence the world of the 21st century, like it
was in the recent centuries. Even multinational,
multilingual Europe relies upon common
European values, not the national ones. Although
probably, from time to time we will become
witnesses of a short-term renaissance of the
national idea, but most likely the bulk of such
processes will happen in the developing
countries. While in the West (USA, EU, etc.)
both local people, and people who migrated and
have been living there for several generations,
will definitely remember their roots, will honor
their traditions, will remember their motherland
(or have some image of it), but mainly - they will
live in a global supranational system.
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