Kokugaku and an alternative account of the emergence of nationalism of Japan

Out of a concern with the often implicit western‐centricity of theories of nationalism which are currently dominant, the article proposes to shift the focus of analysis onto the working of human agency in our understanding of nations and nationalism. Drawing from insights from the history of ideas, it argues that, contrary to the modernist account, the rise of nationalism of Japan can be traced back to the rise of Kokugaku in the eighteenth century when westernisation/modernisation had not yet reached Japan. Kokugaku scholars were engaged with intense collective self‐reflection and proposed answers to the question who the Japanese were and what Japan should be without adopting the formula of national imagination generated in the West. The article suggests that a focus on human agency has the potential to free inquires into non‐western parts of the world from the deeply embedded western‐centricity of conventional social theories, thus enriching our understanding of the world.     

Nairn's England and the progressive dilemma: reappraising Tom Nairn on English nationalism

In British political and intellectual circles, there is a longstanding disagreement between those envisaging an opportunity for the development of a radical English patriotism and those resistant to the idea of a progressive English imaginary. Despite their antithetical quality, both divergent frameworks were explored in the work of Scottish nationalist and New Left intellectual Tom Nairn, long before mainstream social science preoccupied itself with the ‘English Question’. Notwithstanding his later espousal of Englishness as a contribution to democratic renewal, Nairn's earlier notion of an inherently regressive nationalism remains the dominant frame for many intellectuals and politicians confronted by the challenges of increasingly politicised English identities. Whilst he has been only one of a number of thinkers and writers who have informed and contested political thinking on this question in the UK, the influence of his early work upon liberal and left circles has been underestimated, an oversight that this article addresses.     

National indifferences during everyday nationalism: Experiencing the nation in Finland in the aftermath of the Second World War

Our article discusses the adaptability of the concept of national indifference to the context of post-war Finnish society and everyday nationalism. This period witnessed a transformation of previously exclusive and aggressive nationalism into a tempered and relatively inclusive version. Within this historical context, national indifference became an entangled category that could not be clearly attributed to a specific group of people but which carried with it a gradual change in subjective attitudes and consciousness. The case of post-war Finland demonstrates that just as nationalism changed its shape over time, becoming subtly embedded in everyday life, so too did national indifference. The article thus argues that an increase in the level of national indifference could actually make space for national integration and, furthermore, that any given expressions of nationalism, as well as the lack of them, must be studied against the background of people's experiences, which lend historically conditioned meaning to national sentiment and indifference alike.     

Contesting the nation: negotiating national narratives and the Jewish settlements

Why and how does national identity reopen for contestation? Existing theories argue that institutional design, social ties or elite manipulation alter the saliency and nature of national identity. These theories view the ethno‐nation as homogenous and shaped vis‐à‐vis other groups. However, I argue that we should examine the re‐emergence of nationalism as an intra‐national struggle between groups with different saliency and understandings of national identity: new issues can raise the importance of national identity for some members of the group but not others. Moreover, members develop diverging understandings of fundamentals of national identity such as citizenship, borders and the role of religion. To support the theory, the paper utilises original not yet studied archival materials to show that struggle over Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories led to contestation of the saliency and meaning of Jewish Israeli national identity. Specifically, I analyse letters individuals sent to leading government officials in the early days of the settlements and show that settlement supporters tied the issue to Zionist ethos, injecting new content into Zionist identity. Meanwhile, national identity did not rise in importance or alter in meaning for settlement opposition. The method reveals individual understandings of national identity and points at broader societal divisions.     

Turkish nationalism and the evolutionary idea (1923–1938)

This paper sheds light on the role of evolutionary ideas in the making of Turkish nationalism during the Kemalist era (1923–1938). By so doing, it aims to challenge some of the dominant historiographical viewpoints as to the nature of Turkish nationalism. One is related to the Kemalist elites' predisposition towards the so‐called “scientism” seen as one of the bases for nationalism. We intend to turn upside–down the relation between the Kemalists' use of science and Turkish nationalism. Second, we problematize the “culturalist” origins of Turkish nationalism arguing that the seemingly “culturalist” reflections of the time were, indeed, materialist formulations based on the science of the times. We discuss in this respect the Kemalist elites' use of evolutionary ideas. By synthesizing the ways in which these elites employed evolutionary ideas in the fields of history, language, geography, anthropology, biology, eugenics, and pedagogy, we aim to understand the specific nature of Turkish nationalism before 1945. This secular nationalism conceived culture as having materialist bases and differed fundamentally from the culturalist varieties of Turkish nationalism coloured by Islam in the post‐1945 era. Furthermore, the paper empirically enriches the complex and entangled story of evolutionary ideas in the early Turkish Republic.     

Reconstructing the history of nationalist cognition and everyday nationhood from personal accounts

New approaches to nationalism have focused on the role of human agency within nation‐building structures (nationhood from below, everyday nationalism, experiences of nation, personal nationalism, etc.). However, the development of specific methodologies is still scarce. This paper proposes the use of personal accounts (mostly journals and autobiographies, but not only) as sources for qualitative historical research in nations and nationalism. Departing from the concepts of ‘identity’, ‘experience’ and ‘memory’, it is argued that, although very problematic, these sources are a valid path to the study of nations as they are: social phenomena of discursive nature and political frame, whose real agents are individuals. When these agents narrate their lives employing the nation as a meaningful category, they are not producing mere second‐hand reflections of superior and prior realms, but are performing microhistorical acts of nation‐making that are significant for understanding any case of nation‐building. The paper includes an empirical example using British personal accounts from the Age of Revolutions (c.1780–1840).     

Competing models of nationalism: an analysis of memorial ceremonies in schools

ABSTRACT. By analysing school memorial ceremonies in Israel, this article demonstrates how dominant groups in Israeli society (upper‐ and middle‐class, secular, educated Jews of European origin) exploit their historical monopoly over the Israeli warrior ethos in order to retreat from their unconditional commitment to the state and the military, which stands at the very core of traditional ‘heroic nationalism’. Nonetheless, despite their withdrawal from the military ethos, analysis of the school ceremonies shows that rather than distancing themselves from the national collective, they are promoting a different kind of nationalism – one that I term ‘traumatic nationalism’. This model departs from the warrior ethos and places mourning and a feeling of victimhood at its centre. Thus, through the arena of education, the dominant groups – which mark out the global as their sphere of action – promote a model of nationalism that meets the demands of the post‐national discourse.     

Reconfiguring the French nation: Public debates on the Left and national identity

Since the 1980s, neoliberal globalisation has shaped the fate of local and national cultural productions, from movies to music, from entertainment to food. How did French intellectual and political elites respond to this unprecedented challenge? What were the implications for the politics of nationalism and national identity? Two books respond to these questions, although in very different ways – the first directly and the second indirectly. Vincent Martigny's Dire la France explains how a new way of narrating French national identity emerged in the 1980s within an internationally oriented French Left, attentive of the coming challenges of cultural pluralism. Patrick Boucheron's (ed.) Histoire mondiale de la France advances into a more challenging direction by skilfully unsettling the ‘our ancestors the Gauls’ clichéd narrative. French history is thus redefined by moving away from the Frankish/Gallic myth of descent, thereby reconfiguring national identity along new lines. This article identifies how crucial debates on the cultural nation and cultural identity emerged in the wake of the May 1968 uprising, asking how much they contributed to the current shape and meaning of French national identity. It thus reviews what can be described as a new historiographical turn in French history.     

Nationalism studies between methodological nationalism and orientalism: an alternative approach illustrated with the case of El Greco in Toledo,Spain

Methodological nationalism is still dominant in nationalism studies. When studying the construction of national identities, scholars generally limit their study to the borders of one nation‐state, while only paying attention to members of that particular nation. Implicitly, foreign actors and influences are left out of the picture. I will challenge this methodological nationalism with a case study, which demonstrates that the place of Toledo within the Spanish national imagination, and more particularly that of El Greco, the most important representative of the city's artistic heritage, was largely determined by foreigners. During the nineteenth century, El Greco was rediscovered primarily by foreign scholars and artists. Moreover, it would be the rise of international tourism in the early twentieth century that convinced Toledans to adopt El Greco as the city's main artistic icon. This case, thus, clearly shows that in nationalism studies methodological nationalism can be avoided by also including foreign actors.     

Possibilities and pitfalls of the concept of national indifference

This introduction to the themed section ‘The history of national indifference. A critical appraisal’ explores the challenges and possibilities of the concept of national indifference. It starts from the premise that national indifference remains a very useful concept to avoid falling into teleological narratives of nationalism. The central argument is that national indifference needs to be theorized as a non-binary, relative concept that is not the complete opposite of national identification. Indeed, the contributions show that national indifference has gradations and can coexist with explicit, banal or everyday forms of nationalism, both among elites and ordinary people, both in and outside of East Central Europe, both before and after the Two World Wars. This central argument results from an engagement with three areas of debate surrounding the national indifference literature, which all relate to its (inadvertent) reproduction of binary understandings of nationalism: the dichotomous conceptualization of east versus west, nationalisation versus non-nationalisation and elites versus masses.     

From folklore to patriotic and protest songs: Music,youth, and Basque identity during the 1960s

Taking a bottom‐up approach to the study of nationalism, the following pages constitute an attempt to shed light on the role singing played for a young generation of Basques who actively participated in the process of construction of Basque collective identity during the cultural revival movement of the 1960s. In doing so, this article aims at showing the fundamental role of active audiences, as well as their changing political and social context, in conforming the meaning of “Basque songs” as means to promote Basque nationalism and sustain opposition to the Franco regime. The study of the production, reception, and reinterpretation of Basque music during the cultural revival of the 1960s presented here intends to emphasize the interest of focusing on how ordinary people contribute to the recreation of the nation through their appropriation and interpretation of cultural symbols and practices.     

Ruptures and continuities in nationhood narratives: reconstructing the nation through history textbooks in Serbia and Croatia

While the (mis) use of history to fuel particular constructions of the nation is well‐documented in the literature, the ways in which nationhood narratives and national ideologies evolve and transform over time are rarely explored. When ruptures – such as state failure or civil war – occur, interpretations of history and nationhood narratives cannot be completely rewritten. Rather, they need to follow up upon previous, established versions, relying on anchoring motives that offer a minimum level of continuity. Relying on a systematic analysis of over forty years of history revisionism in Serbia and Croatia (1974 to 2017), I demonstrate the discursive ways in which nationhood narratives evolved over time and space: from the dismantling of the former common Socialist narrative, replacement with new ethno‐national narratives, the bumpy transformations through the democratic transitions, to the gradual consolidation into the ‘new’ reconstructed nationhood narratives prevailing in the two countries today.     

Scotland,Atlantic slavery and the Scottish National Party: From colonised to coloniser in the political imagination

Over the last three decades, a major shift has taken place in Scottish nationalist understandings of Scotland's colonial past. During the second half of the twentieth century, independence supporters viewed Scotland's relationship with England in colonial terms. Since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, nationalists have increasingly recognised Scots' role in Atlantic slavery. This paper explores this change within the Scottish National Party (SNP) using archival sources, published material and Scottish Parliamentary records. It demonstrates that a maturing historiography has drawn attention to Scotland's slavery past. History has become politically relevant in transatlantic deliberations over racial injustice, which have grown in intensity since the international Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. SNP ministers and parliamentarians have responded to this context by incorporating addressing Scotland's role in Atlantic slavery within a case for independence that is styled as progressive and contrasts with the more recalcitrant attitudes, which predominate at UK level.     

The nation in the region: flamenco and canzone napoletana as national icons in modern Spain and Italy (1880–1922)

Although the relationship between music and nationalism has been at the centre of recent cross‐disciplinary research, many areas remain unexplored. Among them are forms of ‘national music’ that nest overlapping identities, functioning simultaneously as vehicles of regional, ethnic, urban, global and diasporic belongings. This article focuses on the national dimension of these multilevel identities, concentrating on the swings and transmigrations between the national and the regional. It compares two Mediterranean traditions which, particularly between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have served as multilevel identifiers of national and regional belongings: flamenco and canzone napoletana (Neapolitan song). I argue that, besides geographically bounded identities, both genres were constructed as ‘national’ primarily abroad, rather than in their home countries, thus contributing to a theory of the ‘international’ dimension of ‘national’ music. In the case of flamenco, I focus on the irradiation centre of the time, Paris, although the modern notion of musical Spanishness was first associated with national identity in Russia. The canzone consolidated its international position mostly through the Italian diaspora, achieving a much wider reach than is ordinarily thought, both nationally and globally.     

Nebulous nationalism: Walker Connor in an era of rising populism

Walker Connor's extensive writings on nationalism covered a wide range of issues and an even wider range of societies, from North America to Western Europe, from the countries of the Communist bloc to the evolving forms of identity and affiliation throughout the postcolonial, developing world. No theme in his work is perhaps more salient than his critical distinction between state and nation, one that was so often blurred by a loose terminology that saw political units and forms of ethnic identity as synonymous. For Connor, this sin was perpetrated by both academic scholars and general writers and led to a lack of appreciation of one of the foremost forces – what he called ethno‐nationalism – shaping the contemporary world.     

Remembering the past against the grain: an analysis of the reconstructions of the past in The Sunday News's ‘Lest We Forget’ column

Memories of the nationalist struggle are fervently contested in Zimbabwean public spaces such as the media. This paper examines the emergence of the counter‐hegemonic historical narratives in the state‐controlled media that seek to subvert the dominant nationalist discourses propagated by the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF). Focusing on the Sunday News's Lest We Forget newspaper column, the paper analyses the representations of the role played by the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in the liberation struggle, a nationalist movement whose contributions are marginalised and obscured in the official nationalist historiography. Given that in Zimbabwe the state‐owned media are generally viewed as mouthpieces of the ruling party, this paper identifies the tensions in the Sunday News as alternative historical memories are being reproduced and sustained. Drawing upon the critical discourse analysis (CDA) method, this article argues that alternative historical imaginations are rekindled in the state media.     

Reconstructed nationalism in Taiwan: a politicised and economically driven identity

Since the late 1980s, Taiwan has been engulfed in waves of both democratisation and integration with mainland China. These two waves have pulled identity reconstruction in Taiwan in two different directions. In the process of democratisation, a shift to a majoritarian system encouraged a Taiwanese renaissance on the political platform and consequently led to the deconstruction of Chinese identity. On the other hand, in the 1990s, with the high mobility of capital and people across the Taiwan Strait, close economic ties could have put the brakes on Taiwan independence movements. Hence, this paper uses random coefficient models to explore how the democratic transition and increasing cross‐strait relations brought about psychological and structural mechanisms that motivated people to opt for identity change in Taiwan. It also attempts to investigate how people dealt with the dissonance between rising Taiwanese nationalism and the economic interests that deterred a radical Taiwanese identity.