Nationalism and Empire in Eastern Europe

Jurij Borys. The Sovietization of Ukraine, 1917–1923. The Communist Doctrine and Practice of National Self-Determination. Revised edition. Edmonton: The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1980. Pp. xxii, 488; Vera S. Dunham. In Stalin's Time. Middle-class Values in Soviet Fiction. Introduction by Jerry F. Hough. First paperback edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Pp. xiv, 283; Taras Hunczak, editor. The Ukraine, 1917–1921: A Study in Revolution. Introduction by Richard Pipes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1977. Pp. viii, 424; Roy Medvedev, The October Revolution. Foreword by Harrison E. Salisbury. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979. Pp. xix, 240; Rosalind Mitchison, editor. The Roots of Nationalism: Studies in Northern Europe. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd., 1980. Pp. vii, 175; Peter J. Potichnyj, editor. Poland and Ukraine, Past and Present. Edmonton: The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1980. Pp. xiv, 365; Edward C. Thaden, editor. Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855–1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Pp. xiii, 497; Anthony F. Upton. The Finnish Revolution, 1917–1918. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980. Pp. v, 608.     

The Making of '89: Nationalism and the Dissolution of Communist Eastern Europe

Abstract. Designed and delivered as a ‘think-paper’ at the first conference of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism in 1991, this contribution has been revised in the light of subsequent developments but retains the essential flavour and format of the original. The primary objective of the article is to identify the most typical and authoritative stimuli promoting and sustaining the rising tide of nationalism over the five years preceding the collapse of communist Eastern Europe in 1989/91, concentrating on environmental threat, demographic flux, the media revolution and the bankruptcy of supra-national authority. The secondary objective is to reflect on how differing evaluations of these stimuli have influenced rival interpretations of the phenomenon of modern nationalism. Experiencing both a ‘resurgence’ and a ‘regeneration’ (but not a ‘revolution') over the last ten years, nationalism is expected to remain a dominant force across greater Eastern Europe for the foreseeable future.     

Nationalism and National Movements: Comparing the Past and the Present of Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract. This article compares the ‘new nationalism’ in post-communist countries since the 1980s with the ‘classical’ national movements o the nineteenth century. Looking for analogies and differences between these two processes, it seeks to achieve a better understanding and more profound interpretation of contemporary ‘nationalism’. Most important analogies are: both national movements emerged as a result of (and as an answer to) the crisis and disintegration of an old regime and its value system; in both cases we observe a low level of political experience among the population, the stereotype of a personalised nation, and of a defensive position. Similarly both movements define their national border by both ethnic and historical borders: in both cases, the nationally relevant conflict of interests plays a decisive role. Among the differences are: the extremely high level of social communication in the twentieth-century movements, combined with a ‘vacuum at the top’ (the need for new elites) and with deep economic depression. The ‘contemporary’ national movements fought for the political rights of undoubtedly pre-existing nations (above all, for full independence), while the ‘classical’ ones fought for the concept of a nation-to-be, whose existence was not generally accepted. Nevertheless, in both cases, similar specifics of the nation-forming process under conditions of a ‘small nation’ can be observed. The author does not view nationalism as a ‘disease’ or external force: but rather as an answer given by some members of the nation to new challenges and unexpected conflicts of interests, which could be interpreted as national ones.     

行走在东欧——访国际旅游摄影俱乐部成员

关于欧洲,国人总会有太多向往,尤其是西欧的那些国家,英国、法国等等,都是很多游人去欧洲旅行的首选目的地。但是国际摄影俱乐部的几个会员却另辟蹊径,在不久前去了东欧的几个国家,带给我们很多不一样的感觉……下面是本刊与这几位会员的对话。     

Revolution and elite transformation in Eastern Europe

The external and internal causes, elite‐mass dynamics, and elite‐level changes that appear, respectively, to have preceded, accompanied, and followed the revolutionary upheavals in Eastern Europe between 1989–1991 are examined comparatively. Particular attention is paid to the possible emergence of national elites that share a consensus on rules of the game and that are unified in defence of democratic institutions. Prospects for such elites are judged to be best in Poland and Hungary, less good in Czechoslovakia, poor in Romania, Bulgaria and Albania, and virtually nonexistent in the Yugoslav republics.     

The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe

Sherzer, Joel. Verbal Art in San Blas: Kuna Culture through Its Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. x + 281 pp. including references and index. $39.50 cloth.

Heider, Karl G. Indonesian Cinema: National Culture on Screen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991. x + 154 pp. including bibliography and index. $28.00 cloth, $9.95 paper.     

The Burning of Sampati Kuer: Sati and the Politics of Imperialism,Nationalism and Revivalism in 1920s India

Sati, the immolation of a Hindu widow on her husband's funeral pyre, is a rare, but highly controversial practice. It has inspired a surfeit of scholarly studies in the last twenty years, most of which concentrate on one of two main historical sati ‘episodes’: that of early‐colonial Bengal, culminating with the British prohibition of 1829, and that of late twentieth‐century Rajasthan, epitomised by the immolation of Roop Kanwar in 1987. Comparatively little detailed historical analysis exists on sati cases between these two events, however, a lacuna this paper seeks to address by exploring British and Indian discourses on sati as they existed in late‐colonial India. The paper argues that sati remained a site of ideological and actual confrontation in the early twentieth century, with important implications for ongoing debates about Hindu religion, identity and nation. It focuses on the intersection between various colonial debates and contemporaneous Indian social and political concerns during the controversy surrounding the immolation of Sampati Kuer in Barh, Bihar, in 1927, emphasising resonances with postcolonial interpretations of sati and the dissonance of early nineteenth‐century tropes when reproduced in the Patna High Court in 1928. Thus, while Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid have suggested that ‘ad hoc’ attempts to piece together a ‘modern’ narrative of widow immolation began in the 1950s, this paper will suggest that various contemporary discursive formations on sati can be observed in late‐colonial India, when discussions of sati became entwined with Indian nationalism and Hindu identity politics and evoked the first organised female response to sati from an emergent women's movement that saw it as an ideological, as well as physical, violation of women.