Byron to D'Annunzio: from liberalism to fascism in national poetry, 1815–1920

ABSTRACT. From Byron's death at Missolonghi in 1824 to D'Annunzio's capture of Fiume for Italy in 1919, the nationalism of universal liberalism and independence struggles changed, in literature as in politics, to cruel dictatorial fascism. Byron was followed by a series of idealistic fighter‐poets and poet‐martyrs for national freedom, but international tensions culminating in World War I exposed fully the intolerant, brutal side of nationalism. D'Annunzio, like Byron, both a major poet and charismatic war leader, was a key figure in transforming nineteenth‐century democratic nationalism into twentieth‐century dictatorial fascism. The poet's ‘lyrical dictatorship’ at Fiume (1919–20) inspired Mussolini's seizure of power in 1922, with far‐reaching political consequences. The poet became the dangerous example of a Nietzschean Übermensch, above common morality, predatory and morally irresponsible. This article shows how the meaning of nationalism was partly determined and transformed by poets, illustrating their role as ‘unacknowledged legislators of the world’.     

Jacob Talmon between Zionism and Cold War Liberalism

The paper focuses on the problematic relationship between Talmon's liberalism and Zionism. My argument is that Talmon's nationalism (Zionism included)—historicist, romantic, visionary—lived in permanent tension with his liberalism—empiricist, pluralist, pragmatic. His critique of totalitarian democracy, reflecting his British experience, emerged independently from his Zionism, grounded in Central European nationalism. The two represented different worlds. Talmon lived in both, serving as an ambassador in-between them, without ever bringing them together.

The essay's first section describes the political education of the young Jacob Talmon (née Flajszer) and the making of The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy. It demonstrates the independence of Talmon's Cold War liberal project from his Zionism. The second section places Talmon in the context of Cold War liberal discourse, showing how integral his critique of revolutionary politics was to contemporary liberalism. The third illustrates the tensions between Talmon's view of Jewish history and his liberalism, between his Zionism and his critique of revolutionary politics. Focusing on Talmon's analyses of nationalism, it highlights the ambiguity of his Zionism.     

Anti‐cosmopolitan liberalism: Isaiah Berlin,Jacob Talmon and the dilemma of national identity

ABSTRACT. The debate between contemporary cosmopolitans and advocates of nationalism is hardly new. Nevertheless, much of it is based on the erroneous assumption that cosmopolitanism should be seen as an outgrowth of liberalism, and that both should be considered as the complete conceptual opposites of nationalism. In this article I focus on two of the post‐war Jewish anglophile intellectuals who took part in this debate during the Cold War years: the Oxonian liberal philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) and the Israeli historian Jacob L. Talmon (1916–80). I use their examples to argue that the dividing line between cosmopolitans and advocates of nationalism should not be regarded as signifying the distinction between liberals and anti‐liberals; in fact, this debate also took place within the camp of the liberal thinkers themselves. I divide my discussion into three parts. Firstly, I examine Berlin's and Talmon's positions within the post‐war anti‐totalitarian discourse, which came to be known as ‘liberalism of fear’. Secondly, I show how a sense of Jewish identity, combined with deep Zionist convictions, induced both thinkers to divorce anti‐nationalist cosmopolitanism – which they regarded as a hollow, illusionary ideal associated with impossible assimilationist yearnings – from the liberal idea. I conclude by suggesting that, although neither man had ever developed a systematic theoretical framework to deal with the complex interactions between ethno‐nationalism, liberal individualism and multiculturalism, Berlin's vision of pluralism provides the foundations for building such a theory, in which liberalism and nationalism become complementary rather than conflicting notions.     

民族主义内在的困境——陈独秀国家观从民族主义到自由主义的转变

在近代中国思想史上,陈独秀堪称思想历程最为曲折的人物之一.早年他服膺民族主义,后来转奉自由主义(民主主义),又转而信仰社会主义(共产主义),晚年他的思想走向社会主义、自由主义和民族主义的大综合.本文所考察的,是陈独秀从民族主义到自由主义的转变,以及这次转变所呈现的民族主义的内在困境.     

Searching for the perfect nation: the itinerary of Hans Kohn (1891–1971)

ABSTRACT. The ‘Hans Kohn Dichotomy’, i.e. the distinction between ‘Western’ and ‘Non‐Western’ nationalism, remains one of the most persistent paradigms in the study of nationalism. This article deals briefly with the terms of Kohn's Dichotomy and with the discussion about it. The main purpose of the article, however, is to problematise the dichotomy in terms of Kohn's personal itinerary which took him from Prague to Russia, and from Britain and Palestine to the United States. Kohn came late to the view that there were two types of nationalism. He adopted this position in the wake of a series of political and personal disappointments, and in response to dramatic historical challenges. In the final analysis, Kohn's Dichotomy was a rhetorical construct, designed to make sense of a world in conflict and to allow Kohn and others, then and later, to come to terms with the hopes and fears raised by nationalism.     

Liberalism and nationalism in Russia. Boris Chicherin as a modernist nationalist

This article investigates the link between nationalism and liberalism in Russia by looking at the way the leading spokesman of early Russian liberalism, Boris Chicherin, combined liberal ideas with notions of nation‐building and the idea of the nation as a modernising phenomenon. The article argues that the young Chicherin, at least in the formative years of the 1850s, had an instrumental approach to liberalism. Liberalism served a specific purpose – to integrate the people and shape a community of active citizens so that Russia could modernise. Chicherin was concerned with the formation of a modern nation‐state rather than the establishment of popular rule or political rights. In this sense, his thinking fits well into what, in the context of the Ottoman Empire, has been called modernist nationalism.     

Existential nationalism: Russia's war against Ukraine

‘If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine’ is the sentiment used by Ukrainian protesters mobilising against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Such a sentiment signifies the stakes of a war where Ukraine is a democratic nation-state fighting for its right to exist against a Russian invasion. Meanwhile, Russia is fighting for a version of Ukraine that is subservient to Russia's idea of what Ukraine should be as a nation-state: under a Russian hegemon geopolitically, where Ukraine's national idea and interpretation of history can be vetted and vetoed by the Russian state. While nationalism scholarship equips us to study Russia's war against Ukraine through the lens of Russian ethnic nationalism and Ukrainian civic nationalism, the ethnic/civic dichotomy falls short of unpacking the more pernicious logics that pervade Russia's intentions and actions towards Ukraine (demilitarisation and de-Nazification). Instead, this article explores the logics of Russia's war and Ukraine's resistance through the concept of existential nationalism where existential nationalism is Russia's motivation to pursue war, whatever the costs, and Ukraine's motivation to fight with everything it has.     

略论19世纪上半期德国社会三大思潮

19世纪上半期,自由主义、民族主义、保守主义等三大思潮影响着德国社会的发展。自由主义在德国表现出温和、保守和依赖国家政权的特点;民族主义首先是资产阶级化的知识分子的运动,呈现浓烈的文化色彩;保守主义则以传统、秩序和稳定为原则,展开了与自由主义、民族主义等要求改变现状者的对抗。三大思潮对日后德国历史的走向产生了重要影响。     

German modernity,barbarous Slavs and profit‐seeking Jews: the cultural racism of nationalist liberals

This paper examines emblematic texts by two important protagonists of post‐1848 liberalism in Germany, Gustav Freytag and Heinrich von Treitschke, focusing on their treatment of Jews and Poles. The paper analyses the social content of their statements and argues that the elements of anti‐Semitism and anti‐Slav racism that they contain were motivated by the specific kind of nationalist liberalism that frames their affirmation of the process of modernisation. This affirmation was directed against the Poles on the one hand, seen as backward Easterners who had to be pushed into civilisation by Prussian–German colonialism, and, on the other hand, the Jews, largely perceived as representing the wrong kind of modernity against which benign (supposedly German) modernity had to be protected. At the same time, the image of the Jew in Freytag and Treitschke also participates in that of the backward Easterner, permitting to see undesirable, allegedly Jewish aspects of modernity also as distortions resulting from an alien and ancient culture. This analysis has consequences for theorisations of both liberalism and nationalism: it suggests that the racism and anti‐Semitism of nationalist liberals were intrinsically related to core aspects of the liberal world‐view rather than being merely contingent opinions held by particular individuals. It also indicates that the nationalism of many German post‐1848 liberals was ethnic as well as liberal. In this way, the paper contributes to the growing body of literature discussing the illiberal aspects of liberalism as well as the shortcomings of the long‐established conceptual dichotomy of ethnic vs. liberal nationalism.     

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.     

East and West in Jewish nationalism: conflicting types in the Zionist vision?

ABSTRACT. This article analyses the ethnic and civic components of the early Zionist movement. The debate over whether Zionism was an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement or a Western‐civic movement began with the birth of Zionism. The article also investigates the conflict that broke out in 1902 surrounding the publication of Herzl's utopian vision, Altneuland. Ahad Ha'am, a leader of Hibbat Zion and ‘Eastern’ cultural Zionism, sharply attacked Herzl's ‘Western’ political Zionism, which he considered to be disconnected from the cultural foundations of historical Judaism. Instead, Ahad Ha'am supported the Eastern Zionist utopia of Elchanan Leib Lewinsky. Hans Kohn, a leading researcher of nationalism, distinguished between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ nationalist movements. He argued that Herzl's political heritage led the Zionist movement to become an Eastern‐ethnic nationalist movement. The debate over the character of Jewish nationalism – ethnic or civic – continues to engage researchers and remains a topic of public debate in Israel even today. As this article demonstrates, the debate between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Zionism has its foundations in the origins of the Zionist movement. A close look at the vision held by both groups challenges Kohn's dichotomy as well as his understanding of the Zionist movement.     

Warm nationalism: Mapping and imagining the Jordanian nation

In 2002, fourteen years after their withdrawal from the West Bank, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan revealed its new national program known as “Jordan First.” The Palace initiated this campaign as part of its shifting national discourse which now sought to actively unite Palestinian-Jordanians and East Jordanians living to the east of the Jordan River. This campaign, and particularly its common map-logo symbol, has evolved over the last fourteen years into a rather “banal” national discourse and symbol. However, Jordanian nationalism and the everyday symbols of the Jordan First campaign are not forgotten. Instead, for many Jordanians, the campaign is a reminder of “hot” geopolitics and palpable identity politics. Drawing from Michael Billig's theorizations of banal nationalism, I examine the relationship between banal and hot forms of nationalism in Jordan and argue that scholarly work on banality needs to focus attention on the connections between these categories. As such, I suggest that framing nationalism as something quite “warm” can in many instances more aptly capture the complexity of nationalism. Using a multi-method approach that includes analyses of national maps and map-logos of Jordan and in-depth interviews with Jordanians about their national identities, I highlight the connections of hot and banal nationalism. Through my analysis, I also show that a Jordanian national identity is multi-scalar, merging Arab supranationalism with Jordanian and Palestinian identities; and thus I also extend Billig's work to examine the multiple scales of nationalism.     

Focusing on Chinese nationalism: an inherently flawed perspective? A reply to Allen Carlson

My article replies to Allen Carlson's critique of the existing literature on Chinese nationalism (Carlson's article was published in Volume 15, issue 1 of Nations and Nationalism, 2009). I address Carlson's criticisms and proceed to evaluate his proposal to move away from an allegedly unhelpful focus on nationalism towards the allegedly more illuminating framework of national identity construction. My approach to the existing literature on Chinese nationalism acknowledges efforts made within it at grappling with issues of theory and definition and builds on this acknowledgement to operate a selective appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses. I argue that while some of the problems identified by Carlson do indeed plague the literature, his advocacy of abandoning nationalism as a focus of research is unwarranted. There is continuing validity in using nationalism as a lens for understanding how China sees its place in the world.     

Passionately internationalist: Fred Halliday and nationalism studies

The aim of this academic obituary is to briefly consider Fred Halliday's (1946‐2010) contribution to nationalism studies. The article will first discuss Halliday's understanding of nationalism, which he defines as a set of ideas that asserts that the world is divided into distinct peoples with a particular history and various entitlements, and his position in the theoretical debate on nationalism. It will then focus on Halliday's combat with the ethical doctrine of nationalism, more specifically the tension between the moral claims of the latter and what he loosely terms Enlightenment principles. The article will conclude by a brief discussion of Halliday's political commitments and his internationalism.     

Theorising the anti-nation: George Woodcock,anarchism, and Canadian nationalism

George Woodcock was anarchism's most influential historian and an important public intellectual in Canada. This article focuses on his engagement with Canadian nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that a ‘philosophical anarchism’ was at the heart of his intellectual project, and this informed his reading of Canadian cultural development and subsequent political challenge to Pierre Elliott Trudeau's civic nationalism. Woodcock decoupled the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘state’ in order to develop a radically different model for Canada—the ‘anti-nation’—defined by regionalism, federalism and direct democracy. His reading of Canada's cultural history supporting this position was therefore part of a strategy to repurpose nationalist rhetoric towards anti-state ends.     

How to gauge banal nationalism and national indifference in the past: proletarian tweets in Belgium's belle époque

Michael Billig's theory of banal nationalism involves the assumption that the absence of an explicit discourse on the nation should be interpreted as the unmindful presence of nationalism and that the mass media faithfully represent or reflect the discourses of ‘ordinary people’. Recent historical research of ‘national indifference’ in imperial Austria has inverted the correlation between the ubiquity of nationalist discourses and their impact in society. This article assesses these conflicting frameworks and refutes AD Smith's critique of everyday nationalism research as necessarily ahistorical and presentist. This case study of the rank‐and‐file of the social‐democratic Belgian Workers' Party at the close of the nineteenth century uses a unique source of working‐class voices: the so‐called ‘propaganda pence’ or ‘proletarian tweets’ from the Flemish‐speaking city of Ghent. Hot, explicit nationalism was absent from these sources, which begs the question: is this proof of banal nationalism or national indifference? A historically contextualized analysis of the absences shows that workers expressed national indifference towards Belgian, but not towards Flemish ethnicity. In Rogers Brubaker's terms: Flemish ethnicity was a relevant social category, but only in a very restricted number of social contexts could it become a basis for ‘groupness’ or political mobilisation in daily life.     

Banal and everyday (inter)nationalism: French and Italian anarchist exiles in London, 1870s–1914

This article explores the anarchists' multilayered theoretical and practical engagement with the concepts and performance of nations, nationalism and national belonging, by applying the frameworks of banal nationalism (understood as an ideology) and everyday nationhood (the daily practices in which nation and nationhood are enacted) as analytical categories, to investigate the Italian and French anarchist exile groups in London between 1870 and 1914. Adopting these theoretical categories proves fruitful in probing the anarchists' perception and enactment of the idea of nation and national belonging, contributing to the literature on the relationship between pre-1914 socialist movements and (inter)nationalism and highlighting the specificity of anarchism therein. Using Fox and Miller-Idriss's four categories of everyday nationhood, we show that while the anarchists explicitly subverted the everyday performance of nationhood, redeploying it along internationalist lines, some forms of attachment to the national did endure and were in fact not always contradictory with anarchist internationalism. Looking at the exilic rituals of this intensely diasporic group thus complicates the simplistic but still pervasive view of a monolithic ideological internationalism and rejection of the national on the part of anarchists.     

The importance of being Ernest: a Comment on Riga and Hall

Ernest Gellner's work on nationalism continues to draw a mix of both admiration and criticism. In a recent article, Riga and Hall find fault with a new line of criticism of Gellner's theory of nationalism that I introduced in a series of articles in this journal. They claim that I have merely repeated a well‐known criticism of Gellner – that his work is functionalist. This would be convenient for their arguments if it were true. While I would agree, and have explicitly acknowledged, that there is nothing new in the charge of functionalism, I do not take a functionalist line on Gellner. Functionalism is not the issue. My work shows that his theory of nationalism is plagued with problems that have little or nothing to do with functionalism.     

Alfred Marshall's economic nationalism

ABSTRACT. Alfred Marshall has been seen as an economic liberal and one of the founders of the neo‐classical school. However, this article challenges such conventional wisdom and argues that Marshall is best understood as an economic nationalist. Economic nationalism has been falsely associated with mercantilism, the zero‐sum view of international economies, and so on. However, a new approach for studying economic nationalism has recently been proposed to redefine its conception. The present article shows that Marshall's economic thought is compatible with this new conception of economic nationalism. Marshall emphasised the role of nationality in the economic process. The characteristics of his economic thought, such as the evolutionary view of economy, conform more closely to Friedrich List's economic nationalism than to economic liberalism. By portraying Marshall's theory as that of economic nationalism, the author concludes that economic nationalism can have a systematic theory.     

The end of ethnic nationalism? Changing conceptions of national identity and belonging among young South Koreans

Historically in South Korea, ideas of nation and nationalism have been based upon the ethnic and cultural homogeneity of all Korean people. More recently, there has been an evolution in South Korean nationalism that is based on strikingly different notions particularly among young people. This paper argues that a new South Korean nationalism is emerging and that it has, what I term, globalised cultural characteristics. These characteristics challenge the role of ethnicity in young people's conception of the South Korean nation and its component members. This paper details the evolution of South Korea's nationalism and explains its implications for Korean politics and society as well as its comparative significance for other national contexts. It also highlights some elements of this evolving nationalism that demonstrate less cosmopolitan characteristics, such as patriarchy and social class, in determining who can be ‘imagined’ as a member of this changing South Korean nation.