"My first publications on nationalism contained extended references to religion ... Subsequent familiarity with the impressive sociological work by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann enabled me to show more clearly how nationalism, as a type of identity, 'shelters the individual from ultimate terror', that is, death as 'the most terrifying breakdown of identity' ... In general, I share this consensus, while stipulating that nations, but no particular nation of the modern type, and certainly not nationalism existed before the 16th century. Such issues of timing and agency are very important to my theory, for my methodological preference is for intensive employment of historical data over the longue durée ... The pre-modern social formations that I treat in Nations before Nationalism (1982) and elsewhere ... require a national idea. Fundamental themes are myth, symbol, and communication, especially as they relate to boundary mechanisms of a psychological rather than territorial nature."
Myth and Symbolism Theory of Nationalism, John A. Armstrong, 2001. [1]
John Alexander Armstrong Jr. (4 May 1922 – 2010) was Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Born in St. Augustine, Florida on 4 May 1922, he entered the University of Chicago at age 20 where he received both bachelor's and master's degrees. However, the date of his graduation was delayed by his enlistment in the U.S. Army in Belgium during World War II, from 1944 to 1945. Such experience appears to have certain impacts upon the direction of his academic research on nationalism in Europe afterwards.
He entered Columbia University for further study in 1950 and received a Ph.D. three years later. [2]
His earlier works focus on nationalism and ideologies in Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia during the 1950s and 1960s. The most influential work of his is the path-breaking Nations before Nationalism (1982) which firstly systematically expressed the longue durée of ethnic identity and has inspired theorists of ethnosymbolism including Anthony D. Smith.
Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, liberalism, and Marxism, fascism is placed on the far right-wing within the traditional left–right spectrum.
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's sovereignty (self-governance) over its homeland. Nationalism holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on shared social characteristics of culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics, religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. Nationalism seeks to preserve and foster a nation's traditional cultures and cultural revivals have been associated with nationalist movements. It also encourages pride in national achievements and is closely linked to patriotism. Nationalism can be combined with diverse political goals and ideologies such as conservatism or socialism.
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a common language, history, ethnicity, a common culture and, in many cases, a shared territory. A nation is a collective identity of people. A nation is more overtly political than an ethnic group; it has been described as "a fully mobilized or institutionalized ethnic group". Some nations are equated with ethnic groups and some are equated with an affiliation with a social and political constitution. A nation has also been defined as a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity and particular interests.
Hindutva (transl. Hinduness) is the predominant form of Hindu Nationalism in India. As a political ideology, the term Hindutva was articulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923. It is championed by the Hindu Nationalist volunteer organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other organisations, collectively called the Sangh Parivar. The Hindutva movement has been described as a variant of "right-wing extremism" and as "almost fascist in the classical sense", adhering to a concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony. Some analysts dispute the "fascist" label, and suggest Hindutva is an extreme form of "conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism".
Hindutva was mainstreamed into Indian politics with Narendra Modi's election as Prime Minister in 2014.
Gerhard Lachmann "George" Mosse was a German-born emigre from Nazi Germany who first went to Great Britain and then the United States. He was a professor of history at the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Best known for his studies of Nazism, he authored more than 25 books on topics as diverse as constitutional history, Protestant theology, and the history of masculinity. In 1966, he and Walter Laqueur founded The Journal of Contemporary History, which they co-edited.
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, was a radical far-right Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization established in 1929 in Vienna. The organization first operated in Eastern Galicia. It emerged as a union between the Ukrainian Military Organization, smaller radical right-wing groups, and right-wing Ukrainian nationalists and intellectuals represented by Dmytro Dontsov, Yevhen Konovalets, Mykola Stsyborsky, and other figures.
Historiography is the study of how history is written. One pervasive influence upon the writing of history has been nationalism, a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and cultural identity. Nationalism has provided a significant framework for historical writing in Europe and in those former colonies influenced by Europe since the nineteenth century. Typically official school textbooks are based on the nationalist model and focus on the emergence, trials and successes of the forces of nationalism.
Michael Billig is a British academic. He is Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences at Loughborough University, working principally in contemporary social psychology although much of his work crosses disciplinary boundaries in the social sciences.
In the Vedic Hinduism, a homa also known as havan, is a fire ritual performed on special occasions by a Hindu priest usually for a homeowner. The grihasth keeps different kinds of fire including one to cook food, heat his home, amongst other uses; therefore, a Yagya offering is made directly into the fire. A homa is sometimes called a "sacrifice ritual" because the fire destroys the offering, but a homa is more accurately a "votive ritual". The fire is the agent, and the offerings include those that are material and symbolic such as grains, ghee, milk, incense and seeds.
Anthony David Stephen Smith was a British historical sociologist who, at the time of his death, was Professor Emeritus of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the London School of Economics. He is considered one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies.
Afrikaner nationalism is a political ideology that was born in the late nineteenth century among Afrikaners in South Africa. It was immensely influenced by anti-British sentiment which grew strong among the Afrikaners, especially because of the Boer Wars.
The longue durée is an expression used by the French Annales School of historical writing to designate their approach to the study of history. It gives priority to long-term historical structures over what François Simiand called histoire événementielle, concentrating instead on all-but-permanent or slowly evolving structures, and substitutes for elite biographies the broader syntheses of prosopography. The crux of the idea is to examine extended periods of time and draw conclusions from historical trends and patterns.
Many scholars argue that there is more than one type of nationalism. Nationalism may manifest itself as part of official state ideology or as a popular non-state movement and may be expressed along civic, ethnic, cultural, language, religious or ideological lines. These self-definitions of the nation are used to classify types of nationalism. However, such categories are not mutually exclusive and many nationalist movements combine some or all of these elements to varying degrees. Nationalist movements can also be classified by other criteria, such as scale and location.
John Hutchinson is a British academic. He is a reader in nationalism at the London School of Economics (LSE), in the Department of Government.
Mykola Stsiborskyi, also may be spelled Stsiborsky, Stsyborsky, Ściborski, or Sciborski was a Ukrainian nationalist politician who served on the Provid, or central leadership council of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and who was its chief theorist. He sided with Andriy Melnyk when the OUN split into two hostile factions, and was likely murdered by followers of Melnyk's rival Stepan Bandera.
Ethnosymbolism is a school of thought in the study of nationalism that stresses the importance of symbols, myths, values and traditions in the formation and persistence of the modern nation state.
Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on ethnocentric approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group.
The All-Russian nation, also known as the pan-Russian nation or the triune Russian nation is an Imperial Russian and Russian irredentist ideology which sees the Russian nation as comprising the three sub-nations Great Russians, Little Russians and White Russians, which include modern East Slavs, rather than only modern Russia and ethnic Russians.
Étienne Balibar is a French philosopher. He has taught at the University of Paris X-Nanterre, at the University of California Irvine and is currently an Anniversary Chair Professor at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University and a Visiting Professor at the Department of French and Romance Philology at Columbia University.
Theories on the existence of nationalism in the Middle Ages may belong to the general paradigms of ethnosymbolism and primordialism or perennialism. Several scholars of nationalism support the existence of nationalism in the Middle Ages. This school of thought differs from modernism, which suggests that nationalism developed after the late 18th century and the French Revolution.