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 to create a nation state. 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 a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics, religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. Nationalism, therefore, seeks to preserve and foster a nation's traditional culture. There are various definitions of a "nation", which leads to different types of nationalism. The two main divergent forms are ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism.
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes such factors as language, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and customs of the nation in its primal sense of those who were born within its culture. It can be applied to ethnic nationalism as well as civic nationalism. Romantic nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the top down, emanating from a monarch or other authority, which justified its existence. Such downward-radiating power might ultimately derive from a god or gods (see the divine right of kings and the Mandate of Heaven).
Sovereigntism, sovereignism or souverainism is the notion of having control over one's conditions of existence, whether at the level of the self, social group, region, nation or globe. Typically used for describing the acquiring or preserving political independence of a nation or a region, a sovereigntist aims to "take back control" from perceived powerful forces, either against internal subversive minority groups, or from external global governance institutions, federalism and supranational unions. It generally leans instead toward isolationism, and can be associated with certain independence movements, but has also been used to justify violating the independence of other nations.
Anarchism and nationalism both emerged in Europe following the French Revolution of 1789 and have a long and durable relationship going back at least to Mikhail Bakunin and his involvement with the pan-Slavic movement prior to his conversion to anarchism. There has been a long history of anarchist involvement with nationalism all over the world as well as with internationalism.
The rise of the Western notion of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire eventually caused the breakdown of the Ottoman millet concept. An understanding of the concept of nationhood prevalent in the Ottoman Empire, which was different from the current concept of nationhood as it was centered on religion, was a key factor in the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
The Illyrian movement was a pan-South-Slavic cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian intellectuals during the first half of the 19th century, around the years of 1835–1863. This movement aimed to create a Croatian national establishment in Austria-Hungary through linguistic and ethnic unity, and through it lay the foundation for cultural and linguistic unification of all South Slavs under the revived umbrella term Illyrian.
The Armenian national awakening resembles that of other non-Turkish ethnic groups during the rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire in development of ideas of nationalism, salvation and independence in Armenia, as the Ottoman Empire tried to cover the social needs by creating the Tanzimat era, the development of Ottomanism and First Constitutional Era. However, the coexistence of the communities under Ottomanism proved to be a dysfunctional solution as did the Second Constitutional Era which also ignited the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
Estonian nationalism refers to the ideological movement for attaining and maintaining identity, unity and autonomy on behalf of a population deemed by some of its members to constitute an Estonian cultural unit of population with a separate homeland, shared ancestral myths and memories, a public culture, common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members.
The rise of nationalism in Europe was spurred by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. American political science professor Leon Baradat has argued that “nationalism calls on people to identify with the interests of their national group and to support the creation of a state – a nation-state – to support those interests.” Nationalism was the ideological impetus that, in a few decades, transformed Europe. Rule by monarchies and foreign control of territory was replaced by self-determination and newly formed national governments. Some countries, such as Germany and Italy were formed by uniting various regional states with a common "national identity". Others, such as Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Poland were formed by uprisings against the Ottoman or Russian Empires. Romania is a special case, formed by the unification of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia on 1859 and later gaining independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878.
The Estonian Age of Awakening is a period in history where Estonians came to acknowledge themselves as a nation deserving the right to govern themselves. This period is considered to begin in the 1850s with greater rights being granted to commoners and to end with the declaration of the Republic of Estonia in 1918. The term is sometimes also applied to the period around 1987 and 1988.
The Lithuanian National Revival, alternatively the Lithuanian National Awakening or Lithuanian nationalism, was a period of the history of Lithuania in the 19th century at the time when a major part of Lithuanian-inhabited areas belonged to the Russian Empire. It was expressed by the rise of self-determination of the Lithuanians that led to the formation of the modern Lithuanian nation and culminated in the re-establishment of an independent Lithuanian state. The most active participants of the national revival included Vincas Kudirka and Jonas Basanavičius. The period largely corresponded to the rise of romantic nationalism and other national revivals of 19th-century Europe.
Albanian nationalism is a general grouping of nationalist ideas and concepts generated by ethnic Albanians that were first formed in the 19th century during the Albanian National Awakening. Albanian nationalism is also associated with similar concepts, such as Albanianism and Pan-Albanianism, (Panshqiptarizmi) that includes ideas on the creation of a geographically expanded Albanian state or a Greater Albania encompassing adjacent Balkan lands with substantial Albanian populations.
Left-wing nationalism or leftist nationalism, also known as social nationalism, is a form of nationalism based upon national self-determination, popular sovereignty, national self-interest, and left-wing political positions such as social equality. Left-wing nationalism can also include anti-imperialism and national liberation movements. Left-wing nationalism often stands in contrast to right-wing politics and right-wing nationalism.
Among scholars of nationalism, a number of types of nationalism have been presented. 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.
Prof. Miroslav Hroch is a Czech historian and political theorist and a professor at the Charles University in Prague.
Nationalization of history is the term used in historiography to describe the process of separation of "one's own" history from the common universal history, by way of perceiving, understanding and treating the past that results with construction of history as history of a nation. If national labeling of the past is not treated with great care, it can result in the retrospective nationalization of history and even assigning nonexistent or exaggerating existing national attributes of historical events and persons. Nationalization of history, which began after a period of globalization of history, was not only one of causes, but also element and result of the process of establishment of modern nations.
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 an ethnocentric approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group.
Bulgarian Millet was an ethno-religious and linguistic community within the Ottoman Empire from the mid-19th to early 20th century. The semi-official term Bulgarian millet, was used by the Sultan for the first time in 1847, and was his tacit consent to a more ethno-linguistic definition of the Bulgarians as a nation. Officially as a separate Millet in 1860 were recognized the Bulgarian Uniates, and then in 1870 the Bulgarian Orthodox Christians. At that time the classical Ottoman Millet-system began to degrade with the continuous identification of the religious creed with ethnic identity and the term millet was used as a synonym of nation. In this way, in the struggle for recognition of a separate Church, the modern Bulgarian nation was created. The establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870, meant in practice official recognition of a separate Bulgarian nationality, and in this case the religious affiliation became a consequence of national allegiance. The founding of an independent church, along with the revival of Bulgarian language and education, were the crucial factors that strengthened the national consciousness and revolutionary struggle, that led to the creation of an independent nation-state in 1878.
The First Latvian National Awakening or the First Awakening was a cultural and national revival movement between 1850 and 1880 among the Young Latvians, a group of well-educated Latvians, who, opposed to the Baltic German dominance in Livonia and Courland Governorates, created the basis for the modern Latvian nation state. It was influenced by the European romantic nationalism movements of Young Germans and Czech National Revival. Most of their efforts were spent on educating Latvians, criticizing Germans and removing the stigma from Latvian language, traditions and culture.
The beginning of Georgian nationalism can be traced to the middle of the 19th century, when Georgia was part of the Russian Empire. From being more culture-focused in the Imperial Russian and Soviet periods, it went through several phases, evolving into radical ethnocentric in the late 1980s and early in the post-Soviet independence years, and to a more inclusive and civic-oriented form in the mid-2000s. However, vestiges of ethnic nationalism remain among many Georgians.
