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Article Spotlights – May/June Round-Up

This edition of Article Spotlights, reflecting on a number of stories that appeared in News Bites in May and June, brings articles from the SEN Archives focusing on the possibilities of a European collective identity, nationalism in Greece, nationalist ceremony in China, and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.

George Yiangou’s paper asks the question: ‘is a common European identity really a distinct possibility?’

George Yiangou, Analysing the Prospects of Forging an Overarching European Collective Identity, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2001, pp. 37-49.

This article reviews the prospect of forging an pan-European identity through the consideration of the rival approaches of Ernest Gellner and Anthony D. Smith. It also cites Switzerland as an example of a successful multicultural state and investigates the extent to which the Swiss experience can be compared with the emergence of a European identity.

Dimitrios Gkintidis’s essay examines the role of nationalist display in the elaboration of a narrative of ‘Powerful Greece’, and its relation to the dilemmas faced by Greek nationalism since the economic breakdown of the country that began in 2010.

Dimitrios Gkintidis, Towards a Powerful Nation: Neoliberalism and Greek Nationalism in Thrace at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, Volume 14, Issue 3, 2014, pp. 452-472.

This article retraces the permutations of Greek nationalism from the early 1990s up to the late 2000s using the example of the World Thracian Congresses – localized public events of ostentatious nationalist display that were organized from the early 1990s in the Greek border region of Thrace. New discourses on a ‘Powerful Greece’ and flexible geopolitics reflect the particular ways in which Greek nationalism and neoliberalism were configured among local and national elites. By understanding the ways in which aspirations of national grandeur, rationality, and accountability have been constructed for the last twenty years, we can begin to develop a deeper insight into the dilemmas of Greek nationalism during the economic crisis of the early 2010s.

Erika Kuever’s article deals with the 60th Anniversary National Day Parade in China, and its significance as a form of ‘visual poetry’.

Erika Kuever, Performance, Spectacle, and Visual Poetry in the Sixtieth Anniversary National Day Parade in the People’s Republic of China, Volume 12, Issue 1, 2012, pp. 6-18.

The sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 2009 was marked with a massive parade in the heart of Beijing viewed on hundreds of millions of television screens across the nation. English-language media coverage focused primarily on what it saw as the event’s explicit message: the Communist Party’s celebration of the nation’s military might and continued economic growth, and its origins in a coherent and uniquely Chinese ideology. Such coverage largely reflected international fears of China and thus misread the parade’s import and impact on its domestic audience. I argue that the National Day events are better understood as a form of visual poetry that relied on performance to emotionally conflate party, nation, and state. Both the speeches of party leaders and the scripted remarks of state media commentators relied on language and ideas that the Chinese public has heard numerous times. The visual elements of the parade, in contrast, were unprecedented in both scale and spectacle. Hundreds of thousands took part in displays of collective harmony, unified patriotic sentiment, and ethnic unity. The distinctive style and rhythm of the parade depicted a vision of nationhood without the ethnic fractures, labour unrest, and massive inequalities that constitute the greatest threat to the power of the party-state as it embarks on its seventh decade of continuous rule.

Mykola Riabchuk’s piece argues that the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict demonstrates that the most important cleavage in Ukrainian politics and society is between ‘European’ and ‘East Slavonic’ narratives of Ukrainian identity.

Mykola Riabchuk, ‘Two Ukraines’ Reconsidered: The End of Ukrainian Ambivalence?, Volume 15, Issue 1, 2015, pp. 138-156.

The 2014 Russo-Ukrainian war, euphemistically called the ‘Ukraine crisis’, has largely confirmed, on certain accounts, a dramatic split of the country and people’s loyalties between the proverbial ‘East’ and ‘West’, between the ‘Eurasian’ and ‘European’ ways of development epitomized by Russia and the European Union. By other accounts, however, it has proved that the Ukrainian nation is much more united than many experts and policymakers expected, and that the public support for the Russian invasion, beyond the occupied regions of Donbas and Crimea, is close to nil. This article does not deny that Ukraine is divided in many respects but argues that the main – and indeed the only important – divide is not between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, or Russophones and Ukrainophones, or the ‘East’ and the ‘West’. The main fault line is ideological – between two different types of Ukrainian identity: non/anti-Soviet and post/neo-Soviet, ‘European’ and ‘East Slavonic’. All other factors, such as ethnicity, language, region, income, education, or age, correlate to a different degree with the main one. However divisive those factors might be, the external threat to the nation makes them largely irrelevant, bringing instead to the fore the crucial issue of values epitomized in two different types of Ukrainian identity.

Finally, Anne Koumandaraki’s essay focuses on the role of state policies in defining Greek national identity.

Anne Koumandaraki, The Evolution of Greek National Identity, Volume 2, Issue 2, 2002, pp. 39-53.

This paper is an attempt to bring together different and – at times – conflicting arguments on Greek national identity. More specifically, it focuses on the contribution of the Greek state to the process of national homogenisation in the country. The main argument is the process, which lasted almost half the twentieth century, was promoted by specific governmental policies which defined in a vigorous way the borders of the Greek nation. The argument follows Ernest Gellner’s (1983) argument that nationalism is a modernizing force emerging out of the dissolution traditional communities and individuals’ attempts to find new marks of social reference.

Article Spotlights compiled by Dr Shane Nagle

Article Spotlights – March/April round-up

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This edition of Article Spotlights, reflecting on news bites from March/April, brings articles from the SEN Archives focusing on globalisation, immigration and assimilation, and Turkish nationalism, and a piece dealing with the Armenian genocide, the anniversary of which was recently remembered.

Hans-Lukas Kieser’s article examines that genocide from the perspective of modern global history.

Hans-Lukas Kieser, The Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: A Narrative of a General History of Violence, Volume 14, Issue 3, 2014, pp. 500-515

This article explores and describes the destruction of the Ottoman ArmHans-Lukas Kieser, The Destruction of Ottoman Armenians: A Narrative of a General History of Violence, Volume 14, Issue 3, 2014, pp. 500-515enian population in the context of global modern history. It comprehends both the large massacres of fall 1895 and the genocide of 1915-1916. In order to contextualise the anti-Armenian violence, it compares it with other attempts to severely curtail or destroy ethnic or religious groups since the late eighteenth century. In its comparisons, this article emphasizes one main argument that was repeatedly proffered for the use of mass violence: the removal of an existential security threat. “Self-defence” in extreme situations is a main argument for resorting to extreme violence.

Michel Huysseune’s essay focuses on the role of globalisation in the thinking of the regionalist, secessionist nationalism of the Lega Nord of northern Italy.

Michel Huysseune, Defending National Identity and Interests: The Lega Nord ‘s Asymmetric Model of Globalisation, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2010, pp. 221-233

As a movement defending the interests of the wealthier northern regions of Italy, the Lega Nord proposes a nation-building discourse emphasising the successful insertion of Padania (i.e. northern Italy) in the global economy. While its rhetoric exalts the virtues of a liberal economic model, in recent years, the party has also defended the exclusive right of Padania to economic protection. This economic protectionism finds a parallel in the party’s defense of cultural identity, although this identity equally expresses the capacity of Padanians to participate in the global economy. This defence intends to assign Padanians a privileged position in their territory and hence proposes discriminatory practices towards outsiders, especially immigrants. The party thus solves the tension between its legitimisation of and resistance against globalisation by proposing an asymmetric model of globalisation that envisions an internal and international political order based on unequal rights and obligations – and thus privileges for Padania.

Essays by Tuba Kanci and Serhun Al focus on debates within and the changing nature of Turkish nationalism and Turkishness

Tuba Kanci, Reconfigurations in the Discourse of Nationalism and National Identity: Turkey at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, Volume 9, Issue 3, 2009, pp. 359-376

Throughout recent decades, the processes of globalisation and Europeanisation have been influential in Turkey, bringing various changes to the economic, cultural and political spheres. Within the context of these processes, this article analyses the changes and continuities in the discourse of nationalism and national identity in Turkey through their reflections on school textbooks and curricula. On the one hand, the globalisation process has brought calls for democratisation, as well as citizenship and identity claims, from the societal actors in Turkey. On the other hand, it has given rise to concerns about preserving the status quo, which have then been channelled into the language of nationalism. The Europeanisation process has also fed these projects and discourses. Its effects, in moments of close interrelations between Turkey and the European Union, have consisted of bringing positive reinforcements for the decoupling of security concerns and nationalism, the formation of a new and democratic understanding of citizenship and the realisation of ambitions for democratisation in Turkey; however, in other times, backlashes have occurred.

Serhun Al, An Anatomy of Nationhood and the Question of Assimilation: Debates on Turkishness Revisited, Volume 15, Issue 1, 2015, pp. 83-101

Scholars have primarily debated the anatomy of Turkishness within the framework of an ethnic versus civic dichotomy. Arguing that such an approach would be inconclusive and less explanatory, this article approaches Turkishness from a singularity/plurality framework. First, the article emphasizes the singular nature of Turkishness – defined as monolithic nationhood – in the early Republican years that rejected any alternative identity approaches other than the definition of the state elites. Second, the article argues that the homogenization of the nation by the new state targeted those who considered themselves Turks as well, especially those who did not fit the ‘ideal’ or ‘imagined’ Turk (i.e. Muslim but secular, urban, and Western). The final section analyses the persistence and change in the monolithic nationhood in Turkey throughout the twentieth century and considers the implications of the state’s recent identity policies on the meaning of Turkishness.

Diego Acosta’s piece from 2010 offers a timely intervention in the light of the recent disaster in the Mediterranean Sea in which around nine hundred Libyan refugees drowned while trying to reach Italy, on the consequences of beliefs in the purity of the nation on the treatment of immigrants.

Diego Acosta, A Belief in the Purity of the Nation: The Possible Dangers of Its Influence on Migration Legislation in Europe, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2010, pp. 234-254

Immigration is one of the most important issues in the European Union (EU). In order to address the subject, the EU adopted a Directive on a long-term residence status for third-country nationals (TCNs). While implementing this Directive, many Member States changed their migration laws, thus increasingly linking the acquirement of this status with integration requirements. The integration requirements emphasise language acquisition and knowledge of the country, including its history, culture, and constitution. Why is this trend taking place at this particular point in time? While many factors could be mentioned, these integration tests are also the consequence of the constant repetition in the belief of the purity of the nation in certain political discourses, particularly by the populist radical right. This line of thinking creates a worrying problem for the future as European national identities are seen as immutable, thus complicating the acceptance of the new Europeans with an immigrant background. Hence a question arises: To what extent can we see a correlation in some EU countries between the recent introduction of harsher integration requirements for obtaining permanent residence and a certain discourse on national identity, primarily put forward by radical right parties?

Article Spotlights compiled by Dr Shane Nagle

Article Spotlights – Israel and Palestine

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This edition of Article Spotlights from the SEN Archives focuses on Israel and Palestine, after the elections that took place in Israel this month, which saw Binyamin Netanyahu elected for another term in office.

Yitzhak Conforti’s article focuses on the history of territorial thinking in Zionism.

Yitzhak Conforti, Searching for a Homeland: The Territorial Dimension in the Zionist Movement and the Boundaries of Jewish Nationalism, Volume 14, Issue 1, pp. 36-54.

This article addresses the relationship between territorial borders and ethnic boundaries in the Zionist movement. Beginning with the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903, the distinction between these two components of the Zionist movement rose to the forefront of the Zionist consciousness. The argument over the Uganda proposal revealed the differing preferences of political and practical Zionism. But this argument, which ended with the rejection of the Uganda plan in 1905, did not terminate the discussion of the relationship between ‘the people’ and ‘the land’. The aspiration of Zionism’s central stream to establish a Jewish nation-state in Palestine was challenged by political groups on the right and on the left, each of which emphasized either the ethnic or the territorial component. While Palestinian Zionism reinforced the territorial component during the 1920s and ’30s, the 1937 partition plan of the Peel Commission returned the issue of the relationship between the people and the land to the centre ring of political decision-making. This article demonstrates that the attempt of the central stream of the Zionist movement to balance between the people and the land, between the ethnic and the territorial components, defined the boundaries of Zionism during the period discussed.

Katie Attwell’s essay focuses on the ‘self’ and ‘other’ perceptions of adherents to ‘alternative national identity discourses’ among Israel’s Jewish citizens.

Katie Attwell, Bent Twigs and Olive Branches: Exploring the Narratives of Dissident Israeli Jews, Volume 12, Issue 1, pp. 20-37.

This article explores symbolic boundaries and identity-formation of the ‘ethnonational Us’, using narrative analysis of eleven Israeli-Jewish dissidents. The hegemonic nationalist discourse in Israel – Zionism – constructs the dissidents’ identities as the ‘Virtuous Us’, yet these individuals genuinely try to connect with the ‘Demonized Palestinian Other’. I suggest that the dissidents attempt to use alternative national identity discourses to overcome symbolic boundaries. I highlight inconsistencies within individual dissidents’ narratives and attribute them to the employment of multiple discourses, suggesting that some discourses fail to coherently reconcile ‘national’ history with the well-being of the Other, whilst others repel dissidents by appearing to negate or destroy their identities. The dissidents, therefore, cannot use the available discourses to fully overcome symbolic boundaries. Only the hegemonic nationalist discourse can offer a self-evident and compelling enunciation of the dissidents’ political reality, leading one insightful dissident to conclude that there is ‘no way out’ of his dilemma.

Nissim Leon’s piece addresses the role of the religious ultra-nationalist camp as it has developed in Israel’s more recent history.

Nissim Leon, Ethno-religious Fundamentalism and Theo-ethnocratic Politics in Israel, Volume 14, Issue 1, pp. 20-35.

This article addresses the transition of a fundamentalist confrontational religious ideology into an assertive, religio-nationalist ideology by the case of the ethno-Ultra-Orthodox (haredi) Shas party in Israel. Alongside the haredi proclivity towards insularity, we also detect, in recent decades, two new trends within the haredi mainstream. First, we see increasing numbers of haredim (Ultra-Orthodox Jews) integrating into different frameworks that are situated outside of the haredi enclave: the job market, the army, welfare and charity organizations, and more. A second trend, which I will elaborate upon here, is a fundamentalist religious interpretation of elements of Israeli national identity. This trend seeks to view Jewish law, in its orthodox interpretation, as a source for the conservation and maintenance of Jewish identity in Israel: firstly, through the turning of haredism into a dominant factor in the religio-communal arena in Israel; and secondly, through assuming responsibility for demarcating the boundaries of the Jewish collective.

Article Spotlights compiled by Dr. Shane Nagle

Article Spotlights

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This round of Article Spotlights focuses on Greece, in light of the recent elections that brought Syriza to power, and the new government’s attempts to renegotiate the country’s status with the rest of the EU, bringing you studies on nationalism in Greece from the SEN Archives.

Dimitris Dalakoglou’s piece focuses on the tension within Greek nationalism between ‘a supposedly Western-European version of collective self and a non-Western idiom of selfhood.’ Greece has long been affected by a national identity crisis among its elites, Dalakoglou argues, who wish to emphasise both the country’s ‘Europeanness’ and its externality to ‘Europe’. At the same time, a discourse of Greek ‘Westernness’ is used to justify xenophobic treatment of the non-Western ethno-cultural ‘Other’ within Greece, principally non-white immigrants and Muslims.

Dimitris Dalakoglou, ‘From the Bottom of the Aegean Sea’ to Golden Dawn: Security, Xenophobia, and the Politics of Hate in Greece, Volume 13, Issue 3, 2013, pp. 514-522.

Gazmend Kapllani’s essay deals also with the ‘special relationship’ between Greece and Europe, the contrast between Greece’s ‘historical centrality’ and its contemporary ‘political marginality’.

Gazmend Kapllani, The Greek-European Malaise, Volume 13, Issue 3, 2013, pp. 508-513.

Douglas Holme’s piece deals with how the Euro currency has been constructed since the onset of the continental financial-economic crisis by European policy-makers into a symbol of social cohesion and stability across Europe.

Douglas R. Holmes, Cultural Intimacy and the Vicissitudes of the Euro, Volume 13, Issue 3, 2013, pp. 498-503.

Article spotlights compiled by Dr Shane Nagle.

Understanding Nationalism in the Graveyard of Empire (III): Beneath the Eagle’s Wings

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The last part of this series on the historiography of nationalism in Ukraine, ‘Histories Divided and Entwined’, looked at the significance of regionally-differentiated understandings of Ukrainian history. Scholars have emphasised that particular regions in Ukraine have been pivotal for the development of other national ideas in addition to only the Ukrainian, the most significant contemporary example being the attachment felt by Russians towards Crimea, where the Ukrainian-Russian conflict of 2014 began. In recent televised remarks, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev reiterated that “When we speak about Crimea … we realize that it is our history, our destiny and our pain too”. Lev Golinkin, writing in the new York Times has recently noted that the vast majority of the 450,000 Ukrainians who have fled the country since April have gone to Russia. Nicolai Petro of the University of Rhode Island has summed up the conflict as ‘a war over Ukrainian identity’: ‘For the westernmost regions (Galicia), being Ukrainian means suppressing Russian culture so that Ukrainian culture can thrive in its stead. Here, creating a Ukraine that is antithetical to Russia is commonly referred to as making a “civilizational choice” in favor of Europe. For the eight Russophone regions of eastern and southern Ukraine (which I call the Other Ukraine), being Ukrainian means being a distinct nation that is still very close to Russia. These Ukrainians do not wish to join Russia, but neither do they wish to be forced to forsake Russian culture in order to be considered loyal Ukrainians.’

In short, no analysis of nationalism in Ukraine, historical or otherwise, can begin without exploring not only the political role of Russia in Ukrainian affairs, but the role occupied by Ukraine in the Russian nationalist historical imagination.

The dispute over the meaning of the name ‘Ukraine’ itself encapsulates the contested relationship between the country and Russia. It was towards the mid-nineteenth century that ‘Ukrainian’ began to gain currency as an ethno-cultural as opposed to merely geographical identifier, a shift in meaning opposed by the imperial authorities, for whom the country was known as ‘Little Russia’.

As Theodore Weeks notes in his contribution to the Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism (2013), ‘The Russian [imperial] government never considered Belorussians and Ukrainians to make up separate nations, rather they were seen as branches of the Russian people speaking dialects of the Russian language.’ The early decades of Soviet rule in Ukraine resulted in limited recognition of Ukrainian ‘separateness’ as a result of the policy of indigenization, which in turn caused discontent among those Russians in Ukraine who saw themselves as victims of ‘reverse discrimination’. Weeks concludes that over a period of roughly 150 years until the present day a Russian fear of national separatism ‘has played a constant – if not primary – role in Russian politics.’

Andrew Wilson, in The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (2009) also argued that an inability to ‘engage seriously with the reality of Ukraine’s separate existence’ has conditioned Russian political and academic perspectives on Ukraine since 1991. Ukraine, according to this thinking, ‘is an artificial buffer state with no prospect of long-term coherence.’ (Wilson 2009: 300) Ukrainians, by contrast, demonstrate a more varied view of Russia, ranging from ‘rabid Russophobia in western Ukraine to equally Ukrainophobic Russian nationalism in Crimea. (Wilson 2009: 308)

Important recent historiography has demonstrated that Ukraine has played a dual role in ‘the Russian mind’, as a historical point of origin for ‘Slavdom’ and therefore the Russian nation, and also a place from where Russian unity – an often tenuous concept in the country’s history – was threatened. Faith Hillis, in Children of Rus’: Right-Bank Ukraine and the Invention of a Russian Nation (2013), finds that ‘Russia first encountered the challenge of modern nationalism in its western frontier.’ (Hillis 2013: 3) As Geoffrey Hosking noted in his work Russia and the Russians (2012 edn.): ‘Russia has usually been a multi-ethnic empire without a dominant nation’ which has with respect to Russia ‘rendered the distinction between internal and foreign affairs much less well-defined than in most polities.’ (Hosking 2012: 4) Ukraine was the locus for one of the most important foundational events for the Russian national(ist) historical narrative, the Russian Polish War of the 17th century. The Russian imperial state, apparently unable to forge a genuinely unifying idea of Russianness for its Russian subjects (Hosking 2012: 344), was presented with the alternative of defining itself as an empire of the Slavic people. The challenge of Ukrainian nationalism that defined itself against Russia posed a threat to this mode of Russian self-identification, and in a circular process that is familiar to students of other national conflicts, Russian attempts to suppress nascent Ukrainian ‘separateness’ only gave impetus to its development. (Hillis 2013: 16) Hillis has argued that the role of Ukrainian disillusionment with Russia, as opposed to straightforward ‘Russophobia’, should not be underestimated by the historian: ‘Many of the first [nineteenth-century] intellectuals to imagine a separate Ukrainian nation were in fact alumni of the Little Russian lobby.’ (Hillis 2013: 16)

Ilya Prizel, in National Identity and Foreign Policy (1998) has argued that ‘Russia’s history has been marked by a powerful and overbearing state but a weak, and even uncertain, national identity’, and that Ukraine’s history has been burdened by both these problems. (Prizel 1998: 2) The notion of a ‘Russian civilisation’ that takes precedence over established borders (as opposed to one of a Russian national identity that is bounded within the country’s historic borders) is, Prizel argues, an enduring idea with an old vintage in Russian history, and has continued to shape Moscow’s policy on its neighbours. But what made Ukraine so significant in this respect was that ‘the incorporation of Ukraine…fused Russia’s national identity within an imperial identity.’ (Prizel 1998: 157) Ukraine, in this light, becomes a matter of existential importance for Russianness, not just an object of power politics.

What these studies have in common and bring to light is the dual and at times conflicting role played by Ukraine in the development of Russian national identity not only in providing it with an important point of origin (such as the idea or myth of Kievan Rus’) but in offering an unsettling challenge to the very idea of Russianness. Seen in this light, it is less unsurprising that Prime Minister Medvedev should refer to Russian ownership of Crimea not only as ‘our destiny’ but also as ‘our pain’.

References

Faith Hillis, Children of Rus’: Right-Bank Ukraine and the Invention of a Russian Nation (2013)

Geoffrey Hosking, Russia and the Russians (2012 edn.)

Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine (1998)

Theodore Weeks, ‘Separatist Nationalism in the Romanov and Soviet Empires’, in John Breuilly (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism (2013

Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation (2009)

Nicolai N. Petro, ‘The Real War in Ukraine: The Battle over Ukrainian Identity’, The National Interest, 4/12/14

Lev Golinkin, ‘Driving Ukrainians Into Putin’s Arms’, New York Times, 8/10/12

‘Dmitry Medvedev, Russian PM, says Crimea is “our destiny”‘, CBC News, 10/12/14