Russian and Euro-Asian BulletinVol.7 No.12 December 1997

Published by the Contemporary Europe Research CentreUniversity of Melbourne

Two Types of Nationalism in Europe?

Stefan AuerDec 1997

While intellectuals and some politicians inthe West have seen Europe approaching the‘postmodern’ age, in which the conceptionof a national state would become outdatedand would be replaced by a new multina-tional and multicultural entity, the ‘back-ward’ neighbours in the East have been saidto be prone to succumb to a resurgence ofnationalism. Thus, analysts like Schöpflin1

saw confirmed the old concept2 of two es-sentially different forms of nationalism: theenlightened Western, that is supportive ofdemocracy, and the backward Eastern, thatis an obstacle to any genuinely democraticsociety. The differences are, however, notwell described by this reference to geogra-phy. Rather, two (or more) different concep-tions of nationalism are to be foundcompeting for influence within particularcountries in both the East and the West.

What is Nationalism?Nationalism is a contentious issue. Analystscannot agree on its definition and its role insociety. Most contend, however, that nation-alism is a specifically modern phenomenon,which became salient in the eighteenth3 ornineteenth century.4 Ernest Gellner con-vincingly demonstrated5 that nationalism,rather than corresponding to a universal andancient human need, marked a profoundbreak in human history. He stated that theindustrial revolution in the West necessitated

a radical change in the relationship betweenpolity and culture, and that this in turn pro-duced nationalism. The salient feature of thepreceding agrarian societies was, accordingto Gellner, cultural diversity and fragmenta-tion in small autonomous sub-communities,each of which lived in its own specific id-iom. A peasant had no need to communicatewith the elite of high culture who existedbeyond his/her experience (which was usu-ally limited to the size of his/her valley). Themodern industrial and predominantly urbansociety required mass literacy and a high de-gree of social mobility, which could only beachieved by nearly universal access to astate-sponsored ‘national’ educational sys-tem. This, in turn, could only be successful ifconducted in a vernacular accessible to theentire population of the country. Thus, aneed for cultural homogenisation arose andgave birth to the political doctrine of nation-alism, ‘which holds that the political and thenational unit should be congruent’.6 Nationswere being ‘created’ either by turning the‘low’, spontaneous and oral cultures into lit-erate and cultivated ones, or by imposing theexisting ‘high’ culture on the available anddiverse idioms of peasants. Nationalism canthen be characterised as ‘the organisation ofhuman groups into large, centrally educated,culturally homogenous units’.7 In short,Gellner concludes that modernisation leadsto nationalism and nationalism engendersnations, and not the other way around. And

since ours is a time of a never-ending proc-ess of modernisation, we live in the ‘Age ofNationalism’:

‘Nationalism - the principle of homogenouscultural units as the foundations of politicallife, and of the obligatory cultural unity ofrulers and ruled - is indeed inscribed neitherin the nature of things, nor in the hearts ofmen, nor in the pre-conditions of social lifein general, and the contention that it is soinscribed is a falsehood which nationalistdoctrine has succeeded in presenting as self-evident. But nationalism as a phenomenon,not as a doctrine presented by nationalists, isinherent in a certain set of social conditions;and those conditions, it so happens, are theconditions of our time.’8

Gellner’s conception has been criticised forbeing simplistic and historically inaccurate,and there are good examples which seem torefute the assumption that nationalism onlybecame important in the nineteenth centuryas a result of modernisation.9 Gellner’s de-scription does, however, provide an accuratereflection of the actual historical evolutionof nationalism in Central Europe.

The main aim of Gellner’s study is to ex-plain why nationalism emerged and becamepervasive in modern times. It does not, how-ever, explicitly explore the issues which areprobably more pressing for the present po-litical development of Central Europe: Whatis the relationship between nationalism andliberal democracy? Why did some forms ofnationalism (German, Italian, even Slovakand Hungarian) become virulent in the firsthalf of our century and others not? Is nation-alism a deadly enemy of liberalism, or itsnatural ally?

Is the Best Nation No Nation?Nationalism was originally regarded as pro-gressive and supportive of the developmentof liberal democracy. Alexis de Tocqueville

and John Stuart Mill, for example ‘perceivedin the sentiments of nationality an importantsource of social solidarity, and of the politi-cal stability of a liberal society’.10 The Ital-ian nineteenth-century liberal GiuseppeMazzini was convinced that ‘democratic na-tionality was the necessary precondition fora peaceful international order’.11 This haschanged dramatically in the twentieth cen-tury, with Europe experiencing fanatical na-tionalism leading to wars, ethnic cleansingand the Holocaust. Hence, despite all thedisagreements about the true nature of na-tionalism, most analysts today view it as ahindrance to the development of a liberaldemocracy.12 Some (like Beiner, Habermasand Hobsbawm) say that this hindrance hasto be superseded altogether, others (likeDahrendorf, Kymlicka and Tamir) see howdemocracy and nationalism can be recon-ciled.

Civic versus Ethnic NationalismThe liberal defenders of nationalism aremostly indebted to the original Enlighten-ment ideal of the nation as an agency ofdemocratic power that was able to challengethe old suppressive order of the ‘ancien ré-gime’ (Rousseau). Hence, French andAmerican nationalisms have traditionallybeen regarded as the epitome of civic na-tionalism. They were based on the politicalideas of revolutionaries who fought for the‘sovereignty of the people’. The membershipof the community was thus defined primarilyin political terms; civic virtues were moreimportant for the new republic than ethnic-ity, common culture, or even common lan-guage. The only means of exclusion were theterritorial boundaries of a country. For thatreason anybody, at least in theory, could be-come a French, or American citizen by ac-quiring the necessary civic virtues (of whichFrench- or English-language proficiency wasbut a part).13 This voluntaristic notion of na-

tional identity is usually contrasted with eth-nic nationalism, which is exclusionary, sincethe belonging to a nation is in this case de-fined by birth, blood and ethnicity. While theformer conception of a nation is ideally con-ceived of as a voluntary association, the lat-ter is seen as a community of fate.14 Ethnicnationalism emerged in the late nineteenthcentury and is said to be pertinent to thepeople of Central and Eastern Europe.15

While civic nationalism is usually associatedwith liberalism, exclusionary ethnic nation-alism has often been conducive to authori-tarian regimes. It is the latter that is fearedby many critics of nationalism.

The distinguished Marxist historian EricHobsbawm argues that, ‘in spite of its evi-dent prominence, nationalism is historicallyless important’ in world politics today.16

Given that ‘characteristic nationalist move-ments of the late twentieth century are es-sentially negative, or rather divisive’,Hobsbawm is hopeful that ultimately ‘na-tionalism will decline with the decline of thenation state’.17 He goes as far as to suggestthat ‘"nation" and nationalism are no longeradequate terms to describe, let alone to ana-lyse, the political entities described as such,or even the sentiments once described bythese words’.18 From the fact explored byGellner, that national identities are to a cer-tain extent arbitrary results of nationalismbased on myths and half-truths, Hobsbawminfers that their importance should subsidewith time. This seems to be plausible con-sidering that citizens in a truly modern (andenlightened) society are expected to act fol-lowing their reason rather than feelings andattachments connected with some ‘imaginedcommunities’.19 Hobsbawm tacitly assumesthat by showing that particular national tra-ditions are more often than not invented andmanipulated, the allegiance of people to theirnations can be undermined.20

But the simple fact that national identitiesare social constructs and not something in-herently ‘natural’ does not mean that theycan be easily abandoned, or subdued to someform of enlightened cosmopolitanism.Imagined communities should not be con-fused with imaginary ones.21 As AnthonySmith accurately observed, ‘whenever andhowever national identity is forged, onceestablished, it becomes immensely difficult,if not impossible (short of total genocide) toeradicate.’22

Habermas seeks to overcome ‘the ghosts ofthe past’ by replacing conceptions of ethni-cally defined nationalism with a cosmopoli-tan notion of a ‘Verfassungspatriotismus’(constitutional patriotism), based on sharedprinciples of justice and democracy, whichwould make the idea of a federalist Euro-pean Union (comprised of European ratherthan national citizens) a politically viableconcept.23 Habermas argues that the politicalunity of European nations cannot be basedon the shared traditions, cultures, and lan-guages that characterised successful nation-states. Instead, European citizenship mustrely on a ‘post-national’ constitutional patri-otism that is yet to be created.24

Ralf Dahrendorf rejects Habermas’s projectas utopian and looks for arrangements whichwould accommodate the needs of the major-ity of people throughout the world who can-not live without a national identity, with therequirements of a modern and open society(Karl Popper). He proposes the creation of aheterogeneous national state - as opposed toa homogeneous state built on the idea of anethnic nation - which is liberal and open forpeople of other ethnicities.25 ‘To be proud ofthe basic law is not enough,’ argues RalfDahrendorf. ‘As Taylor notes, even themodel experiments in constitutional patriot-ism, France and the United States, have al-ways also required many of the trappings ofnation-states, including founding myths, na-

tional symbols, and ideals of historical andquasi-ethnic membership.’

Yael Tamir raised more serious objections tothe contractarian theories that have nationalvalues hidden in their liberal agenda. If theliberal state were a truly voluntary associa-tion based on contract in which citizenshipwas ideally based on shared principles ofjustice and democracy (not more and notless), then two problems would arise. Firstly,all those complying with the criteria of con-stitutional patriotism could become citizens -which is clearly not a practical option forvirtually all of the existing states. Secondly,anyone questioning the values of justice anddemocracy (certain anarchist groups, for ex-ample) could be stripped of their citizenship- which certainly does not correspond to anyconceptions of justice.26 Indeed, civic na-tionalism, according to Tamir, can be moreexclusive than culturally based nationalism:

‘Contrary to widespread perceptions, na-tional communities might, in some respects,be more open and pluralistic than communi-ties in which social bonds rely on a set ofshared values. [...] But in a society wheresocial cohesion is based on national, cul-tural, and historical criteria, holding non-conformist views does not necessarily leadto excommunication.’27

Tamir supports her statement with the exam-ple of the United States, where communistswere marginalised precisely because theydid not share the political values of the state.However, many examples from CentralEurope could be put forward to show that aculturally defined nationalism can be at leastas damaging and divisive. Thus, Slovak na-tionalists (including Meciar) have repeatedlyaccused their political opponents of being‘not Slovak enough’. Moreover, citizenshipin Slovakia - as in any multinational state -cannot be founded solely on a culturallyand/or ethnically defined nation, as thiswould exclude, amongst others, the large

Hungarian minority. It appears that both eth-nic and civic forms of nationalism can causeproblems for political communities. The ageof nationalism is, however, not over yet.

Even George Schöpflin, who is very scepti-cal about the potential dangers of national-ism in Central and Eastern Europe,acknowledges that:

‘Democracy rests on the strongly cohesiveidentities provided by nationhood - there isno democratic state that is without this... Onits own democracy is not capable of sus-taining the vision of past and future thatholds communities together politically, be-cause it does little or nothing to generate theaffective, symbolic, and ritually reaffirmedties upon which community rests.’28

Thus, it can be argued that today, as in thepast, some conception of national identity isstill needed in order to support and sustainliberal democracy. Furthermore, not onlydemocratic states, but most people, cannot,or do not want to do without a sense of be-longing to a nation. Whether we like it ornot, ‘features characteristic of a nation - lan-guage, history, culture, religion, geography -are among the most substantive componentsof individual identity’.29 Hence, StuartHampshire was right to observe that: ‘In thelast analysis, a sane nationalism is to be jus-tified by a utilitarian argument - that mostmen and women are happy only when theirway of life prolongs customs and habitswhich are familiar to them’ [my italics].30

The crucial question is to determine whatconstitutes a sane nationalism.

The answer to this question was sought byYael Tamir in her 1993 study Liberal Na-tionalism.31 Yael Tamir tried to show that‘the liberal tendency to overlook the valueinherent in nationalism is mistaken’,32 andshe explored ways in which nationalism mayin fact contribute to liberal thinking.

Tamir’s liberal nationalism is polycentric,which means that it ‘respects the other andsees each nation as enriching a commoncivilisation’, unlike ethnocentric national-ism, ‘which sees one’s own nation as supe-rior to all others and seeks domination’.33

This conception is considerably more opti-mistic about the actual potential of national-ism for modern liberal democracy, thanthose put forward by most writers on nation-alism. ‘Nationalism’, Tamir argues, ‘is notthe pathology of the modern age but an an-swer to its malaise - to the neurosis, aliena-tion, and meaninglessness characteristic ofmodern times.’34 The proponents of liberal-ism have more in common with some propo-nents of nationalist projects than is usuallyassumed. Both liberals and nationalists con-cede the importance of seeing individuals ina social context. Tamir suggests that ‘theliberal tradition with its respect for personalautonomy, reflection and choice, and the na-tional tradition, with its emphasis on be-longing, loyalty and solidarity, althoughgenerally seen as mutually exclusive, canindeed accommodate each other.’35

Since people in Central Europe as elsewheredo need some sense of national identity, it isimportant to conceptualise the possibility ofa nationalism that is liberal. Nationalism notonly answers some urgent psychologicalneeds, but also fulfills important politicalfunctions. As analysed above, national iden-tity can foster feelings of solidarity in agiven community and alleviate alienation ofindividuals in modern societies. Further-more, it gives people a sense of continuityby strengthening the perception of a societyas a partnership between ‘those who are liv-ing, those who are dead, and those who areto be born’.36 Imagining themselves as a partof a larger community with a glorious andlong-lasting past and a promising future, in-dividuals can transcend their own limits, andeven their own mortality.37 In this way

‘membership in a nation promises individu-als redemption from personal oblivion’.38 Itis tempting to dismiss these needs as irra-tional feelings that should be overcome. Butthe conception of a community with a pres-ent, a past and a future also has some im-portant moral implications. Indeed, withoutit, we would not be able to talk meaningfullyabout the historical responsibility of a na-tion.39 If Germans were serious about theirnon-national politics, they would not be ableto accept - as a people and as a nation-state -the moral or even the practical responsibilityfor the crimes of the Second World War.

Two Types of Nationalism?Whether or not liberal nationalism inTamir’s fashion is possible, most scholars ofpost-communism would argue that it is cer-tainly not an option for Central and EasternEurope.40 While the West was seen as com-ing to terms with the dangers of nationalism(either by overcoming nationalism, oradapting it to the requirements of a liberaldemocracy), it was expected that the post-communist world of Central and EasternEurope would succumb to the nationalisticideologies of ancient ethnic hatred. The warin Yugoslavia appeared to confirm analysts’worst fears, and the apparent resurgence ofnationalism in general after the end of com-munist power seemed to confirm the pro-claimed existence of ‘two types ofnationalism’.

As early as in the 1970s, the English histo-rian of ideas John Plamenatz argued that theSlavic nations of Eastern Europe weredoomed to adhere to Eastern nationalism,which is mostly (if not invariably) illiberal.41

Since the nations of Central and EasternEurope were modernised considerably laterthan the Western nations, their peoples suf-fered from ‘a feeling of inferiority or inade-quacy’.42 They had to catch up by imitatingtheir more successful West European rivals.

Nationalism born out of frustration leads,according to Plamenatz, to extremism, asshown by the ascendance of Nazism in Ger-many and fascism in Italy after the FirstWorld War. The underlying nature of Ger-man and Italian nationalism is, however,Western (i.e. free of frustration), because itwas already culturally strong and rather lib-eral in the nineteenth century.

Thus, while Germany and Italy can be seenas an integral part of the West, meaningEurope - even if their liberal developmentwas interrupted by the historical ‘accidents’of fascism and Nazism - the Eastern Euro-pean Slavic peoples had always been back-ward and were impeded in their developmentby traditions which were of little help in ad-dressing the needs of modern times. WhenGermans and Italians fought for the estab-lishment of their modern national states, theywere already prepared culturally. The peoplein the East, on the other hand, had to createboth: their states as well as their nations!‘Drawn gradually into a civilisation alien tothem ... they have had, as it were, to makethemselves anew, to create national identi-ties for themselves’.43

According to Plamenatz, these peoples -forced to adopt an alien civilisation - werehistorically marked as Eastern, meaningvirtually non-European. Their relationshipwith the West was an ambivalent one, char-acterised by feelings of admiration mixedwith envy and resentment. There was thus‘Eastern’ nationalism that is ‘both imitativeand hostile to the models it imitates, and isapt to be illiberal’.44 In other words, whilethe West (Germany included) finally found asane nationalism, Eastern Europe wasdoomed to remain ‘wild’ for considerablylonger.

More than twenty years later, GeorgeSchöpflin still subscribes to Plamenatz’s di-chotomy by averring that nationalism inCentral and Eastern Europe shows charac-

teristics that are ‘in many respects substan-tially different than in Western Europe, forboth historical and contemporary reasons’.The most important factor influencing cur-rent developments is, according to Schöp-flin, the traditional backwardness of thesesocieties, a consequence of which is ‘theweakness of civic elements of nationhood’.45

Furthermore, in Central and Eastern Europe‘there is a long tradition of using or ratherabusing nationalism for political purposesnot connected with the definition of nation-hood.’46

Isaiah Berlin also distinguishes between the‘sated nations ... of North America, WesternEurope, Australia, New Zealand’, and theones in Eastern Europe and the former So-viet Union, where ‘after years of oppressionand humiliation, there is liable to occur aviolent counteraction’.47 Thus, despite sometruly liberal personalities (such as VáclavHavel and Adam Michnik) who influencepolitical life in Central and Eastern Europe,Berlin is convinced ‘that the possibility, un-fortunately even the likelihood, of ethnicstrife abounds in that part of the world’.48

J. F. Brown similarly noted that while ‘na-tionalist violence had burned itself out in theWest’, in the East it seemed to be making upfor lost time. According to Brown ‘the im-prisoning past’ is endangering the present.49

This is a past in which ‘nationalism in theEast was characterized by its virulent intol-erance’.50 Thus, all the nations of EasternEurope are - virtually by definition - illib-eral.51

This differentiation between two concepts ofnationalism can only be maintained by apurposeful interpretation of European his-tory. While any instances of nationalisticexcesses in Eastern Europe are consideredby Schöpflin to be fundamental to the tradi-tion of the region’s backward history, bothGerman National Socialism and Italian fas-cism are explained away as temporary aber-

rations resulting from ‘loss of faith in build-ing on the existing European tradition’.52

Similarly, more recent problems in NorthernIreland, and Basque separatism in Spain, areseen as exceptions to the rule which statesthat problems with nationalism are by andlarge limited to Central and EasternEurope.53

One does not need to subscribe to MilanKundera’s view that Central Europe has al-ways been an indispensable part of the West,to agree that there are significant differencesbetween the historical experiences of, say,Russia and the Czech Republic, which makethe concept of ‘Eastern nationalism’ a crudegeneralisation with limited explanatoryvalue for the Visegrad Four countries.Moreover, it is questionable whether 1920s-1930s German nationalism was any more‘Western’ (i.e. liberal) than, for example, theCzech nationalism of the first CzechoslovakRepublic. While Germans sought to over-come the economic and political problems ofthe interwar period by turning to NationalSocialism, Czechoslovakia remained true tocertain basic principles of liberal democracyconsiderably longer. Hence, either Germannationalism should be seen as traditionallyEastern, or the Czech variant should be clas-sified as traditionally Western. Or does thewhole dualistic approach beg more questionsthan it provides answers? Are, indeed, allnationalisms ‘Eastern’ to a certain degree?

Nationalism as a ‘Continental’Problem - Germany and CentralEuropeA positive answer to the last question couldbe derived from Liah Greenfeld’s FiveRoads to Modernity, which considers thedevelopment of the English, French, Rus-sian, German and American nations not onlyby comparing them, but also each on theirown terms. Upon closer study of particularhistorical cases, it becomes clear that the

evolution of nations has almost always beencharacterised by some feelings of inferioritywith regard to their competitors, and that theformation of nations has more often than notbeen ‘an expression of existential envy, res-sentiment’.54

Greenfeld acknowledges that the distinctionbetween Western and Eastern types of na-tionalism does not make much sense geo-graphically, because ‘if we assignedindividual societies to any of these originallygeographical categories on the basis of civi-lizational characteristics, we might have tocharacterise many Western European socie-ties as "Eastern Europe," while most of the"West" or "Europe" would paradoxicallymove to another continent [the USA].’55 Sheconcedes, however, that it is possible to dis-tinguish between ‘Western, less Western,and anti-Western nationalism in Europe andelsewhere’.56 In this way, any society can belocated on an imaginary map, which neednot bear any resemblance whatsoever to theactual geographical location of that society.

I want to argue, however, that the termsEastern and Western nationalism are never-theless of little use, and indeed are mislead-ing, because they can hardly beconceptualised outside of their geographicalconnotations. Moreover, I believe that formsof liberal and illiberal nationalisms co-existwithin each European nation; analystsshould take care not to ‘condemn’ a nationto be and remain illiberal in inclination be-cause of its history. National identities arehuman creations, and thus can, and do,change.

Clearly, Greenfeld’s account (unlike Gell-ner’s) does make it clear how virulent na-tionalism came about. The danger is,however, that by explaining German historyfrom the perspective of its disastrous resultsin the twentieth century, we are led to be-lieve that these results were logical and thussomehow necessary.57 Greenfeld states that

‘Germany was ready for Holocaust from themoment German national identity existed’.58

But to view National Socialism as a mereconsequence of traditional German hatred ofthe West, and the desire of Germans to over-come their feelings of inferiority by offeringtheir salvation to humankind is misleading.Obviously, there were other factors involved(social, economic), and even the Germanliterary and philosophical tradition consistsof more than a few nationalistic writings.Many influential contemporaries of Herder,who is usually held responsible for the birthof irrational, ethnically defined and thus il-liberal nationalism, regarded themselves ascosmopolitans. Thus, even a nation formedby a ‘purely Eastern type of nationalism’ didnot necessarily have to end up with a totali-tarian regime.

Will the nations of Central Europe, becauseof their ‘imprisoning past’,59 remain prone toan illiberal nationalism - as the various con-cepts of Eastern nationalism imply? Notnecessarily. Firstly, even Herder’s theory ofnationalism could be reconciled, at leastpartially, with the needs of liberal democ-racy. Herder, whose ideas, according toGreenfeld, anticipated Nazism, could beequally regarded as an antecedent of multi-culturalism. To claim superiority for a par-ticular nation goes very much againstHerder’s basic idea that ‘at bottom all com-parisons [between nations] are out of place.Every nation has its centre of happinesswithin itself.’60 Indeed, Tamir’s polycentricliberal nationalism is explicitly derived fromthe ideas of romantic nationalist writers whodefined nations in cultural rather than politi-cal terms.61

Secondly and more importantly, the presentis never totally dependent on the past.62 Na-tions are ‘imagined communities’,63 andtheir histories are always, to a certain extent,created, rather than simply documented bydisinterested observers. Ernest Renan was

right to suggest that the formation of nationsis characterised not only by the invocation ofcommon memories and a shared past, butalso by a shared amnesia, a collective for-getfulness.64 The ‘true’ character of a nationis constantly being reinvented; old symbolscan and do attain new meanings. Even na-tionalists can be critical of their own par-ticular culture; ‘they can aspire to change it,develop it, or redefine it’.65

Indeed, as David Miller observed, a distin-guishing aspect of national identity is that itis an active identity: ‘The nation becomeswhat it does by the decisions that it takes.’66

Historical narratives and myths are reinter-preted in order to fulfil the requirements ofthe present, and fierce polemics within a na-tion are often conducted in order to deter-mine which parts of its history are to be seenas its highlights and which as a nationalshame.

As Miller has pointed out, ‘It is preciselybecause of the mythical or imaginary ele-ments in national identity that it can be re-shaped to meet new challenges and newneeds.’67 What Masaryk means to theCzechs, Tiso to Slovaks, Pilsudski to Polesand so on, can and does change over timeand has serious political implications.68 Inthis way different concepts of a nation com-pete for dominance within a particular na-tional community at any given time in itshistory, and they also change dramaticallythroughout history. Yael Tamir stressed theimportance of critical participation in a na-tion:

‘The assumption of national obligations im-plies the reflective acceptance of an ongoingcommitment to participate in a critical de-bate about the nature of the national culture,suggesting that individuals have a reason toadhere to their national obligations even af-ter the establishment of a national state.’69

This is obviously not limited to the experi-ence of the small nations of Central Europe.Debates in the ‘older’ democracies aboutwhat it means to be a ‘good’ American,70

Australian or German, can be just as contro-versial as in the countries that only recentlyfreed themselves from communism. Fur-thermore, those nations that today pridethemselves on being liberal all have illiberalpasts.

To label certain national cultures as intrinsi-cally illiberal is crudely reductionist. WhatKymlicka argued in defence of the culturesof national minorities is also valid for inde-pendent national cultures:

‘To assume that any culture is inherently il-liberal, and incapable of reform, is ethno-centric and ahistorical. Moreover, theliberality of a culture is a matter of degree.All cultures have illiberal strands, just as fewcultures are entirely repressive of individualliberty. Indeed it is quite misleading to talkof "liberal" and "illiberal" cultures, as if theworld was divided into completely liberalsocieties on the one hand, and completelyilliberal ones on the other.’71

Having shown that the (essentiallyManichean) distinction between Eastern (i.e.illiberal) and Western (i.e. liberal) national-ism is not helpful in analysing the post-communist transition in Central Europe, Iam far from suggesting that nationalism doesnot pose any problems for the developmentof liberal democracy. Nor can I deny thatcertain historical experiences of the nationsof Central Europe may prove detrimental totheir further advancement.72 Clearly, how-ever, the potential role of nationalism ismore complex and ambivalent than any du-alistic classification would suggest. A na-tional culture and its history is never one orthe other, liberal or illiberal. Nationalism inCentral Europe has been used for the legiti-mation of both left-wing and right-wingdictatorships,73 but it has also repeatedly

been employed as a tool of national libera-tion, thus furthering the case of liberal de-mocracy.74 Indeed, it can be argued that allthe revolutions of 1989 were to a certainextent nationalistic. The Czechs, Slovaks,Hungarians and Poles felt that the end ofcommunist power also meant the end of for-eign (i.e. Russian) domination and that theirnational identities were traditionally hostileto communist ideology. The end of commu-nist power in Central Europe showed the ul-timate failure of communist leaders toactivate support for their ideology by re-sorting to nationalism. Their attempt to allythe national allegiances of citizens with loy-alty to the socialist home-country had failed.

One of the most important factors influenc-ing the success of the post-communist tran-sition and the ensuing integration into theEuropean Union will be the outcome of thecontest between different forms of national-ism within the particular countries of CentralEurope. The crucial question is whether lib-eral nationalism will be able to gain the up-per hand over nationalism deriving itsstrength from xenophobia and chauvinism.Many recent developments would suggestthat it is the latter that is gaining momentum,posing a real danger to the development ofliberal democracy in all four countries ofCentral Europe.75 The fears of Hobsbawm,Plamenatz, Schöpflin and others who warnedagainst the legacy of an illiberal type of na-tionalism in Central and Eastern Europe ap-pear to be justified.

Has, then, liberal nationalism any chance atall of succeeding in Central Europe? Are theexpressions of extreme nationalism isolatedincidents, or do they correspond to the atti-tudes of large or even dominant parts of thesocieties in Central Europe? These questionsrequire more extensive studies of the coun-tries in focus. But it is evident that any studyof post-communist developments will not befurthered by simplistic concepts along the

lines of the ‘two types of nationalism’schema. The outcome of the dynamic politi-cal processes taking place in today’s CentralEurope is not predetermined by the region’s‘Eastern’ past, however this past is defined.

Endnotes:1.Schöpflin, George, 'Nationalism and Ethnicityin Europe', in Charles A. Kupchan, Nationalismand Nationalities in the New Europe (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 37-65.2.Kohn, Hans, The Idea of Nationalism. A Studyof its Origin and Background (New York: Mac-millan, 1944), Plamenatz, John, 'Two Types ofNationalism', in Eugene Kamenka (ed.), Nation-alism (Canberra: Australian National UniversityPress, 1973), pp. 22-37.3.Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities:Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nation-alism (London: Verso, 1991); Berlin, Isaiah,Against the Current: Essays in the History ofIdeas (London: Hogarth Press, 1979); andHobsbawm, Eric, Nations and Nationalism since1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1990).4.Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Ox-ford: Blackwell, 1983). As Eric Hobsbawm putit, 'The modern sense of the word [nation] is noolder than the eighteenth century, give or takethe odd predecessor' - Hobsbawm, Nations andNationalism..., p. 3. But see also Smith, AnthonyD., 'A Europe of Nations - or the Nation ofEurope?', Journal of Peace Research, vol. 30, no.2, 1993, pp. 129-135, and Scruton, Roger, ThePhilosopher on Dover Beach (Manchester: Car-canet, 1990), p. 304.5Gellner, Nations and Nationalism...6.ibid., p. 1.7.ibid., p. 35.8ibid., p. 125.9Anthony D. Smith challenged this 'modernistfallacy' above all on historical grounds, by ar-guing that 'expressions of fervent attachment tothe concept of the nation as a territorial-culturaland political community' go back as far as thefourteenth and fifteenth centuries 'in France,England ... as well as in Poland and Russia' -Smith, Anthony D., Nations and Nationalisms ina Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), p.38. Roger Scruton went back even further: 'when

the King James Bible has God say to Abraham"And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earthbe blessed" (Genesis 22:18), this is surely not sofar from the national idea of recent history' -Scruton, The Philosopher..., p. 304. See also O'-Brien, Conor, God Land (Cambridge: Mass.:Harvard University Press, 1988).10.Gray, John, Isaiah Berlin (London: Harper-Collins, 1995), p. 99.11.Urbinati, Nadia, 'A Common Law of Na-tions: Giuseppe Mazzini's Democratic National-ity', Journal of Modern Italian Studies, Spring1996, p. 203. 12Roger Scruton, who argues thatnationalism is indeed a necessary precondition ofa thriving liberal democracy, is a notable excep-tion - see Scruton, The Philosopher..., pp. 299-328.13.Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism..., p. 21.14.Smith made an important qualification of thisideal-typical classification, asserting that 'everynationalism contains civic and ethnic elements invarying degrees and different forms' - Smith,Anthony D., National Identity (Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1991), p. 13. I will explore this issuefurther below in my discussion of 'two types ofnationalism'.15.Eatwell, Roger, European Political Cultures(London: Routledge, 1997), p. 238; Crawford,Keith, East Central European Politics Today(Manchester: Manchester University Press,1996), pp. 126-128; and Smith, National Iden-tity..., p. 11. But as Hobsbawm shows, theAmericans and French were not the only peoples'freely offering membership of a "nation" to any-body who wanted to join it, and "nations" ac-cepted open entry more readily than classes. Thegenerations before 1914 are full of great-nationchauvinists whose fathers, let alone mothers, didnot speak the language of their sons' chosen peo-ple, and whose names, Slav or Magyarized Ger-man or Slav testified to their choice' -Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism..., p. 39.Even the nations in Central Europe were thus toa certain extent voluntaristic. But as Tamir sug-gests, 'claiming that national obligations could beseen as voluntarily assumed says nothing abouttheir nature' - Tamir, Yael, Liberal Nationalism(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p.87. See my discussion below on liberal nation-alism.

16.Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism..., p.181.17.ibid., pp. 164, 182.18.ibid., p. 182.19.Anderson, Imagined Communities...20.In a speech to the Central European Univer-sity in Budapest, Hobsbawm appealed to themoral responsibility of young Central and EastEuropean students of history to pursue historicaltruth, thereby preventing the rise of nationalism -Hobsbawm, Eric, On History (London: Weiden-feld & Nicholson, 1997), pp. 1-10. Hobsbawmalso denounced Slovak nationalistic myths in theBritish television documentary Stories MyCountry Told Me (broadcast on SBS TV, 28September 1997). 21Tamir, Yael, 'The Enigmaof Nationalism', World Politics, no. 47, April1995, p. 423.22.Smith, 'A Europe of Nations...', p. 131; andKymlicka, William, Multicultural Citizenship(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 185.23.See also Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizen-ship..., p. 238.24.Beiner, Roland (ed.), Theorizing Citizenship(New York: State University of New York Press,1995), pp. 255-282, 315.25.Dahrendorf, Ralf, 'Die Zukunft des National-staates', Merkur, vol. 9, no. 10, 1994, pp. 751-761.26.This was illustrated by the recent incidentinvolving the Canadian and Australian authori-ties' dealings with the Ukrainian war criminal,Konrad Kalej. While Canada was free to enforceKalej's deportation from the country, Australiawas not able to take away his Australian citizen-ship. See The Age, 25 August 1997.27.Tamir, Liberal Nationalism..., p. 90. See alsoKymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship..., pp. 105-106.28.Schöpflin, 'Nationalism and Ethnicity...', p.42.29.Tamir, 'The Enigma...', p. 427.30.Gray, Isaiah Berlin..., p. 104.31.Characteristically, the title of her study wasseen as a contradiction in terms and thus pro-vocative, or even 'weird' - Tamir, Liberal Na-tionalism..., p. ix.32.ibid., p. 4.33.Tamir, 'The Enigma...', p. 430.34.ibid., p. 432.

35.Tamir, Liberal Nationalism..., p. 6.36.Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolu-tion in France (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968),p. 195.37.Anderson, Imagined Communities..., andSmith, National Identity..., p. 160.38.Tamir, 'The Enigma...', p. 433.39.For example, this conception enables us toconsider the implications of the present Austra-lian government's policy towards the first in-habitants of Australia. It was expected thatAustralian Prime Minister John Howard wouldapologise on behalf of the Australian people forthe unjust treatment of the 'stolen generation'.When he refused to do so on the grounds thatapologies can only be made by individuals (ef-fectively thereby denying the existence of a na-tional community with a past and a future), hisargumentation was seen as inadequate not onlyby Aboriginal activists, but by many members ofthe Australian public at large. In contrast,American President Bill Clinton was able andwilling to take responsibility and to apologise onbehalf of the American people for the history ofslavery.40.See for example Brown, J. F., Hopes andShadows (Durham: Duke University Press,1994); Chirot, Daniel, 'National Liberations andNationalist Nightmares', in Beverly Crawford(ed.), Markets, States and Democracy (Boulder:Westview Press, 1995); Greenfeld, Liah, Nation-alism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992); andSchöpflin, 'Nationalism and Ethnicity...'.41.See also an earlier study by Hans Kohn, whodistinguished between an 'organistic' and a 'vol-untaristic' idea of nation to contrast Eastern andWestern nationalism - Kohn, The Idea of Na-tionalism.... On Kohn's dichotomy see alsoTamir, Liberal Nationalism..., p. 83, and Snyder,Louis L., Encyclopedia of Nationalism (NewYork: Paragon House, 1990), pp. 173-176.42.Plamenatz, 'Two Types of Nationalism...', p.29.43.ibid., p. 30.44.ibid., p. 34.45.Schöpflin, 'Nationalism and Ethnicity...', p.49.46.ibid., p. 52.

47.Cited in Gardels, Nathan, 'Two Concepts ofNationalism: An Interview with Isaiah Berlin',The New York Review of Books, 21 November1991,p. 19. 48ibid., p. 21.49.Brown, Hopes and Shadows..., p. 172.50.Woolf, Stuart (ed.), Nationalism in Europe,1815 to the Present: A Reader (London: Rout-ledge, 1996), p. 24.51.Ernest Gellner slightly refined Plamenatz'sdualistic classification by introducing the notionof four different time zones of Europe. The basicassumption, however, remains the same: thefurther the observer moves East, the greater thedanger posed by nationalism for liberalism. SeeGellner, Ernest, 'Nationalism Reconsidered andE. H. Carr', in Review of International Studies,no. 18, 1992, pp. 113-118.52.Schöpflin, 'Nationalism and Ethnicity...', p.43.53'.With one or two exceptions, the democraticsystems were able to deal with these [nationalis-tic] movements [in the West] fairly successfully -Northern Ireland and the Basque country repre-sent main failures', writes Schöpflin (ibid., p.46). Virtually identical is the assessment ofDaniel Chirot: 'yet in Western Europe, internalnationalist disputes are the exceptions, not therule: only in Northern Ireland and over theSpanish Basque issue is there much violence.'(Chirot, 'National Liberations...', p. 51).54.Greenfeld, Nationalism..., p. 372.55.ibid., p. 18.56.ibid., p. 22. Incidentally, this is more or lesswhat Plamenatz originally suggested when heargued that Eastern nationalism could be foundas far afield as Africa, Asia and Latin America,though he hesitated to call it non-European - seePlamenatz, 'Two Types...', p. 23.57.'We are very good at predicting what hashappened', as Martin Krygier pointed out in hislecture 'Constitutionalism in Poland' at La TrobeUniversity, 23 October 1997.58.Greenfeld, Nationalism..., p. 384. This sort ofinterpretation of German national history wasrecently revived with Daniel Goldhagen's con-troversial study, Hitler's Willing Executioners(New York: Knopf, 1996). 59Brown, Hopes andShadows..., p. 172.60.Ignatieff, Michael, 'Strange Attachments', TheNew Republic, 29 March 1993, p. 43.

61.Tamir, Liberal Nationalism..., p. 79.62.The British anthropologist of Polish originBronislaw Malinowski demonstrated that this israther the other way round: the present createshistory. Historical figures and events are appro-priated (by nations) for current purposes, and aretrue or 'valid in virtue of - and only in virtue of -satisfying a current need.' According to Mali-nowski, beliefs about the past should be seen as'charters' of current practices - see Gellner, 'Zenoof Cracow', in Culture, Identity and Politics(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987),p. 62, and Gellner, Ernest, Anthropology andPolitics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 16. Simi-lar arguments are put forward in Krygier, Martin,'Is There Constitutionalism after Communism?Institutional Optimism, Cultural Pessimism andthe Rule of Law', forthcoming in InternationalJournal of Sociology, and in Adam Czarnota andMartin Krygier (eds), The Rule of Law afterCommunism (Darmouth: 1997).63.Anderson, Imagined Communities...64.Gellner, 'Zeno of Cracow...', p. 6.65.Tamir, Liberal Nationalism..., p. 89.66.Miller, David, 'In Defence of Nationality',Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 1,1993, p. 7.67.ibid., p. 9.68.Consider for example the current contest inSlovakia for the right interpretation of the Slo-vak State of 1939-1945. The controversy sur-rounding the publication of Milan S. Durica'sDejiny Slovenska a Slovákov, which sought toplay down Slovak responsibility for the Holo-caust, provided an opportunity for both ends ofthe political spectrum to present their respectivepoints of view. The controversy even had inter-national implications - the book was publishedwith the financial assistance of the EU and, later,it was the EU which helped to prevent its distri-bution to Slovak high schools. See Sme, 22 April1997. 69.Tamir, Liberal Nationalism..., p. 89.70.When Richard Rorty called for more patriot-ism and a sense of national pride, which he sawdeclining in the USA, he triggered a lively dis-cussion about nationalism and democracy (seeRorty, Richard, 'The Unpatriotic Academy', TheNew York Times, 13 February 1994, p. E15).See also the special issue on nationalism inBoston Review, October/November 1994, with

contributions among others by Martha Nuss-baum, Charles Taylor and Michael Walzer.71.Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship..., p. 94.72.Yes, they are economically rather backwardand fragile. As Milan Kundera showed, the na-tions of Central Europe, being geographicallyand culturally the 'in-between' lands, developed asense of vulnerability that has had a profoundimpact on their political situation - see Kundera,Milan, 'The Tragedy of Central Europe', NewReview of Books, 24 April 1984, pp. 33-36.73.Ludovít Stúr, for example, who has alwaysbeen regarded in Slovakia as the nation's spiri-tual father, was appropriated first by nationalistleaders in the Slovak Nazi puppet state; thepropaganda chief Alexander Mach turned himinto the 'Hitler of the nineteenth century' - seeSchwarz, Karl-Peter, Tschechen und Slowaken:Der lange Weg zuer friedlichen Trennung (Wien,Zürich: Europaverlag, 1993), p. 150. Later,communist leaders in socialist Czechoslovakiasaw in Stúr a liberator, a Slovak antecedent ofcommunism. It would hardly be possible to make

a case for Stúr as a predecessor of liberalism andWestern integration of Slovakia (he was stronglyopposed to both the West and its liberalism), butSlovaks can (and do) invoke the more recentlegacy of Milan Hodza (a Slovak proponent ofliberalism, who called for a Central Europeanconfederation as early as in the 1940s).74.As early as in 1956, before Russian troopssuppressed the revolutionary upheaval in Hun-gary, the director of the Hungarian NewsAgency sent a memorable telex to the outsideworld: 'We are going to die for Hungary and forEurope' (Kundera, 'The Tragedy...', p. 33.) Thisshort statement expressed loyalty to the nation asconnected with allegiance to the ideals of free-dom and democracy, i.e., Europe.75.Expressions of anti-Semitism in Poland (PaterJankowski), violent racist attacks on Gypsies inthe Czech Republic, rising tension between theruling coalition and the Hungarian minority inSlovakia, and expressions of chauvinism inHungary seem to have proven the conception oftwo types of nationalism correct.

The Russian and Euro-Asian Bulletin is published by the Contemporary EuropeResearch Centre, University of Melbourne.

Contact:Email: cerc@cerc.unimelb.edu.auWeb: www.cerc.unimelb.edu.au

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stefan Auer is a Ph.D student in the Political Science De-partment University of Melbourne