Euro-Visions: IIIS/TLRH Public Lecture Series
Trinity College Dublin
February 14, 2013, Thur, 18:15-19:45
How to Think of Ethnolinguistic
Nationalism in Central Europe?
(or the Normative Isomorphism of Language,
Nation and State)
Tomasz Kamusella
University of St Andrews
Nationalism
• What is nationalism? (The standard state- and group-building
ideology in the [late] modern world)
• Hans Kohn: Western vs the Rest (Eastern) nationalism, 1940s
• Absence of nationalism in the West (But > Michael Billig: ‘banal
nationalism,’ 1995)
• John Plamenatz: ‘good’ Western vs ‘bad’ Eastern nationalism, 1970s
• ‘Ancient hatreds’ in the East vs ‘reason and rationalism’ in the West
• Ethnic vs civic nationalism: Is it a dichotomy at all?
• What about nationalism across the globe?
- Hans Kohn The Age of Nationalism: The First Era of Global
History, 1962
- Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities, 1983
• Most books on nationalism draw examples from CE Europe and
generalize on their basis
• Is it rational and justified to generalize on nationalism on the basis
of ‘bad ethnic Eastern’ nationalism?
What is Ethnic Nationalism?
• What is ethnicity: A difficult question with many answers
(Totality of all the cultural markers employed for distinguishing
a group from others?)
• But if CE Europe widely considered home of ethnic
nationalism: What are the nationalism’s practices?
• In most cases language is of paramount importance for the
region’s nationalisms
• Is it then ‘ethnolinguistic nationalism’?
• I propose to define ethnic (ethnolinguistic) nationalism
through the observed practices of state- and people-building
steeped in language
• Where is Central Europe? In turn the territorial extant of such
practices could define the region
What is a Language? (1)
• The distinction between ‘language’ and ‘a language’
• ‘Language’ is studied by linguists, but ‘a language’ is a socio-political
phenomenon, more determined by extralinguistic forces than linguistic
ones
• Hence, ‘languages’ in plural should be researched more by social
scientists
• Leonard Bloomfield’s 1926 linguistic definition of ‘a language’ and
dialect (mutual in/comprehensibility)
• But: mutually incomprehensible dialects of Arabic or Chinese are
dialects of these languages
• But: exactly the same Moldovan and Romanian, and almost the same
Bulgarian and Macedonian are different languages
• But: Low German is NOT a dialect of Dutch with which it is mutually
comprehensible, but of German with which it is largely
incomprehensible
• What about: asymmetrical incomprehensibility between Spanish and
Portuguese, or among Scandinavia’s Germanic languages
What is a Language? (2)
• Who decides when a dialect / language is a language?
• ‘Imagined language’ ≈ nation as an ‘imagined community’?
• Nation = ethnic and/or other human group(s) imagined to be
a nation
• A language = dialect(s) imagined (through dictionaries,
grammars, official use, educational system, army, state offices
and other state institutions, mass media, enterprises,
cyberspace, etc) to be a language in its own right
• Yugoslavia: Serbocroatoslovenian (1921-41) > Croatian,
Serbian (41-44) > Serbo-Croatian + Macedonian (44-91)
• Breakup of Yugoslavia (1991-2008)
• Breakup of Serbo-Croatian > Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian,
Serbian
Practices of ‘Really Existing’
Nationalism
1: The speakers of a language constitute a nation (ergo, the
language is a national one)
2: The territory inhabited by this language’s speakers should be
made into the nation’s nation-state
3: The nation’s national language cannot be shared with any
other nation or polity
4: No autonomous regions with official languages other than the
national one can exist in the nation’s nation-state
5: By the same token, no autonomous regions with the nation’s
language can exist in other polities
(NB: Disjunction between ideology and reality on the ground)
‘Serious’ name for the practice: Normative Isomorphism of
Language, Nation and State
All That Began in the Balkans? From
Religion to Language
Year
1864
1866
1878
1905
1913
Isomorphic States Number of
Isomorphic
States
Greece
1
Greece, Romania 2
Bulgaria, Romania 2 Greece
Bulgaria, Norway, 3
Romania
Albania, Bulgaria, 4
Norway, Romania
WW I: Isomorphism Moves North
Year
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
Isomorphic States
Number of
Isomorphic States
Albania, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania 4
Albania, Bulgaria, Norway, Ukraine 4 Romania
Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Norway, Poland
Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia,
Norway, Romania
9 Ukraine
6 Belarus,
Hungary,
Lithuania, Poland
Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, 9
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Norway,
Romania, Ukraine
Central Europe = Isomorphism?
Year
Isomorphic States
1926
Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Norway, Romania
Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Norway, Romania, Yugoslavia
Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Romania,
Yugoslavia
Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland,
Romania, Slovakia, Yugoslavia
1929
1938
1939
Number of
Isomorphic
States
9 Ukraine
10
9
Czechoslovaki
a
11
NB: Not fully
matching
with the
tables
Year
WW II: Race Trumps Nation?
1940
1940 (occupied
polities not
included)
1942
(independent
states only)
1942 (not fully
independent
polities
included)
Isomorphic States
Number of
Isomorphic
States
Bulgaria, Hungary, Norway, 6 Albania,
Romania, Slovakia and
Estonia,
Yugoslavia
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Poland
5 Norway
Bulgaria, Hungary,
Romania, Slovakia and
Yugoslavia
Bulgaria, Hungary,
4
Romania, Slovakia
Yugoslavia
Bulgaria, Croatia,
Hungary, Norway,
Romania, Slovakia
6
(National) Communism Trumps
Nation?
Year Isomorphic States
1947
1956
1960
1975
Number of
Isomorphic
States
Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, 6 Croatia,
Norway, Poland, Romania Slovakia
Albania, Bulgaria, Norway,
4 Hungary,
Poland
Romania
Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, 6
Norway, Poland, Romania
Bulgaria, Norway, Poland
3 Albania,
Hungary,
Romania
NB: Not fully
matching with
the tables
After Communism: Isomorphism After All?
Year
Isomorphic States
1989
1990
Bulgaria, Norway, Poland
Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Norway, Poland,
Romania
Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway,
Poland, Slovenia, Ukraine
Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway Poland, Slovenia
Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway
Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia
Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway
Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway Poland,
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
Number of
Isomorphic
States
3
6
13
Romania
11 Croatia,
Ukraine
13
14
13 Belarus
NB: Not fully
matching
with the
tables
The Complication of the EU
Year
Isomorphic States
2004
Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway Poland,
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Norway, Romania
2004 (European Union
treated as a single, nonethnolinguistic polity)
2007
Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary,
Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway
Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway
2007 (European Union
treated as a single, nonethnolinguistic polity)
2008
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway Poland,
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway
2008 (European Union
treated as a single, nonethnolinguistic polity)
2010
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Slovenia
Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway
2010 (European Union
treated as a single, nonethnolinguistic polity)
Number of
Isomorphic
States
13
5
14
3
13 Albania
3
10 Hungary,
Romania,
Slovakia
3
Instruments of Analysis: (Dis)Contents
• Rubbish in, rubbish out
• Lies, big lies and statistics
• States are not the only unit of
analysis
• States being so variable in territory
and populations, are they really
comparable?
• How to limit the distorting
potential of generated data?
• How to nuance the data?
Nuancing the Data: 2007
States
fulfilling the
isomorphis
m
States
aspiring to
fulfill the
isomorphis
m
Other
NonThe total of Percentage
ethnolinguist ethnolinguist the analyzed of the
ic states
ic states
polities
isomorphic
states in the
total of the
analyzed
polities
Albania,
Bulgaria,
Czech
Republic,
Estonia,
Hungary,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Macedonia,
Montenegro,
Norway,
Poland,
Romania,
Slovakia,
Slovenia
[14]
Bosnia,
Croatia,
Cyprus,
Finland,
Germany,
Greece,
Luxembourg,
Moldova,
Northern
Cyprus,
Serbia,
Sweden,
Turkey,
Ukraine
[13]
Austria,
Belarus,
Denmark,
Liechtenstei
n
[4]
Mount
Athos,
Russian
Federation,
Sovereign
Base Areas
of Akrotiri
and Dheleia,
Transnistria
[4]
35
Isomorphic states
and the states
aspiring to fulfill the
isomorphism
combined, expressed
as a percentage of
the total of the
analyzed polities
40% 77%
Fine Tuning: Populations in 2007
Population
of the states
fulfilling the
isomorphis
m
Population
of the states
aspiring to
fulfill the
isomorphis
m
Population
of other
ethnolinguist
ic states
Population
of the nonethnolinguist
ic states
112.53m
245.16m
23.29m
35.07m
Population
of all the
analyzed
polities
416.32m
Percentage
of the
population
of the
isomorphic
states out of
the total
population
of the
analyzed
polities
Population
of the
isomorphic
states and of
the states
aspiring to
fulfill the
isomorphis
m combined,
expressed as
a percentage
of the total
population
of the
analyzed
polities
27% 86%
Isomorphic Languages in 2007
Slavic
languages
Baltic
languages
Finno-Ugric
languages
(non-IndoEuropean)
Bulgarian (C), Latvian (L),
Estonian (L),
Czech (L),
Lithuanian (L) Hungarian (L)
Macedonian
[2]
[2]
(C),
Montenegrin
(C & L), Polish
(L), Slovak
(L), Slovenian
(L)
[7]
Germanic
languages
Romance
languages
Isolate IndoEuropean
languages
Norwegian
(L)
[1]
Romanian (L) Albanian (L)
[1]
[1]
The parenthetical remark ‘(C)’ indicates that the language is written in Cyrillic.
[2] The parenthetical remark ‘(L)’ indicates that the language is written in Latin
characters.
[1]
Scope for Wider-Ranging
Comparisons: Isomorphic States
Outside Central Europe in 2007
•
•
•
•
W Europe: Iceland (Icelandic)
C Asia: Turkmenistan (Turkmen)
1
S Asia: Bhutan (Dzongkha), Maldives (Maldivian)
2
SE Asia: Cambodia (Khmer), Indonesia (Indonesian),
Laos (Lao), Myanmar (Myanmar), Thailand (Thai),
Vietnam (Vietnamese)
6
• E Asia: Japan (Japanese)
1
• Total Outside Central Europe
10
Some interesting questions:
 Why is SE / E Asia similar to C Europe in its ideological-cumnational makeup?
 Are C Europe and SE / E Asia comparable?
 Why are isomorphic states contained to Eurasia only?
Human Costs of Achieving
Ethnolinguistic Homogeneity
Will Ethnolinguistic Homogeneity Last
in the Borderless EU?
Ethnolinguistic Diversity in Today’s Berlin and London