REVIEWS

Coneepts ofNationalldentity~

An Interdisciplinary

Dalogue

(Editedby Peter Boemer,Baden-BadeniNmSVeragsgesellschaft.Pp; 262. FRG)

'Ihiscollection of papers offered at a cpqference at Indiana University' in Bloomington in 1985,

presents a subject worthy of profound anayss, The volume is a timelyand scholarly addtion to
the growing Iterature on national and ettinic identity.
Thereare considerable ermnoogcat uncertaintles, not only in Bnglish but also in other
languages, reatng to the use of tbe tenn "1U1tiQll.", as well as its dervatves, such as national,
nationality, nationalism; etc, Theseconcepscan be intimately linked to phenornena connected with
ethnic groups at 'least as rauch the State, if not more so, One finds extremely different nterpretatons
concemng the essenec of "naton" and "national" in scholarly publications, in poltica! rhetorc
or in the press. Autbors representingdlfferen~ geQgtaphcaland cultural areas, beongng to various
disciplines (sociology, history, po1t.icalscenoe or anthropology) folow separate . paths In the
explanation of this major social phenomenon, Ttierefore a wide-ranging survey and an
"interdisciplinary dalgue" - as the subtit1e of the volume indcates - can only be welcomed in
the process of clarificaton of this rnportantnotion.
Ih the past, most studies related to theconcept of national identity or national character have
been concerned with ts development separately jil fndvidual countries.. This bookdiffers from the
general run in that Western.East Buropean.and also African national dentity problems are treated
here in a compararve manner and inttoduced by a seres Ol common.questions.
In the Introduction, Peter Boerner, theeditor of the volume, provides a stmuating presentation
of some general conceptual probems e.g, the need to constder specfc cnstellatons of politcal,
economic, religious and cultural influences with regard to the soco-psychologcal development of
an indvidual natton. He notes that the idcological contents of concepts of identity differ from nation
to natton and from historicel stuaton to historical stuaton. Boerner describes the variery of, factors
constituting a collective Identiry, first of ali the relationships fbat have exsted and could exst
between the polticalenttiesand the ethncandemotonal complexes. Raymond Crew's contrbuton
"The Qonstruction Of National Identity" openstbc dscourse.Tle gives a short survey on the extent
to which the main intellectua.1trends havepaidand conunue pay attenton to queston of the national
identity, its forrnatton and mctontng in varous llistoQc<ilcircumstances. Grew's concluson is that
national identity becomes sigojficanily different and, apparently more important in the nneteenth
century than it was before, The 4ecisive role in itsgcnesjs was played by the Indvdual states, but
ndustralzaton, incte8Stldcommunic;ation'and mPbility also contribured to its development.
For those, who are interested in Hunganan and Bast Central Europeanstudies, Mihly
$zege<J,y-MaszQk's paper "The Idea of National Cl1;amcter;A Romantic Hertage" provdes an
especially valuable analysis coneernng the evolution of nat.ionalthnkng in this part of Europe. The
'tbougbt that nations, as weH as individuals havea tloiquecharacter, can be traccd baek :to Romantic
era. Under the 'io.fluenceot German Geistsgeschichte, this idea preveileo arnong Central and Eastern
European intellectuals for a long time. It setved hones! political ams in certain cases (e.g. it belpcd
national minorities preserve 'tbeir identlty), but - as the.authr ppints out -it als~ festered ' a
derogatory view of other nUlluns,togeth.erwith mysticalimages and prejudices wtnohcontrlbuted to
'mutual dstrust in Inter-etmic-relatons. In the '<x>nstroctiQn
of natona! identties a permanent
cotnparson with other collective sentmems and b.ehav.~ourss fnvoved, Orest Ranum 's papce
"Cunter-Identitie:sofWeslern European Natonsn the ,Early-Modern:Perod: D,ef'inltionslndPoints
of Departure" exam.inC$the .queston of the compering commuualvalues end.the contrasts of the
schemstic "they - we" im:age.He presentshstoricalcases Where the process of identification.with
Hungarian. Studies 5/l (1989) .
AladmiaJ Kiad, Budapest. .

120

REVlEWS

one eommunty's valnea ..and qualities implied in some way the allenatinn (estrangement) from thosq
of others. However, the percepton of foreign culture and its comparson with our own cultu.ce does ,
not lead necesserly to slereotyped images; it may aso stimulate ll-human ideals and supra-national
loyalti~. Kanrad Bicbcr'sessay "].>a(riot wthout a. Rag:. Freneh Wrt:rs Look at their Coul!try ~pd
across the BOtder" is a supetbpresentation
of tbe way in which, varous dmensons of collective
senffmen] (national, European and unlversa) were integrated by some farnous Freneh intellectuals,
It is II histQrical facHtmf group i<lentitcsare not alwayscompetitivc;
they can becomplementry
or even mutually reinforci!lg. The varous scales and levels of colectve loyaltes d !tt displacc
each other; they correspond roseparate - however related - basic human needs.
Jack E: Reece's paper "Outmooed Nationalsrn and Ernerging Patterns of Regtonal. Identy Jn
Contemporary Western Europe" dscusses thecauses andecnsequences
of the recent ethnic revva
in the western part of ourcontnent. There is no doubt, that tbe state has an mpressvearsenal
for
aculcatng loyalty, includiog tb~ school system and the power to design and manpulate sy,lll.bo1,s
etc. On the other hand, the' ap~rancc of national minority and ethnoregonal movements in tbe old
states of Western Europe suggests that "natioa-buldng"
has ts limits, Nation-states have losr much
of their prestge and other focc& have scored remarkabe suecesses in dentty formaton. OJl of the
basic conclusons which can be dtaw:n from this study is that nmany cases the complexty and
multplcty of etbnc phenorDYOOO.does not permt us to equate national identity with ti fecling of
loyalty to the state. In Europe thereare only verY ewcountres where the ethnc andpofteal
borders coincide; so it would he aso theoretically more appropriate to differentiate (ethno)nationality
from ctzenshp, (etbno)nationalism frompatriotism, etc.
In contrast to Reece's essay, Robin Alison Remlngton's contributien "The Balkanisationof
Comlllumsm: East European NaUons in the 1980s" seems to be less consstent in differentiatng
cthnonationalsrn from state-nationa1ilm. An obvious example is the way the "Romanian National
Defance'" is presented in this paper. The fact that Rumaula. (and especially Transylvania) ilia
multinatonal state,arid hasa consderable non-Rumanian (etbnc Hungarian, Germn, Slav and otl1er)
poptilation, is even not mentioned'by
the author. Thus "narionalsm"
receves a narrow, almosf
exclusively inter-state nterpretaton, and its important intra-state (aat-mnorty; dscrmnave and
forcibly amalgamatng) aspect ssimply Ignored. In thecase of Yugoslava and (to a lesser degree)
Bulgaria the relationShip betweene[h:nic components and international tactors is analysed in a more
balaricea way.
The. various dmensons andlevels ofccllectve loyaltyare also discussed in Richard Bjomson'
study "National Identity Conoeptn Afrjca: Interplay between European Categorzaton Schemes 'and
African Realitics" . Smaller and larger scale attachmeots, trbal, regional and national solidatity' tes
arc d~cdbe<l bere through theexample
of Carnercon. FOUTpaprs preseat the way in which the
bstorical and present daynspects
of national identity interplay in the German-speaking area of
Europe. Conrad Wiedemanll'S,/leinrjch C. Seeba'e, Werner Weidenfeld's and William M.JoJmston's
thoughtf!Jl'anaweU-wtitten
essnys analyse jhe causes of the absence of acicar Germn and Austrian,
self-image. In these con:ttibulio!ls :tl:legrowing need for a community awareness is wrltten netther
from a grQ$sdeut$ch nor a klelndeut$ch pom of view. Thepapess show evdence of old issues havng
been thoroughly rethough; dudng the tast decades, and above all, liberated from the concept and
rigil.i moId of the natton-state, in search or newcrtera for identification,
Ud Rd'$sback's "Docomenting Publications Related io the Conceptof
Nlitional Identity"
eoncludes the selection of C$Sys with. il list of relevanttnternatonal
llterature,
Ths bOOk Wil1engage the atlention of the 'serious.general readeras well as the social scientists
representing, varons disdp1ines. Ir should be a required rcadil1g for all students of tbc natio!t.l
question.Especially
for those who are interested in :study of ethllically intermngled areas sl.chas
EaSt-Centrl Europe, wbere a large number of national groups live in comrouniti~s extending aCCCoSS
~tilteboundanes.end where a particularly sharp antagonismbetween tbe "nationstale" and "01\110n1
culture" bS ernerged and is sUU takingplace.

MagyarsgkiJtal Intzet, BUdapSt

Rudolf/o