Open lecture "Building Nations in and with Empires" and presentation of the book «Nationalizing Empires»

 
28.10.2015
 
Department of History

On October 8, Alexey Miller, professor at the Department of History of the European University at St. Petersburg  presented his new book «Nationalizing Empires (Historical Studies in Eastern Europe and Eurasia)» sharing with the audience his vision of the nation state phenomenon.

Documentary beginning of the research project was put in 2004 with an article by A. Miller  “The Empire and the Nation in the Imagination of Russian Nationalism” in a collection of essays «Imperial Rule». It was the first publication on the Russian nationalism as a creation of the imperial context.

Later on together with a German historian Stefan Berger, A. Miller examined the role of empires in the nation state building, studying the imperial metropolitan countries.

А noteworthy view of the national self-determination appears in Jürgen Osterhammel’s "Transformation of the World" (2009) where he discusses four ways of the emergence of nation states:

- revolutionary autonomization of a part of a big state (case of the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire - Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria)

- hegemonic unification, where one part takes initiative in unifying the nation, and imposes its idea to the rest of the area in question (Prussia in Germany, Piedmont-Sardinia in Italy)

- evolutionary autonomization of a region of some bigger state (perhaps the only example is Norway’s emancipation from Sweden, although we could also consider some former Soviet republics in this regard)

- creation of nation states in former centers of vast empires abandoned by their imperial possessions (as it happened to Spain and Portugal, which have lost their colonies in Latin America)

This theory, according to A. Miller, neglects another way of the nation state creation - in the core of its empire. As the 19th century has clearly demonstrated that it is not the nations that build empires, but the empires that give birth to nations.

In this regard, the classic Ernest Gellner’s definition of nationalism as the congruence of the political and national unit is to be reviewed. It was the imperial state that has developed interior processes leading to the nation state building.

Such dynamics could follow different directions. For example, some states have adapted to the disintegration of the empire: Spain lost its colonies and contracted, new processes were launched in Portugal - both countries tried to compensate for territory losses in Latin America by conquering lands in Africa.

Another scenario could be observed in flourishing, confident empires like France, Britain, Russia in the late 19th century. Together with the exterior imperial expansion, there evolved the concept of the national territory. In this context, it is interesting to analyze the perception of the national area by the nation itself later in history. Regions that are now considered by Russians as indigenously Russian - the Volga region, Kuban, Stavropol, Siberia - were in the 18-19 centuries part of the periphery map of Russia, and it was there that a large agricultural migration took place in order to Russify new territories. The phenomenon could be illustrated with an Anton Chekhov letter written during his journey to the Sakhalin Island – there he depicted a strange non-Russian land, where he met only one Russian man... who turned out to be Jew, - this was a description of Siberia. Nevertheless, gradually Siberia has changed into native Russian land, the same natural way as the Volga has become the great Russian river.

Similarly, in the 19th century Provence it was actually impossible to hold meetings of the French Academy of Sciences as nobody spoke the language of the French Empire. Who now would tell that Marseille is not a French city?

Other attributes of the modern nation state also represent imperial projects such as: industrialization, modernization (telegraph, railways), military and legal institutionalization, education, urbanization emerged under the influence of the imperial logic. Port cities, for example, played an important nation building role, but above all performed an essential imperial function. It is also impossible to understand the relations between regions without taking into account the imperial dynamics.

The creators of nation states were quite imperial heroes as well. For example, who saved the Finnish nation in 1917? – Field Marshal Mannerheim who commanded his Finnish army in Russian. He is emblematic figure of the era and has performed a typical scenario. When the imperial center falls, its backbone - the army - becomes a tool for keeping country from chaos. Thus the imperial symbols have embodied new national state formations.

It can be said that the Russian project of nation building suffered a defeat at its western suburbs: it was the Bolsheviks who came to be its gravediggers in 1920. Nevertheless, the Russian expansion proved to be a huge success. National Russian identity was assigned to the North Caucasus, Siberia, the Volga region, or, for example, Crimea, which wasn’t recognized as Russian up to the beginning of the First World War.

It was the Great War that broke down the imperial dynamics. An imperial habit of discussing state borders issues at the negotiation table after having completed a restricted military action plan was severely crushed by a swiftly unfolded turmoil firing for effect. Dice throwing led to the empires perishing, and it wasn’t unexpected that on their ruins nation states would arise. Once united imperial macrosystem split into independent nations, conceived long before in the core of empires.

The following horror of the 20th century lied in imposing the idée fixeof the nation state as the key, even exemplary, concept of the country development. The imperial regime has run its course, but before its downfall it was pregnant with nationalism, whereas the artificial acceleration and separatist efforts to create nation states could not have worked out as naturally and bloodless.

These and other issues are discussed in the book of A. Miller and S. Berger.

The work can be divided into two logical parts. The chapters of the first one portray various empires (the British, Spanish, German, Ottoman, Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic France, Italy, Denmark, the Habsburg, and Romanov empires). The absence of some European examples, as well as of the American and Japanese cases is due to the technical and conceptual side of things: covering full geography was a priori an impossible task, and there was no such purpose at this stage.

The second part of the book captures unique considerations of invited historians on the previous part descriptions. Comments arise around such issues as imperial army, multi-ethnicity, role of the World War I in the history of empires and other acute problems.

The book opens a wide field for reflection on the relation of the empire and the nation phenomena, and invites to apply the theory at a more global scale, as well as to engage new empiric examples.

 

Kristina Emelianenko