Paul Anton de Lagarde (1827-1891) taught at the University of Göttingen from 1869 to 1889, and was a correspondent of Masaryk in the 1880s. Masaryk remained concerned with Lagarde’s teaching, even after his death in 1891, until the end of his own life. Masaryk’s relationship to Lagarde was not only complex, but also highly paradoxical in view of Masaryk’s own reputation for humanitarianism and tolerance, which may explain why scholars have shied away from the topic. Lagarde tended to appeal to radical nationalists in Germany, eventually including Hitler’s National Socialists, by his avid promotion of the German mission of colonization in the East and his sharp critique of Jewish influences in Christianity. The key to understanding Lagarde’s attractiveness for Masaryk is the latter’s search for a religious dimension to round out his own Weltanschauung. Initially, there could be a rapprochement on the grounds of Lagarde’s reduction of Christian religion to an inner ethical voice, which Masaryk felt was compatible (in its absence of dogma or historical narrative) with his own rationalist theism. Ultimately, however, the two thinkers grew out of two contrasting albeit both Central European strands of thought, Lagarde from the idealistic and ontically monistic school, Masaryk from the realistic and ontically pluralistic one. The former trend, known as the German philosophical tradition, had its source in the secularized Lutheran subjectivism, the latter trend, known as the Austrian philosophical tradition, had its source in the Josephist Catholic Enlightenment with its empirical objectivism. In the end the metaphysical divergence made itself felt in the stark contrast between Masaryk’s humanitarian cosmopolitanism and Lagarde’s nationalist xenophobia. This led to Masaryk’s repudiation of Lagarde as a political pace-setter, despite a residual respect for Lagarde as a theologian. The story of their encounter sharply illustrates the difference of the two philosophical traditions in their bearing on the genesis of nationalism in Central Europe.
When the nationalities of the multiethnic Austrian Empire began to demand national self-determination „on their own territory“, they started the struggle for the national „Besitzstand“. The great nations like the Magyars, Czechs, Poles and Croats claimed for their historical „Staatsrecht“. The Austrian governments answered with the concept of national autonomy in national homogeneous districts on the basis of the existing historical „Kreise“. Palacky on the Krensierer Reichstag, Stadion in the Reichsverfassung of 1849, Ernest von Körber in the context of his deliberations to solve the „Bohemian question“ presented concepts for realization. When the governments of Stürgkh, Clam Martinic and Seidler/Hussarek declarated the „Kreisordnung“ for Bohemia, there was no chance for acceptance, because the question of the settlement of a Czechoslovak State was decided.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country with a special geo-civilization position. There are significant antagonisms between the three civilizations present here, completely separate ideologically, culturally and socially. According to Samuel Huntington’s theorem in Bosnia and Herzegovina take place a clash of civilizations that causes a general disagreement in the state, pursuing for completely different purposes by three nationalities, and as a consequence leads to instability in the country. The country, relatively young, has been a battlefield for influence for many centuries, which has shaped contemporary difficult situation. Nowadays, the agreement between Western, Islamic and Orthodox civilization which osculate in this area is impossible to achieve due to the diametric differences and purposes of these circles. Undoubtedly, Bosnia and Herzegovina is struggling with the consequences of such a clash of civilizations, as can be seen in the political, social and economic life of the country. The purpose of this article is to identify the problems arising from the presence of three civilizational circles in one state.
This paper deals with the representation of national and ethnic identity categories in media texts during the Population and Housing Census 2011. Census is understood here as means of constructing collective identities not as clearly pre-defined categories but as socially and media shaped parts of an individual identity. The aim of this study is thus to analyze media representations of Population and Housing Census 2011 as an event that highlights the negotiation of collective identities and the processes of the so called “identitary mobilization”. Quantitative analysis of selected articles from national newspapers enriched by findings of qualitative analysis of comments and videos from the new media shows, among others, that the Census is often represented through a kind of media discourse called national in this paper and that the processes of identitary mobilization acquire specific forms during the Census, although probably not limited to its actual period.
The process of Europeanization has been traditionally associated with an economic and political transformation, often undermining the value‑based residual effects such as the state’s or group’s acquiescence to take on a European identity. This dual nature of Europeanization is particularly important in the Balkans, where a highly established sense of self is deeply embedded in the fiber of its people. The goal of a unified Europe, and the Balkan ability or even willingness to become “European” is central to this paper’s analytical approach. A key facet of Europeanization is to create, promote and, more importantly, sustain a sense of a pan‑European identity. However, within multi‑ ethnic and conflicting environments the idea of a national identity is often irresolute, as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. The paper tries to conceptualize the notion of Europeanization from a firmly identity‑based framework, discrediting the essentialist approach to identity formation in favor of a more constructivist model. It argues that the notion of a European identity is in fact a shared social value, rather than a tangible idea easily applicable to every situation, and with the Balkans being a particularly difficult case study. In essence, the underlying question is what does the process of Europeanization really mean and how viable is it in the context of a complex environment such as the Balkans?
In the presented article the author is studying arguments occurring between the nationalism in its radical version and with poetry engendered in the environment of Polish national radicals in the 30. of XX century. These groups have often appealed to the Polish literary tradition, mainly of Romanticism and included in it (then taken over and reinterpretated by Polish nationalists) topoi (topoi of flight, youth, idealism).
This article aims at outlining the method of dividing the Polish political thought. For this purpose the category of “tradition” is used “Tradition” is perceived by the author as a type of conscious and reflective choice of achievements of the past made in the present. Based on “tradition” the author distinguishes the following currents of the Polish nationalist thought: the current of Neo-National Democracy, the current of National Radicalism, the Catholic National current, as well as the Progressive current and the current of Slavonic Neo-Paganism. Apart from political thought the tradition of Polish nationalism also includes political movement issues, literature and art. An important role in the reception and transmission of “tradition” to contemporary times is played by its guardians, which means people who endeavor to pass it on in a form desired by them.
The Confederation of the Nation, the ideological continuation of the National Radical Camp Falanga during the Second World War, created a concept for the post-war order in Central Europe which would be guaranteed by a new geo-political construct – the Slavic Empire – with borders defined by the three seas: the Baltic, the Black and the Adriatic. Poland, with its Western borders significantly expanded compared to the pre-war period and in union with Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, would take the lead of the proposed block. Despite the name of the proposed supernation, the Baltic countries as well as Romania and Hungary were welcome to participate in shaping the new future. The Confederates did not see any other option for either Poland or any other countries of the Intermarium. The leader of the Confederation of the Nation Bolesław Piasecki wrote: „No other choice remains, as either we, as the culturally paramount nation among the Slavs, take up and implement the idea of designing the geo-political Slavic bloc, or the Poles and all Slavs fall into a civilizational abyss, becoming slaves to foreign forces and their own unawareness. (…) If our iron will is lacking, it is easy to imagine Europe without Poland and the rest of Slavs as actors of history”.
The configuration of the modern public school system started after the Austro‐Hungarian Compromise in 1867. Most of the elementary schools in Upper Hungary belonged to the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches at that time. The church elementary schools could be characterized by two things. On the one hand they didn’t do for the demands of the modern age, but on the other hand they provided mother‐tongue teaching for the Slovak population of the area, who were in the majority in Upper Hungary. This duality became the reason of permanent attack on church elementary schools and there were some attempts to revise the 1868 Nationality and Elementary Education Acts since the 1870‐s. This process had many stages, but it didn’t managed to reach a breakthrough till 1907. The Apponyi school laws in 1907 reached serious results in the field of the modernization of the elementary school system, but most of the church schools were nationalized. At the end of the Dualism only the 10 percents of the Slovak population of Upper Hungary could speak Hungarian, while only the 30‐40 percents of them were illiterate. These data can prove the results of the modernization and the failure of the Magyarization in the area of the public school system.
The Second World War and the anticipated victory over the Third Reich, together with the significant weakening of the USSR, became in Poland the reason for developing various new geopolitical concepts and plans for reshaping Poland’s previous borders. The menace of a new aggression from both of Poland’s powerful neighbours in the process to rebuild their previous positions of power brought forward the idea of a federation of middle-Eastern Europe countries (the so-called „Intermarium”) and a future creation of a sufficient barrier against possible aggressors. In Poland these issues were broadly discussed by the nationalistic fractions such as the National Party, the Confederation of the Nation, the Szaniec Group and the „Fatherland” Organisation. The latter two were especially productive in this area. There was a general agreement in the nationalist movement regarding the necessity to move Poland’s borders to the lower Oder and the Lusatian Neisse. Some concepts reached even further, planning the creation of a Lusatian Coutry or indeed the reslavisation of Mecklenburg. Especially active in this regard was Professor Karol Stojanowski, the leader of the People’s National Military Organisation and the author of brochures propagating ideas such as „The West Slavic Country” and „The Reslavisation of Eastern Germany”. A very interesting concept of the „Great Nation” was presented by an endecian ideologist Adam Doboszyński in a brochure of the same title, in which Doboszyński propagated not only the federation of the „Intermarium” countries, but also predicted a gradual merging of these nations into a single „Great Nation” and even the eventual development of a common language.
The article deals with the process of depicting the Czech-German language borderline in Czech and German-language maps published from the 1820s until 1940. An analysis of approximately 250 maps shows that this genre became gradually more and more important in the course of time; the introduction of official statistical surveys in the 1880s brought about a significant innovation. It also shows that both Czech as well as German publishers used various manipulation methods when creating these maps in order to make them look favorable for them whereas this trend was extremely strong during political coups – in 1848, 1918 and during the late 1930s.
From a perspective rooted in conceptual history, the following article studies the transformations of Yugoslav political discourse from the end of World War II until the 1960s, in order to later analyze the famous debate held by the Serbian writer Dobrica Ćosić and the Slovene critic Dušan Pirjevec regarding cultural cooperation between the Yugoslav republics. By examining the transition from a centralist model to a more decentralized model based on the conceptual paradigm of selfmanagement and the consequences of such a transformation on the official approach towards the national question, the text aims at taking a closer look to the development of the new political language of Yugoslav communism and its effects on the political and intellectual debates of the time.
The European concept of nationalism became a useful instrument in creating new identities of peoples of South Asia. In Bengal, traditional identities were given political dimensions, and a number of emotion building symbols, narrations, invented traditions and characteristics of the land, were employed to attract the people to the idea of a particular nationalism. The role of cities in creating the nationalisms of Bengal is discussed in the present paper. The examples of Dhaka, Kolkata and Murshidabad are considered on the one hand, whereas on the other there is an attempt of a comparison between the role of these three cities and the influence of the countryside and the rural landscape of Bengal in appealing to the sentiments of Bengalis in their nationalistic discourse. Conclusions are submitted for further considerations.
The article summarizes discussions and ideas of the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century expressed by the Czech society and its political leaders on introduction of the universal suffrage and on the appropriate level of its equality. While putting opinions oscillating between conservatives, socialists, liberals and liberal democrats into the context of similar all-European debates, the article deals with arguments of various political and Word view-related groupings and summarizes causes and results of individual attitudes toward solving this crucial issue of the modern European society. On top of the political and social impact of the universal suffrage introduction it also takes into consideration the gender problem, i.e. the admissibility of the women’s suffrage.
There are three traditional foundation or pillars of Ukrainian national identity; language, religion and social memory but religion is the most important. It is connected in special way with the Orthodox Church and its role to the preservation and reconstruction that identity. Interviews conducted among Orthodox Church priests working in the decanates of Olsztyn, Elbląg and Węgorzewo and other researches make clear that religion is the real value of native ethnic culture and center of Ukrainian national consciousness. Social and cultural role of Orthodox parish churches in the Ukrainian community refers also to the situation before 1947 i.e. deportation Ukrainians on Wamia and Mazury. History and memory of the polish-ukrainian borderland show that among principles of coexistence of Poles and Ukrainians religion and church were the most important. Now significance of religion in processes of identification is also recognized. It seems that future existence of Ukrainian diaspora in Warmia and Mazury depends on religion. It means that the range of the assimilation processes will depend not only on rate of conversional and mixed marriage but also on different forms of secularization. Religious institutions are connected with political; Ukrainian Orthodox Church which gained full political and cultural rights after 1989 increased his social and cultural activity to become the most important institution of presentation of ethnic group interests.
The article concerns one of the most important referenda in the history of the United Kingdom – a vote on Scotland’s independence to be held at the end of the 2014, following the Scottish National Party’s (SNP’s) victory in the Scottish elections in 2011. The referendum may become decisive to the future of the Kingdom and its likely break-up; likewise it may trigger a serious debate on Scotland’s political and legal status in the British national power structures. Above all, the article aims at analysing the issue of Scottish nationalism and the chances of nationalist movement on the political scene. The reforms conducted so far, i.e. the enlargement of Scottish autonomy, including the re-establishing of Parliament in Holyrood in 1999, have not satisfied the Scottish electorate’s aspirations. The article attempts to answer whether the SNP’s popularity is due to Scots’ being tired of the traditional political power structures and their dependence on Westminster, or whether it is an authentic sign of maturity and conviction that Scotland may gain economically and politically becoming independent of Westminster.
Die Studie beschäftigt sich mit der Problematik der Betrachtung von Ľudovít Štúr im Rahmen der ungarischen (d. h. magyarischen) Geschichtsschreibung in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Über drei wesentliche historische Werke vom Historiker und Publizist Lajos Steier, in denen sich er der Geschichte der slowakischen Frage mit Bezug auf die Revolutionsjahre 1848/49 widmete, beobachtet und erfasst man die Stabilität oder vice versa Variabilität Štúr´s Repräsentationen – eines wichtigen Ideologen der slowakischen nationalen Identität. Durch Analyse seiner Publikationen – Slowakische Frage (1912), Tschechen und Slowaken (1919), Slowakische ethnische Frage in 1848 – 1849 (1937) – achtet man nicht nur auf die Interpretation von Ľ. Štúr, seiner Person, Charaktereigenschaften oder Politik, sondern auch auf den zeitgemäßen Kontext (politischen, geopolitischen, ideologischen), der die Steier´s Auslegung der slowakischen nationalen Emanzipationsbewegung und ihrer Führer aus den 30er und 40er Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts beeinflusste.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the political thought of the Movement Sword and Plough, and finding sources in the concepts Zadruga – pre-war neo-pagan groups. The Sword and the Plow was not the only Polish nationalist underground organization, however, was one of the few that nationalism separated from Catholicism.
The Býčí Skála Cave is situated in the central part of the Moravian Karst. The area was researched on a long-term basis by Moravian archaeologist, doctor and speleologist Heinrich Wankel; in 1872 he made an extraordinary discovery there. In the so-called Hallway he uncovered a settlement from the Hallstatt culture era containing valuable artifacts, sacrificed human and animal bodies and also a blacksmith’s workshop. The site soon became the subject matter of romantic and nationalistic interpretations both by Czech (Moravian) patriots supporting H. Wankel and also by German patriots organized under the institute of the German House in Brno.
The political situation in Catalonia during the last months is changing almost daily. Catalan nationalist movements consistently continue their efforts to create an independent state. As a result, every vote – an unofficial plebiscite, local elections or elections to the Catalan parliament – is treated like a referendum on the matter of independence. The Catalan actions that are ever more faster and further-reaching meet with a growing opposition of the central government, threatening the Catalan authorities with a number of sanctions in case of taking further, concrete steps to break away from Spain. Although, from the outside, the Catalan independence parties seem to be a monolith, the situation on the regional political scene is much more complex. During the past several months, the balance of power of political parties in Catalonia was completely changed. Ruling for almost thirty years, Convergencia i Unió divided and the results of the election of 27 September forced Prime Minister Artur Mas (of the centre-right CiU) and the leaders of the new pro-independence coalition Junts pel Si to seek an ally in the far-left Popular Unity Candidacy. Therefore, this is a time of difficult choices for Catalonia, not only in relation to the issue of independence, but also when it comes to alliances on the national political scene. In this article, I will try to analyze the curent political scene in Catalonia and its impact on the independence aspirations of the Autonomous Community. I will examine the current balance of power of political parties and the changes that have occurred in 2015. I will look at the programmes of the leading – in recent years as well as currently – Catalan political factions in terms of their outlook on the issue of independence. Finally, I will consider in what way the complex situation on the Catalan political scene may become a determinant of the effectiveness of the demands for independence made by the authorities of Catalonia.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.