Siniša Malešević Small is Beatiful
Much of the rhetoric of Irish nationalism focused on the idea of a small nation, oppressed by a larger one. The nationalism of the Balkan states, in contrast, tended to emphasise the idea of ‘greatness’, though in many important senses these were smaller polities than Ireland.
Nineteenth and early twentieth century Irish and Balkan nationalisms have often been interpreted as having much in common. For one thing they were seen as involving a similar form of popular resistance against illegitimate imperial rule. For another they were identified as having predominantly ethnic character, where the focus was on the cultural (religion, language, descent) as opposed to the political sense of group identification. Finally they are generally perceived to be the typical examples of small nation projects fending off the presence of the dominant large nations. In the words of the Czech historian Miroslav Hroch, small nations “are those which were in subjection to a ruling nation for such a long period that the relation of subjection took on a structural character for both parties”. In other words what, in this view, characterises a small nation is a long history of foreign rule that ultimately generates a particular relation of subjugation and interdependence.
While it is true that Irish and Balkan nationalisms have some common features, as all nationalisms do, these three apparent similarities may not be so straightforward as some would suggest. Firstly, all nationalisms that emerge in the context of imperial order appropriate a language of popular legitimacy that empires inevitably lack. In fact nationalism is first and foremost an ideology that rests on popularly shared perceptions that posit the nation as a principal unit of human solidarity and political legitimacy. In this context there is nothing unique in Irish and Balkan nationalisms: they resemble all other anti-imperial and post-imperial nationalisms. Secondly, to characterise the Balkan and Irish cases as essentially ethnic models of nationalism would suggest that the civic vs. ethnic dichotomy of nationhood is problem-free. However the scholars of nationalism, from Bernard Yack to Rogers Brubaker, have questioned this simplified dichotomy for years arguing that this very typology was often deployed in a crude ethnocentric way to label other nationalisms as ethnic (that is irrational, nativist, inherited) and one’s own as civic (voluntary, rational, consensual). It is quite clear now that all nationalisms are composed of ethnic and civic features and that civic nationalisms, such as the French or American, can be just as exclusive and xenophobic as ethnic ones. Hence depicting Irish, Serbian or Greek nationalisms as having solely ethnic components is conceptually problematic and empirically wrong. So this superficial similarity between Balkan and Irish nationalisms does not hold either.
Much of the rhetoric of Irish nationalism focused on the idea of a small nation, oppressed by a larger one. The nationalism of the Balkan states, in contrast, tended to emphasise the idea of ‘greatness’, though in many important senses these were smaller polities than Ireland.
Nineteenth and early twentieth century Irish and Balkan nationalisms have often been interpreted as having much in common. For one thing they were seen as involving a similar form of popular resistance against illegitimate imperial rule. For another they were identified as having predominantly ethnic character, where the focus was on the cultural (religion, language, descent) as opposed to the political sense of group identification. Finally they are generally perceived to be the typical examples of small nation projects fending off the presence of the dominant large nations. In the words of the Czech historian Miroslav Hroch, small nations “are those which were in subjection to a ruling nation for such a long period that the relation of subjection took on a structural character for both parties”. In other words what, in this view, characterises a small nation is a long history of foreign rule that ultimately generates a particular relation of subjugation and interdependence.
While it is true that Irish and Balkan nationalisms have some common features, as all nationalisms do, these three apparent similarities may not be so straightforward as some would suggest. Firstly, all nationalisms that emerge in the context of imperial order appropriate a language of popular legitimacy that empires inevitably lack. In fact nationalism is first and foremost an ideology that rests on popularly shared perceptions that posit the nation as a principal unit of human solidarity and political legitimacy. In this context there is nothing unique in Irish and Balkan nationalisms: they resemble all other anti-imperial and post-imperial nationalisms. Secondly, to characterise the Balkan and Irish cases as essentially ethnic models of nationalism would suggest that the civic vs. ethnic dichotomy of nationhood is problem-free. However the scholars of nationalism, from Bernard Yack to Rogers Brubaker, have questioned this simplified dichotomy for years arguing that this very typology was often deployed in a crude ethnocentric way to label other nationalisms as ethnic (that is irrational, nativist, inherited) and one’s own as civic (voluntary, rational, consensual). It is quite clear now that all nationalisms are composed of ethnic and civic features and that civic nationalisms, such as the French or American, can be just as exclusive and xenophobic as ethnic ones. Hence depicting Irish, Serbian or Greek nationalisms as having solely ethnic components is conceptually problematic and empirically wrong. So this superficial similarity between Balkan and Irish nationalisms does not hold either.
Much of the rhetoric of Irish nationalism focused on the idea of a small nation, oppressed by a larger one. The nationalism of the Balkan states, in contrast, tended to emphasise the idea of ‘greatness’, though in many important senses these were smaller polities than Ireland.
Nineteenth and early twentieth century Irish and Balkan nationalisms have often been interpreted as having much in common. For one thing they were seen as involving a similar form of popular resistance against illegitimate imperial rule. For another they were identified as having predominantly ethnic character, where the focus was on the cultural (religion, language, descent) as opposed to the political sense of group identification. Finally they are generally perceived to be the typical examples of small nation projects fending off the presence of the dominant large nations. In the words of the Czech historian Miroslav Hroch, small nations “are those which were in subjection to a ruling nation for such a long period that the relation of subjection took on a structural character for both parties”. In other words what, in this view, characterises a small nation is a long history of foreign rule that ultimately generates a particular relation of subjugation and interdependence.
While it is true that Irish and Balkan nationalisms have some common features, as all nationalisms do, these three apparent similarities may not be so straightforward as some would suggest. Firstly, all nationalisms that emerge in the context of imperial order appropriate a language of popular legitimacy that empires inevitably lack. In fact nationalism is first and foremost an ideology that rests on popularly shared perceptions that posit the nation as a principal unit of human solidarity and political legitimacy. In this context there is nothing unique in Irish and Balkan nationalisms: they resemble all other anti-imperial and post-imperial nationalisms. Secondly, to characterise the Balkan and Irish cases as essentially ethnic models of nationalism would suggest that the civic vs. ethnic dichotomy of nationhood is problem-free. However the scholars of nationalism, from Bernard Yack to Rogers Brubaker, have questioned this simplified dichotomy for years arguing that this very typology was often deployed in a crude ethnocentric way to label other nationalisms as ethnic (that is irrational, nativist, inherited) and one’s own as civic (voluntary, rational, consensual). It is quite clear now that all nationalisms are composed of ethnic and civic features and that civic nationalisms, such as the French or American, can be just as exclusive and xenophobic as ethnic ones. Hence depicting Irish, Serbian or Greek nationalisms as having solely ethnic components is conceptually problematic and empirically wrong. So this superficial similarity between Balkan and Irish nationalisms does not hold either.
Much of the rhetoric of Irish nationalism focused on the idea of a small nation, oppressed by a larger one. The nationalism of the Balkan states, in contrast, tended to emphasise the idea of ‘greatness’, though in many important senses these were smaller polities than Ireland.
Nineteenth and early twentieth century Irish and Balkan nationalisms have often been interpreted as having much in common. For one thing they were seen as involving a similar form of popular resistance against illegitimate imperial rule. For another they were identified as having predominantly ethnic character, where the focus was on the cultural (religion, language, descent) as opposed to the political sense of group identification. Finally they are generally perceived to be the typical examples of small nation projects fending off the presence of the dominant large nations. In the words of the Czech historian Miroslav Hroch, small nations “are those which were in subjection to a ruling nation for such a long period that the relation of subjection took on a structural character for both parties”. In other words what, in this view, characterises a small nation is a long history of foreign rule that ultimately generates a particular relation of subjugation and interdependence.
While it is true that Irish and Balkan nationalisms have some common features, as all nationalisms do, these three apparent similarities may not be so straightforward as some would suggest. Firstly, all nationalisms that emerge in the context of imperial order appropriate a language of popular legitimacy that empires inevitably lack. In fact nationalism is first and foremost an ideology that rests on popularly shared perceptions that posit the nation as a principal unit of human solidarity and political legitimacy. In this context there is nothing unique in Irish and Balkan nationalisms: they resemble all other anti-imperial and post-imperial nationalisms. Secondly, to characterise the Balkan and Irish cases as essentially ethnic models of nationalism would suggest that the civic vs. ethnic dichotomy of nationhood is problem-free. However the scholars of nationalism, from Bernard Yack to Rogers Brubaker, have questioned this simplified dichotomy for years arguing that this very typology was often deployed in a crude ethnocentric way to label other nationalisms as ethnic (that is irrational, nativist, inherited) and one’s own as civic (voluntary, rational, consensual). It is quite clear now that all nationalisms are composed of ethnic and civic features and that civic nationalisms, such as the French or American, can be just as exclusive and xenophobic as ethnic ones. Hence depicting Irish, Serbian or Greek nationalisms as having solely ethnic components is conceptually problematic and empirically wrong. So this superficial similarity between Balkan and Irish nationalisms does not hold either.