Introduction

Summary

The purpose of the sequence of collections of essays that we are editing is to bring together comparative, national and interdisciplinary approaches to the history of great movements in the development of human thought and action. Among them, by any reckoning, the historical impact of national movements has been immense, and it is the awareness of the enduring significance of the national question that leads us to offer a volume in which it is discussed authoritatively by specialist historians. It goes without saying that the national question is not a specifically European phenomenon, but for reasons of space and intelligibility the volume deals with the national question in a limited number of European countries. Reflecting recent research and ever-changing patterns of interpretation, the volume focuses on the role, underestimated time and again, of the national question in European history.

Our aim is that this collection should be of use to students of history as well as to a wide range of readers interested in a historical problem that has been hard to encompass theoretically and to deal with practically. A glance at what is being written in the contemporary press or shown on the screen, regarding national and ethnical issues, demonstrates the validity of this aim, not only with regard to the multinational former Soviet Union or former Yugoslavia in eastern Europe but also (for example) to bi-national Belgium or to the four nations of the British Isles in the West.