Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T06:45:06.341Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nationhood as Practice and the Modernity of Nations: A Conceptual Proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2020

Raúl Moreno-Almendral Open the ORCID record for Raúl Moreno-Almendral [Opens in a new window]
Raúl Moreno-Almendral*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Historia Medieval, Moderna y Contemporánea, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article revisits the debate on the modernity of nations considering recent critical approaches to national phenomena. It proposes an alternative model that addresses the existence of empirical evidence about nations before the 19th century without erasing key changes in the history of nationhood, such as the rise of the principle of national sovereignty. The model draws on existing literature and a corpus of British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese ego-documents from the Age of Revolutions. The study of patterns of usage of national languages in these life narratives supports the abandonment of the premodern/modern antinomy and the implementation of a more complex account. The proposal distinguishes republican, genetic, nonpoliticized ethnotypical, politicized ethnotypical, liberal, romantic, biological, cultural, and democratic forms of nationhood. It then develops the genetic and the ethnotypical forms using source materials and readdresses the issue of “modernity” in the light of this evidence.

Keywords

historical narrativenationalismnational identitynation-buildingtheories of nationalism
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 12 - 29
Check for updates
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Amat, Rafael D’. 1994. Calaix de sastre (vol. 7: 1804–1807), edited by Boixareu, Ramon. Barcelona: Institut Municipal d’Història-Curial Edicions Catalanes.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Andreu Miralles, Xavier. 2016. El descubrimiento de España: mito romántico e identidad nacional. Barcelona: Taurus.Google Scholar
Archilés, Ferran. 2013. “Lenguajes de nación. ‘Las experiencias de nación’ y los procesos de nacionalización: propuestas para un debate.” Ayer 90: 91–114.Google Scholar
Ballester Rodríguez, Mateo. 2010. La identidad española en la Edad Moderna (1556–1665): Discursos, símbolos y mitos. Madrid: Tecnos.Google Scholar
Bayley, Frederick W. N. 1830. Four Years’ Residence in the West Indies, during the Years 1826, 7, 8 and 9. London: William Kidd.Google Scholar
Beaune, Colette. 1985. Naissance de la nation France. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Bell, David A. 2001. The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourgoing, Jean-François. 1789. Nouveau voyage en Espagne, ou le tableau de l’état actuel de cette monarchie, 3 vols. Paris: Regnault.Google Scholar
Breuilly, John. 2005. “Changes in the Political Uses of the Nation: Continuity or Discontinuity?” In Power and the Nation in European History, edited by Scales, Len and Zimmer, Oliver, 67–101. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 1996. Nationalism Reframed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2004. Ethnicity Without Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caiani, Ambrogio A. 2017. “Re-Inventing the Ancien Régime in Post-Napoleonic Europe.” European History Quarterly 47 (3): 437–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calhoun, Craig. 1997. Nationalism. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Conceição, Claudio. 1811. Memoria do que aconteceo ao Santo Milagre de Santarem pela invasão dos Francezes naquella villa, em o mez de Outubro de 1810. Lisboa: Impressão Regia.Google Scholar
Conversi, Daniele. 2012. “Modernism and Nationalism.” Journal of Political Ideologies 17 (1): 13–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, William. 2002. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dumas, Mathieu. 1839. Souvenirs du lieutenant-général Comte Mathieu Dumas, 3 vols. Paris: Librairie Charles Gosselin.Google Scholar
Farington, Joseph. 1978. The Diary of Joseph Farington, Vol. I. July 1793–September 1794; Vol. II. January 1795–August 1796, edited by Garlick, Kenneth and Macintyre, Angus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Farington, Joseph. 1979. The Diary of Joseph Farington, Vol. V. August 1801–March 1803; Vol. VI. April 1803–December 1804, edited by Garlick, Kenneth and Macintyre, Angus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fernández Sebastián, Javier. 1994. “España, monarquía y nación. Cuatro concepciones de la comunidad política española entre el Antiguo Régimen y la Revolución Liberal”, Studia Historica. Historia Contemporánea 12: 45–74.Google Scholar
Ferreira, Alexandre Rodrigues. 1972. Viagem Filosófica pelas Capitanias do Grão-Pará, Rio Negro, Mato Grosso e Cuiabá. Memórias, vol. 1. Zoologia. Botánica. Rio de Janeiro: Conselho Federal da Cultura.Google Scholar
Fox, John E., and Miller-Idriss, Cynthia. 2008. “Everyday Nationhood.” Ethnicities 8 (4): 536–576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fradera, Josep M. 2015. La Nación Imperial: Derechos, Representación y Ciudadanía En Los Imperios de Gran Bretaña, Francia, España y Estados Unidos (1750–1918). 2 vols. Barcelona: Edhasa.Google Scholar
Gat, Azar. 2013. Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gorski, Philip S. 2000. “The Mosaic Moment: An Early Modernist Critique of Modernist Theories of Nationalism.” American Journal of Sociology 105 (5): 1428–1468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenfeld, Liah. 1992. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grosby, Steven, Leerssen, Joep, and Hirschi, Caspar. 2014. “Continuities and Shifting Paradigms: A Debate on Caspar Hirschi’s ‘The Origins of Nationalism.’” Studies on National Movements 2: 24–35.Google Scholar
Gunn, Simon. 2006. History and Cultural Theory. Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman.Google Scholar
Hastings, Adrian. 1997. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, and Nationalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hastings, Derek. 2018. Nationalism in Modern Europe. Politics, Identity, and Belonging since the French Revolution. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Herzog, Tamar. 2003. Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschi, Caspar. 2012. The Origins of Nationalism: An Alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Germany. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoppenbrouwers, Peter. 2007. “Medieval Peoples Imagined.” In Imagology: The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters. A Critical Survey, edited by Beller, Manfred and Leerssen, Joep, 45–62. Amsterdam: Brill-Rodopi.Google Scholar
Hroch, Miroslav. 1985. Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe: A Comparative Analysis of the Social Composition of Patriotic Groups among the Smaller European Nations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hroch, Miroslav. 2015. European Nations: Explaining Their Formation. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Hunt, Henry. 1820. Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Written by Himself, in His Majesty’s Jail at Ilchester, in the County of Somerset, Volume 1. London: T. Dolby, repr. Cedric Chivers: Bath, 1967.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, John. 2013. “Cultural Nationalism.” In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism, edited by Breuilly, John, 75–94. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ichijo, Atsuko. 2013. Nationalism and Multiple Modernities: Europe and Beyond. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, Lotte, ed. 2016. The Roots of Nationalism: National Identity Formation in Early Modern Europe, 1600–1815. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judson, Peter. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Lloyd S. 2011. Nationalism in Europe and America: Politics, Cultures, and Identities since 1775. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Leerssen, Joep. 2006. National Thought in Europe: A Cultural History. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Google Scholar
Leerssen, Joep. 2014. When Was Romantic Nationalism? The Onset, the Long Tail, the Banal. Antwerp: NISE.Google Scholar
Llobera, Josep. 1994. The God of Modernity: The Development of Nationalism in Western Europe. Oxford, UK: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
Mercier du Rocher, André. 1989. Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la guerre de Vendée, edited by Rouchette, Thérèse. Loudéac: Y. Salmon.Google Scholar
Miller, Alexei, and Berger, Stefan, eds. 2014. Nationalizing Empires. Budapest: Central European University Press.Google Scholar
Molin, François. 2008. Les carnets de François Molin, edited by Sorrel, Christian. Montmélian: La Fontaine de Siloé.Google Scholar
Molina Aparicio, Fernando. 2013. “La nación desde abajo. Nacionalización, individuo e identidad nacional.” Ayer 90: 39–63.Google Scholar
Moliner Prada, Antonio. 2010. La Guerra del Francès a Catalunya segons el diari de Raimon Ferrer. Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Mollien, François. 1837. Mémoires d’un ancien ministre du Trésor public. 4 vols. Paris: Imprimerie de H. Fournier.Google Scholar
Moreno-Almendral, Raúl. 2018a. “Reconstructing the History of Nationalist Cognition and Everyday Nationhood from Personal Accounts.” Nations and Nationalism 24 (3): 648–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreno-Almendral, Raúl. 2018b. “Nación vivida, nación narrada: Una historia comparada de lo nacional en el Reino Unido, Francia, España y Portugal, c. 1780–1840.” PhD diss., University of Salamanca.Google Scholar
Özkirimli, Umut. 2003. “The Nation as an Artichoke? A Critique of Ethnosymbolist Interpretations of Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism 9 (3): 339–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Özkirimli, Umut. 2017. Theories of Nationalism. A Critical Introduction. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, Susan. 2005. “The Idea of Nation as a Political Community.” Power and the Nation in European History, edited by Scales, Len and Zimmer, Oliver, 54–66. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Eric, ed. 1983. John Clare’s Autobiographical Writings. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Roshwald, Aviel. 2006. The Endurance of Nationalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sewell, William H. Jr. 2004. “The French Revolution and the Emergence of the Nation Form.” In Revolutionary Currents: Transatlantic Ideology and Nation-Building, 1688–1821, edited by Morrison, Michael and Zook, Melinda, 91–125. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 1971. Theories of Nationalism. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 1998. Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, Anthony D. 2009. Ethnosymbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spence, Elizabeth I. 1809. Summer Excursions through Parts of Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire, Derbyshire, and South Wales. 2 vols. London: Longman et al.Google Scholar
Tacitus, . 2014. Agricola, edited by Woodman, A. J. with Kraus, C. S., Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thom, Martin. 1995. Republics, Nations and Tribes. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Townsend, Joseph. 1790. A Journey through Spain in the Years 1786 and 1787. Vol. I. London: C. Dilly.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, COD 8543.Google Scholar
London School of Economics Archives, Special Coll Misc 156, vol. 3.Google Scholar