Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Rethinking nationhood and nationalism
- Part II The old “New Europe” and the new
- 4 Nationalizing states in the old “New Europe” – and the new
- 5 Homeland nationalism in Weimar Germany and “Weimar Russia”
- 6 Aftermaths of empire and the unmixing of peoples
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Homeland nationalism in Weimar Germany and “Weimar Russia”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Rethinking nationhood and nationalism
- Part II The old “New Europe” and the new
- 4 Nationalizing states in the old “New Europe” – and the new
- 5 Homeland nationalism in Weimar Germany and “Weimar Russia”
- 6 Aftermaths of empire and the unmixing of peoples
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In interwar Europe, one of the most dangerous fault lines was that along which the domestic nationalisms of ethnically heterogeneous nationalizing states collided with the transborder nationalisms of neighboring “homeland” states, oriented to co-ethnics living as minorities in the nationalizing states. The clash between the nationalizing nationalism of interwar Poland and the homeland nationalisms of Germany and the Soviet Union, between the nationalizing nationalism of Czechoslovakia and the homeland nationalisms of Germany and Hungary, between the nationalizing nationalism of Romania and the homeland nationalisms of Hungary and Bulgaria – to name only a few – generated both chronic tensions and acute crises, tensions and crises that were bound up with the background to and the outbreak of the Second World War.
Analogous collisions along the same fault line threaten the stability and security of the region today. In some cases they have already led to war. As I argued in Chapter 3, the interplay between the nationalizing nationalism of Croatia and the homeland nationalism of Serbia (along with the minority nationalism of Croatia's borderland Serbs) led to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Similarly, the interplay between the nationalizing nationalism of Azerbaijan and the homeland nationalism of Armenia (initially sparked by the minority nationalism of Karabakh Armenians) led to the war over Nagorno-Karabakh. Many other collisions or potential collisions along this fault line, while they have yet to generate large-scale violence, remain potentially destabilizing. The nationalizing nationalisms of Romania and Slovakia have clashed with the homeland nationalism of Hungary.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Nationalism ReframedNationhood and the National Question in the New Europe, pp. 107 - 147Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996