Acknowledgements

This book summarizes a decades-long research project based on the materials collected in the Encyclopedia of Romantic Nationalism in Europe, hereinafter referred to as ERNiE. The aim of the ERNiE project was to document the history and lingering presence of the many cultural assertions of national identity in Europe over the last two centuries. To capture the data here analysed, so dispersed and diffuse, took much effort and expertise coming from many different specialisms; my own role, also as the author of this book, was mainly to act as a comparatist, a connector of dots. In ‘connecting the dots’ I was aided by a digital work environment, ‘Nodegoat’ (also the operating basis for the online version of ERNiE), which allowed me to do justice to the complex interrelations of the historical data in all their great quantity and multimedial diversity. Many visualizations in this book are graphic renderings of data managed in Nodegoat.

I want to express my deep, abiding thanks to my many fellow researchers: those who contributed their independent research either to ERNiE or to the book series National Cultivation of Culture (Leiden: Brill); and to my colleagues, research assistants and student assistants, both within the University of Amsterdam and further afield. This book draws on their input, and has benefited from the collegiality and friendship, more deeply and widely, and more gratefully, than can be captured in mere source-referencing footnotes. To list them all would amount almost to an autobiography. Like any autobiography, the following roll call must be partial: my gratitude is, quite literally, boundless.

I came to nationalism studies in mid-career, on the basis of working hypotheses developed during my work on Irish cultural self-awareness. In that transition I was stimulated by many Irish friends and supportive colleagues, such as Claire Connolly, Ann Dooley, the late Tom Dunne, Roy Foster, Luke Gibbons, Margaret Kelleher, Ian McBride, Clare O’Halloran, Harry White and (like me ‘honorary Irishmen’ by association) Guy Beiner and Murray Pittock. An institutional Irish support base was provided over the years by the Long Room Hub at Trinity College Dublin: thank you, Caitriona Curtis, Eva Muhlhause, Jane Ohlmeyer, Eve Patten.

A very special place in my grateful memory is kept by my late friend Rolf Loeber, who as a social psychologist with an abiding interest in Irish cultural history opened my eyes to the possibility that ambitious, large-scale, long-term empirical projects were in fact feasible; the husband-and-wife collaboration between him and his wife Magda Loeber-Stouthamer was a formative inspiration.

Another demonstration that longitudinal, wide-ranging studies need not deter even the historical humanities came from my late Amsterdam colleague, the great comparatist John Neubauer. His work on the literary history of Central and Eastern Europe was a true, direct inspiration. It broadened my horizon from the north-west of Europe in a decade when contacts were once again established across a vanished Iron Curtain; many of the collaborators that John brought together would later become valuable associates of the Romantic Nationalism project. This cohort of researchers from Europe’s ex-communist countries found an invaluable hub in the Central European University in Budapest; particularly enriching were my contacts there with Balázs Trencsényi. In my exploratory work on the national movements of Central and Eastern Europe, which started with Ingrid Merchiers’s fine thesis co-supervised by Raymond Detrez and myself, the intellectual expertise, support and kindness of Miroslav Hroch were precious. In the post-Hroch generation, those who broadened my horizons eastwards and south-eastwards included Miloš Režník and Dalibor Dobiaš in Prague; Sándor Hites in Budapest; Marijan Dović and Marko Juvan in Ljubljana; Pavle and Ivana Šekeruš in Novi Sad; Diana Mishkova in Sofia; and Paschalis Kitromilides and Christina Koulouri in Athens.

In Europe’s north and west, my continuing interest in the history of the philological and ethnographic sciences profited immensely from the insights and the comradeship of Mary-Ann Constantine, Terry Gunnell, Diarmuid Ó Giolláin and Tom Shippey. A Nordic network took shape from Reykjavík to the Baltic, with friends and colleagues including Pertti Anttonen, Benedikte Brincker, Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson, Tim van Gerven, Rasmus Glenthøj, Simon Halink, Jón Karl Helgason, Ruth Hemstad, David Hopkin, Kristina Jõekalda, Linda Kaljundi, Toms Ķencis, the late Kristin Kuutma and Per Øhrgaard. In Britain, Joanne Parker and Ian Wood shared my interest in medievalism, which also profited from the research networks around Patrick Geary and Hedwig Röckelein. Comparative historiography was given a massive impetus and stimulation by the work, vision and organizational teamwork of Stefan Berger. Among historians, these Dutch and Flemish names stand out: Matthijs Lok, Niek van Sas, Eric Storm, Jo Tollebeek, Maarten Vanginderachter and Tom Verschaffel. Alpita de Jong’s fine doctoral thesis, co-supervised with Philippus Breuker, acquainted me at an early stage with the Frisian movement, a salient case close to home. Congenial spirits in the field of literature were Goffe Jensma, Frits van Oostrom and the late Pieter Steinz.

New to the field of nationalism studies, I encountered kind, inspiring and authoritative colleagues at the London School of Economics: the late Anthony Smith, John Breuilly, John Hutchinson, Jon Hearn; the collegiality of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism and the editorial team around the journal Nations and Nationalism (thank you, David Landon Cole and Seeta Persaud!) remain a shining example to the world of learning. Collegiality was also the defining characteristic of NISE at Antwerp, which, thanks to the work of Eva Bidania, Luc Boeva, Hanno Brand, Elly Broes, Andreas Stynen and Kas Swerts, brought together inspiring colleagues from all corners of Europe, from Darius Staliunas in Vilnius to Johannes Koll in Vienna and, last but by no means least, Xosé Manoel Núnez Seixas in Santiago de Compostela.

In Paris, Anne-Marie Thiesse soon turned from an inspiring authority into a dear friend. Much do I owe to her work, her sparkling and erudite conversation and her hospitality. She also unlocked collegial networks to me in the south: Antonino de Francesco in Milan and Ferran Archiles and Xavier Andreu Muralles in Valencia. This is also the place to acknowledge the collegiality and generosity of Ramón Maiz in Galicia, Magi Sunyer in Catalunya, and the enriching intellectual presence of Francesca Zantedeschi.

That all these contacts across Europe could find a hub in Amsterdam is thanks largely to what was then a thriving, interdisciplinary culture of internationally oriented historical humanities at the University of Amsterdam. Within European studies, the culture of nationalism had been a research focus since the days of Bram Boxhoorn, Lily Coenen, Manet van Montfrans, the late Wim Roobol, Menno Spiering and Fernando Venâncio; that tradition has been continued by such colleagues as Alex Drace-Francis, Krisztina Lajosi, Yolanda Rodríguez Pérez, Roel Schuyt, Guido Snel and Michael Wintle, with talented PhD students who taught me more than I taught them: Usman Ahmedani, Tim van Gerven, Rutger Helmers, Josip Kešić, Kasper van Kooten, Ayşenur Korkmaz, Enno Maessen, Tymen Peverelli, Janette Verrijzer-Sampimon and Marija Sniečkutė. Bob van der Linden came to inspire us, with good humour and erudition, to broaden our horizons beyond Europe. Elsewhere in the Faculty of Humanities, there were sympathetic and collaborative colleagues in Germanic, Jewish, Romance, Scandinavian and Slavic studies, and in Dutch literary history there was the pioneering work of Marita Mathijsen and the many younger scholars inspired by her; from among them, Lotte Jensen has gone on to become an authoritative voice in the field. Jan Rock led the team of research assistants and student assistants of the ‘Study Platform on Interlocking Nationalisms’, set up in 2008, as the successor of the late Anne Hilde van Baal; he and Stefan Poland became indispensable editorial assistants in the ERNiE project, which was supported by a dedicated and cheerful staff of student assistants, notably Nanne van der Linden and Eva Supèr. Faculty support I received from the deans Aafke Hulk, José van Dijck and Frank van Vree. The faculty’s greatest strength I found to be its administrative, library and IT support staff: thank you, Tatjana Das, the late Letje Lips, Wendy Pezarro, Nienke Rentenaar and Silvain Smit. Outstanding among them all was my go-to fixer and mate, Paul Koopman. I fondly recall the weekly lunches with my friend and colleague the late Arthur Mitzman, historian and Michelet biographer.

I thank the institutions whose largesse made the enterprise feasible and enabled this book to appear in Open Access: the Dutch Research Council, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities. I also thank the places of refuge where, as a guest researcher over the past decades, I was able to develop and refine my planning of this cultural history of European nationalisms: Harvard University (especially its Department of Celtic Studies, which hosted me as Erasmus Lecturer), Magdalene College, Cambridge, the Lichtenberg-Kolleg at the University of Göttingen, the University of Toronto (in particular Ann Dooley and Paul Stevens), the École normale supérieure in Paris, the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies.

For technical support, my warms thanks go to Pim van Bree and Geert Kessels for assisting me with their fine ‘Nodegoat’ data management environment; Mark Dodemont of studiododemont.be, who improved the graphic design of the illustrations; Pierke of isbnindex.nl, for the index; and Ray Ryan at Cambridge University Press, for shepherding this book into print.

My greatest, steadiest and most joyful source of strength has been my family, its generations past present and future. Above all, my dear wife Ann Rigney, constant soulmate and best of colleagues.