How to Think of Ethnolinguistic Nationalism in Central Europe? (or the Normative Isomorphism of Language, Nation and State) Tomasz Kamusella University of St Andrews Euro-Visions: IIIS/TLRH Public Lecture Series Trinity College Dublin February 14, 2013, Thur, 18:15-19:45

Nationalism What is nationalism? (The standard state- and group-building ideology in the [late] modern world) Hans Kohn: Western vs the Rest (Eastern) nationalism, 1940s Absence of nationalism in the West (But > Michael Billig: ‘banal nationalism,’ 1995) John Plamenatz: ‘good’ Western vs ‘bad’ Eastern nationalism, 1970s ‘Ancient hatreds’ in the East vs ‘reason and rationalism’ in the West Ethnic vs civic nationalism: Is it a dichotomy at all? What about nationalism across the globe? - Hans Kohn The Age of Nationalism: The First Era of Global History, Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities, 1983 Most books on nationalism draw examples from CE Europe and generalize on their basis Is it rational and justified to generalize on nationalism on the basis of ‘bad ethnic Eastern’ nationalism?

What is Ethnic Nationalism? What is ethnicity: A difficult question with many answers (Totality of all the cultural markers employed for distinguishing a group from others?) But if CE Europe widely considered home of ethnic nationalism: What are the nationalism’s practices? In most cases language is of paramount importance for the region’s nationalisms Is it then ‘ethnolinguistic nationalism’? I propose to define ethnic (ethnolinguistic) nationalism through the observed practices of state- and people-building steeped in language Where is Central Europe? In turn the territorial extant of such practices could define the region

What is a Language? (1) The distinction between ‘language’ and ‘a language’ ‘Language’ is studied by linguists, but ‘a language’ is a socio-political phenomenon, more determined by extralinguistic forces than linguistic ones Hence, ‘languages’ in plural should be researched more by social scientists Leonard Bloomfield’s 1926 linguistic definition of ‘a language’ and dialect (mutual in/comprehensibility) But: mutually incomprehensible dialects of Arabic or Chinese are dialects of these languages But: exactly the same Moldovan and Romanian, and almost the same Bulgarian and Macedonian are different languages But: Low German is NOT a dialect of Dutch with which it is mutually comprehensible, but of German with which it is largely incomprehensible What about: asymmetrical incomprehensibility between Spanish and Portuguese, or among Scandinavia’s Germanic languages

What is a Language? (2) Who decides when a dialect / language is a language? ‘Imagined language’ ≈ nation as an ‘imagined community’? Nation = ethnic and/or other human group(s) imagined to be a nation A language = dialect(s) imagined (through dictionaries, grammars, official use, educational system, army, state offices and other state institutions, mass media, enterprises, cyberspace, etc) to be a language in its own right Yugoslavia: Serbocroatoslovenian ( ) > Croatian, Serbian (41-44) > Serbo-Croatian + Macedonian (44-91) Breakup of Yugoslavia ( ) Breakup of Serbo-Croatian > Bosnian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian

Practices of ‘Really Existing’ Nationalism 1: The speakers of a language constitute a nation (ergo, the language is a national one) 2: The territory inhabited by this language’s speakers should be made into the nation’s nation-state 3: The nation’s national language cannot be shared with any other nation or polity 4: No autonomous regions with official languages other than the national one can exist in the nation’s nation-state 5: By the same token, no autonomous regions with the nation’s language can exist in other polities (NB: Disjunction between ideology and reality on the ground) ‘Serious’ name for the practice: Normative Isomorphism of Language, Nation and State

All That Began in the Balkans? From Religion to Language YearIsomorphic StatesNumber of Isomorphic States 1864Greece1 1866Greece, Romania2 1878Bulgaria, Romania2 Greece 1905Bulgaria, Norway, Romania Albania, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania 4

WW I: Isomorphism Moves North YearIsomorphic States Number of Isomorphic States 1916Albania, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania4 1917Albania, Bulgaria, Norway, Ukraine4 Romania 1918 Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland 9 Ukraine 1919 Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Norway, Romania 6 Belarus, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland 1920Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Romania, Ukraine 9

Central Europe = Isomorphism? YearIsomorphic StatesNumber of Isomorphic States 1926Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Romania 9 Ukraine 1929Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Yugoslavia Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Yugoslavia 9 Czechoslovaki a 1939Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Yugoslavia 11

NB: Not fully matching with the tables

WW II: Race Trumps Nation? YearIsomorphic StatesNumber of Isomorphic States 1940Bulgaria, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Slovakia and Yugoslavia 6 Albania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland 1940 (occupied polities not included) Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Yugoslavia 5 Norway 1942 (independent states only) Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia 4 Yugoslavia 1942 (not fully independent polities included) Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Slovakia 6

(National) Communism Trumps Nation? YearIsomorphic StatesNumber of Isomorphic States 1947Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Romania 6 Croatia, Slovakia 1956Albania, Bulgaria, Norway, Poland 4 Hungary, Romania 1960Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Romania Bulgaria, Norway, Poland3 Albania, Hungary, Romania

NB: Not fully matching with the tables

After Communism: Isomorphism After All? YearIsomorphic StatesNumber of Isomorphic States 1989Bulgaria, Norway, Poland3 1990Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Romania Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Ukraine 13 Romania 1992Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway Poland, Slovenia 11 Croatia, Ukraine 1993Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia 13 Belarus

NB: Not fully matching with the tables

The Complication of the EU YearIsomorphic StatesNumber of Isomorphic States 2004Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia (European Union treated as a single, non- ethnolinguistic polity) Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Norway, Romania5 2007Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia (European Union treated as a single, non- ethnolinguistic polity) Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway3 2008Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia 13 Albania 2008 (European Union treated as a single, non- ethnolinguistic polity) Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway3 2010Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Slovenia 10 Hungary, Romania, Slovakia 2010 (European Union treated as a single, non- ethnolinguistic polity) Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway3

Instruments of Analysis: (Dis)Contents Rubbish in, rubbish out Lies, big lies and statistics States are not the only unit of analysis States being so variable in territory and populations, are they really comparable? How to limit the distorting potential of generated data? How to nuance the data?

Nuancing the Data: 2007 States fulfilling the isomorphis m States aspiring to fulfill the isomorphis m Other ethnolinguist ic states Non- ethnolinguist ic states The total of the analyzed polities Percentage of the isomorphic states in the total of the analyzed polities Isomorphic states and the states aspiring to fulfill the isomorphism combined, expressed as a percentage of the total of the analyzed polities Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia [14] Bosnia, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Moldova, Northern Cyprus, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine [13] Austria, Belarus, Denmark, Liechtenstei n [4] Mount Athos, Russian Federation, Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dheleia, Transnistria [4] 35 40% 77%

Fine Tuning: Populations in 2007 Population of the states fulfilling the isomorphis m Population of the states aspiring to fulfill the isomorphis m Population of other ethnolinguist ic states Population of the non- ethnolinguist ic states Population of all the analyzed polities Percentage of the population of the isomorphic states out of the total population of the analyzed polities Population of the isomorphic states and of the states aspiring to fulfill the isomorphis m combined, expressed as a percentage of the total population of the analyzed polities m245.16m23.29m35.07m416.32m 27%86%

Isomorphic Languages in 2007 Slavic languages Baltic languages Finno-Ugric languages (non-Indo- European) Germanic languages Romance languages Isolate Indo- European languages Bulgarian (C), Czech (L), Macedonian (C), Montenegrin (C & L), Polish (L), Slovak (L), Slovenian (L) [7] Latvian (L), Lithuanian (L) [2] Estonian (L), Hungarian (L) [2] Norwegian (L) [1] Romanian (L) [1] Albanian (L) [1] [1] The parenthetical remark ‘(C)’ indicates that the language is written in Cyrillic. [2] [2] The parenthetical remark ‘(L)’ indicates that the language is written in Latin characters.

Scope for Wider-Ranging Comparisons: Isomorphic States Outside Central Europe in 2007 W Europe: Iceland (Icelandic) C Asia: Turkmenistan (Turkmen) 1 S Asia: Bhutan (Dzongkha), Maldives (Maldivian) 2 SE Asia: Cambodia (Khmer), Indonesia (Indonesian), Laos (Lao), Myanmar (Myanmar), Thailand (Thai), Vietnam (Vietnamese) 6 E Asia: Japan (Japanese) 1 Total Outside Central Europe10 Some interesting questions:  Why is SE / E Asia similar to C Europe in its ideological-cum- national makeup?  Are C Europe and SE / E Asia comparable?  Why are isomorphic states contained to Eurasia only?

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