The timelessness of nations
WALKER CONNOR
Middlebury College, Munroe 213, Middlebury, VT 05753, USA
ABSTRACT. Anthony Smith has criticized my conclusion that most of the peoples
currently recognized as constituting nations acquired national consciousness only in the
late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. He traces our disagreement to fundamental
differences concerning the essence of the nation. A comparison of our definitions
confirms profound differences, and it is contended that Smith's definitions, by joining
two quite dissimilar and often conflictual identities (civic and ethnic) preclude a dialogue
concerning the nature and the history of `the nation'. A rejoinder to Smith's specific
criticisms is followed by a restatement of the factors that make calculating when a given
nation emerged so difficult. Finally, it is noted that the issue of when a nation came into
being is not of key significance: while in factual/chronological history a nation may be of
recent vintage, in the popular perception of its members, it is `eternal', `beyond time',
`timeless'. And it is not facts but perceptions of facts that shape attitudes and behavior.
Preamble
In 1989, I presented a paper entitled `When is a nation?' at a conference in
London.1
Anthony Smith, who attended the conference, subsequently
requested that I allow it to appear in Ethnic and Racial Studies (Connor
1990). The article appears to have elicited a surprising amount of interest in
LSE circles. John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith were good enough to
include it (in abbreviated form) in their Oxford collection on nationalism
(Hutchinson and Smith 1995: 154­9). Smith, who (as any serious student of
nationalism is aware) has written voluminously and eruditely on the evolution
of national identity, graciously credited me with `bringing [the issue of dating a
nation] into the open as an issue in its own right and in revealing its importance
for an understanding of the place of the nation in history and in the contem-
porary world.' (Smith 2002: 68). The Fourteenth Annual Conference of the
Association for the study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) to be held at
LSE during 2004 is entitled `When is the nation?', and my participation was
solicited, according to an ASEN officer, because it was I who had raised the issue.
Now this is all very flattering but, at the risk of impersonating Dickens'
deceitfully self-deprecating Uriah Heep, my piece does not merit such
attention. The article in question was a modest, ten-page effort, little more
than a few ruminations omitted from a just completed piece entitled `From
tribe to nation?' (Connor 1991). The title of the earlier work, absent the
Nations and Nationalism 10 (1/2), 2004, 35­47. r ASEN 2004
question mark, had been assigned; my addition was to indicate that the
progression, assumed by some anthropologists, from family, to band, to clan,
to tribe, to nation has certainly not proved to be an iron law of group evolution.
Cases were offered of peoples who once appeared to many to be destined to
form a nation (e.g., a Slavic `nation') but which in fact produced several
nations, as well as cases in which nations evolved from highly unlikely
multiethnic materials (e.g., the English, French, or German nations). Toward
its end, the article addressed the question of when did national consciousness
become a reality among those European peoples ­ Dutch, English, German,
Russian, Swedish, etc. ­ who have unquestionably evolved into nations. After
acknowledging the inspiration for raising the question to Eugen Weber's
Peasants into Frenchmen: the Modernization of Rural France, 1870­1914
(Weber 1976) and examining other data, the article concluded that today's
nations came into being much more recently that has been generally
acknowledged.
As implied by its title, `When is a nation?' focalized to a greater degree upon
the issue of when did various nations emerge. Smith's piece in 2002, which was
alluded to earlier, was essentially a critique of this article. His principal concern
was that it was too modernistic, not permitting sufficient allowance for the
possibility of nations existing prior to the nineteenth century. He attributed
this to my insistence that nationalism is a mass ­ not an elite ­ pheno-
menon. This is indeed fundamental. If one person accepts as conclusive
early historical references to the existence of a nation on the part of an
aristocrat, cleric, or scribe, while another discounts such claims in the absence
of evidence of national consciousness among the putative nation, sharp
disagreement concerning the time of the nation's emergence is to be
anticipated.
Smith also maintained that our disagreement was rooted in different
perceptions or definitions of the nation, and, in the course of reviewing some of
his work for this response, I was indeed surprised to learn that our perceptions
of the nation are at far greater variance than I had realized. As will be noted
below, my own definition of the nation is tied inextricably to ethnicity: a belief
in or an intuitive conviction of common descent. In a very early work, Smith
explicitly denied any significant role to ethnic considerations and emphasized
common citizenship as an essential element (Smith 1971: 180, 171, 186, 187).
However, after reading what I consider to be his magnum opus ­ The Ethnic
Origins of Nations (Smith 1986) ­ which contained statements such as `not only
must nations be founded upon ethnic cores if they are to endure' (p. 207) ­
I thought our perceptions were compatible.2
However, as will be noted below,
Smith's use of nation is far more inclusive than my own. Indeed, I fear so much
more inclusive that intellectual dialogue may be impossible.
What follows, nonetheless, is essentially a response to Smith's concerns
beginning with the matter of definitions. Perhaps it is worth noting that this is
the first time that I have ever responded to a critique of my work. I do so in
acknowledgment of my respect for Smith's scholarship.
36 Walker Connor
What is a nation?
Smith finds my definition of the nation inadequate in that it amounts to a
purely psychological explanation at the expense of more objective components.
Here is my definition and a corollary:
Definition: The nation is the largest group that shares a sense of common
ancestry.
Corollary: The nation is the largest group that can be influenced/aroused/
motivated/mobilized by appeals to common kinship.
Each of these definitions differentiates the nation from all other groups. Is
there a Basque, Polish, or Welsh nation? Yes. Is there an American, British, or
Indian nation? No.
Each of these definitions is complete in itself. Are there elements that
contribute to the feeling of common ancestry? Of course! The major students
of nationalism before World War II customarily investigated factors that
often accompany national consciousness: common language, religion, and
the like. But as stated 30 years ago, when investigation is concentrated on
the essence of the nation, such tangibles are `significant only to the degree
that they contribute to the sense of uniqueness' (Connor 1972: 337). They are
the commonly encountered accompaniment, the accoutrement, of the
nation, and their impact upon national identity should be studied through
a comparative lens.3
That impact will vary both among nations and over
time.
The definition employed by Smith in his `Dating the nation' is quite
different. The nation, he wrote, is `a named human population occupying an
historic territory, and sharing myths, memories, a single public culture and
common rights and duties for all members' (Smith 2002: 65). This is not a
definition that succeeds in categorizing nations according to their essence. It
would not, for example, differentiate the notion of British from that of Welsh.
Or Belgian from Fleming. Or Spanish from Basque.
It is evident that Smith's `nation' is much more supple than my own. A very
succinct yet comprehensive statement of his overall approach to the nation
attests to this (Smith 2001: 86­87):
[T]here have emerged two symbolic conceptions of the modern nation. On the one hand,
there is a more `civic-territorial' ideal of the nation, one which emphasizes the
importance of long-term residence in a clearly demarcated territory, of the part played
by unified law codes and legal institutions over the whole territory, of the equal and
common rights and duties of citizenship in the territorial nation, and of the central role
of a public, civic culture for all citizens which embodies the myths, memories and
symbols of the nation. On the other hand, there is a more `ethnic-genealogical'
conception of the nation, which stresses the importance of presumed ancestry ties and
kin relatedness for citizenship, the crucial role of popular mobilization and a participant
populace, the centrality of vernacular language, customs and culture, and the binding
force of authentic, native historical memories of and in the homeland. y [T]here is
The timelessness of nations 37
considerable overlap between these two conceptions of the nation. Actual instances of
the nation have both civic and ethnic components, and there is a constant oscillation
and flux between the preponderance of civic or ethnic myths and symbols. The notions
of a unified national identity, a homeland and citizenship play vital roles in both
conceptions, and both insist on the importance of possessing a common and distinctive
mass culture.
Smith's first `nation' is therefore synonymous with citizenship in a state
regardless of that state's ethnic composition. Although Smith's second
conception of `the nation' is concerned more with kinship and ancestry, it
also ties the nation solidly to citizenry in a state. This association with the state
is also evident in his earlier cited definition with its references to `a single public
culture and common rights and duties'.4
And in a still earlier definition (Smith
1991: 14), Smith included as essential `a common economy', which, of course,
could be experienced (if at all) only within a single state. According to Smith's
criteria, then, the Germans of West and East Germany were not a single nation
between 1945 and the reunification of 1990, nor currently are the Basques,
Catalans, and the many other national peoples divided by state borders.
The use of the word nation to refer to a state or to the citizenry of the state
regardless of its ethnic composition, as well as the corresponding tendency to
use nationalism to refer to loyalty to the state (which should be termed
patriotism) rather than to the nation as I have defined it, is very common in the
literature,5
and has been the principal cause of the ambiguity and confusion
plaguing the study of nationalism (Connor 1978).6
The current vogue among writers on nationalism is to refer to loyalty to the
state as civic nationalism and loyalty to the nation as ethnic nationalism. But
this only tends to propagate the misconception that we are dealing with two
variants of the same phenomenon. If Smith and others prefer to use civic
identity or civic loyalty in preference to patriotism ­ fine. But the fundamental
dissimilarities between state loyalty and nationalism should not be glossed over
by employing the noun nationalism to refer to two quite different phenomena.
There is much more involved here than mere semantics. The two loyalties
are of two different orders of things (kinship versus civic), and while in the case
of a people clearly dominant within a state (for example, the ethnically Turkish
or Castilian peoples) the two may reinforce one another, in the case of
minorities (such as the Kurds of Turkey or the Basques of Spain) the two
identities may clash. Indeed, the political history of the world since the
Napoleonic Wars has been largely a tale of tension between the two identities,
each possessing its own irrefragable and exclusive claim to political legitimacy.
I therefore recommend the following glossary:
Glossary
Ethnic ­ derived from ethnos, the ancient Greek word for a nation in the latter's
pristine sense of a group characterized by common descent; the prefix ethno
therefore means national.
38 Walker Connor
Ethnonationalism ­ a redundancy, coined in response to the general tendency to
misuse the word nationalism to convey loyalty to the state rather than to one's
national group; it is designed to leave no doubt in the reader's mind that the
author is discussing loyalty to the nation.
Ethnocracy ­ an ethnically homogeneous political unit; it can vary in size from
a small village to a modern state.
Gemeinschaft ­ an association resting upon a sense of kinship, real or imagined;
gemeinshaft groupings include the family, band, tribe, and nation.
Gessellschaft ­ an association of individuals resting upon the conviction that
their personal self-interest can be best promoted through membership in the
group; whereas a gemeinschaft society is based upon sentiment, the
gessellschaft society is in large part a product of rational self-interest (in
political philosophy, the case for the political legitimacy of the gessellschaft
state has been closely tied to the notion of the social contract).
Nation ­ a group of people sharing a myth of common ancestry; it is the largest
grouping that can be mobilized by appeals to common blood (nation is often
improperly employed as a synonym for state, as in the League of Nations or the
United Nations, or as a synonym for the citizenry of a state regardless of its
ethnic complexity, as in references to `the American nation').
Nationalism ­ identity with and loyalty to one's nation in the pristine sense of
that word (see above); nationalism is often incorrectly used to refer to loyalty to
the state.
Nation-state ­ that relatively rare situation in which the borders of a state and a
nation closely coincide; a state with an ethnically homogeneous population.
Patriotism ­ devotion to one's state and its institutions (civic nationalism is the
currently fashionable, but confusing, substitute for patriotism; civic loyalty or
civic identity would better convey this type of devotion, without misrepresent-
ing it as a form of nationalism).
State ­ the major political unit in world politics; country.
The dating of nations
Some of Smith's criticisms of `When is a nation?' appear to be due to a
misunderstanding. The article did not rule out the possibility of ancient and/or
medieval nations. It did not address the issue. What it did address, as noted at
its outset, was the time of the emergence of national consciousness among
those European peoples who are `currently recognized nations'. Moreover, the
article did not deny historical roots to nations (the existence of which Ernest
Gellner and Smith once debated under the rubric of whether nations have
navels). Again, it did not address the issue, but it did acknowledge the
evolutionary character of the nation in the opening sentence of the abstract:
`Although numerous authorities have addressed the question, ``What is a
nation?'', far less attention has been paid to the question, ``At what point in its
development does a nation come into being?'' ' (Emphasis added.)
The timelessness of nations 39
Ethnic identity and ethnic conflict have been fixtures throughout history,
but today's special foci of ethnic identity, which we call (or should call) nations,
are relatively recent creations, very few antedating the late nineteenth century.
As noted, Eugen Weber deserves credit as the pathfinder. He documented that
most people within France in 1870 lived in culturally isolated rural villages and
were devoid of French consciousness. Awareness of being French expanded in
subsequent decades as more intensive communication and transportation
networks developed and centralized administration (particularly over the
schools) improved, but the process was still incomplete by World War I. A
survey of group identities on the part of European migrants to the USA during
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries confirmed that the French example
was not unique. Concepts of Croatian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Lithuanian
and the like were largely absent. People regularly identified themselves in terms
of village, clan, district, region, or a local ethnic identity such as Kashube.
Settlement patterns in the host country, as well as the names and membership
of social organizations, reflected these divisions. Relations between small
collectivities who ostensibly formed a single national group were often
conflictual, and intermarriage was extremely rare.
The Dutch who came to the USA in the 1840s and 50s represent a
particularly fascinating case because (1) they came from a small country that
posed no barriers to transportation and communication and (2) had long been
treated by historians as a people sharing a common identity. But upon arrival
in the USA, they proved to be a remarkably diverse people whose local
identities obscured any common Dutch consciousness.
Immigrants carried this localism to America and frequently tried to create segregated
enclaves within larger Dutch communities. The pattern was particularly evident in the
colony of Holland, Michigan. The central town, called simply de stad, was founded in
1847 largely by people from Geldeland and Overijssel provinces. Within two years, new
arrivals founded villages within a 10-mile radius bearing the provincial names of
Zeeland, Vriesland, Groningen, Overisel, North Holland, Drenthe, and Geldersche
Buurt (Gelderland Neighborhood), or the municipal names Zutphen, Nordeloos,
Hellendoorn, Harderwijk, and Staphorst. There was even a settlement called
Graafschap, consisting of Dutch-speaking, Reformed Church Germans from Bentheim
in Hanover. The majority of settlers in these villages originated in the place bearing the
village name; they spoke the local dialect and perpetuated local customs of food and
dress. The entire Michigan settlement was known as de Kolonie, but it required the
passing of the first generation before the colony became a common community. The
Pella, Iowa, and Chicago settlements, also founded in 1847, similarly had particular
regional origins (Thernstrom 1980: 287).
Recent scholarship conducted by specialists on the history of one or another
European people does not challenge the validity of the American example.
There is a consensus that a broad scale national consciousness cannot be
detected among the Baltic, Germanic and Slavic peoples prior to the nineteenth
century. We have already noted Eugen Weber's concurrence with regard to
most people living within France. Even the remarkable case of the Dutch in the
USA is replicated by the Danes at home. Again, despite their limited number
40 Walker Connor
and a small country offering no physical barriers to integration (as well as a
lengthy history as a kingdom), Danish national consciousness was a
surprisingly recent, nineteenth century development (Ostergard 1992).
The literature on the English represents a partial exception. There has been a
recent spate of monographs and articles, variously assigning the emergence of
nationalism among the English to eras stretching from the early medieval
period to the late nineteenth century. The most recent of these efforts, which
includes a 53-page bibliography, favors the case for the late nineteenth century
(Kumar 2003: particularly 202­25).
How can scholars disagree so starkly? This was part of my explanation
offered in `When Is a nation?' (100):
A key problem faced by scholars when dating the emergence of nations is that national
consciousness is a mass, not an elite phenomenon, and the masses until quite recently
isolated in rural pockets and being semi- or totally illiterate, were quite mute with regard
to their sense of group identity(ies). Scholars have been necessarily largely dependent
upon the written word for their evidence, yet it has been the elites who have chronicled
history. Seldom have their generalities about national consciousness been applicable
to the masses, and very often the elites' conception of the nation did not even extend to
the masses.
In short, evidence of ethnic consciousness among the aristocracy or the literati
cannot be accepted as evidence of national consciousness without evidence that
it is shared across a broader spectrum of the putative nation.
Smith's response, as noted, is to question the description of the nation as a
mass phenomenon. I confess that I do not know how to answer this, because I
assumed that all students of nationalism agreed that the nation, when applied
to a named people such as the English, German, or French, implied a single
group consciousness that transcended in its appeal all lesser divisions within
the group. It is in this form that the nation becomes a major force in history,
and this is why historians date the age of nationalism to the French Revolution
and the Napoleonic Era. A Saxon of the period offered a remarkably
perspicacious evaluation and prediction (Palmer and Cotton 1971: 448):
The Revolution has awakened all forces in the French and given to each force its proper
sphere of action. y What infinite power lies sleeping undeveloped and unused within
the womb of the nation! Within the breasts of thousands there lives a great genius, but
their lowly condition prevents its flowering. y The Revolution has set in action the
national energy of the entire French people, putting the different classes on an equal
social and fiscal basis. y If the other states wish to establish the former balance of
power, they must open up and use these same resources. They must take over the
Revolution.
In sum, we study nations and nationalism because they have been and continue
to be so consequential, and they became and remain so consequential because
their appeal has not been restricted to elites but has extended to all major
segments of the people bearing the nation's appellation. Smith rhetorically
asks: `must our understanding, indeed our definition, of the concept of the
nation be so closely tied to the masses?' (2002: 60). To the degree that `the
The timelessness of nations 41
masses' suggests a social classification (the hoi polloi, the Third Estate, the
common people), the answer is no. The nation, to be a mass phenomenon, must
refer to the entire mass, `the masses' and elites alike.
This brings us to the question of how broadly national consciousness must
be shared by the mass before we can describe it judiciously as a nation. Smith
describes my position as `only when the great majority of a designated
population has become nationally aware, can we legitimately speak of it as a
nation' (2002: 57). Here is what I wrote:
The delay ­ in some cases stretching into centuries ­ between the appearance of national
consciousness among sectors of the elite and its extension to the masses reminds us of
the obvious but all-too-often ignored fact that nation-formation is a process, not an
occurrence or event. And this, in turn, further thwarts the attempt to answer the
question, `When is a nation?' Events are easily dated; stages in a process are not. At what
point did a sufficient number/percentage of a given people acquire national
consciousness so that the group merited the title of nation? There is no formula. We
want to know the point in the process at which a sufficient portion of the populace has
internalized the national identity in order to cause appeals in its name to become an
effective force for mobilizing the masses. While this does nor require that 100 per cent of
the people have acquired such national consciousness, the point at which a quantitative
addition in the number sharing a sense of common nationhood has triggered the
qualitative transformation into a nation resists arithmetic definition.
Having thus stressed that `there is no formula', I did not further address the
complexities of this question in my short piece. If I had done so, I would have
noted that even the very loose standard of a point sufficient to permit appeals
in its name to undergird an effective popular movement may face ambiguities
when applied to a given people. Napoleon is customarily credited with being
the first major historical figure to have employed such appeals and, as reflected
in the foregoing quote from a Saxon contemporary, to have unleashed thereby
a new, formidable element into global affairs. And yet we know that some one-
third of Napoleon's forces were foreign mercenaries, and that most of the
people in rural France did not share a French national consciousness for at
least a half-century following Napoleon's death. This is in keeping with my
reminder that nation-formation is a process. Did the French people deserve the
title of nation during the Napoleonic Era? Or only later in the century? I am
very tempted to say `Who cares?' The preeminent point is that with Napoleon
and the levee en masse we have our first evidence that national consciousness
was no longer restricted to the aristocracy or other elites. Weber's study
established that the spreading of this identity was indeed a process still
underway between 1870 and 1914. His study also underlined how inappropri-
ate it was for historians to place much credence on a few historical references to
a much earlier French nation: very reputable historians had been beguiled into
assertions, such as `the texts make it plain that so far as France and Germany
were concerned this national consciousness was highly developed about the
year 1100'.7
An assertion based upon an historical assertion is still just an
assertion.
42 Walker Connor
Smith also took sharp exception to a passing reference to dating national
consciousness in a democracy (Smith 2002: 57):
Theoretically, Connor's argument is based on the assertion that nations and nationa-
lism are mass phenomena and that therefore only when the great majority of a desi-
gnated population has become nationally aware, can we legitimately speak of it as a
nation. In authoritarian states like Nazi Germany and fascist Japan, we can ascertain
their nation-formation after the event, because the population could clearly be
mobilized along national lines. But in democracies, mass participation as measured in
the elections provides the best indicator of nation-formation, because in a democracy,
`the refusal to permit large sections of the populace to participate in the political process
may be viewed as tantamount to declaring that those who are disenfranchised are not
members of the nation' (Connor: 99). Thus the English could hardly begin to be
described as a nation before the 1867 Reform Act, which gave the vote to some 80 per
cent of the adult male population, and certainly not a fully-fledged nation until
1918, when the remaining 20 per cent of men and all women over thirty years of age
secured the vote.
He repeats and extends his criticism in his most recent article (Smith 2003:2).
There is, first, an empirical problem, since one of the key features of the modernist
definition is mass participation, that is, the involvement of its members in the social and
political life of the nation. Walker Connor has explained this stipulation as requiring a
majority of its members to be aware of belonging to the nation, which, in a democracy,
would mean that they must participate in politics and therefore be able to vote. So, no
nation could be said to exist before the early twentieth century, since in the vast majority
of cases women were not enfranchised until after the First World War. But such a
radical modernism, besides forcing us to rewrite the very terms of European and
American histories, conflates a sense of belonging with political participation and
enfranchisement, and militates against Connor's other observation that the nation
emerges in stages (even if we cannot so term it until there is mass political participation).
Now this is what I wrote:
In some societies the history of the voting franchise also offers hints of when a nation
came into existence. As we are reminded by the history of the rise of national
consciousness in, inter alia, Japan and Germany, democratic institutions are certainly
no prerequisite for nation-formation. However, if a society describes itself as a
democracy, then the refusal to permit large sections of the populace to participate in the
political process may be viewed as tantamount to declaring that those who are
disenfranchised are not members of the nation. If the rights of Englishmen include the
right to vote, then what can one say concerning a so-called English nation in which most
Englishmen were prohibited from exercising that right? Before 1832, when landlords
alone were allowed to vote, it is estimated that only one in sixty adult English males
could vote. Following the so-called Reform Bill of that year, one in every thirty male
adults would be permitted to do so.
Please note that I do not say that in democracies, `mass participation as
measured in elections provides the best indicator of nation-formation'.8
I am
not interested in the level of participation but in the restriction to an elite of a
fundamental democratic right (the franchise which in the case at hand meant a
restriction to less than 2 per cent of the would-be-nation prior to 1832).9
Please
note also that I did not mention the matter of woman suffrage. It was not
germane to the specific context because the right of women to vote was denied
The timelessness of nations 43
throughout the nineteenth century to all women; had women of the aristocracy
and gentry been favored in this regard, it would have been germane. Finally,
note that I only suggested that the franchise might `offer hints of when a nation
came into existence,' not that it represent, to quote Smith, `the best indicator.'
Indeed, to be consistent, Smith should embrace this data on the right to vote as
a conclusive indicator of the absence of an English nation in the early
nineteenth century, since it is his definitions of the nation that stress `common
rights and duties'.
Onward and upward
Nothing in `When is a nation?' ruled out the possibility of nations existing in
pre-modern times. Even the mild closing warning that `claims that a particular
nation existed prior to the late nineteenth century should be treated cautiously'
applied only to `Europe's currently recognized nations.' Perhaps the Iceni who
revolted against the Romans under Queen Boudicca in 61 could be shown to
deserve being called a nation; but the case must be made on evidence and not on
simple assertion. Similarly, the search by Smith and others to find something
akin to national sentiments among the elites of earlier ages is to be applauded,
if proper regard is paid to how broadly across the named people (French,
English, etc.) these sentiments were intended to be shared and were in fact
shared. Here I can only suggest that painstaking and imaginative research can
go far toward accomplishing this (for more specifics, see Connor 2005). But for
most current students of nations and nationalism, such research will require a
reordering of primary interest in ascertaining the view of group-self held by
elites to that held by the people writ large. Sensitivity to shreds of evidence of
the perception(s) that the multitude themselves hold of their group identity(ies)
must be developed. Weber's Peasants into Frenchmen can aid in this develo-
pment, as can the works of James Scott with regard to deciphering attitudes on
the part of seemingly voiceless peasants (see also Connor 2005). If the nation is
a mass phenomenon, then our priority should be to render the mass intelligible.
As for the article `When is a nation?' that was the focus of both Smith's
critique and this response, I believe I would stand by the following:
The chronological fixing of the birth of any nation is usually a matter of great dispute.
In some instances, historians have placed the advent of a nation in the Middle Ages,
while others have maintained that the same nation's formation came about only in the
late nineteenth century. In the case of some putative nations (for example, the
Montenegrins), it is problematic whether nationhood has even yet been achieved.
The fact that scholars can disagree by hundreds ­ in some cases several hundreds ­ of
years about the date to be assigned the emergence of a nation or can disagree whether a
nation does or does not presently exist underlines the difficulties involved in such
calculation. Among the barriers to dating the formation of a nation are:
(1) National consciousness is a mass- rather than an elite-phenomenon, and the masses,
until quite recently isolated in rural pockets and being semi- or totally illiterate, were
quite mute with regard to their sense of group identity(ies).
44 Walker Connor
(2) The dependence of scholarship upon the written word has necessarily caused undue
weight to be given to the opinions and assertions of the literate elite, whose
generalizations concerning the existence of national consciousness are often highly
suspect; in many cases those declaring the existence of a nation prior to the nineteenth
century considered the masses ineligible for membership. The danger posed by over
reliance on the written word is underlined by many instances in which individual,
contemporary members of the intellectual elite claimed contending national identities
for the same people (Macedonian vs. Bulgar, Montenegrin vs. Serb).
(3) There is a lag time of varying, in some instances unending, duration between the
espousal of a national consciousness by members of a literate elite and its adoption by
the masses.
(4) Nation-formation is a process, not an occurrence, and the point in the process at
which a sufficient portion of a people has internalized a national identity so as to make
appeals in the name of the nation an effective force for mobilizing the masses does not
lend itself to precise calculation.
(5) The process of nation-formation is not sequentially preordained, but capable of
terminating at any point and, if not essentially completed, capable of reversal.
(6) The sense of constituting a distinct and ancestrally related people, which is central
to the sense of nationhood, often has little relationship to fact, so the ethnogra-
phic history of a people is therefore often of little pertinence to the study of nation-
formation.
The timelessness of nations
To again risk assuming the persona of Uriah Heep, I do not feel that the issue
of `When is a nation' is of key significance. Although today's nations may
in fact be modern phenomena, in a more important sense they defy dating.
Stathis Gourgourus, Professor of Comparative Literature and Hellenic Studies
at Princeton, has stated this seeming paradox with remarkable brevity and
clarity:
My long term research into the nature of national formation and the development of
nationalism in both Europe and Greece has taught me two insurmountable historical
facts: (1) national symbols are always people's inventions, and (2) people often die for
them with the satisfaction of serving eternal truth (Letter to the Editor, New York
Times, 9 May 1994).
Identity does not draw its sustenance from facts but from perceptions; not from
chronological/factual history but from sentient/felt history.
Failure to appreciate that national identity is predicated upon sentient
history undergirds a current vogue in the literature on national identity to
bifurcate contributors in terms of (1) `primordialists' and (2) `social
constructivists'/`instrumentalists'/`modernists.' What is missed in all this
academic labeling is that, while from the viewpoint of objective history,
today's nations are modern creatures, in popular perceptions they are, to
borrow a word from Gourgourus, `eternal', that is to say, `beyond time',
`timeless'. And it is not facts but perceptions of facts that undergird attitudes
and behavior.
The timelessness of nations 45
Notes
1 Keynote Paper, `When is a nation?', Conference on Pre-Modern and Modern National Identity
in Russia/the USSR and Eastern Europe, University of London, School of Slavonic and East
European Studies, March 1989.
2 There were, however, troubling references still to the necessity of common citizenship, e.g., on
p. 165: `Central to the concept of the nation is citizenship.' And the multiethnic Swiss were
described as `a solidary nation' (p. 146).
3 In earlier works, I have comparatively investigated the impact of homeland, religion, and
economic considerations upon national identity.
4 Smith (2001) actually added a third type of `nation' (one formed by multiethnic, immigrant societies,
such as in `America, Canada, or Australia') which would be even less influenced by myths of descent.
5 In the eighteenth century, the French statesman, Robert Turgot, complained of such a loose
usage, insisting that nation continue to denote `a group of families and peoples who speak the same
language' and not `a state [or] a people living in the same territory and subject to the same authority'
(Cited in Margue 1979: 44­5).
6 Smith maintained that his 1991 definition which included, inter alia, common rights and duties
and a common economy `sets it clearly apart from any conception of the state. The latter refers
exclusively to public institutions, differentiated from, and autonomous of, other social institutions
and exercising a monopoly of coercion and extraction within a given territory. The nation, on the
other hand, signifies a cultural and political bond, uniting in a single political community all who
share a historic culture and homeland.' (Smith 1991: 14­15). Presumably, however, the `political
bond' and the `single political community' imply a state. In any case, a people divided by a political
border would not be considered a nation under Smith's definition.
7 For this and other illustrations of unsubstantiated early claims of nationhood, see Connor
(1990: 92). The reference to German nationalism in 1100 is equally unfounded. For evidence that it
was a late nineteenth century development (see Hamerow 1969, Hughes 1988, Gagliardo 1969).
8 In some manner unclear to me, Smith ties his interpretation of my passing comments on
democracy to what he critically describes as my `quantitative methodology'. This characterization
is made four times (Smith 2002: 59, 62 (twice), and 68). As one who has never squared a chi and who
views quantitative analytical studies of comparative nationalism as of little value, I must demur.
Smith further pairs this characterization of my work as quantitative with what he sees as an
inappropriate overemphasis upon the individual to produce `methodological individualism' (Smith
2002: 60). Connor `insists on the primacy of the individual and sees the nation as the sum of its
individuals members' (pp. 59­60). I have never insisted or even suggested any such thing. My
nation, after all, is `a mass phenomenon'. It is the `gesselschaft' ­ Smith's `civic nation' ­ that rests
upon individualism (see the above Glossary).
9 The issue of participation may merit a comment. Smith elsewhere attributes my view of nations
currently recognized as such as being of recent vintage to three alleged assumptions: `nations are
necessarily mass phenomena; national awareness is tantamount to participation; and, in democracies,
participation is measured by voting' (Smith 2002: 69). To the first assumption I plead guilty. The third
(which I deny) is treated in part below. The second I do not understand. Certainly I would maintain
that before acknowledging the existence of a nation, some evidence for popular national consciousness
must be uncovered. But this could be passive resistance by a group to an authority viewed as alien,
including the many forms of passive non-compliance brilliantly described by James Scott (See, for
example, Scott 1986: 5­35). Or the passive protection extended by a homeland people to a guerrilla
movement conducting a war of national liberation or resistance. For a fuller treatment of the varied
forms of evidence of the existence/non-existence of a nation, see Connor (2005).
References
Connor, Walker. 1972. `Nation-building or nation destroying?', World Politics 24.
46 Walker Connor
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377­400.
Connor, Walker. 1990. `When is a nation?', Ethnic and Racial Studies 13: 92­103.
Connor, Walker. 1991. `From tribe to nation?', History of European Ideas 13: 5­18.
Connor, Walker. 2005. Popular Popular Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gagliardo, John. 1969. From Pariah to Patriot: the Changing Image of the German Peasant 1770­
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Hughes, Michael. 1988. Nationalism and Society: Germany 1800­1945. London: Edward Arnold.
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The timelessness of nations 47