I wasn't talking about nationalism, but about the Leninist understanding of nationality.
--- Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> Chris:>
> [WS:] I think it is a bit more complicated than
> that. Nationalism was for a
> large part a 19th century reaction to the imperial
> domination of ethnically
> diverse EE by the Russian and Austro-Hungarian
> empires. In Poland, an
> additional impetus came from the quasi-colonial
> class structure. The
> downwardly mobile lesser gentry (the "szlachta")
> were pushed from the land
> by large scale land owners (the "magnates") aligned
> with the Russian empire,
> where they had to compete with non-Polish
> bourgeoisie (mainly Jewish and
> German). That explains the rabidly nationalistic
> and anti-Semitic
> sentiments of the segments of Polish intelligentsia.
> By contrast, the Czech
> intelligentsia developed from the urban classes and
> was far more progressive
> than its Polish counterparts.
>
> Another element is that in contrast to Western
> Europe, the EE population was
> predominantly rural and shaped by feudal relations
> (a point also stressed by
> Brenner it is theory of capitalist development) -
> which meant basically two
> things: large masses of illiterate peasantry having
> little exposure to the
> outside world viewing with suspicion any sign of
> foreign influence. I think
> this peasant populism was at root of the Soviet
> nationalism, to which you
> refer.
>
> Finally, there is the reactionary influence of
> organized religion. In
> Russia, there was little separation of the orthodox
> church and the tsarist
> state. In countries like Poland, which did not have
> their own state,
> religion was a substitute for state. As a result,
> nationalism was heavily
> sanctioned by religion.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
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