Cultural Turns, Accidental Nations and Christian Nationalism

The Development of a Nationalist Consciousness in Modern Finland and Hungary

Authors

  • Daniel Garcia University of Mary Washington

Keywords:

nationalism, Finland, Hungary, Christian nationalism

Abstract

This paper has two main goals: to examine “cultural turn†in recent literature on nationalism and examine the development of nationalism in late 19th and early 20th-century Hungary. The initial section of the paper discusses the development of the historiography of nationalism and the internal divisions within the contemporary scholarship on the so-called “cultural turnâ€. Additionally, examples in Finland and Hungarian history do not ultimately connect with most of the theories proposed by the turn-era scholars. The ultimate conclusion is that it is not possible to construct a single, unified narrative of this “cultural turn.†The development of a Finnish scholarship of nationalism and the role of personally involved authors is discussed, and two major aspects of Finnish nationalism are discussed: the ways in which the circumstances in which Finland was created and its people defined the nation ex nihilo and the alternatively combative and friendly relationship Finland had with the Russian power. The examination of the scholarship on Hungarian nationalism revealed a similar preponderance of personally-involved figures as historians, and other dominant themes within the (a pronounced Hungarian sense of historicity, somewhat in contrast to the Finns, and a relative ambivalence about the role of religion in Hungarian history). The resulting conclusion is that the study of the development of nationalism in Finland and Hungary bears some lessons for future studies of nationalism in smaller polities located between larger powers, but that certain aspects of Finnish and Hungarian history are not applicable to other states.

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Published

2019-01-15

Issue

Section

Humanities