A New Interpretation of Ethnicity in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The late Ernest Gellner, a leading analyst of nationality and ethnicity in recent times, applied historical and sociological analysis to nationalist phenomena, and argued that there is a necessary connection between nationalism and ‘modernity’. According to him, the modem, liberal economy requires a market larger than local ones, therefore it establishes such a national market by combining local ones. The modem economy requires a powerful, centralised state and the state, in turn, requires ‘the homogeneous cultural branding of its flock’ (Gellner 1983, p. 140), for greater efficiency and cohesion. The development of capitalism is easier and quicker in the case of homogeneous structures of organisation and the same patterns of culture. These requirements coincide in part with people’s subjective needs. The rapid social changes which industrialisation, mobility, high technology and rapid communications bring about lead to the loss of individual identity. Ordinary people lose their ties with family and their local environment, and begin to feel the need for a new identity on a higher level. The promulgation of a national identity via nationalist doctrines and movements can help them to iocate’ themselves. Thus nationalism is both psychologically and socially functional: it aids individual fulfilment and social solidarity.¹ Gellner shows how industrial development influenced the creation of nations and in consequence the creation of nationalism, and vice versa: nationalism, by creating nations, stimulated economic development. According to Gellner, in the major transition from feudalism to capitalism, nationalism was the tool for the creation of nations.