Types of Nationalism

Author(s): Louis Wirth

Source: American Journal of Sociology , May, 1936, Vol. 41, No. 6 (May, 1936), pp. 723-
737
Published by: The University of Chicago Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2768827

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 TYPES OF NATIONALISM

LOUIS WIRTH

ABSTRACT

Nationalism, or the social movements of nationalities striving to acquire, maintain,

and enhance their status in a world where they are confronted by opposition or conflict,
has a vast historical literature to its credit. The scientific study of nationalism must
build upon but go beyond the particularistic knowledge of specific cases, on the one
hand, and avoid lumping together all instances of nationalism, on the other hand. This
paper suggests a tentative typology of European nationalisms which, it is hoped, may
find wider applicability. The typology is based upon the characteristic form that con-
flict and opposition take and the corresponding self- and group-consciousness which it
generates. The four types of nationalism here presented are hegemony nationalism,
particularistic nationalism, marginal nationalism, and the nationalism of minorities.

A nationality may be conceived of as a people who, because of the

belief in their common descent and their mission in the world, by
virtue of their common cultural heritage and historical career aspire
to sovereignty over a territory or seek to maintain or enlarge their
political or cultural influence in the face of opposition. Nationalism
refers to the social movements, attitudes, and ideologies which char-
acterize the behavior of nationalities engaged in the struggle to
achieve, maintain, or enhance their position in the world.
Because of the significant role played by nationalism in current
world-affairs, its study has attracted a great body of scholars and
produced an enormous literature.' This literature, aside from that
portion of it which is patently propagandistic, consists largely of his-
torical treatments of nationalism in specific countries and epochs.
This is as it should be, for the more general scientific study of na-
tionalism obviously presupposes the accumulation of a large, ordered
body of reliable historical data. The subject of nationalism has such
wide ramifications and comprises such a variety and complexity of
phenomena that its scientific study has appeared forbidding. There
are, indeed, a large number of treatises that have dealt with one or
another phase of nationalism in a non-historical manner. National-
ism has been studied in its connection with race,2 language, religion,
I For a comprehensive, classified, and annotated bibliography cf. Koppel S. Pinson,
A Bibliographical Introduction to Nationalism (New York, I935).
2 Cf., for instance, Sir Arthur Keith, Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's
Point of View (London, i9I9); John Oakesmith, Race and Nationality (London, I9I8);
723

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 724 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

politics, economics, education, and psychology. But despite the oc-

casional allusions to sociology in the titles of books on nationalism,
and despite the direct bearing of nationalistic phenomena upon im-
portant theoretical problems in sociology, no general sociological
study of nationalism exists. The literature of nationalism has re-
cently been considerably enriched by such general and fundamental
studies as Professor Carleton J. H. Hayes's Essays on Nationalism.3
As long, however, as we continue to confine ourselves to a particular-
istic analysis of the nationalisms of different countries and epochs,
on the one hand, and treating nationalism as a single undifferentiated
phenomenon, on the other hand, there is little prospect of scientific
advance on this subject.
This paper proposes a provisional set of types of nationalism as
they are found in contemporary Europe. While these forms of na-
tionalism have been identified primarily in Europe, it may be safely
assumed that they have a very much wider application. This is not,
of course, the first attempt to set forth types of nationalism. Profes-
sor Hayes has distinguished between the original and derived na-
tionalism.4 Professor Handman has distinguished four types of na-
tionalism: oppression-nationalism, irredentism, precaution-nation-
alism, and prestige-nationalism.5 In some respects the types here
suggested coincide with those delineated by Handman. The basic
assumption underlying our typology, however, is that a typology of
nationalism must correspond to the types of relations of opposition
and of conflict which characterize the relations between the groups.
Sociologically a nationality is a conflict group. The self- and group-
consciousness generated by nationalistic movements corresponds to
the nature of the intergroup relationship that exists between one na-

Erich Koch-Weser, Deutschlands Aussenpolitik in der Naclkriegszeit, I9I9-I929

(Berlin, I929); Louis Wirth, "Race and Nationalism," Introductory General Course in
the Study of Contemporary Society (Chicago, I934), pp. 395-4I3; Pinson, op. cit., items
67-73.
3 New York, I926.
4 "Two Varieties of Nationalism: Original and Derived," in Association of History
Teachers of the Middle States and Maryland, Proceedings, No. 26 (I928), pp. 7I-83.
5 Max SylviusHandman, "The Sentiment of Nationalism," Political Science Quarterly,
XXXVI (March, I92I), I04-2I.

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 TYPES OF NATIONALISM 725

tionality and another. To some extent the types of nationalism here

set forth represent various stages in the same nationalistic move-
ment. The discrimination between these types, however, is intended
to reveal the fundamental differences in motivation and in meaning
which, in spite of a seeming similarity of goal, gives each, from a soci-
ological point of view, a distinctive character.

HEGEMONY NATIONALISM

What gave the nineteenth century the label "the epoch of nation-
alism" was a series of movements of national unification which we
might identify as "hegemony nationalism," and of which the move-
ments resulting in the unification of Italy and the formation of the
German Empire are representative specimens. Among the factors
that played an animating role in these movements were contiguity
of territory, similarity of language, and kinship of culture. These
movements which had been nourished by the memory of previous
dynastic unions of separate states, by a more or less common history,
language, and culture, eventually became defined in political terms
with an integrated state and national sovereignty as their goal. The
question of racial unity seems not to have played a decisive role, but
in the literary movements preceding the political stage, mystical
references to race, generally used for hortatory purposes, are occa-
sionally found. The decisive factors seem to have been the economic,
political, and military advantage to be derived from consolidating
smaller principalities into larger and more dynamic units. The in-
ternal weakness of such an organization, that may result from mere
arbitrary agglomeration of territory and peoples, without regard to
cultural and political homogeneity and compatibility, is demonstrat-
ed by the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the con-
clusion of the World War. On the other hand, a unitary state may
arise even in the presence of diversity of language, culture, and his-
torical experience, as is demonstrated by Switzerland, which, as
Wieser has put it, is "a state without being a nation,"6 but which,
unlike most other states, virtually has no foreign politics,7 has a

6 Friedrich Wieser, Das Gesetz der Macht (Vienna, I926), p. 363.

7 Adolf Gunther, Die alpenldndische Gesellschaft (Jena, I930), p. 309.

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 726 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

unique geographical position, and, as so often happens, has been

cemented into unity by external pressure.8
The personal feeling of expansion with which nationalism infuses
a citizenry, and the collective force which such a movement gener-
ates, is not likely to halt abruptly after the formal goals of the move-
ment have been attained. After a nationality has achieved political
autonomy, it sometimes redefines its aims in terms of empire or de-
generates into a state of national chauvinism.
Nationalism not infrequently has that sinister meaning which we are in-
clined to recognize in the suffix "ism." This is a nationalism in which the na-
tional feeling of power transcends the actual capacity of the nation, it is the
nationalism of avaricious aggressiveness and the nationalism that plays with
phrases, in short, national chauvinism. Quite a number of the smaller European
nations have been infected with this nationalism. They have taken up the
national idea which was to be found among the stronger nations whose successes
gave the idea general circulation, so that the smaller nations began to assume
the haughty demeanor of the great, without having the latter's accomplish-
ments to their credit. Today we find nationalism even where there is no evi-
dence of the existence of a nation, such as in Egypt, in India and in China, where
the masses have not even been touched by enlightenment.9

The pan-Germanism of the old German Empire and the pan-Slavism

of Czarist Russia are perhaps the most striking examples of the ex-
cesses of national ideals. The historian Hans Delbriick, who was one
of the bitterest opponents of German imperial chauvinism, said:
The high ideal of our fathers was that the German national state should
come into existence without our degenerating, however, to the hatefulness and
exclusiveness, which we are in the habit of branding, when we find it in other
nations, as chauvinism, Jingoism and Muscovitism ..... This ideal is threaten-
ing to be lost among us. The nobler spirits are beginning to look with horror
upon the forms in which the national feelings are expressing themselves today
and upon the sort of men who make bold to assume leadership in national
affairs.Io

When the saber-rattling party got the upper hand in Germany, in

I906, he wrote:
What we must take into the bargain is the renunciation of the continuous in-
crease in our external splendor and satiation of our thirst for power, which
caused the ruin of France and Russia. This tendency toward national vanity is,

8 H. M. Long, "Imperial Politics of Great Britain," Foreign AfJairs, January, I928,

p. 265.
9 WVieser, op. cit., p. 399. IO Preussische Jahrbiicher (I899), p. I678.

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 TYPES OF NATIONALISM 727

unfortunately, altogether too strong among us, and the super-Germans, who,
after we have knocked it out of the French, would like to make a grande nation
out of us, will therefore always find fault with German politics.":

The German chancellor, finding himself gradually overwhelmed by

extremist nationalistic elements, warned as late as I9I3: "National-
ism is the worst enemy of our whole politics, and every measure
which has as its aim to make it more difficult for this nationalism to
thrive, promotes the welfare of our country. "I2 Even today, long be-
fore Europe has recovered from the most disastrous war of history,
the pan-German nationalists and imperialists are clamoring for a
large army and navy, the return of lost territory and colonies, and
the restoration of national prestige. One way in which it has been
thought that the power of the defeated Central Powers could be re-
stored is by a union between Austria and Germany. This union, be-
sides the obvious economies that might result from it, has much to
commend it, for it would not create new minorities and would at
least eliminate one frontier, but it has been prevented by the aspira-
tions of other European powers who saw in this union a disturbance
of the "balance of power" and a threat to the peace of Europe.
That a nationalistic movement in the course of its development
may fundamentally change its character and aims is evidenced by
the history of the so-called Irredenta. "Originally the effort con-
fined itself to stamping out foreign rule in Italy itself; under Gari-
baldi, Mazzini, and Cavour this aim was accomplished," but the
ambition grew until Gabriele d'Annunzio, under the pretext of "free-
ing co-nationals who were subjected to foreign rule beyond the bor-
ders of Italy," could even cross the Adriatic in the name of Italia
Irredenta.I3 As the name indicates, irredentism is a form of national-
ism which has many of the characteristics of a holy war. It is not
confined to Italy, but was obvious in France between I87I and I9I4
in regard to the "lost provinces" and is developing in Germany today
on an even grander scale.
There are two other forms in which the type of nationalism that

II Ibid., CXXVI (1906), I92-93.

12Quoted by Martin Hobohm, "Hans Delbrulcks Kampf gegen die Hugenb

Front," Tagebuch, October I2, I929, p. i68o.
13 Wieser, op. cit., p. 405.

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 728 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

has thus far been described may appear when charged with unusual
vigor: one is imperialism and the other fascism. Of the two the lat-
ter is today of greatest interest in Europe. There are many forms of
fascism; or, to be more accurate, after the success of the Italian ad-
venture other movements in Europe, which had little similarity to
the Italian, appropriated the name. In Spain, for instance, under
Primo de Rivera, fascism consisted merely of a military dictatorship.
Mussolini himself refuses to regard the fascistic movements in Ger-
many, Spain, and elsewhere in Europe as the genuine product.
"Fascism is a political pseudo-renaissance of post-war Europe,"
whose governments were so thoroughly paralyzed by internal class
struggles, by external pressure, and by general discontent that faith
in the existing machinery of government was easily dispelled by the
emotional appeal to the glories of the distant past and the even
greater prospective glories of the immediate future, if the nation
would only awake and put its trust in its elite.I4 Fascism represents
a reaction against parliamentarism and democracy. For more than
two years, in Italy, fascism maintained that it was an "antiparty"
(antipartito), but, on the occasion of the celebration of the fifth anni-
versary of the march on Rome, Mussolini himself admitted that the
fascisti were a party after all, although a party, which unlike other
parties, existed only for the greater glory of the state. The tremen-
dous emotional enthusiasm generated by the fascistic movement in
Italy, and the "irresistible current of national will which fascism at-
tempted to instill in the 'folk-soul,' "I5 was unable to find adequate
expression in the rather prosaic tasks of domestic reconstruction. In-
evitably it acquired imperialistic ambitions. But Italy was not
strong enough as a military and naval power to make any but the
most limited imperialistic hopes come true away from home, and
became, therefore, very troublesome to its neighbors. The surplus
population of Italy must seek work outside its borders, and since the
nationalistic movement is confined largely to the bourgeoisie and the
youth of the educated classes, the fascist state attempts artificially

14 See Hermann Heller, Europa und der Faschismus (Berlin and Leipzig, I929).
I5 Ibid.; see also Robert Michels, "Analyse des nationalen Elitegedankens," Jahr-
buch fur Soziologie, Vol. III, and Der Patriotismus: Prolegomena zu seiner soziologischen
Analyse (Muinchen, I929).

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 TYPES OF NATIONALISM 729

to bind these waves of emigrating workers to the mother-country by

means of ties of citizenship. "Thus fascism, by making greater
claims than its actual power justifies, degenerates to a form of na-
tional chauvinism."i6 Other countries, especially Germany since she
lost her naval power and her colonies, have been attempting to weld
the emigrating citizens to the mother-country through cultural ties
in order to use them, whenever possible, to advance political or
colonial interests.I7 What the fascism of Italy has in common with
the other fascistic movements of Europe besides the contempt for
parliamentary and democratic government is the romantic cult of
the aristocracy of race and of talent. These fascistic groups char-
acteristically employ the label Volk to refer to their racial or cul-
tural homogeneity in their propaganda.'8
The tendency of hegemony nationalism to develop ever more ag-
gressive imperialistic claims and aspirations is exemplified by the
most recent trends in foreign policy of the fascist dictatorships of
Europe. Fascist Italy has defied the rest of the world by its Ethi-
opian adventure, while in Germany the extreme accentuation of na-
tionalist sentiment as a result of the stimulation of the National-
Socialist regime has led to an open denunciation of the Versailles
Treaty, to remilitarization of Germany, and even threatens to en-
gulf the world in another war of major proportions.

PARTICULARISTIC NATIONALISM

A second major type of nationalism may be referred to as par-

ticularistic nationalism. This form of nationalism is based upon the
secessionist demand of national autonomy. Such movements char-
acteristically begin with a striving for cultural autonomy or tolera-
tion, which, when the movement makes headway, takes on political

I6 Wieser, op. cit., p. 405.

'7 The activities of the Deutsche im Ausland clubs are representative. One reason
why the nationalistic movements of Europe turn out so frequently to be at the same
time antisemitic movements is perhaps the belief that the international affiliations and
loyalties of the Jews make that people appear as doubtful bearers of the nationalistic
mission.

I8 The movement is known in Germany as the "V6lkische Bewegung" (see Richard

Benz, Volkische Erneuerung [Muinchen, I925], for a sample of the literature of this
movement). Cf. Frederick L. Schuman, The Nazi Dictatorship (New York, I935).

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 730 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

significance and finally develops into the demand for political sov-
ereignty. This has been the case in Norway, where the movement
was successful, and in Ireland, where it was unsuccessful. In an in-
cipient and utopian form it is to be found among the Jews and the
Negroes. The most characteristic expression of this type of national-
ism is to be found in such countries as Poland, Czecho-Slovakia,
Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania. Michels has characterized the
motives underlying this nationalistic movement as follows:
A people that has become conscious of its national characteristics and the
peculiarities of its own culture has the natural desire to conserve them in their
integrity. In the maintenance of this cultural integrity of the people is to be
found the only ethically legitimate form of patriotism. Consequently the
national emancipation from a foreign yoke signifies the elimination of a cultural
obstacle in the road to humanity. National unity and freedom is the indispen-
sable prerequisite to social freedom and free human existence, for every people
that frees itself from foreign rule constitutes one source less for war and revolu-
tion.
Thus, besides the patriotism based on profit, on fantasy and on megalomania,
we have the patriotism based on cultural needs, which aims to secure and main-
tain a people's right to its own territory and its own human resources.19

But, as has already been suggested, a social movement may often

depart from its original goals. Poland furnishes an interesting,
though by no means unique, example of the development of a na-
tionalistic movement from a romantic to a realistic stage:
Even the great romantic poets of Poland, who proclaimed a unique form of
nationalism, according to which Poland was to be the "Christ of the Nations,"
i.e., just as Christ redeemed mankind through his martyrdom, so Poland was to
redeem the peoples of Europe, even these poets were no longer satisfied with
the ethnographically homogeneous Poland ..... This mystical and romantic
nationalism, however, was soon displaced by a quite sober and prosaic variety.
The Poles declined the crown of martyrdom and let other nations assume it.
The prophet of the new nationalism was Roman Dmowski, the Polish inter-
mediary at the peace conferences in Versailles, who in many books20 and articles
preached, and is still preaching, the gruffest and most uncompromising nation-
alism. Even when Poland was still under Russian and Prussian rule fighting for
its national existence, he denounced the nationalistic tendencies of the Lithuani-
ans and the Ruthenians as presumptuous, and labelled the Jewish strivings for
emancipation a disintegrating movement. He disavows the romantic patriotism

'9 "Analyse des nationalen Elitegedankens," op. cit., p. i88.

20 Gedanken eines modernen Polen; la question polonaise, etc.

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 TYPES OF NATIONALISM 73I

and displaces it with the modern patriotism, or strictly speaking nationalism,

whose object it is not to acquire a certain number of privileges or forms of
freedom but to establish the nation as a living, social organism, which has its
own spiritual existence based on race and history, its own mentality, its own
culture, and needs and interests ... . To this he added the claim that Poland
had a great cultural mission in the East ..... Even at the peace conference the
official Polish demand was for a territory of 50,000 square kilometers with
38 million inhabitants, which, had it been granted, would have made the Poles a
minority in their own state.2'

The numerous potential nationalities, which the Austrian, the

German, the Russian, and the Turkish empires had conquered or in-
corporated in the past, became revivified by the developments in
Europe resulting in the collapse of these empires. Some of these peo-
ples had at one time had an independent state and a fairly distinct
culture, and a few of them had retained a large measure of this con-
sciousness. But the rising national idea which tied itself up to the
force of historical heritage not only rekindled the folk spirit but ex-
tended and deepened it, because now the masses of the population
were in a position to participate in these movements, while formerly
they would not have been touched by it. Russia was perhaps most
secure of all these empires, for, "with the exception of the Poles,
none of the nationalities within her domain had arrived at a point
of national consciousness and the immeasurable extent of the em-
pire's dominion had an overpowering effect. '22
The democratic movement, followed by the collapse of the mili-
tary and political power of the empires, caused the suppressed na-
tional ambitions of the Czechs, the Magyars, the Lithuanians, and
many others to burst forth with an energy which swung many of the
moderate leaders over to the nationalistic cause. "Even Masaryk, a
convinced advocate of compromise with the Germans in Austria, be-
came a decided Czech nationalist. "23 As a result most of these na-
tionalities were able to get recognition for demands which were whol-
ly unjustified by historic and ethnic facts.
While these newly formed states, with arbitrarily drawn bound-
aries, are still in the throes of nationalistic expansion, other nations,
such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Luxembourg,
21 Jakob Rappaport, "Die Nationalitatenfrage in Polen," Jakrb.fi4r Soz., III, 237-39.
22 Wieser, Op. cit., p. 362. 23 Ibid., p. 204.

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 732 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Spain, Portugal, and others, seem to have arrived at a stage of a rela-

tively stable national equilibrium, and, as far as they are concerned,
at least, seem to have settled on a policy of being content with what
they have, and to live in peace with their neighbors. In this sense the
newly formed states seem to be still groping in the nationalistic stage
and not to have arrived at the maturity of full national existence.
Wieser succinctly describes this state of affairs in the following terms:
A well-known slogan of Lichtenberg, that "human beings would rather fight
for their belief than live according to it," might well be adapted to read that
"human beings are more ready to fight for their nationality than to fulfill their
national ideals in the works of peace." In this respect much remains to be done
in the newly created states which came into existence through a peace of force.
A state is far from consolidated when it has adopted a constitution, and these
states have much more serious problems before them than the states with full
national existence, because they are mixed states, with deliberately drawn
boundaries and are entering upon the business of government without experience
and without guiding traditions of history ..... These states operate under the
illusion that they have dearly fought for their emancipation, but in reality the
entente powers bought them their freedom, while the nationals of these new
states partly stood on the side of the defeated and had no great military leaders
to whom they can reverently look as heroes in the national struggle for emanci-
pation.....
The Swedes, the Norwegians, the Danes and the Dutch may well feel that
they have dearly bought and are entitled to their nationhood, but they represent
a modest and moderate nationalism. They live in undisturbed peace with their
neighbors, are restricted to and content with their limited homely world and
have reconciled themselves to the necessity of losing their surplus population
through emigration beyond the sea, with the possible exception of Holland,
which through its plantation system is somewhat differently situated. These
countries are, for the most part, neutral and peaceful, and their security rests
upon the respect of their neighbors and the great powers. To the European
these nations must seem like fortunate islands, which rise out of the turbulent
sea to whose terrors they were exposed as long as they had not learned to avoid
the temptations of external power ..... Like these northern nations so are
Belgium, Spain and Portugal free from world aspirations, and, taken by and
large, as far as it lies in their power they have settled on a policy of external
peace.....
With the new states on the territory of the empires of Austro-Hungary,
Turkey and Western Russia it is otherwise. They are artificial creations and
are centres of unrest within and without. The Magyars and Bulgarians have
not only been deprived of territory and population which rightly belongs to

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 TYPES OF NATIONALISM 733

them, but the Poles, the Rumanians and Jugo-Slavians have annexed territory
beyond what traditionally was their right. The question is, can they hold it?24

MARGINAL NATIONALISM

The third major type of nationalism in Europe is what may be

termed "marginal nationalism." It refers to the nationalistic move-
ment characteristic of border territories and populations such as
Alsace, Lorraine, Silesia, Schleswig, the Saar and the Rhineland, the
Italo-Austrian and Swiss frontier, and similar strategic areas in
Europe. The sociological significance of the frontier has recently
been recognized.25 A marginal people-i.e., a population in the
frontier region between two states-even more than other peoples,
has a mixed culture and a mixed racial makeup. The population of
such territories not only are, as a rule, bilingual or polylingual, but
they are also more decidedly nationalistic than the respective hinter-
land populations with reference to which they are oriented. While
through the recent peace treaties a number of particularly danger-
ous frontiers were remedied, a number of new and vulnerable bound-
aries were created which are not likely to result in quieting the out-
raged feelings of local marginal peoples.26 Every hinterland is likely
to give itself the benefit of the doubt in the administration of such
territories. There is generally a struggle over the leading positions
in the government, the army, and the cultural organs, and the school
and church questions are always matters of acrimonious controversy.
A marginal people is likely to cling to the traditions of its mother-
land with the utmost tenacity, because the cultural heritage is, under
conditions of foreign rule, sometimes the only remaining vestige of
unity and brings the most divergent interests and parties into close
co-operation. The Germans of the border territory are proverbially
more German than those of Berlin. For strategic purposes the
mother-country tends, generally, to accord the border provinces
favored treatment, not merely to bind them more solidly to the coun-
try, but to create the impression in the territory on the other side of
24 Ibid., pp. 400-402.
25 See Georg Simmel, Soziologie, p. 623; Adolf Gunther, "Soziologie des Grenzvolkes,"
Jahrb. far Soz., III, 203 ff.; Die Alpenldndische Gesellschaft als sozialer und politischer,
wirtschaftlicher und kultureller Lebenskreis (Jena, I930.)
26 See Gunther, "Soziologie des Grenzvolkes," op. cit., p. 225.

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734 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

the boundary that it would be desirable to be united with their

brethren. The economic importance of the marginal territory often
intensifies the motives out of which aggression arises. Thus the ex-
istence of important mining resources as is the case in the Saar, or of
navigable streams as is the case along the Vistula, or of harbors, such
as Danzig and Trieste, enormously exaggerates the significance of
the marginal area. Often, also, the religious factor intensifies or mini-
mizes the political tension in the marginal territory. While the Ger-
mans of the southern Tyrol are Catholics, like the Italian hinterland,
their Catholicism is more like that of Austria than that of Italy, and
the same holds of the Catholic eastern provinces of Germany which
were ceded to Poland, as well as the Protestant northern Schleswig
which was ceded to Denmark.27 The attempt which was made dur-
ing the French occupation of the Rhineland to create a separatistic
movement with ultimate annexation to France failed because of the
intense nationalism of that border territory, which is symbolized by
the slogan: "The Rhine-Germany's Stream, Not Germany's Bor-
der."
THE NATIONALISM OF MINORITIES

The fourth type of nationalism that remains to be mentioned is

the nationalism of the minorities. The problems to which the ex-
istence of racial, ethnic, cultural, or merely political minorities have
given rise in Europe have been made available to students through
a vast and extremely interesting literature.28 Nothing is perhaps
more convincing proof of the racial and cultural interpenetration of
27 Ibid., p. 222.
28 Of the recent literature mention should be made of the following: J. Auerhan,
Die spraclic4en Minderheiten in Europa (I926); M. H. Boehm, Handbucher des Aus-
schusses fur Minderheitsrecht (I926); Mitscherlich, Nationalismus Westeuropas and
Nationalstaat und Nationalwirtschaft und ihre Zukunft, 1925-7; Volk unter VUikern,
ed. K. C. v. Loesch (I925); Zeitschriftfiir Politik, ed. Dr. Grabowsky; Nation und Staat,
deutsche Zeitschrift fur das europaische Minoritdtenproblem; G. Salomon (ed.), Nation
und Nationalitdt (Karlsruhe, I928); S. R. Steinmetz, Soziologie des Krieges (I928);
Die Nationalitdten in Europa (I927), by the same author, in Zeitschrift fur Erdkunde,
SuppI. 2; For Poland: Jakob Rappaport, op. cit.; for Hungary: Zsombor de Szasz,
The Minorities in Rumanian Transylvania (I927); for Switzerland and Italy: Gunther,
op. cit., and Nicolussi, Tirol unterm Beil (I928); and for the German minorities in that
region: Bartsch, Das deutsche Leid (I927); for quantitative statements of the minorities
question: W. Woytinski, Die Welt in Zahlen (Berlin, I925 and I929); Pinson, op. cit.,
items II6-23.

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 TYPES OF NATIONALISM 735

the peoples of Europe than the universality and the apparent insolu-
bility of the minorities problem. Every nation of Europe has this
problem, and in some it is the question next in importance to the ex-
istence of the state itself. Some writers have found it useful to dis-
tinguish between nationalities and minorities, referring to the former
as "foreign population groups, which, however, do not aspire to in-
dependence or union with another state, "29 while the latter are such
groups that are separatistic or hope to be united with their mother-
country. The total population that exists in Europe as national
minorities has been estimated at thirty million.30
The question has sometimes been raised why there is no question
of minorities in the United States. While there are undoubtedly
problems that are fundamentally similar to those found in Europe
to be found in the United States, such as the Negro problem, espe-
cially in the South and in the large cities of the North, the difference
between Europe and America is principally that in Europe the
minorities live together in large numbers and are not recent immi-
grants who have been anxious to, and at least partially successful in,
shedding their cultural heritage. If the rise of the nationalistic move-
ment had come a century earlier than it did, it is doubtful if such a
nation as Switzerland could have come into existence, consisting, as
it does, of three distinct major nationalities and a number of other
minor groups. Similarly, Austria might still exist today were it not
for the pull which was exerted upon the constituent ethnic groups
from without, because there seemed to be a number of economic
factors favorable to its existence.31 In some countries the minorities
question is obscured by the circumstance that there are two principal
groups striving for dominance rather than one dominant group at-
tempting to subordinate a number of relatively weak minorities.
Belgium is an illustration of the former, Poland of the latter. In
Belgium the conflict between the Dutch element or the Flemish part
of the population and the Walloons or French-speaking group is
drawn along cultural lines, in which language and its use in schools
and universities is a major political question. A similar conflict ex-

29 Steinmetz, Soziologie des Krieges, p. 642.

30 Wieser, op. cit., p. 539.
3I Gunther, "Soziologie des Grenzvolkes," Op. Cit., p. 2I2.

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 736 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

isted between Catholic South Germany and Protestant North Ger-

many which found expression in the Kulturkampf under Bismarck,
and between Sweden and Norway, which was peacefully settled
through separation into two nations. In countries like Poland,
Czecho-Slovakia, Italy, Jugo-Slavia, and a number of others the
problem is of a much more complex nature:
In Poland there are four national minorities: Germans, Ukrainians, White-
Ruthenians and Jews. The economic, political, cultural, social and religious
peculiarities of these peoples give to the Polish minorities question a unique
expression and enormously impede a peaceful and desirable solution. The ques-
tion is first of all a social question which presents itself in a number of varia-
tions: The linguistic problem is merely the ideational cover which often con-
ceals very complicated social processes. Among these is the conflict for the soil
between the White-Ruthenian and Ukrainian peasants. The agrarian question
is therefore the focal point of the Ukrainian and White-Ruthenian problem. The
fight against the German and Jewish minorities is carried on under the slogan
of the "de-germanization and de-judaization" of the cities. The Slavic minori-
ties in Poland are struggling for the village, the German and Jewish for the cities.
Not less significant is the fight of all minorities for the positions as officials in
order to provide places for the intelligentsia of each group and in order to exert
a proportionate influence-in accordance with their numerical and economic
strength-upon the governmental and autonomous controlling bodies, and final-
ly in order to defend their national and cultural values.32

It is interesting to note that the Germans, at the time of their mili-

tary occupation of Poland, fostered much of this minority feeling
for obvious nationalistic and strategic reasons. Although the Polish
constitution provides that "every citizen has the right to maintain
his own nationality, to foster his language and customs, and to un-
fold his national character fully,"33 these provisions have remained a
dead letter, for the autonomy which is granted is not a personal but
a territorial autonomy, and can therefore be defeated by the manipu-
lation of the election districts. Unless the actual distribution of the
minority population approximately conforms to the election dis-
tricts, the actual political expression of the minorities can be vitiated.
For this reason figures concerning the proportion of minorities to the
dominant population as derived from election returns are generally
misleading, and for the same reason it is quite easy to defeat the in-
32 Rappaport, op. cit., p. 235. 33Ibid., p. 255.

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 TYPES OF NATIONALISM 737

tent of the provisions for plebiscites in so far as it is aimed through

them to find a basis for a policy of self-determination.34
When one considers the treatment which nationalities that have
just won their autonomy grant to their own minorities, one is in-
clined to believe that a nationality is not complete until it has some
minority within its territory whom it can oppress. While undoubted-
ly in some instances nationalism through a process of consolidation
and integration has minimized friction and rivalry, on the whole it
has created new conflict situations, internal and external, among the
peoples of Europe. Similarly, while in some instances the myth of
racial homogeneity has been a unifying factor, on the whole it has in-
augurated an epoch of racial and national conceit and chauvinism.
Under these circumstances a united Europe, as it has been envisaged
by some, even in matters of purely economic co-operation is likely to
remain an idle hope for some time to come.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

34 Rappaport figures that the minorities in Poland do not constitute 29 per cent of
the population as the census figures state, but 38 per cent (ibid.).

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