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This article reviews standard and recent interpretations of cultural nationalism. It rejects "invention of tradition" perspectives, and assumptions that it is a surrogate statist movement, concerned with cultural homogeneity, that it is archaising in character, and that it is a transient movement, incompatible with full modernisation. It argues cultural nationalism seeks to "rediscover" an historically-rooted way of life; its concern is communitarian; that cultural nationalists act primarily as moral and social innovators; and that it is a recurring movement, embedded in the modern world.

Although the nation is supposedly a secular modern community, characterised by linear chronological time, I argue that warfare contributes to the creation of the nation as a sacred community of sacrifice in three respects. Firstly, it can act as a mythomoteur in the historical consciousness of populations so that it becomes a reference point or framework for explaining and evaluating events. Secondly, in the modern era it generates a cult of the fallen soldier organised around commemorative rituals and practices that seek to form a moral community. Thirdly, the consequences of warfare shape the long-term social and political goals of national populations, often at the expense of their individual welfare. After elaborating on these aspects, I will investigate the following topics. Firstly, what is the evidence supporting the idea of the nation as a mnemonic community of sacrifice? Secondly, who generates such ‘memories’, why and what purposes do they serve? Finally, what sustains the power of such ‘memories’ over time, in an increasingly sceptical and supposedly postmodern age?

Nationalism is a secular modern ideology that has been accompanied by revolutions and it has legitimised the rise to power of new social classes. For this reason many theorists have regarded nationalists as inventors of tradition and their claims to continuities with the past as either self-delusion or a form of deceit. Yet in many cases premodern ethnic identities have powerfully shaped the programmes and policies of many nation-states.How can nationalism be the expressions of ethnic continuity and also of revolutionary change? I will argue that nationalism is a novel form of ethnicity, shaped by the polycentric vision of romanticism and by the unprecedented and unpredictable challenges of the modern world that require innovation Nationalists are able to justify innovation because of the 'layered' nature of the ethnic past, and they are able to overcome established ethnic identities by generating at times of crises novel myths based on romantic acts of sacrifice by heroic elites that legitimise new national projects. But these new elite-driven national mythologies overlie rather than obliterate older ethnic traditions. These latter can come to life in the process of nation-building, redirecting it from its original secular goals.

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