The dichotomy of civic vs. ethnic nationalism has long been applied spatially to explain differences between 'Western' and 'Eastern' manifestations of nationalism. Though frequently criticised on empirical, methodological, and normative grounds, this dualism continues to find widespread use in nationalism studies. Through a genealogical study of the dichotomy's emergence and evolution from Hans Kohn to John Plamenatz and Ernest Gellner, the article traces its strong ties to discourses and policies of 'Western' superiority, and to demi-orientalising constructions of 'Eastern Europe' as the inferior other of the 'civilized West'.
Any modern atlas or encyclopedia will inform us that Bratislava is the capital of the Slovak Republic, the center of Slovak political and cultural life. But before World War I—or even toward the end of it in 1918—it was far from clear that the city could or should be defined as “Slovak,” to say nothing of a “Slovak capital”; that it was to belong to the future state of Czechoslovakia; or that it was to be called Bratislava. This essay will describe the processes that led to these outcomes, and how a name shift became a crucial instrument in the “Slovakization” of the city. In focusing also on the ways local and central actors responded to these political and symbolic transformations, I hope to shed new light on the complexity of collective identifications and allegiances, and on the significance of renaming as a catalyst for processes of nationalization in Central Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.