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Gellner nations and nationalism summary. Ernest Gellner "Nations and Nationalism"

Gellner E. Nations and nationalism

I.I. Krupnik. About the author of this book, nations and nationalism (instead of an afterword)

The name of Ernest Gellner is little known to the Soviet reader, and until recently his works were almost never published in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Professor E. Gellner, head of the department of social anthropology at the University of Cambridge, member of the British and honorary member American Academy of Sciences - one of the most famous scientists in Western political and social anthropology, philosophy, and cultural history. Therefore, I need to begin my brief final commentary on this book with a few words about its author.

E. Gellner was born in 1925 in Paris. His parents were natives of Prague and Czech subjects, which determined Gellner's deep personal interest in Central and Eastern Europe and allows him to jokingly call himself "the guardian of the Habsburg (that is, Central European) historical heritage." In 1944, as an 18-year-old boy, he joined the Czechoslovak tank brigade as part of the British Army and participates in the battles for the liberation of northern France. After completing his studies at Oxford University, he became a teacher at the most prestigious educational institution in the field of social sciences in Great Britain - the London School of Economics, where in 1962 he received the highest rank of professor, and since 1984 he has headed the department of social anthropology at Cambridge. Gellner is the author or publisher of about 20 books, of which the greatest interest for the Soviet reader is: “State and Society in Soviet Scientific Thought” (1988), “Muslim Society” (1981), “Islamic Dilemmas: Reformers, Nationalists and Industrialization” ( 1985), “The Psychoanalytic Movement” (1985), a collection of articles “Soviet and Western Anthropology” (1980) and others.

E. Gellner visited the Soviet Union several times, starting in the mid-60s, and wrote a lot about the current state of Soviet ethnographic and historical science. He is a subtle and benevolent critic, an attentive observer and an ironic colleague; and is not at all similar to the image of the “bourgeois anti-Marxist” that has been lovingly painted on the pages of our socio-political publications for so many years. However, Gellner does not hide his critical attitude towards Marxism, especially towards the Marxist theory of the historical process, including on the pages of this book. I think, however, if Gellner’s philosophical works and his publications on Soviet historical science had been published in Russian several years earlier, we would all have benefited from this.

What does Gellner’s book about nations and nationalism, written at the turn of the 80s and seemingly not containing any specific information about our reality and today’s events, reveal to the Soviet reader? First of all, a different understanding of the nation. With all the “updates” of our historical thinking, some stereotypes sit very firmly in it, and the concept of “nation” must certainly be included among them. Well-known four-term Stalin's definition(“a historically established community of people... based on a common language, territory, economic life and mental makeup, manifested in a common culture”) has successfully survived all the critical blows of recent decades. Moreover, it still remains the secret stove from which all discussions on national question. Some simply, without deceit, dance from this stove; others prefer not to notice it entirely or not to recognize its individual elements; still others replace this central object with the more subtle word “ethnicity.” Alas, the idea of the obligatory nature of some completely materialized basis for national unity - linguistic, territorial, economic or cultural - hovers in our consciousness and is present in all our scientific constructions.

That is why Gellner’s view is so interesting for us, which easily bypasses our methodological barricades and perfectly dispenses with any economic, territorial or mental “communities.” Instead, he proposes scientific constructs made up of more emotional and hard-to-tangible “blocks”: belonging and solidarity, common heritage and voluntary identification, free choice and shared opposition. By the way, with the same grace Gellner scatters the five-part periodization of human history, so familiar to us, with its division into primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and socialist formations. For how many years did Soviet scientists say that those who do not accept this periodization are not able to construct a clear concept of the historical process. It seems to me that Gellner's book brilliantly proves the possibility of such a concept - a different concept and therefore especially useful for us.

This applies even more to the central concept of this book - nationalism. In our scientific literature, the general press, and public and political discussions, the words “nationalism,” “nationalist,” and “nationalists” have a deliberately negative connotation. The general hostility to these terms has a long history and goes back to the mythologically clear pair of ideological antagonists “proletarian internationalism - bourgeois nationalism”. And here we again find ourselves captives of the magic of stereotypes. Our recent history should have already accustomed us to the very real existence of “socialist nationalism” and “imperial internationalism”, “proletarian nationalism” and many other combinations that easily destroy the harmony of the initial black and white contrast.

What is important, therefore, is not the established and familiar name, but the real content, its changes with the development of the social situation. And here we must admit that the entire theory, practically the entire world scientific experience, related to the concepts of nationalism, we overlooked. In our vocabulary there is nothing except the now meaningless combinations “reactionary bourgeois politics”, “darkening the class consciousness of the working people”, “poisoned weapon of reaction”, etc. P. None of the nearly two dozen cited Gellner books by different authors with the word “nationalism” in the title in different combinations have not been translated into Russian and, therefore, are practically unknown to the Soviet reader. For the study of nationalism in our science, only a narrow path was left, reducing this phenomenon to problems developing countries, and even then immediately dividing all processes into “national”, that is, potentially democratic, and “nationalist”, that is, obviously reactionary.

To understand the rubble that has accumulated over many years, a fresh, independent look is urgently needed. This is exactly the view offered by E. Gellner, whose book begins with a definition that is striking in its unusualness and simplicity: “Nationalism is, first of all, a political principle that requires that political and national units coincide.”

At the same time, after reading the book, we were convinced that Gellner nowhere on its pages does it justify, much less extol, nationalism as a phenomenon, although nowhere does it attach the usual negative epithets to it. For him, nationalism is a historical phenomenon, an object of scientific analysis, key concept, on which the complex concept of national relations is built modern civilization. And let the reader decide for himself whose view of nationalism is Soviet social science or E. Gellner- turns out to be more productive.

All these, so to speak, are elements of E. Gellner’s “theoretical” contribution to our consciousness. But his book, dedicated to the general theory of nationalism, also has a huge practical significance to understand our reality. Written almost ten years ago, it today provides a very accurate explanation of the explosions and upheavals that are now engulfing a huge multinational state. Or, more precisely, one of the possible explanations.

Let us remember that several such explanations for the current aggravation of national relations have been proposed. The first of them appeared during the earliest open manifestations of national feeling, during student demonstrations in Alma-Ata in December 1986 and the hunger strike of Crimean Tatars on Red Square in Moscow in the summer of 1987. It sounded like this: “Extremists are to blame for everything.” The explanation was not new, unoriginal, and relied on our entire previous political culture. It was then used with the outbreak of events in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1988 and still prevails in the official version of each new aggravation of the Transcaucasian situation, as well as in the interpretation of acute national conflicts that erupt in other parts of the country.

The idea of an “evil hand” - in the person of extremists, corrupt mafias, enemies of perestroika, ideological opponents, the bureaucratic apparatus, foreign sabotage centers inciting national conflicts in our country - with all its variants has common feature: it makes us innocent. That is, we are good and have always been good, although we may have made individual mistakes in the past. The situation is not our fault, since certain extreme (“extreme”) forces have emerged that are out of control or beyond our control. In this case, the source of voltage should not be sought on the principle of “who benefits from it,” and since it can never be beneficial to “us,” the source can obviously only be external. This again saves us from having to analyze and change our behavior. It is only important for “us” to show inflexibility and firmness, to stand firm, to remain faithful to the covenants and other ideological principles.

When national conflicts began to emerge from a chain of isolated accidents

in some obvious situation, a new explanation appeared. It's all about economics. That is, the aggravation of national relations is caused by the deterioration of the economic situation, and if we quickly feed the people, national difficulties themselves will disappear or weaken, ceasing to pose a danger to the state.

In an effort to see economic basis in interethnic contradictions, and especially the backward economic basis, again reflected the ideological basis of our consciousness, when everything was invariably explained by economics, or the primacy of the economy, or the primacy of the material over the ideal. It is very difficult to argue with this scheme: the economy really stimulates the aggravation of any conflict, and the deteriorating economic situation and growing commodity hunger are before everyone’s eyes. It is likely that the hungry and disadvantaged will fight for their rights with greater ferocity. But the fact that a wealthy and well-fed person also has national feelings, as well as a willingness to defend them with available means, has yet to be understood by our society, which is increasingly irritated by its poverty, shortages and economic backwardness.

By early 1989, under pressure from democratization and increased public awareness of events, a third explanation emerged. Initially, everything was planned correctly, but then deformations arose. That is, there existed

initially light - Lenin's plan federation of Soviet republics, but then, under the influence of Stalin’s terror, it was subject to gross distortions in the 30s and 40s.

The concept of “deformations” was attractive because it assumed the existence of a certain “inflection point,” a turning point from which the initially positive development of the Soviet federation gave way to negative or distorted development. All that was required was to find this point in the historical past - a symbol of the previous prosperity of national relations, and to recreate this state in a new version. For this purpose, it was proposed to return to the Leninist understanding of the federation, renegotiate the union agreement, correct arbitrarily changed borders, expand the rights of lower forms of autonomy, restore balance between the center and the union republics - and new national harmony would become a reality.

But in parallel with the popularity of the idea of “deformations,” another, previously hidden concept began to sound more and more clearly. Everything that is happening today is natural, there is an inevitable collapse of the last “multinational empire”, since the formation of the USSR in 1922, as well as the further expansion of the Union in 1939-1940, was a violent expansion of the former borders of Tsarist Russia, a violation of the principles of the confederal union of independent Soviet republics, international contractually ditch, norms of state coexistence.

And if we have to admit that we are faced not with deformations, but with the natural outcome of an incorrectly created multinational system, its fundamental changes are inevitable ahead. The most popular forecast in this case: a transition from a union to a confederation, that is, a political unification of internally independent states or some republics acquiring the status of neighboring friendly countries on the basis of a common market, close economic and political cooperation.

Among such explanations current state national relations in the USSR can rightfully be put forward and the theory E. Gellner about "nations and nationalism". Let us repeat once again its most important elements for us. Nationalism, according to Gellner,- a special historical condition, most corresponding to the period of active industrialization. This is not at all a sign of a backward society; it flourishes in conditions of sufficiently high literacy, media and communication, the emergence of a national elite, and society's need for qualified personnel. Nationalism is a movement of big cities and industrializing masses; on the backward outskirts, in rural areas, where national culture is reproduced by the everyday environment, there is no soil or space for it. But if an industrializing society is prepared for the advent of nationalism, it will develop It's hard to stop. A national "awakening" is coming; the masses feel extremely painfully the discrepancy between the possibilities and the state of their national culture, the provision of its means political power. It is at this moment that nationalism is especially sensitive and aggressive; he is capable - let us remember the words of Gellner - to find any crevice to awaken a feeling of "national humiliation."

Now let's look around us, and we will see that they showed us a mirror. Yes, we are that very industrializing society with a fairly high level of literacy, an established intellectual elite (or rather, many national elites) and a sense of acute incomplete value of political forms of protection of national cultures. That is, that society which, according to Gellner, is ideally prepared for the era of nationalism. And he described the essence of the conflict very accurately: there is a struggle for control over the system of national-cultural reproduction, for the creation of new or “purification” of old political institutions to ensure the real sovereignty of nations. Because the old institutions, which only yesterday were of little concern to anyone, today seem to hundreds of thousands of people to be flawed, or ineffective, or to have fallen into the “wrong hands.”

E. Gellner. Nations and nationalism.

In this paragraph, I would like to present the most recently popular point of view in science on the nature of nationalism. It belongs to the professor at Cambridge University, a leading expert in the field of social anthropology E. Gellner, which he sets out in his book “Nations and Nationalism”.

This book, devoted to the general theory of nationalism, provides one possible explanation for the explosions and upheavals that are now engulfing multinational states.

The presentation of any hypothesis must begin with a definition general concepts, which appear in it, and exactly as the author of the stated hypothesis understands them.

So Gellner begins his book with a definition of the concept of “nationalism”: “it is, first of all, a political principle that requires that political and national units coincide, and that the governed and those who govern belong to the same ethnic group,” and on its basis he deduces his further constructions.

Understanding Gellner's theory of nationalism is impossible without the definitions of “nation” and “state” in his coverage. He believes that a nation is, first of all, “a product of human beliefs, passions and inclinations,” “two people belong to the same nation only if they recognize each other’s belonging to this nation. It is the mutual recognition of such an association that turns them into a nation.”

No less important is the definition of “state,” which the author of the book borrows from M. Weber and slightly modifies so that it is more consistent with modern times: “The state is an institution or a series of institutions, the main task of which (regardless of all other tasks) is to maintain order. The state exists where from the elements social life Specialized law enforcement bodies, such as the police and the court, were allocated. They are the state."

According to the theory of E. Gellner, nationalism is based on the fact that the nation and the state are intended for each other; that one is incomplete without the other; that their inconsistency turns into tragedy.

Having clarified the important concepts, I would like to move directly to the presentation of E. Gellner’s concept of the genesis and nature of nationalism.

Modern nationalism arose from the breakdown of old traditional structures, with the beginning of industrialization. It was she who, according to the researcher, radically changed both culture and society, its structure, methods and directions of social mobility. Proof of this is the fact that an unprecedented intensity of nationalism arose precisely in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a reflection and consequence of industrialism - a mode of production that arose and spread during this period.

Modern industrial culture stands on school education, on written information. For social advancement, the language of the school is very important, not the language of the mother. According to Gellner, at the heart of modern nationalism is the problem of language. The secret of this problem, first of all, lies in the enormous role of information, language, and the entire semiotic series of modern national culture for the social position of a person in society. When people in countries where industrialization began moved from direct manipulation of objects, from direct contacts with nature, to manipulations mediated through language, through information, through other people, then literacy, which was of no interest to the medieval peasant, became of paramount importance.

Gradually, a person’s belonging to a particular group of the old people began to lose meaning. social structure- religious, class. And belonging to one or another language group, his education, his upbringing, which allow him to navigate the world of information of modern professions and official life society.

The difference in national cultures, according to the author, began to be felt so acutely precisely because in multinational states it gave clear advantages to get out of poverty and gain a position in society for people of the nationality whose language is the language of administration, school, and politics.

Nationalism put forward a new principle - state borders should coincide with the borders of the cultural area, language - with the borders of the nation.

Using various combinations of the main factors influencing the formation of modern society, E. Gellner identifies a useful typology of nationalism. These factors are power and access to education or a viable modern culture.

Societies where some have power, others do not, and the availability of education is not predetermined in advance, the author divides according to opportunity: 1) education is available only to those in power, 2) education is available to everyone, 3) education is not available to those in power , 4) neither one nor the other has access to education. Each of the four possibilities mentioned above, the researcher says, correlates with the real historical situation. In each of the four possible situations, E. Gellner introduces an element that is most significant from the point of view of nationalism: homogeneity or heterogeneity of culture (the concept of culture here includes certain style behavior and communication accepted by a given society). Applying this “cultural unity / cultural duality” opposition between those in power and the rest of the people to the already built four-stage typology, we get eight possible situations.

The author analyzes each of them and finds that five of the eight situations proposed by this model turned out to be non-nationalist: four due to the fact that cultural differentiation did not occur, and two due to the inaccessibility of high culture to everyone (one of the examples is taken into account and in the first and second cases).

Thus, Nations and Nationalism examines three types of nationalism.

The first can be defined as “classical Habsburg”. According to this model, those in power have advantages in the availability of central state culture Those deprived of power are also deprived of the opportunity to receive an education. For them or a part of them, folk culture is available, which with great difficulty can turn into a new high culture, opposing itself to the old one. The most conscientious representatives of this ethnic group devote themselves to this task.

The second type - some have power, others do not. Differences coincide and are expressed in the same way as cultural ones. There are no differences in access to education. This nationalism of a unifying kind acts in the name of spreading high culture and needs a “political roof.” The author cites as an example the attempt to unite Italy and Germany in the 19th century.

The third type of nationalism is what Gellner calls diaspora nationalism. It's about about ethnic minorities deprived of political rights, but not economically backward (and even vice versa), and therefore included in “high culture.” Problems of social transformation, cultural revival and acquisition of territory, the inevitability of clashes with the hostility of those who claim or have previously claimed this territory. Sometimes the danger of assimilation forces supporters of a non-nationalist solution to defend their point of view.

In his book, E. Gellner also tries to imagine the future of nationalism. The author believes that only in the era of an industrial society - a society of movement - can nationalism exist, since “the growing wave of modernization is sweeping the world, forcing almost everyone at one time or another to feel the injustice of communicating with themselves and to see the culprit in a representative of another “nation”. If enough victims like himself gather around him, nationalism is born.”

The question arises whether nationalism will remain the leading force in the world if industrialization is more or less completed. The author understands that in the near future, our century, the world is still very far from fully satisfying all its economic needs, nevertheless he tries to answer it, although any answer will be just hypothetical. “If our society, culturally homogeneous, mobile and almost structureless in its middle stratum, ceases to be dominant, social foundations nationalism will undergo profound changes. But this is unlikely to happen in our lifetime.”

Gellner's view is quite new and interesting. In defining "nation" he dispenses with the concept of "community", instead he proposes a different understanding associated with emotional concepts: belonging and solidarity, common heritage, free choice and shared opposition. The author himself, in the conclusion to his book, admits that his concept is new, unlike others, especially the one that for a long time dominated Soviet science. For Gellner, nationalism is a historical phenomenon, an object of scientific analysis on which a complex concept of national relations of modern civilization is built.

Thus, we can say that there are two important provisions in Gellner’s theory:

1) High culture, for the first time in human history, encompassing entire societies, consists of more than just formal skills - mastering literacy, the ability to use computers, read textbooks and follow technical instructions. It must be verbally expressed in some way specific language, be it Russian, English or Arabic, and also contain rules to help bring it to life; in other words, it must represent “culture” as ethnographers use it. The man of the 19th and 20th centuries not only industrializes, he industrializes like a German, Russian, or Japanese. Those who were excluded from the new society were excluded not because they failed to acquire the necessary skills or because they acquired them in the “wrong” idiomatic expression. Modern industrial culture is not colorless, it has an “ethnic” coloring, which is its essence. A cultural norm includes certain expectations, requirements and regulations that impose corresponding obligations on its members. Poles and Croats, it is understood, must be Catholics, Iranians - Shiites, the French - if not Catholics, then at least not Muslims.

2) Industrialism, i.e. The advent of modern manufacturing does not occur in all countries at the same time. Quite the contrary. And this unevenness brings with it huge differences in development, colossal inequality in the distribution of wealth, as well as in economic and political power. Huge, painful tensions and conflicts arise at the intersection of interaction between developed countries and underdeveloped ones. There are strong incentives to erect borders and establish exclusivity both within the group of developed states and within the group of underdeveloped states. Industrialized regions import labor from underdeveloped countries, but tend to deny recent arrivals and culturally diverse individuals the right to acquire citizenship of that country and benefit from its extensive infrastructure. Need and discrimination forces these pariahs, or some of them, to go into the criminal world, which further strengthens the prejudice against them among the country's population. The current situation is leading to increased national sentiment and mutual hostility.

In to industrial society a huge variety of cultures, often layered on top of each other, generally does not allow political cataclysms to develop; on the contrary, such a society is legally consolidated and supports the existence of a social and political structure. On the contrary, in the conditions of industrial production, the standardization of production activities leads to the formation of internally homogeneous, but externally different political units that are both cultural and political.

What can this theory offer to those who are trying to solve the problems of national conflicts in the modern world?

1) A sense of the need for sober realism. The call for the preservation of cultural (“ethnic”) identity is not a delusion, not a fantasy of stupid romantics, taken up by irresponsible extremists and then used for the selfish interests of the privileged classes to fool the people in order to hide their true goals. This call is rooted in reality modern life, and it cannot be driven out either by good wishes, or prayers, or by imprisoning extremists. We must see these roots of nationalism and learn to reap the benefits that have grown from them, whether we like it or not.

The process of adapting to the new reality, unfortunately, is not always painless. The pre-industrial world left us with a legacy of a very motley picture of cultural differences, strata, as well as many ethnically indistinguishable borders. Modern conditions imply the emergence of an egalitarianism (whose roots are akin to those of nationalism), which, unlike old world ideas, abhors the connection of privilege, or lack thereof, with ethnic differences. He tolerates some privileges, but does not tolerate their cultural or ethnic manifestations. He also does not accept the discrepancy between political and ethnic boundaries. Fighting all these ethnically related prejudices that we inherited from earlier times is not such a pleasant experience. We are happy when a solution to an issue can be achieved through assimilation or redrawing borders, and nothing more in cruel ways(genocide, forced relocation of peoples).

2) Reasons for some optimism. Continued economic prosperity can reduce the severity of nationalism. When two nations, which in the past were in conflict on "ethnic" grounds, have equal prospects for favorable economic development, then the tensions that arose from economic inequality and offensively manifested themselves in cultural and "ethnic" differences will gradually disappear

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Ernest Gellner

The advent of nationalism. Myths of nation and class

[Path: international philosophical journal. - 1992. - No. 1. - P. 9-61.]

This is a theoretical essay. Its purpose is to offer a general, fundamental explanation of the large-scale shifts that occurred in the life of society in the 19th and 20th centuries in connection with the emergence of nationalism. What I'm going to show here basically boils down to this:

1. An important and distinct change has taken place in the life of mankind. A new world in which nationalism, that is, the connection of the state with the “national” culture has become an generally accepted norm, fundamentally different from the old one, where this was a rare and atypical phenomenon. There is a huge difference between the world of complex, intertwined patterns of culture and power, the boundaries of which are blurred, and the world, which consists of units clearly demarcated from each other, distinguished on a “cultural” basis, proud of their cultural identity and striving within themselves for cultural homogeneity. Such units, in which the idea of independence is linked to the idea of culture, are called "nation states". In the two centuries following the French Revolution, nation-states became the norm in political life. How and why did this happen?

2. To answer this question, I propose a theoretical model based on plausible and in some sense indisputable generalizations, which, coupled with the data we know about the changes that took place in society in the 19th century, fully explain this phenomenon.

3. The corresponding empirical material fits into this model almost completely.

This is a responsible application. If this can actually be done, then the problem of nationalism, unlike most other major problems associated with historical changes in society, will receive comprehensive solution. There have been many attempts to explain various large-scale historical shifts, but until now the work has been limited mainly to identifying interesting possibilities or developing plausible but partial solutions that ultimately do not answer the questions posed. These decisions were rarely distinguished by certainty and were, as a rule, neither sufficient nor convincing. In this case, we are talking specifically about a convincing and undeniable explanation of nationalism. /10/

Model

It is best to proceed directly to the description of the model itself. It is based on very generalized ideas about two different types of society. In looking at the differences between them, we will focus mainly on the role that structure and culture play in them.

Agro-literate society

There are several features that distinguish this type of society. First of all, it is a society based on agriculture (including cattle breeding), that is, on the production and storage of food. Such a society is characterized by fairly stable technology: although innovations and improvements occur from time to time, they are not part of constant exploration or inventive activity. This society is completely alien to the idea (which has taken such deep roots we have), that nature is a knowable system, the successful study of which allows the creation of new powerful technologies. The worldview on which this society is based Not presupposes (unlike ours) intensive knowledge and development of nature, the result of which is a steady improvement in the conditions of human existence. It presupposes, rather, a sustainable cooperation between nature and society, during which nature not only provides society with modest, albeit constant food, but at the same time, as it were, sanctions, justifies the social order and serves as its reflection.

Having a stable, set technology has many consequences. The lack of flexibility in food production and the relatively low ceiling on its productivity mean that values in such a society are mainly associated with hierarchy and coercion. For a member of this society, what matters primarily is the position he occupies in the corresponding “table of ranks,” but not the productivity and efficiency of his production activities. The productivity path is not the best way (or even the best way) for him to increase his status. A characteristic value for such a society is “nobility,” which connects high status with success in the military field.

This orientation is a logical consequence of the situation that develops in a society that has a stable productivity potential: an individual or group receives nothing by increasing the efficiency of their work, but they receive almost everything if they gain a favorable position in society. Increased pro- /11/ productivity can only be beneficial for those in power who are in a privileged position, but not for those who have achieved this promotion. At the same time, an individual who successfully strives for a high position and becomes one of those in power receives all sorts of benefits that justify his efforts. Therefore, he should strive only for power and position, without expending energy on increasing labor productivity.

This tendency is greatly enhanced by another feature of such a society - which also stems from the stability of technology - the situation described by Malthus. The fact is that the possibilities for increasing food production are limited, but the possibilities for population growth are not. In a society of this type, fertility is usually valued, at least the presence of male offspring necessary for the growth of labor and defense potential. At the same time, encouraging fertility should, at least from time to time, bring the population to that critical number beyond which society can no longer feed everyone. This, in turn, reinforces a hierarchical, militarized structure: when famine strikes, it does not hit everyone equally or at the same time. People starve according to their status, and those lower in the hierarchy are worse off. The mechanism that ensures this is social control, which limits access to protected food supplies. In North Africa, the central government is still often referred to by the term maczen, which comes from the same root as store, warehouse. Indeed, the government primarily controls warehouses and is the holder of food supplies.

The mechanisms by which such a society maintains its existence can be represented by the following diagram:

access to supplies according to rank

lack of encouragement for technological innovation

Under the influence of all these factors, a complex but fairly stable status organization arises in an agro-literate society. The most important thing for a member of such a society is to have status and the corresponding rights and privileges. Human /12/ here - it's his position, rank. (This will not be the case at all in the society that will replace it, where a person is, first of all, his culture and/or a bank account, and rank is something ephemeral.)

How was balance maintained in this historically earlier system? In general, there are two ways to maintain order in society: coercion and consent. Those who, in pursuit of their goals, encroach on the status system can be stopped by threats, sometimes carried out, or by using internal restrictions, that is, a system of ideas and beliefs that a person internalizes and which then direct his behavior in a certain direction. In reality, of course, both mechanisms functioned, for they are not isolated from each other, but work in interaction and are so intertwined that it is sometimes impossible to isolate the contribution of any one of them to the maintenance of social order.

And yet, which of these factors can be considered more important? This is an extremely difficult question. At least we cannot expect the answer to be the same in all circumstances. The Marxist point of view is, apparently, that social order is not determined by coercion or consent (both points of view a Marxist would brand as “idealistic”), but production method. It is unclear, however, what such a direct dependence of the social structure on the mode of production, not mediated by either coercion or ideas, could mean. Tools and technologies cannot by themselves force a person to accept a certain method of distribution: this requires either coercion, or consent, or some kind of alloy of both. How does a mode of production give rise to its own mode of coercion? It is difficult to resist the suspicion that the attractiveness and vitality of Marxism is to some extent due to its lack of clarity on this issue.

The system of ideology operating in society ensures the stability of the system not only by convincing members of society of the legitimacy of this system. Its role is both more complex and broader. It, in particular, makes coercion itself possible, for without it the unorganized handful of those in power would not be able to act effectively.

In this type of society there is not only a more or less stable agricultural basis, but also a written language. It allows you to record and reproduce various data, ideas, information, formulas, etc. It cannot be said that in preliterate society there are completely no ways of recording statements and meanings: important formulas can be transmitted both in oral tradition and through ritual. However, the emergence of writing sharply expanded /13/ provides opportunities for preserving and transmitting ideas, statements, information, principles.

Literacy exacerbates the status differentiation inherent in this society. It is the result of a persistent and rather lengthy dedication called “education.” An agrarian society has neither the resources nor the motivation to make literacy widespread, let alone universal. Society is divided into those who can read and write and those who cannot. Literacy becomes a sign that determines one's position in society, and a sacrament that gives access to a narrow circle of initiates. The role of literacy as an attribute of status differences becomes even more pronounced if the writing uses a dead or some special language: written messages then differ from oral ones not only in that they are written. Reverence for writing is, first of all, reverence for their mystery. The cult of clarity appears much later in human history, marking the next revolution, although it never becomes absolute.

Ordinary members of a society of this type master culture, gaining their stock of symbols and ideas “on the move,” so to speak, as they go through life. This process is part of the interaction that occurs day after day between relatives, neighbors, masters and apprentices. A living culture - not coded, not “frozen” in writing, not given any set of rigid formal rules - is thus transmitted directly, simply as part of a “way of life”. But skills such as literacy are transmitted differently. They are mastered in the process of long-term special training, instilled not in the course of ordinary life activities and not by ordinary people, but by professionals who are able to reproduce and demonstrate certain higher standards.

There is a profound difference between culture transmitted in everyday life, “in motion,” informally, and culture practiced by professionals who have nothing else to do, performing clearly defined duties, detailed in normative texts, which the individual has virtually no control over. In the first case, culture is inevitably characterized by flexibility, variability, regional diversity, and sometimes simply extreme pliability. In the second, it may turn out to be rigid, stable, and subject to general standards that ensure its unity over a large territory 1 .

1 Compare: Goody J. The logic of writing and the organization of society. Cambridge, 1986.

At the same time, it can rely on an extensive corpus of texts and explanatory /14/ tions and include theories that substantiate its value systems. In particular, its doctrine may include a theory of the origin of fundamental truth - “Revelation” - confirming other theories. Thus, the theory of revelation is part of faith, and faith itself is confirmed by revelation.

A characteristic feature of this type of society is the tension between a high culture, transmitted in the process of formal education, recorded in texts and postulating certain socially transcendent norms, and, on the other hand, one or more low cultures, which are not given in an alienated written form, exist only in the very flow of life and, therefore, cannot rise above it, happening here and now. In other words, in such a society there is a gap, and sometimes a conflict, between high and low culture, which can manifest itself in different ways: on the one hand, a high culture may strive to impose its norms on a low one, on the other hand, carriers of a low culture may strive to assimilate as much as possible high standards in order to strengthen their position. The first is typical for Islam, the second for Hinduism. However, these types of efforts are rarely successful. Ultimately, a noticeable gap arises between the carriers of high and low culture, and often an abyss of mutual misunderstanding. This gap is functional. A man is unlikely to strive for a state which he cannot understand, or to oppose a doctrine which he knows is beyond his understanding. Cultural differences define social positions, regulate access to them, and prevent individuals from leaving them. But they do not define the boundaries of society as a whole. Only during the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one does culture cease to be a means that defines positions in society and binds individuals to them. Instead, it outlines a large-scale and internally mobile social whole, inside in which individuals can move freely as production tasks require.

Accepting this model of old agrarian societies, one can ask: what should be the relationship between culture, on the one hand, and political legitimacy and state boundaries, on the other? The answer is clear: there will be no almost none communications.

A society of this type constantly generates cultural differences within itself. It gives rise to highest degree a differentiated status system, each element of which must have its own clearly distinguishable signs, signs, and external manifestations. This, in essence, is culture. Yuri Lotman describes an 18th-century Russian aristocrat who used different forms of addressing people depending on the owner /15/ how many “souls” they were. The repertoire of greetings thus depended on the financial status of his interlocutors. In Graham Greene's novel, the hero notes the notes of disrespect that creep into the bank clerk's address to him, and reflects that he would have spoken to him completely differently if his credit had not been exceeded.

This extreme semantic sensitivity to status and property nuances allows one to overcome uncertainty and avoid friction. There should be no status differences that are not clearly identified, and, on the other hand, every visible sign must have a justification in the social position of the individual. When some drastic changes occur in the stratification of society, culture immediately makes this known, demonstrating no less dramatic changes in clothing, speech, behavior, and lifestyle. The speech of the peasants is always different from the speech of the nobles, bourgeois or officials. It is known, for example, that in Russia in the 19th century. A distinctive feature of representatives of high society was their manner of speaking in French. Or another example: by the time of the unification of Italy in 1861, only two and a half percent of the country's population spoke “correct” Italian 2 .

2 Hobsbawm E. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge, 1990.

Agrarian society gives rise to various classes, castes, guilds and other status distinctions that require differentiated cultural design. Cultural uniformity completely unknown to such a society. Moreover, attempts to unify cultural standards are considered criminal, sometimes in the most literal, criminal sense. Anyone who enters into cultural competition with a group to which he does not belong violates social protocol and encroaches on the system of distribution of power. Such insolence cannot go unpunished. And if the punishment is only informal, the perpetrator may consider himself lucky.

In addition to functional, hierarchical differentiation, there is also differentiation, so to speak, horizontal. Members of such a society not only strive to form a lifestyle that distinguishes them from each other and keeps them from attacks on those who are higher on the social ladder. Agricultural communities also tend to cultivate characteristics that distinguish them from geographically neighboring communities of the same status. Thus, in an illiterate peasant environment, dialects vary from village to village. A closed lifestyle is conducive to the development of cultural and /16/ linguistic deviations, and diversity appears even where it was initially absent.

The rulers in such a society are not interested in its becoming culturally homogeneous. On the contrary, diversity is beneficial to them. Cultural differences keep people in their social and geographic niches and prevent the emergence of dangerous and influential movements and groups with followers. The political principle of divide and rule is much easier to apply where the population is already divided by cultural barriers. Rulers care about taxes, tithes, rent, duties, but not the souls or culture of their subjects. As a result, in an agrarian society, culture divides rather than unites people.

To summarize, we can say that in a society of this type, the unity of culture cannot serve as the basis for the formation of political units. In such a situation, the term “nation,” if used at all, denotes a vague composite whole, including mainly representatives of the so-called free nobility living in a certain territory and ready to participate in political life, rather than the entire body of cultural bearers. For example, the Polish “nation” at one time consisted of representatives of the gentry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but also included people who spoke Ukrainian. In other words, the concept of “nation” united citizens not on cultural, but on political grounds.

As a rule, in such a society, political units turn out to be either narrower or broader than cultural units. Tribal communities or city-states rarely cover all carriers of a culture: its distribution area is usually wider. On the other hand, the boundaries of empires, as a rule, are determined by military power or geographical conditions, but not by the boundaries of the spread of culture. They say that the leader of the Muslims who conquered North Africa sent his horse straight into the Atlantic Ocean to show that there was no further road, but he was not stopped by the cultural and linguistic abyss that separated the conquerors from the Barbary tribes that inhabited these lands.

So, people living in an agrarian-literate society occupy different positions in it and are included in diverse vertical and horizontal relationships, among which there are probably some that vaguely resemble what will later be called “nationality”; but basically it is a completely different kind of relationship. There is a diversity of cultures and complex political units and alliances, but there is no clear dependence between the two spheres. /17/ bridges. Political hierarchies and cultural fields are by no means correlated with each other through such an entity as “nationality.”

Advanced industrial society

Today, a different type of society exists in the world and is rapidly spreading, radically different from the one described above. First of all, its economic basis is different: it consciously seeks support in continuous, persistent innovation activity, in the exponential increase in productive forces and products. This society professes a theory of knowledge, which makes it possible to penetrate into the secrets of nature without resorting to revelation, and at the same time allows for effective manipulation of the forces of nature, using them to achieve abundance. At the same time, nature can no longer serve as a source of principles that justify the organization of society. Indeed, the first principle that justifies the structure of a society of this type is economic growth, and any regime that is unable to provide it finds itself in a difficult position. (The second is the national principle, which will become our main topic here.)

The society we have moved on to is no longer Malthusian: the rate of economic growth in it exceeds the rate of demographic growth, which various reasons declines or even stops completely. In the culture of this society, fertility is no longer so valued (or not valued at all): a pure, muscular labor force matters little, both from the point of view of authorities and from the point of view of individuals, both in peacetime and in time of war. (True, at first, the industrial era brought about universal conscription and gave birth to huge armies, peasant in composition: peasants were valued as “cannon fodder”. However, in our time - the time of the wars in the Falklands and the Persian Gulf - the decisive factor is already not the number of troops, but the technology and training of personnel.) Nowadays only educated people are useful, and education is expensive. In any business, what now plays a role is not the quantity, but the quality of workers, which depends on the production technology of cultured people, in other words, on “education.” Authorities no longer see fertility as a source of defense or economic potential; parents do not see their children as those who will provide for their life in old age. Producing offspring is expensive and has to compete with other demands and forms of self-satisfaction and self-realization. /18/

The nature of work has also changed radically. In an agrarian society, “work” was an urgently necessary thing, but not at all prestigious. It was physical, manual labor associated mainly with agricultural production. Such work consisted mainly of the application of human muscular power to material objects. Its severity could be eased from time to time through the use of animal power and some simple mechanisms that made it possible to utilize the force of water or wind. In a developed industrial society the picture is completely different. Physical labor as such has virtually disappeared here. From now on, working physically does not mean swinging a pick or shovel all day long: now this requires knowledge of machines, which are not always easy to operate. That is, most people in their work do not come face to face with nature at all. Their work consists of constantly manipulating people and signs with the help of computers or, at worst, telephones, telefaxes and typewriters.

All this has serious consequences for culture, that is, for the system of symbols circulating in society. The rapid exchange of messages between anonymous, widely separated interlocutors would simply be impossible if the meaning of the messages depended on the characteristics local dialect and even more so from one particular context, not to mention truly complex contexts. However, the very method of such communication destroys the context. It is impossible, say, to convey in this way the meanings contained in gestures, facial expressions, intonations, tempo of speech, the position of the speaker in space and the circumstances surrounding the utterance. The status of the individual does not add anything to the text, and the text itself cannot influence this status. All this simply does not pass through the communication channel: that’s how this channel is designed. In living speech, elements such as gesture, posture, etc., played the role of certain phonemes that influenced the meaning of the oral message. But these were phonemes, used and meaningful within very narrow boundaries - something like an inconvertible municipal currency. Meanwhile, a universal communication system involves the use of only such signs that have universal meaning, meet universal standards and do not depend on context.

It is essential that the meaning is now contained only inside the message itself. Those who transmit messages, as well as those who receive them, must be able to read this meaning, following rules common to them that determine what is text and what is not. People must be trained to isolate elements undoubtedly influencing the meaning, and abstraction from a specific place- /19/ no context. Ability to distinguish between relevant and appropriate standards The elements of the message are subtle and are by no means easy to achieve. This requires a long learning curve and enormous semantic discipline. This is somewhat reminiscent of the results of army drill - the readiness to immediately respond to formal words of command that require clearly defined actions - but the range of possible commands in this case is immeasurably wider than that accepted in any of the armies. But the meaning must be extremely clear, although the potential field of meanings is truly gigantic, perhaps even infinite.

All this suggests that for the first time in the history of mankind high culture becomes comprehensive: it is operationalized and embraces society as a whole. People can perceive cultural meanings in their entirety, respond to all the endless meanings contained in language. In other words, they have already moved very far from the guy recruit who at one time learned to respond correctly to a dozen statutory commands, and even then only if they were pronounced by a person with the required number of stripes on his shoulder straps and in an understandable situation. The consequences of this are incredibly important, although they have not yet been properly understood or studied. The importance of universal education, the need for which is dictated by the fundamental structure of modern society, goes far beyond the vague lamentations and delights about expanding cultural horizons (even if such expansion actually exists). We come here close to our main topic - the spread of nationalism. High culture is an ordered and standardized system of ideas, which is maintained and propagated through written texts by a special body of clerics. Roughly speaking, we have here the following syllogism. Human labor has become semantic in nature. An integral part of it is impersonal, context-free mass communication. This is only possible if all people involved in this mass process follow the same rules for formulating and decoding messages. In other words, they must belong to the same culture, and this culture is inevitably high, because the corresponding abilities can only be mastered through the process of formal training. It follows from this that society as a whole, if it is to function at all, must be permeated by a single standardized high culture. Such a society will no longer be able to tolerate the wild growth of various subcultures, each connected by its own context and separated by tangible barriers of mutual misunderstanding. /20/

Annotation

Ernest Gellner (1925–1996) - professor of social anthropology at the University of Cambridge, member of the British Academy, honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Revealed the role of the methodological reorientation made by B. Malinovsky for social anthropology. He showed the significance of L. Wittgenstein’s position for the philosophical thought of our entire century. Basic works: “Words and Things” (1959, Russian translation. “Words and Things. Critical analysis of linguistic philosophy and study of ideology”, (1962), “Muslim Society” (1981), “Nations and Nationalism” (1983, Russian. trans. "Nations and Nationalism", 1991), "State and Society in the Soviet Thought" (1988), "Plow, Sword and Book. The Structure of Human History" (1988), etc.

In Nations and Nationalism (1983), Gellner criticizes the Marxist theory of historical formations, based on the determining role of economics in relation to social organization, and offers a completely different periodization of history, more reminiscent of the structuralist concept of traditional and modern societies(see K. Lévi-Strauss; Ethnology), deprives the concept of a nation of any objective, material basis (territory, economy, language, culture) and defines it exclusively through involvement, solidarity, voluntary identification and shared opposition. Likewise, he considers nationalism not an innate or learned feeling, but primarily a political principle that requires the coincidence of political and national units.

PREFACE TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION

STATE AND NATION

II. CULTURE IN AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

POWER AND CULTURE IN AN AGRILITERATE STATE

Agricultural Producer Communities

CULTURE

THE STATE IN AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

TYPES OF AGRICULTURAL RULES

III. INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

A SOCIETY OF CONTINUOUS GROWTH

SOCIAL GENETICS

THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSAL HIGH CULTURE

TRANSITION TO THE AGE OF NATIONALISM

ON THE WEAKNESS OF NATIONALISM

WILD AND GARDEN CROPS

V. WHAT IS A NATION?

THE PATH OF GENUINE NATIONALISM IS NEVER SMOOTH

VI. SOCIAL ENTROPY (I) AND EQUALITY IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

OBSTACLES TO ENTROPY

CRACKS AND BARRIERS

DIFFERENCE OF FOCUS

VII. TYPOLOGY OF NATIONALISMS

DIVERSITY OF NATIONALIST EXPERIENCE

DIASPORA NATIONALISM

VIII. THE FUTURE OF NATIONALISM

INDUSTRIAL CULTURE - ONE OR MANY?

IX. NATIONALISM AND IDEOLOGY

WHO IS FOR NUREMBERG?

ONE NATION, ONE STATE

X. CONCLUSION

WHAT WAS NOT SPOKEN ABOUT

NOTES

I.I. Krupnik

PREFACE TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION

In this book, I have outlined the theory of nationalism to explain why nationalism is such an important political principle in our time.

First of all, it should be noted that the term “nationalism” is used in the book in the meaning that it has in English, and not in Russian. In modern Russian, this word has a clearly negative connotation: it is used in cases where the speaker wants to express his disapproval of excess, cruelty, exclusivity, intolerance, or any other equally unacceptable aspects of nationalist feeling. IN English language On the contrary, the term is used in a neutral sense and does not contain connotations of either approval or disapproval. It is used in the book to denote the principle that requires that political and ethnic units coincide, and also that the governed and those who govern within a given political unit belong to the same ethnic group. Such a principle may be good or bad; it may be universal or completely unsuitable - the question remains open. The load carried by the word itself should in no way influence the conclusions.

These conclusions are worthy of consideration and are discussed in the book. But the words we use for this should not limit us and impose decisions on us. It is in this spirit that we use the term.

Without a doubt, the main idea of the book is part of historical materialism. The proof is the fact that the unprecedented intensity of nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is a reflection and consequence of industrialism - a mode of production that arose and spread during this period. This was the result of the disappearance of those conditions in which the majority of humanity existed in very closed and close-knit communities, using "culture" - that is, modes of expression and communication - mainly to highlight their own position and the position of their loved ones within a relatively stable structure. The new social order did not imply isolation in small communities, but, on the contrary, required interaction with a huge number of other people in the vast, mobile, mass human sea. In this social order, man's activities were no longer limited to manual labor surrounded by people he had known throughout his life. Instead, it is replaced by the communication of complex concepts to other people using a standardized mode of expression in situations where the message itself - regardless of context - must convey the required meaning.

This is the meaning that the word “work” has acquired in our world, and it can only be done properly by people who are educated, literate, and who are able to follow guidelines and instructions. Under the old social order it was neither possible nor desirable to have a universal education; in a modern industrial society this is necessary. The main purpose and identification of a person is now connected with the written culture in which he is immersed and within which he is able to function successfully. This is a high culture, transmitted not through informal communication with the immediate environment, but through formal training. In my opinion, it is this factor that underlies modern nationalism and determines its strength.

Such an argument in no way depends on whether a given industrial or industrializing society is capitalist or socialist. This has very little or no effect on the social mechanisms I describe in the sense that they do not depend on the property system prevailing in a given society. Indeed, taking an empirical approach, we find that the strength of nationalism does not depend on social system, although it depends on the influence that industrialism has on it.

If we take into account that nationalism is considered in the book in terms of the industrial mode of production, then the question may arise whether this theory can be considered Marxist. This question seems to me to be unfounded and scholastic. There is not the slightest doubt that the main proof here is nothing more than the application of the basic tenet of Marxism about the decisive influence of the mode of production on other aspects of social life. The author in no way accepts such a view in its generalized form. However, he takes a special point of view in the case of nationalism, the key to understanding which is really in the mode of production prevailing in a given society.

Such an argument does not always seem convincing to thinkers who have a specific view of nationalism and adhere to the Marxist tradition. The unconvincing nature of their views is most likely due to an underestimation of the power of nationalism. Nevertheless, it is very significant and interesting that they share a similar misconception (so to speak) with their main opponents and opponents in understanding the foundations of the modern industrial world, namely with the followers of the liberal tradition. The underestimation of nationalism is a common weakness of the two traditions, Marxist and liberal, and in this error they are unanimous.

However, one should not be overly ashamed of such a misconception. It is quite clear that it was a natural consequence of absolutely well-founded and very significant ideas. The new proof, presented using the concepts introduced in this book, sounds approximately as follows. Nationalism is something that refers to communities united by a common culture and distinguished from rival or hostile communities by differences in culture.

The pre-industrial world is extremely rich in cultural differences. However, they are distorted and destroyed in the terrible, ruthless "melting pot" of early industrialism. A dispossessed peasant, finding himself in the slums of a new, industrial city, is forced to accept its cultural traditions, to share his hostility to green lawns, which he can no longer preserve or pass on to his children. The cosmopolitanism of the market, including the cosmopolitanism of the labor market, destroys differences. What then is the power of nationalism if the cultural differences on which it relies are inevitably erased?

My proof is extremely accessible and, more importantly, sound. Old cultural differences are indeed being eroded and are mostly being replaced by a common cosmopolitan...

PREFACE TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION

In this book, I have outlined the theory of nationalism to explain why nationalism is such an important political principle in our time.

First of all, it should be noted that the term “nationalism” is used in the book in the meaning that it has in English, and not in Russian. In modern Russian, this word has a clearly negative connotation: it is used in cases where the speaker wants to express his disapproval of excess, cruelty, exclusivity, intolerance, or any other equally unacceptable aspects of nationalist feeling. In English, on the contrary, the term is used in a neutral sense and does not contain connotations of either approval or disapproval. It is used in the book to denote the principle that requires that political and ethnic units coincide, and also that the governed and those who govern within a given political unit belong to the same ethnic group. Such a principle may be good or bad; it may be universal or completely unsuitable - the question remains open. The load carried by the word itself should in no way influence the conclusions.

These conclusions are worthy of consideration and are discussed in the book. But the words we use for this should not limit us and impose decisions on us. It is in this spirit that we use the term.

Such an argument in no way depends on whether a given industrial or industrializing society is capitalist or socialist. This has very little or no effect on the social mechanisms I describe in the sense that they do not depend on the property system prevailing in a given society. And indeed, taking an empirical approach, we find that the strength of nationalism does not depend on the social system, although it does depend on the influence that industrialism has on it.

My proof is extremely accessible and, more importantly, sound. The old cultural differences are indeed being eroded and are mostly being replaced by a common cosmopolitan culture of industrialism. The ancient songs and dances of ethnic groups continue to be preserved through the efforts of their respective folklore societies, but the vast majority of young people prefer a cosmopolitan, uprooted youth culture.

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