‘Small’ and ‘greater’ nations: empires and nationalist movements in Ireland and the Balkans

ABSTRACT

This paper compares different strategies of legitimation deployed by the nationalist movements in the Balkans and Ireland in the 19th and early twentieth century. In contrast to the traditional accounts that posit nations and empires as mutually exclusive projects, I show how imperial and nationalist discourses can reinforce one another. The paper zooms in on the changing dynamics of imperial and national legacies by exploring how specific social movements strategically deploy concepts such as the ‘small’ or ‘greater’ nation to facilitate different nationalist projects. By contrasting the historical experiences of the Balkan states and Ireland I show how geopolitical and historical contexts shape the complex and contradictory relationships between imperial and the national projects.

KEYWORDS:

• Nationalism
• Ireland
• Balkans
• empires
• nation-states

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Serbia gained a degree of self-rule in 1815 and became an autonomous principality in 1830, while Greece achieved independence after the war of 1821-1829. The Congress of Berlin 1878 granted full sovereignty to Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Romania (in 1881), while Bulgaria became de facto independent after the St Stefano treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1878 (although its de jure independence was confirmed only in 1908).

Additional information

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Siniša Malešević

Sinisa Malesevic is a Full Professor of Sociology at University College, Dublin and Senior Fellow at CNAM, Paris. His recent books include Contemporary sociological theory (with S. Loyal, Sage 2021), Grounded nationalisms (Cambridge UP, 2019) and The rise of organised brutality (Cambridge UP, 2017). His publications have been translated into 12 languages.