Pan-Nationalism as a Category in Theory and Practice

Abstract

This article theorizes “pan-nationalism” as an analytical category in the context of nationalism theory by contrasting “pan-nationalism” with “nationalism.” What does the prefix “pan-” imply? One can identify a “multiple-statehood” criterion: pan-nationalism extends across state frontiers. Observers also use the prefix pejoratively to connote extremism or revanchism. The pejorative tendency means that the difference between “nationalism” and “pan-nationalism” may depend on the observer’s political sympathies. A brief survey of pan-Slavism illustrates a large gap between the aspirations of self-proclaimed Pan-Slavs, and the goals attributed to them. Many self-proclaimed pan-nationalists elsewhere in the world have also renounced high-political goals, thus scholars should stay close to the primary sources and exercise caution when making assumptions about pan-nationalist aspirations.

Notes

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72 Ibid., 69–70.

73 Ibid., 70–1.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexander Maxwell

Alexander Maxwell is an associate professor of history at Victoria University of Wellington. He has published several articles on nationalism theory, Habsburg history, history pedagogy, and sociolinguistics. He is the author of Choosing Slovakia (2009), Patriots Against Fashion (2014) and Everyday Nationalism in Hungary (2019). He prepared the English translation of Jan Kollár’s Reciprocity Between the Tribes and Dialects of the Slavic Language (2009), and is currently working on a translation of Jan Herkel’s Elementa universalis linguae Slavicae e vivis dialectis.