19th & 20th Century Nation-Building

“The modern nations came into being essentially by two roads. In one case, the state was, from the start of the process of national formation, already an established continuity, [most] often from the Middle Ages. These were states with their own ‘national elites’ and mature written cultural traditions. . . . For these states, the road to the modern nation was through an internal transformation . . . and the struggle to establish the modern nation was mainly a political struggle to define the nation as a community of equal citizens. . . .

This first type of development toward the modern nation was absent in Central and Eastern Europe. There, a different pattern was typical, [namely] that of multi-ethnic empires inhabited by many non-ruling ethnic groups. . . . Lacking not only statehood, but also written traditions in their own national language, these non-ruling ethnic groups in the multi-ethnic empires were in the most complicated situation. Their national movements had to pursue not only cultural and social emancipation and equality, but also political emancipation.”