National indifference and the History of Nationalism in Modern Europe

Description

National indifference is one of the most innovative notions historians have brought to the study of nationalism in recent years. The concept questions the mass character of nationalism in East Central Europe at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Ordinary people were not in thrall to the nation; they were often indifferent, ambivalent or opportunistic when dealing with issues of nationhood. As with all ground-breaking research, the literature on national indifference has not only revolutionized how we understand nationalism, over time, it has also revealed a new set of challenges. This volume brings together experienced scholars with the next generation, in a collaborative effort to push the geographic, historical, and conceptual boundaries of national indifference 2.0. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction: national indifference and the history of nationalism in modern Europe 1 Too much on their minds: impediments and limitations of the national cultural project in nineteenth-century Belgium 2 From national indifference to national commitment and back: the case of the Trentine POWS in Russia during the First World War 3 Lost in transition? The Habsburg legacy, state- and nation-building and the new fascist order in the Upper Adriatic 4 National indifference and the transnational corporation: the paradigm of the Bat’a Company 5 Between nationalism and indifference: the gradual elimination of indifference in interwar Yugoslavia 6 Paths to Frenchness: national indifference and the return of Alsace to France, 1919–1939 7 Beyond politics: national indifference as everyday ethnicity 8 National indifference, statistics and the constructivist paradigm: the case of the Tutejsi (‘the people from here’) in interwar Polish censuses 9 Instrumental nationalism in Upper Silesia 10 ‘I have removed the boundaries of nations’: nation switching and the Roman Catholic church during and after the Second World War 11 ‘Citizen of the Soviet Union – it sounds dignified.’ Letter writing, nationalities policy, and identity in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union 12 Conclusion: national indifference and the history of nationalism in modern Europe Index