rss_2.0Sciendo RSS Feed for Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politicshttps://sciendo.com/journal/JNMLPhttps://www.sciendo.comhttps://sciendo-parsed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/64721dbb215d2f6c89dbc831/cover-image.jpghttps://sciendo.com/journal/JNMLP140216https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0010<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The article gives a snippet view of the pluralism of Indian nationalism by focusing on some of the critical views expounded by Aurobindo, Vivekananda, Gandhi, and Nehru, who significantly contributed to the intellectual, social, and political spheres of India. The ideas and actions of these national heroes played a crucial role in shaping the Indian idea of nationalism and the Indian freedom struggle. Aurobindo saw militant nationalism as a spiritual principle. Vivekananda believed in <italic>Karma</italic>, morality, and fearlessness; he laid focus on the <italic>Upanishads</italic>, the <italic>Brahma Sutras</italic>, and the <italic>Bhagavad Gita</italic> as the three primary ancient Vedanta writings, and he was an exponent of spiritual nationalism. Gandhi promoted <italic>Swaraj</italic> (self-rule), <italic>Swadeshi</italic> (native products for social development), <italic>Swadharma</italic> (to follow the best in our own religion), <italic>Satyagraha</italic> (holding fast to truth), <italic>Sarvodaya</italic> (upliftment of all), <italic>Brahmacharya</italic> (celibacy), <italic>Asangrah</italic> (non-possession), <italic>Sharirashrama</italic> (physical labor), <italic>Aswads</italic> (control of palate), <italic>Sarvatra-Bhaya-Varjana</italic> (fearlessness), and <italic>Ahimsa</italic> (non-violence). He upheld cultural nationalism. Nehru was inclined towards socialism. Socialism is an economic and political system that advocates for collective ownership and control of the means of production, aiming to create an egalitarian society by reducing inequalities and ensuring social welfare. The article reveals how diverse ideas inspired multi-dimensional Indian nationalism and laid the foundation of the Indian freedom struggle against the British Raj.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00102025-01-18T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0009<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Memory of the Battle of Stalingrad, a pivotal moment in Second World War, is a cornerstone of Vladimir Putin’s nationalist mythology. This study examines how participants of the “In the Whirlwind of Time” forum, a Russian-language online community whose usage peaked in the early 2010s, perpetuated and reinterpreted this war myth through science fiction and alternate history narratives at a grassroots level by co-writing literary texts. “Myth” is defined here as a symbolic narrative that shapes collective memory and identity, through science fiction and alternate history narratives. Writers, driven by nationalist and pro-Soviet sentiments, were informed by Soviet-era literary traditions and modern sociopolitical concerns. Engaging in a collaborative process of memory-making, they merged historical fiction with futuristic elements such as time travel to craft stories where the annihilation and resurrection encoded in the Stalingrad myth solve present-day moral and political crises. By conducting a Critical Discourse Analysis of forum postings and demonstrating how the resultant discourses are present in three key works, the article outlines the norms of the forum’s discourse community to show how these narratives foster a mythic understanding of Stalingrad, transforming it into a timeless and universal battle against purported Western immorality. These stories not only glorify the Soviet past but also serve as ideological tools that both reflect and anticipate Russian state propaganda of the 2020s, suggesting the participatory nature of national identity shaping through mythmaking—and the crucial role that war played in grassroots nationalist narratives in the 2010s.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00092025-01-25T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0007<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Research on the media consumption of national minorities contributes to identifying whether the media have an impact on the formation of national identity. The language and symbols used by the media are a strong factor influencing this identity. In the presented study, we focused on the analysis and comparison of empirical data resulting from several sociological researches carried out by the authors of this study on the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. The research was mainly focused on media consumption, the type of media that the Hungarian minority prefers to follow, because we assume that the chosen medium and its language contribute to the formation of identity. The aim of this study is to evaluate the development of media consumption among the above-mentioned minority and to evaluate changes in consumption upon the discovery of new modern media.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00072024-12-20T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0005<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The relevance of this work is that modern society shows interest in and explores the issue of traditional values, which are the result of social transformations. The development of a national, traditional worldview in the study and cognition of the surrounding world is still being investigated today. The purpose of the study is to conduct a general analysis of the establishment and origin of the worldview of the ancient Turkic peoples and to show the essential aspects of the classical worldview of modern Turkic peoples. The following methods were used in this study: historical, dialectical, comparative, historical, and descriptive methods, analysis and synthesis, as well as deductive and inductive methods. The result of the study was the coverage of not only the question of the worldview of the ancient Turks but also the relevance of this topic in the modern world and the role of a person in society. The study reveals the attitude of the Turks toward society, beliefs, worldview, and understanding of the “World” by nomadic Turkic peoples and describes the main function of the world. The practical significance of this topic lies in the motivation of a person to learn about their origin, culture, and traditions. The study of the world, life, and death of the Turkic peoples will provide a deeper understanding of the traditional culture and worldview of the ancient Turks. The paper covers the topic of the origin of culture and civilization among the Turks. The heroic epic “Oguz Kagan” is considered, and the manifestation of divine faith in the work is analyzed. The idea of the “World” in the epic was clarified by the beliefs of the ancient Turks.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00052024-11-10T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0006<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Many theories, approaches, definitions have been laid down for the understanding of nationalism, which simultaneously produces many questions to answer later on. One of the recent debates is the ‘inward looking’ nature of nationalism. Whether it is the recent pandemic, Brexit, or alarming rates of Islamophobia in the West with an identitarian populist flavor, the issue pertains to <italic>nationalism,</italic> or for some, <italic>nativism.</italic> Contemporaneously with an ‘inward looking’ instrumentalist nature, it uncovers new debates arising out of the conflicts in today’s nation-states. One of these appears to be the ruling coalition known as the ‘People’s Alliance’ (de facto alliance between the Justice and Development party (<italic>Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi</italic>) and the National Movement Party (<italic>Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi</italic>) in Turkey thanks to its nationalist rhetoric, yet with an ‘inward looking’ direction. The deepening of polarization is causing a mutual fear, mistrust, and antipathy among the people in Turkey. As the coalition aims to re-invigorate the nation, its opponents are claiming it is a dissemination of hatred. This political rift is deepening via the political discourse and atmosphere. The goal of this paper is to inquire into this via a critical discourse analysis. The study analyzes the discourse of the party leaders forming the People’s Alliance. This discourse displays an inward-looking nationalist rhetoric, circling around three prominent issues: the proclamation of opponents as traitors via a blame shifting rhetoric; the protection of the fate of the coalition as the savior of the country; and finally, the determination of who adheres to the nation or not via the native and national (<italic>yerli ve milli</italic>) debate.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00062024-11-10T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0003<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The increased arrival of immigrant/refugee populations often leads to public debates. These debates about immigrant/refugee policies are often raised in parliament. Inside parliament, speakers use specific arguments to persuade their audience, aiming to construct specific national identities, and to promote the national homogenizing discourse. To accomplish this, the politicians often exploit narratives and more specifically, national narratives, reframing aspects of history in order to shape the national conscience. The aim of this research is to analyze how two political leaders of opposite Greek parties, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Yanis Varoufakis, use narratives on the Greek immigration/refugee movement to the USA in the 1920s to argue about the contemporary Greek policy toward immigrant/refugee issues. To analyze their narratives, we utilize the model of <italic>positioning</italic> suggested by <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_jnmlp-2024-0003_ref_010">Bamberg (1997)</xref>, drawing a distinction between three levels: the <italic>narrative world</italic>, where we focus on how the characters are positioned in relation to one another within the reported events; the <italic>narrative interaction</italic>, where we examine how the narrator positions him/herself in relation to the audience through specific <italic>argumentative strategies</italic> (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_jnmlp-2024-0003_ref_046">Reisigl and Wodak 2001</xref>); and the <italic>broader socio-ideological framework</italic>, which concerns the positioning of the narrator toward the Discourses, namely, toward the ideologically defined ways of representing reality. According to our findings, at the level of the narrative world the two politicians construct differently the USA immigrant/refugee policy. These constructions result to different arguments at the level of the narrative interaction, where Mitsotakis promotes as a norm the exclusion of the Others, while Varoufakis promotes their assimilation. Given that both the exclusion and the assimilation of the Others comprise homogenizing practices, we realize that, at the level of the broader socio-ideological framework, both political leaders, each from a different perspective, reinforce the national discourse.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00032024-06-30T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0004<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The discipline of folklore studies was introduced to China in the early twentieth century while the country faced a grave national crisis resulting from intense foreign pressure and a rigid political system that was incapable of adapting to the challenges of the modern world. Nationalism contributed to the rising interest in folklore from the late 1910s to early 1920s, then became the dominant theme of folklore studies thereafter. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, folklore studies spread all over the country and developed vigorously within China. However, the eruption of the War of Resistance in 1937 interrupted this revitalization process and most folklore activities came to a standstill. In wartime China, leading scholars looked to the past in part as a reaction to Japanese imperialism, but also to strengthen cultural cohesion for the nation. In Japanese-occupied areas, some scholars persisted in independent folklore investigations and writing even though most upper tier Chinese universities and leading figures in the folklore movement gradually relocated to non-occupied territory. Scholars who remained in the occupation zone often had contact with foreign-backed institutions and were able to continue working during the war years. Their research activities served the purpose of rallying the nation and fed a growing popular demand for more and deeper investigations into China’s folk traditions. This work examines the influence of nationalism on folk studies in Beiping and Shanghai, shining a light on folklorists’ activities, folklore organizations, and primary publications during China’s War of Resistance against Japan.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00042024-06-30T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0002ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00022024-06-07T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-0001<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The war in Ukraine has had enormous media coverage in the West, generating a wide-ranging debate concerning its origins, responsibilities, and consequences. The debate in the media raises an interesting question seldom explored in the study of nations and nationalism, specifically, the scarce incidence or penetration by expert knowledge into the theories of common sense and profane knowledge. In fact, despite the current consolidation in the scientific literature of the constructionist and modernist paradigm – of a sociological nature – other visions and interpretations of the past continue to be widely accepted and popularized beyond academia. This article analyzes the weight and influence of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis in the social representation of nationalism. The persistence of psychopathological language in the profane interpretation of the conflict is explored using the discourse of the press and, in particular, the opinion columns published in various Western countries during the first weeks of the war. The article shows that the criticism and denunciation of nationalism are still being formulated nowadays with the voices of psychology and psychiatry, the psychodynamic vision of the authoritarian, and the vulgarized portrayal of Adolf Hitler.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2024-00012024-05-23T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0015<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The paper aims to describe and analyze the changes in public sites of memory in the multi-ethnic border region of Czechoslovak Silesia during the period of restoration of Czechoslovak sovereignty, between the fall of Nazism in May 1945 and the communist putsch in Czechoslovakia in February 1948. This research focuses on transformations and (dis)continuity of cults and symbols during that period, and on specifics and differences within the examined region with regard to ethnic and social structure of local population. Research is based primarily on the recorded agendas of state and district administrations, but preserved memorials and photographs or descriptions of vanished sites of memory also serve as important sources.</p> <p>After the expulsion of German population, the western part of the region was repopulated by settlers from various regions of East-Central Europe. Most of local German sites of memory vanished, with the partial exception of religious symbols and a few “apolitical” memorials. New monuments and memorials were dedicated mainly to personalities of Czech history in an effort to inculcate the “official” identity amongst the new-settlers.</p> <p>In the Ostrava coal basin, the new regime invoked the pre-war tradition of working-class identity and showed tolerance towards the sites of memory of the local Polish minority, except memorials related to the former Czech-Polish border conflicts. In the Hlučín region specifically, a strong pro-German narrative survived despite the “Czechization” efforts of state authorities.</p> <p>In general, the state-supported memory policy aimed to create the narrative of a “Slavic” and “socialist” Silesia, suppress the German past of the region, and weaken frictions between Czechs and Poles.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00152024-03-07T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0014<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Small cities have attracted less attention from researchers of transformation processes, although in some countries they are an important part of the social landscape, as they are in Poland. I present the results of research on the public space and symbolic politics in three small towns in Zamojszczyzna, a region in southeastern Poland. All are characterized by interrupted or disturbed historical continuity due to the extermination of their Jewish communities, which made up the majority of the population until World War II. After 1945, the Jewish past was silenced, while the symbolic space was dominated by the memory of the resistance movement. I show in my text that since the 1990s there have been significant transformations in the aforementioned towns. In some of them, firstly, interest in Jewish heritage and efforts to preserve it are becoming more apparent. Second, there is a noticeable shift from commemorating anti-fascism to promoting the so-called struggle against communism, a reflection of the current politics of remembrance at the central level. I argue that the use of cultural heritage in small towns serves largely to gain recognition. Local authorities often use not only elements of the past that fit into national narratives, but also local traditions or even fictional literary heroes, for this purpose.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00142024-01-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0012<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>We analyze the coverage of the Gezi Park protests by two major Western newspapers—<italic>The New York Times</italic> and <italic>The Guardian</italic>—through the lens of media framing, rhetoric, and collective memory. We argue that these digital archives frame Turkey’s Gezi Park protests as a challenge to an authoritarian government by promoting the themes of unrest as a conflict of ideologies, oppression of citizens, and the park as a site of memory. In a concluding section, we focus on the significance of digital archives as repositories of collective memory and the role of media framing in shaping these reconstructions of events in the past.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00122023-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0013<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>This paper presents collaborative interdisciplinary research on the mixed natural and cultural heritage of the former Iron Curtain in the Czech town of Aš. Sociocultural anthropology, history, and geobotanical and environmental studies were the main disciplines that were equally involved. The former Iron Curtain is one of Europe’s longest linear landscape features and an exceptional symbol of European history. The researched area covers the Czech-Bavarian and Czech-Saxonian borders, mainly the Aš spur. The research investigates the impacts of the long-term existing isolated strip of land of the Iron Curtain both on natural and sociocultural levels. It further examines the post-socialist transformation of the given area and the elements and processes of redefining local memory and identity through handling the local Iron Curtain heritage.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00132024-01-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0011<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>This article examines cultural participation processes within the specific context of Tišnov, a small Czech town situated in the southeastern part of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, approximately 25 kilometers away from Brno. The study was conducted among individuals actively involved in various grassroots cultural endeavors during the early 1990s, including music clubs focused on alternative genres, art film screenings, bookstores, and small art galleries. Within this setting, a narrative of cultural exclusivity emerged, which was particularly pronounced in the milieu of a small town, often framed in the context of perceived or real injustices endured during the state socialist era, as well as expressed through generational and class distinctions. The argument put forth is that in Tišnov, typically considered a prototypical small town, a select group of like-minded individuals formed a relatively cohesive taste-based community, necessitating intense competition and argumentation to establish their position within the cultural landscape. This article seeks to challenge prevailing narratives of cultural exclusivity within the framework of a small town following the dissolution of state socialism and the transformation of its class dynamics.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00112023-11-28T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0010<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Ongoing urban developments and contemporary social challenges increase the need for different typologies of new urban and architectural concepts, where the issue of built heritage, specifically in the case of Skopje, has become a vast problem. With the decomposition of the former Yugoslavia states in the 1990s, each of these new states inherited a significant amount of built heritage, including monuments, buildings, landscapes, and infrastructure, constructed according to the prevailing socialist urban-planning and architectural doctrines, and directed within and towards the immediate contexts of the Yugoslav community. Most of this inherited architecture vanished across the ex-Yugoslav space, while a large part of it is still left in a state of limbo.</p> <p>This article aims to show the socialist built heritage's adaptation, or transformation, into new urban scenarios, using the case of Skopje to reveal more about the relationship between the heritage and the local inhabitants. It will closely examine the socialist architecture and its relation with the local memory communities, or the locals’ memories. More precisely, we will focus on one unique construct that has slowly vanished in the modern-day living: the notion of <italic>mesna zaednica</italic>. In focusing on this notion in the urban district of Taftalidže, Skopje, we will discuss the means of transposing socialist communal features into the new, post-socialist architectural rhetoric and way of life, as well as engage with various discourses about urban heritage emerging in the urban context. Finally, we will argue in favor of several heritage and urban development theses, which can be applied to the particular case study. The article is part of an ongoing research project that presents its results in English for the first time.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00102023-12-04T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0008ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00082023-11-25T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0009<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>This article examines the European Union (EU) in light of Benedict Anderson's definition of the nation as “an imagined community … imagined as inherently limited and sovereign.” Current scholarship mostly rejects the possibility of an EU nation, or treats it only as a possible eventuality, not a current reality. Interpreting Andersonian “sovereignty” through the lens of political legitimacy, the EU nevertheless satisfies all four of Anderson's criteria, since members of the EU Parliament invoke a “European people” to legitimize their actions. EU nationhood coexists with other national loyalties. However, multiple national loyalties exist elsewhere in Europe, since British nationhood coexists with Welsh nationhood, German nationhood with Sorbian nationhood, and so on. Eurobarometer evidence also suggests that multiple loyalties are widespread. Treating the EU as a nation offers many analytical advantages, since scholars do not need to struggle with terminological novelties, but can straightforwardly apply the secondary literature on nationalism.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00092023-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0006ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00062023-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0007<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The remarkably dynamic history of the small Czech town of Jáchymov provides the possibility of tracing memory, forgetting and recalling through constant rewriting and negotiation – both of a place of the individual memories, as well as the hierarchy of the events which are worthy of being remembered, and those that would rather be forgotten. German, Soviet, and Czech presence here cross with the spa and military nature of this place and its martyrological memory, on one side of the transfer of the German population shortly after World War II, and on the other one the political prisoners of the 1950s, who were forced into slave labor in the local uranium mine. All of these layers still remain today – referring to the title of the book by Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska – remembered in Jáchymov's summer landscape, in which the air is breaking the image of reality, making it fluid, and somewhat elusive. And it is this variety of the layers of memory, recalling, and oblivion, which I would like to identify and describe in my article.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00072023-11-07T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-0005<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>This paper investigates the reconstruction of Albanian identity in Kosovo after the region's transformation to state independence in 2008. The cultural environment emerged as a site of ethnic appropriation and contestation in the longstanding interethnic struggles between the Albanians and the Serbs. The study examines the socio-symbolic and linguistic manifestations of national identity in Pristina, the capital city of Kosovo, through the lens of Linguistic Landscape Studies. The first aspect of the study investigates M. Theresa Boulevard, the central promenade of the city and a site of memory and commemoration, to highlight how the period of South Slavic hegemony in Kosovo and the recent interethnic war resulted in a redefinition of Albanian identity. The second aspect of the study focuses on the written manifestation of the Gheg variety of Albanian as a symbol of Kosovo's independence. Through this dual focus on memory and language, the study aims to arrive at an understanding of how new national and political self-identifications are shaped in contexts that have undergone ethno-political conflicts and socio-political shifts. We argue that the symbolic configuration of Kosovo suggests a redefinition of Kosovo-based Albanian identity following the transformation to state independence. The study contributes to an understanding of the multi-layered redefinition of Albanian identity in Kosovo, calling attention to language and memory in the process of constructing national identities in postwar contexts.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2023-00052023-12-31T00:00:00.000+00:00en-us-1