Introduction

Abstract

This is an exploratory volume on the modernity of nationalism. At first glance, the modernity of nationalism is self-evident. The literature on nationalism is awash with categorical statements on the unambiguous modernity of nations and nationalism; in Elie Kedourie’s famous dictum: ‘Nationalism is a doctrine invented in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century’ (Kedourie 1993:1); in Eric Hobsbawm’s words: ‘The basic characteristic of the modern nation and everything connected with it is its modernity’ (Hobsbawm 1990: 14). While the theoretical debate between the modernists who regard nations and nationalism as essentially modern phenomena and the primordialists/ ethno-symbolists who emphasise either the primordiality of nations or their longue durée aspect is ongoing, and the question whether nationalism engenders nations or the other way round is not settled, there seems to be something akin to a consensus about nationalism: nations may be modern or premodern, but nationalism as a doctrine, ideology or movement is, by and large, modern because of its enmeshment with various markers of modernity including autonomy, self-determination and democracy. In this context, the legitimate question is: ‘Is there any more to be explored in the modernity of nationalism?’