Non-Self-Evident Nations

According to Milan Kundera, a “small nation“ is a “nation, which may at any time cease to exist, and it knows it“. In his view such smallness does not depend on the actual greatness or smallness of the nation, but purely on this kind of anxiety. During the 19th and 20th century this kind of anxiety was common in the Central and Eastern European nations, who were developing their identity in the shadow of great empires. According to Kundera, in an era of the triumph of technocratic “civilization“ over “culture“, this situation becomes universal – any nation may cease to exist.
We will use Kundera´s idea independently of him, and at least partially against him. We will ask how the national identities of contemporary Central and Eastern European nations are still influenced by the long-term legacy of “non-self-sufficiency“ and what forms this may take.

15.00 Jovo Bakic: National identity of the Bosnian Muslims at the beginning of the 20th century
Reading:
Xavier Bougarel (2017). „Islam and Nationhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Surviving Empires“. New York: Bloomsbury. Poglavlje ima naziv „The Origins of National Indetermination (1878-1914)“, pp. 7-29.
15.40 Esref Rasidagic: Bosnia: a contested nation?
16.20 Ondřej Slačálek: Postsocialist? Postcolonial? Semiperipheral? Central European troubles with non-self-evident national identity and self-evident nationalism
Reading:
Slačálek, O. (2016) The postcolonial hypothesis. Notes on the Czech “Central European” Identity, The Annual of Language & Politics and Politics of Identity, X: 27–44.
Agnes Gagyi: “Coloniality of Power” in East Central Europe: External Penetration as Internal Force in Post-Socialist Hungarian Politics, JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH, Vol. 22 no. 2, pp. 349-372
17.00 Valeria Korablyová: Untimely Nation: Ukraine and Its Fragile Liberal Nationalism