russian/e. europe nationalism essay

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Jeremy Antley

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Liberalism's Mobility: An Exploration of Nationalism in Eastern Europe and Russia, 19th-20th centuries

In his 1978-79 term at the College de France, Michel Foucault delivered a series

of lectures devoted to furthering study on the art of government by way of examining the

question 'liberalism' asks of governing practice; namely, what is the self-limitation of

governmental reason?1 When raised in conjunction with the rise of 'population' as an

increasing concern of the state during the 18th century, the question of what constitutes

the defined boundaries of governmental reason and how to accurately measure both

reason and boundary becomes paramount when pursuing various 'systems' designed to

provide an answer to the above. According to Foucault, 'liberalism' is a practice, a means

of rationalization on the exercise of government. It places 'society', instead of the 'state',

at the center of governance, allowing one to ask what necessity and what ends must be

pursued to justify existence. It is a tool for use in criticizing reality, thus becoming "one

constant dimension of recent European phenomena of 'political life'."2 This shift from

'state' to 'society' that liberalism proposed brought into question the difference between

the two and the terms of their coexistence. In this space between 'society' and the 'state'

we find the creation of a new schematization, nationalism, capable of acting as an

interlocutor binding, indeed interweaving, the two elements. While Foucault focused on

the role of the market in the ‘liberalism’ question as an intrinsic arbiter of governmental

reason from the 18th century to the present, my inquiry attempts to show how 'liberalism'

also demanded a redefinition of the relation between 'state' and 'society' and brought

about differing configurations of nationalism in the multi-ethnic lands of Eastern Europe

1 Foucault Birth of Biopolitics 20.2 Ibid, 321.



and Russia/Soviet Union during the 19th-20th centuries.

How were these configurations of nationalism assembled? The answer lies in the

'mobility' of liberalism, which I define as the inherent capacity of ideas to circulate and

be filtered by 'certified agents of knowledge'. Through the process of circulation,

filtration and then transmission, ideas undergo mutation, producing capacity for a wide

variety of configurations on various technologies of government. As 'liberalism'

circulated through Europe, existing states with absolutist regimes (in our case the

Hapsburg and Romanov dynasties) sought to come to terms with questions on self-

limitation of governmental reason by devising solutions that mimicked liberal form, but

not content. If Foucault is correct, that 'liberalism' questioned the justification and

limitation of governmental action, then formulation of nationalism policy by the

Hapsburgs and the Romanovs (later Bolsheviks) in reaction to this question exemplifies

the imperial solution's novel amalgamation of 'liberal' form with absolutist content, albeit

with differing degrees of success. These ‘nationalistic’ schemas, in turn, impacted the

path ethnic minorities followed in the configuration of their own 'national forms', both in

the 19th and 20th centuries. The evolution of these configurations, the construction of a

nation-state, demonstrates the wide ranging 'mobility' of liberalism.

While both Hapsburg and Romanov empires faced the same 'nationalist' dilemma,

their novel configurations of liberal and absolutist content, an attempt to preserve

authority among elites as well as subdue separatist movements, provide opportunity to

study the flexibility of 'liberalism' in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hapsburg rulers

recognized their largest minority, the Magyars, as an almost equal governing partner, yet

they refused to address other minority group concerns and create an empire wide



federation. Romanov rulers only tinkered with piecemeal reform, pursuing a

Russification effort that occasionally experimented with liberal forms in pockets of

imperial space. After World War I these novel configurations fell apart, yet their

influence persisted. New nation-states created in Eastern Europe pursued policies similar

to the Austrian and Hungarian rulers before them, instituting national language

requirements and generally limiting access of minority groups to centers of power.

Bolshevik rule, secured after the conclusion of the Russian Civil War (1917-1921),

initially endorsed a nationalities policy that favored ethnic recognition and semi-

autonomous rule yet ultimately sought to preserve Romanov territorial integrity while

instilling a larger Soviet 'umbrella' identity. In both examples, ruling regimes across two

centuries did not outright reject the question of liberalism; they instead used the inherent

'mobility' of liberalism to craft forms of nationalism suited to their larger ideological

goals.

To begin, this essay will establish and define concepts central to my

understanding of ‘mobility’. The process mentioned above, Circulation, Filtration,

Transmission and pursuant Mutation, are terms I draw from the work of Kapil Raj, and

my conception on the applicability of mobility to the realm of ideas draws upon two other

scholars, Philip Deloria and Laura Engelstein. Their works give guidance to what

Foucault identified as, “the way in which specific problems of life and population have

been posed within a technology of government which…since the end of the eighteenth

century has been constantly haunted by the question of liberalism.”3 Next, I will look at

how the Hapsburg and Romanov rulers dealt with the question of ‘liberalism’ in terms of

3 Ibid, 323-324.



nationalism policy in the period leading up to World War I. Focus then shifts towards the

interwar period, as successor powers in former imperial lands used the same ‘liberalism’

question to create new nationality content based, in part, on previous forms elaborated by

the dynastic empires. My ultimate goal is to show the ‘mobility’ of liberalism by

outlining its flexibility across both time and governmental norms.

Elaboration of Mobility

Liberalism’s mobility, its adaptability across a wide spectrum of governmental

configurations, I believe is best illuminated by the works of three scholars; Kapil Raj,

Laura Engelstein, and Philip Deloria. While Raj and Deloria do not specifically focus on

the idea of liberalism, their works flesh out the principles and application of mobility to

ideas in general. Engelstein’s work sheds light on the active reshaping of the liberal

discourse by the Russian/Soviet state, in effect bringing focus to larger themes of this

essay regarding configurations of nationalism policy. Each scholar’s work bears

elaboration, and I’ll begin my brief examination with Kapil Raj.

A scholar of Southeast Asian Studies, Kapil Raj work deals with colonial

knowledge making interaction between European powers and indigenous peoples.

Focusing on the circulation aspect of knowledge, Raj demonstrated that while the subject

of knowledge may be desired, its validity could face acceptance or rejection solely on the

certification of the transmitting agent involved. This is because the circulation through

locality and metropole alike create mutations, each side appropriating and assimilating

new concepts or ideas into their own milieu as the knowledge filters through. Thus, an

empire may desire knowledge of local plants for medicinal purposes, a particular use for

explorers and colonists alike, yet may reject this knowledge if it comes from an



‘uncertified’ source, i.e. the ‘savage’. However, if that same knowledge is first collected

by a ‘field agent’ and then passed on to an ‘experienced’ European, who in turn codifies

that knowledge in a Latin text4, there is greater chance of acceptance of that knowledge at

the metropole simply because of the path of transmission filtered through a certified

agent. As we shall see below, models of nationalism deemed appropriate for absolutist

regimes in the 19th and 20th centuries depended heavily upon 'certified' acceptance.

Philip J. Deloria’s collection of essays, Indians in Unexpected Places, provides a

case study on the mutability of ideas, the change undergone via transmission between

Indians and Whites.5 In his essay on ‘Violence’, Deloria traces the evolution of white

vocabulary over the course of two decades regarding the changing forms of perceived

Indian violence-potential. Before the Civil War, terms such as surround and last stand

exemplified White fears of the mobile Indian, capable of enclosure and able to resist

influence from White culture. After the Civil War, forced movement of Indians onto

reservations made old terms/fears less applicable in context and, as a result, new

conceptions arose. Focusing on the term ‘outbreak’, Deloria convincingly argues that

this conception helped Whites negotiate a period in which Indians were not totally

pacified/contained on reservations. It implied partial containment and near completion of

the ‘civilizing mission’, interpreting forms of Indian violence as incapable of becoming

autonomous and limited to ‘pockets’ of the American empire. Wounded Knee, according

to Deloria, represented both the apex and obsolescence of ‘outbreak’, the point at which a

new conception was needed, that being ‘passivity’ and later ‘invisibility’. Vocabulary

4This example is drawn from Ch. 1 of Raj’s work ?????

5 Philip Deloria. Indians in Unexpected Places. University of Kansas Press. Date ???



shifts, a result of idea circulation involving both real and perceived threats to White

ideals, represented the “developing trajectory of meanings that defined the possibilities of

Indian violence”.6 Development of these ‘trajectory of meanings’ echoes similar efforts

by Hapsburg/Romanov/Bolshevik rulers used to shape the ‘liberalism’ question to suit

their absolutist or ideological needs.

The last work briefly reviewed, Laura Engelstein’s collection of essays Slavophile

Empire, deals precisely with the mobility and mutation of ‘liberal’ ideals in Russian

governance.7 Engelstein’s first essay considers how the experience of Russia, an empire

that combined liberal, anti-liberal and absolutist governing models, reconciled with

Foucault's conception of how the liberalist 'rule of law' changed, for Western Europe at

least, the apparatus of domination from compulsion to discipline as exercised by the

newly empowered bourgeoisie. Engelstein interprets the contribution of liberalism to

Western thought as one that replaced the, "alliance between discipline and the

administrative state with a configuration that frames the operation of discipline within the

confines of the law." However, in the Russian experience, the Tsarist and later Soviet

rulers took this conception in a new direction. Instead of invoking a "disciplinary society

limited and controlled by the authority of the law", Russian rulers created a governing

framework that eschewed the validity of 'legality' and sought control of various

disciplines for their own use.

Across these varied scholars works lies a central theme that I hope to use in

exploring the development of 'nationalism' in both Russia and Eastern Europe, that being

the notion that knowledge is perfectly capable of being transmitted across different

6 Ibid, 21.7 Laura Engelstein. Slavophile Empire: Imperial Russia's Illiberal Path.



cultures who, upon encountering the transmitting knowledge, have an equal capacity to

assimilate then transform the knowledge to suit their own particular needs. Equally, this

reconfiguration of knowledge is then re-transmitted across the social and cultural fields,

producing an endless cycle whereby old ideas or configurations of knowledge inspire

new forms that, in turn, will produce further iterations. When analyzing how

'nationalism' developed, it is important to recognize that this notion is intimately tied to

the transmission process undergone by the ideal of liberalism. For greater depth to this

argument, we now turn to examining the Hapsburg and Romanov responses to the

question of liberalism.

Hapsburg/Romanov Empires and the Question of ‘liberalism’ in the pre-WWII

Period

Despite their shared characteristics of rule and diversity of those ruled, the

Hapsburg and Romanov empires addressed the question of liberalism's nationalistic

impact with different methods. Both possessed significant numbers of minority

populations who, combined, easily outnumbered the total of Great Russians and

Austrians in their own states. While they might have liked to sidestep answering the

question of liberalism and its pursuant demand for a reconfiguration of the state/society

relationship, tumultuous events in the 19th century forced each empire to devise a solution

that satisfied unique problems faced. The central issue lay in the need for both dynasties

to create a unifying national myth that, while preserving power in the hands of the

traditional elites as much as possible also sought to stem any separatist feeling emanating

from dissatisfied minorities.8 For both, this required an elaboration on the interaction

8 Engelstein and others



between state and society through limited acknowledgement of liberal ideals, albeit in

forms ensconced with the methods and means of absolutism.

For the Hapsburgs, the Spring of Nations in 1848 as well as increasing pressure

from the unification of Germany under Bismarck resulted in a series of political/military

maneuvers over the course of the 19th century that ultimately culminated in national

disgrace in the military defeat at Koniggratz on 3 July 1866. It was then, facing

exclusion and then outright ejection from the growing German seat of power, that

Hapsburg rulers came to realize the growing fragility of their own power structure. In an

unprecedented move for multi-ethnic empires of the 19 th century, Austrian rulers

contemplated and then offered the largest minority group, the Magyars, a nigh-equal

position in what would come to be called the Dual-Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.

Hungary, which only two decades previous sustained the longest independence

movement of 1848, suddenly found itself accomplishing national goals only dreamed

about by previous generations of Magyar aspirants. Yet other minority groups, just as

vociferous and similar in their quest to achieve autonomy and national sovereignty,

continued to be relegated to the background, in some cases finding previously oppressed

Magyars as new masters promoting assimilation policies once solely attributed, with

disgust, to Hapsburg rule. This imbalance between Hungarian ascendency and other

minorities similar ambitions informs, in greater detail, the methods Hapsburg and Magyar

rulers pursued in answering the liberalism question, demonstrating what Lazlo Kontler

called, “a network of regimes that…represented new types of authoritarianism.”9 Both the

9Lazlo Kontler, 261.



Angshelus of 1867 and Hungarian national pursuits prior and post its implementation

comprise the ways in which these new types of authoritarianism took hold.

The Angshelus of 1867

At the beginning of the 19th century, Hapsburg rulers could look across their lands

and see the development of empire over several centuries. At the beginning of the 20 th

century, those same rulers, gifted with inhuman longevity for the duration of this

sentence, would see the same lands albeit in a new political contrast. Pressures both

external and internal brought on a legitimacy crisis for the Austrian state; no longer

needed as a bulwark against an increasingly impotent Ottoman threat and forced out of

control of German speaking peoples via the rise of Germany, Hapsburg rulers found

themselves in need of a stabilizing force in order to preserve their lands and capacity to

rule. Events of 1848 demonstrated not only the desire and willingness of minority

populations to rebel against Austrian rule but also that the potential loss of the largest

group, the Hungarians, would be detrimental to maintaining Hapsburg great power status.

It also heralded the emergence of the liberalism question and new possible configurations

of governance based upon the interweaving of state and society. Yet the perceived threat

of 1848, the potential for collapse of Hapsburg rule and subsequent relegation to the

background of European politics, did little to convince Austrian governing elites the

necessity for outright liberal reform in terms of their nationalist policy towards

minorities. Instead 1848 set the Austrian ruling elite towards a policy of, first, repression

and assimilation of minority groups through elimination of territorial distinction in

conjunction with standardization efforts in civil governance and language use, and

second, the de jure acknowledgement of the Magyars as a nigh-equal governing partner



over other significant minority groups. Both policies exemplify the means by which

Austrian, and later Hungarian, ruling elites crafted state/society configurations that

attempted to satisfy the liberalist question with absolutist forms.

The shift of governing policy from 1848 to 1867 in Hapsburg rule bear closer

examination, as this period defined the political and ideological shape of the empire until

its dissolution at the conclusion of World War I. Take, for example, the initial attempts

by Austrian rulers to, in effect, delegitimize historic territorial claims by Hungarians

through elimination of intra-state boundaries in favor of re-districting that emphasized

dilution of concentrated Magyar populations with large groups of non-Magyar subjects.

Kontler called this pre-1867 period the Bach period, or the emergence of a neo-absolutist

style of governance that included redoubled efforts at Germananization and

standardization across the empire. Tariffs were abolished, weights and measures became

uniform and mandatory use of German in schools and governance all marked efforts by

the Hapsburgs in the post-1848 era to create a ‘unitary’ state. Croatian and Serbian

subjects found their limited autonomy revoked as well, replaced with a strict surveillance

program that fully embodied the ideal of the polizeistaat. Combined, these policies

sought to bring the interaction between state and society under the aegis of Hapsburg

imperial identity by literally ‘erasing’ distinction in favor of Germanized uniformity. In

effect, Hapsburg rulers answered the question of liberalism by rejecting limitation on

governmental rule in favor of a unitary state that sought liberal reforms10 injected with

absolutist content.

10 Abolition of Serfdom in 1848



When these efforts failed to significantly strengthen the ‘unifying myth’ of

imperial rule, the Hapsburgs decided to further tinker with their governmental apparatus,

opting for a dualist configuration with the Magyars instead of the more liberal federation

option that would have provided autonomous rule to significant minority populations.

The Angshelus, or Compromise of 1867, represents a break with other absolutist

governing models then in use in Europe in that it offered generous terms of self-

government and quasi-sovereignty to a minority that possessed a ‘certified’ historical

claim in exchange for loyal patronage and support of the imperial regime. The Hungarian

minority fit this new state/society configuration for several reasons. Dual-Monarchial

rule with the Magyars suited Hapsburg desires to transform the empire by dividing the

land into two parts, with the western portion to become a new Austrian state and the

eastern portion to come under the management of a minority capable of providing both a

historical claim to rule and the capacity to do so. By granting the Magyars quasi-

sovereignty the Hapsburgs quelled a major source of separatist sentiment then beginning

to grow in strength among many of the non-Austrian minorities. Recognition of Hungary

as a ‘certified’ agent worthy of statehood also satisfied limited demands of the liberalist

question on the state/society configuration. As such, the Dual-Monarchy preserved

absolutist content within liberal forms while at the same time rejecting the ideal of a civic

nationalism policy in favor of an ethnic conception that, for a time, preserved the ancient

regime.

The Magyar elites, ever suspicious of Hapsburg intent, nonetheless accepted the

terms of Dualism because they, in turn, recognized the offer as affirmation of their efforts

to develop a Hungarian national consciousness in previous decades. Of course, the



Dualist configuration, being only liberal in form, contained several ‘absolutist’ strings

that restricted full Hungarian autonomy. The Austrian emperor retained rights as supreme

warlord and also possessed the ability to ‘presanction’ laws, thus keeping undesired bills

from entering the floor of debate in Parliament. Despite these limitations, Hungarian

rulers were largely given a free hand in managing their own territory and the various

minorities living within. Taking cue from their Austrian counterparts, Hungarian rulers

instituted strict Magyarization policies designed to assimilate minority populations

through both forced language instruction and exclusion from centers of power.

Here, again, the concept of ‘certified’ agent comes to the fore, as only the Croats

achieved limited recognition by the Hungarians as a ‘political entity’ due to their

‘historic’ claims to self-rule, a title denied to the Slovaks who never held a recognized

‘historic’ claim and were seen only as subjects of the Hungarian crown.11 By granting the

Croats rights based solely upon historic claims of previous existence, Hungarian rulers

not only extended articulations of the state/society configuration used by the Austrians in

the Angshelus of 1867, they also similarly precluded the possibility of pursuing civic

nationalistic solutions in favor of ethnic nationalistic conceptions that preserved Magyar

power and excluded those minorities not deemed ‘certified’ from the sovereignty process.

However, the choices made in supporting this configuration of state/society continued to

haunt the newly created Austro-Hungarian Empire until its dissolution in the aftermath of

World War I. Then, the Entende powers, aware of the potential fractious nature ethnic

nationalization polices, pressured the newly created nation-states of Eastern Europe to

11 Kontler, 281-282, Bidelux and Jefferies, 142.



adhere to minority protection policies that, in truth, were never enforced and thus hardly

effective in diffusing ethnic tensions in the region.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To summarize the points elaborated in this exploration of the Hapsburg

experience, we see that the response to the question of liberalism on the art of

government, as proposed by Foucault, resulted in a conception of the state/society

relationship in terms that could be called ‘autocratic ethnic liberalism’ predicated on the

‘certification’ of the agent in question. Unwilling to surrender land or share power, the

Austrian elites at first attempted to eliminate distinction in favor of a unitary state, a

rough attempt at imperial civic nationalism that ultimately collapsed with defeat at

Konnigratz and subsequent exclusion from the German confederation. Robbed of their

German ascendency and facing the prospect of becoming a ruling minority in a multi-

ethnic state, the Austrians eschewed forms of civic nationalism for ethnic conceptions

that based legitimacy on ‘certified’ historic claims. In this way, the Hapsburgs could split

the empire into two pieces, with power shared between the Austrian west and the

Hungarian east. In doing so both the Austrians and the Hungarians rejected civic

nationalistic forms in favor of ethnic configurations that at once cemented their power

and doomed it to eventual failure. After the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire at

the end of World War I, newly minted nation-states comprised largely of former minority

groups would pursue similar ethnic conceptions of the state/society relationship,

demonstrating the influence Austrian governing models continued to hold over the region

even after the empires demise. Yet before we examine this phenomena in greater detail,

the focus of the essay turns to the Russian lands ruled by the Romanov dynasty.



The Romanov Example

Much like the Hapsburgs, the Romanovs also faced problems in the 19th and early

20th centuries regarding how to configure state/society relationships in the wake of

liberalism's question on governmental reason. Unlike the Hapsburgs, the Romanovs

never experimented with granting minorities equal governing status. Instead the regime

focused on projecting a nationalism configuration that aimed for civic identity yet did so

under increasingly very specific ethnic terms. However, while the 19 th century saw the

emergence of the Russian identity formula, “Nationality, Autocracy, Orthodoxy”, only

two of those terms, Autocracy and Orthodoxy, were clearly defined and understood.12

Nationality would remain difficult for the Russian empire to define as several distinct

groups muddled the formula stated above by calling into question applicability of using

ethnic definitions to create an imperial civil identity. Due to these concerns, Romanov

elites made issues of ‘certification’ paramount in their quest. In turn, ‘certification’

depended heavily upon interpretation by diverse populations of information ‘circulating’

through the empire. While the Romanovs never shared power, a la the Hapsburgs, with

other distinct minority groups, this did not preclude experimentation of ‘liberalist’

reforms in pockets of Empire space- indeed, this combination of ‘circulation’,

experimental reforms, and definition of identity better explains the tsarist attempts to

formulate an answer to the question of liberalism.

This portion of the essay will examine Romanov difficulties with establishing a

Great Russian centered ‘civic’ nationality in the face of ‘certification’ challenges used by

12Acknowledge idea of schism in orthodoxy and the differentiation between old believers and others. Generally state saw these groups as non-orthodox, but had deeper and more complicated relationship.



subjects and predicated on mutation of knowledge circulating through the empire. Much

has been written on the debate within the intelligentsia on the Slavophile vs. Westernizer

issue and, while I do not want to revisit their arguments in total, I would like to point out

the inherent contradiction in trying to enforce an ambiguous identity upon a diverse

population. Combined with the often hap-hazard implementation of reforms in small

sections of the empire, the efforts by Romanov elites to answer liberalism’s question and

create a reconfiguration of the state/society relationship resulted, much like the

experience of the Hapsburgs, in the further elaboration of absolutist methods of rule

encased within liberal forms.

To begin, I will look at the work of Laura Engelstein and her essay on the

implications of a weak commitment to the rule of law on larger Russian society. Then,

looking at the Caucasus region of Romanov territory, issues on the permeability of

identity and the risk of going native come to the fore. In conclusion, the focus shifts to

the 1897 Census where issues surrounding the difficulty encountered by Romanov

authorities in enforcing universal ‘civic’ identity formed within a Great Russian ethnic

conception. Combined, these explorations into Russian configurations of state/society

relationships provide a mosaic look at the larger problems facing the multi-ethnic empire,

problems that would later shape the formulation of nationalism policy under Bolshevik

rule.

Tsarist Commitment to Rule of Law

One of the central themes of this essay, that multi-ethnic empires addressed

liberalist influences in differing manners, forms a part of the core argument in Laura



Engelstein’s collection of essays, Slavophile Empire.13 The first essay, ‘Combined

Underdevelopment’, specifically addressed Russian Imperial, and later Soviet, rulers’

suspicion of liberalist claims that reconfigured the relation between discipline and state

and placed them both under the rule of law. The illiberal tradition within Russian

development questioned the egalitarian nature such a reconfiguration promised, pointing

out that the rule of law merely shifted the operation of power from the autocrat to the

bourgeoisie and that any promise of a more liberal government as a result only clouded

the true operation of coercion upon the population.

One consequence of rejecting the rule of law in favor of illiberal governing

methods for Russian rulers was that the state never fully surrendered authority to the,

then, growing prominence of ‘specialists’ amongst the intelligentsia in exchange for an

increased presence in regulation of their behavior. Instead, the regime sought cultivation

of talent from within, drawing upon an ever-meager supply of statisticians, rural doctors,

and land surveyors14 (to name a few) to carry out desired directives from above. This

reliance on internal structures to fulfill initiatives made the regime especially concerned

with issues of ‘certification’ in terms of knowledge circulation within the empire.

Examining two different areas of the central bureaucratic mission in the 19 th century, the

military efforts in the Caucasus and the Imperial Census of 1897, one can see the

ambiguity and shifting conceptions of Russian imperial identity that occurred during this

period. In this regard Romanov rulers, much like their Hapsburg counterparts, instituted

13Laura Engelstein, Slavophile Empire

14See several articles on this subject- cross dressing professionals, priests, rural doctors



forms of the state/society relationship that, later, helped establish norms for 20 th century

nationalism policy in that region.

“Going Native”

As the Russian empire expanded, slowly, in the east its domain came to

incorporate several distinct ethnic minority groups. This Russian ‘frontier’ presented

challenges to establishing an inclusive imperial identity, as the cultural exchange between

diverse groups and the ruling authorities was by no means unidirectional and often

produced intermixing of norms best explained by the ‘going native’ phenomena in the

Caucasus’ region over the course of the 18th through mid 19th centuries. Mikail Mamedov

explained this ‘native’ effect on both Russian civil and military personnel stationed in the

Caucasus.15 As more and more Russians (a term Mamedov explains could encompass

Ukrainians, Baltic Germans, or Lithuanians) spent time serving the state in this eastern

region, their habits and customs adjusted to incorporate local norms of dress and horse

riding in addition to other cultural trends with regards to conducting warfare and seeking

a bride. This process of ‘going native’ only exemplifies the problems Russian rulers had

in articulating a civic identity rooted in ethnic conceptions.

One of the reasons ‘Russians’ went ‘native’ was that Caucasus clothes and

horsemanship better suited the climate and terrain, especially in conducting warfare

maneuvers, and assumption of local cultural norms allowed Russian servicemen to

continue, in form, previous methods of Cossack rule. Instead of fighting this trend and

becoming preoccupied with the mixing of cultural identities, the ruling authorities instead

15 Mikail Mamedov Going Native article



demonstrated what Mamedov called the “flexibility of Russian imperial consciousness”16

and made Georgian/Caucasus dress the standard uniform of stationed troops in 1866.

Even Russification policies exemplified this flexibility, as their abandonment in the

Caucasus region in 1845 revealed a relative ease with which Russian elites incorporated

native traditions into their own practices. Unlike their Western European brethren, who

over the course of the 19th century develop an increasing sense of separateness vis a vis

their colonial subjects, Russian rulers, while ultimately conceiving of imperial identity in

ethnic terms, tended to regard their relationship with the numerous ethnic minorities in

what Mamedov calls “cosmopolitan European terms.”17

While Russian authorities certainly held an intermixing cultural relationship with

ethnic minorities, evidenced by Mamedov and others18, I believe this practice was less

influenced by a desire to espouse ‘cosmopolitan European’ ideals than by an acceptance

of the common situation between Russian bureaucratic desire and means; with few actual

central agents as compared to the native population size and area of imperial territory

they lived on, many Russian policies towards minorities in the east possessed a surprising

degree of flexibility. As a result, while the authorities desired to assimilate native

populations and were not afraid of cross-cultural mixing, over the course of the 19 th

century increasing frustrations with the bureaucracy’s inability to achieve the goals of

imperial civic identity gave rise to a desire to simplify the identity question by placing its

terms in ethnic conceptions, causing the previous goals of assimilation to mutate into one

16 Ibid, ???

17 Ibid, ???

18 Ibid & other articles on minority interaction



of similarity.19 Under this framework, minorities could never supplant the ethnic Russian

in terms of central identity, but they could mimic those forms around which this

unattainable central identity built itself upon, like Orthodox worship or primary use of the

Russian language, in order to make invisible those qualities that differed in their

ethnic/religious/political character or beliefs. Russians could feel less threatened by so-

called ‘cultural contamination’ occurring with its servicemen in the Caucasus’ because,

ultimately, ethnic Russians would remain ethnically distinct from the native population

that could only hope for acceptance as a ‘similar’ being and not as a ‘civic’ equal. This

‘similarity’ discourse became a tsarist legacy the Bolsheviks drew upon in formulating

their nationalism policy, a process described in more detail below, and the terms of its

existence crystallized over the interpretation of the 1897 imperial census results.

1897 Imperial Census

Perhaps one of the best sources for establishing, then understood, conceptions of

identity in multi-ethnic empires are census records. During the storied history of

Romanov rule, only one census managed to be taken of the complete imperial lands in

1897. A relatively simple form, the census exemplified attitudes towards the rising

nationality question while also acting as an impetus for internal debate on issues related

to ethnic identity and the potential for assimilation. Statisticians working on the project

represented, both, the 'internal' specialist used and preferred by tsarist authorities as well

as a potential source for more 'liberal' reforms in the area of 'civil nationalism'. Taken

together, the multifaceted nature of the 1897 census reveals the contradictory nature of

the Romanov configuration of state/society that, on one level, attempted to foster an

19 Deloria, ???



imperial identity intended to unite disparate populations, and, on another level,

pronounced non-ethnic Russians as capable of similarity but not assimilation.

This paradoxical pursuit of an inclusive civic, yet exclusive ethnic, formulation of

identity is best seen through the debates on the implementation and interpretation of the

census results. To begin, census takers were primarily concerned with only with the

elaboration of three questions pertaining to language, estate and religion. Language

claims, generally accurate, did little to help statisticians understand the 'national' content

of the Russian Empire. Estate classifications also proved problematic, as respondents,

knowing full well the potential benefits of being classified as a 'peasant' or other official

'estate' identity, often provided answers that did not truly reflect their situation. The

estate system, once held as the defining feature of the Russian state/society configuration,

suddenly found itself incapable of accounting for the increasing diversity and concern of

the authorities with regards to minority populations. Reviewing the results, Romanov

rulers became alarmed at the seeming fluidity the estate category provided in terms of

identity and responded by defining 'Russian-ness' as an ethnic category instead of a more

wide-ranging civic definition. This move de facto ended the quest in multi-ethnic

Imperial Russia to create a 'unifying myth' among the disparate populations and

ultimately affirmed the notion that nationality was singularly and irrevocably linked to

ethnicity.

************

Having quickly surveyed the impact Liberalism's question on the state/society

configuration wrought upon the the Hapsburg and Romanov empires, lets take a moment

to pause and summarize the points made above. Essentially, the problem of redefining



the relationship between state and society in a multi-ethnic empire centered on the

question of identity. As Liberalist ideals spread through the Western European nations,

highlighting the role of the individual and establishing the idea of a 'civil society', states

such as Britain and France coalesced around a shared history and created a nation-state

predicated on civic identity. Even relatively new players on the scene, like Germany,

embraced a civic identity in the creation of their nation-states. However, in such diverse

multi-ethnic empires as governed by the Hapsburgs and Romanovs, building an inclusive

civic identity contrasted sharply with absolutist governing models that depended on

exclusivity and, increasingly over the 19th century, 'ethnic' conceptions of identity that

promoted 'similarity' over 'assimilation'. These absolutist regimes, because of their

relative minority 'majority' status in their own lands, sought to address the question of

Liberalism and its pursuant reconfiguration of the state/society by integrating limited

portions of the Liberal program into their illiberal governing methods.

In the early 19th century, for both Hapsburg and Romanov, this amounted to

limited attempts at instilling a unified 'civic' identity based largely on the positivist theme

and promise of assimilation. When these initial efforts failed to achieve spectacular

results, evidenced by the creation of the 'Dual-Monarchy' in Austrian lands and the

endorsement of 'Orthodoxy, Nationalism, Autocracy' in Russian domains, policies and

hopes for assimilation found replacement with more muted ambitions of simple

similarity. As the late 19th and early 20th centuries demonstrated, this shift to a doctrine

that precluded ethnic minorities ascension to the level of citizens, instead of subjects,

heralded the basic rejection of liberalistic value even while the forms of liberal

governance were slowly expanded. At the conclusion of the First World War, when both



Romanov and Hapsburg empires faced disintegration, this illiberal legacy left models

both the newly emerging Eastern Europe nation-states and the civil-war torn Bolshevik

cadres would use in the articulation of state/society relationships expressed in the

formulation and practice of nationalism policy. It is this early 20 th century period, in

which new actors take stage, that the second portion of this essay turns to and evaluates.

*************************************

Aftermaths often prove deceptive, especially at the conclusion of war-time, in

helping the historian interpret a pivotal moment. The aftermath of World War I in the

lands of the rapidly defunct Austro-Hungarian empire proved no different. The Entente

powers, weary and war-torn, saw in the dissolution of the multi-ethnic Hapsburg empire

an opportunity to not only implement Western Liberal ideas on legitimate expressions of

nationalism, evidenced by use of 'self-determination' as a certified process, but also create

a 'cordon sanitare', a buffer zone between Western Europe and the newly emerged

Bolshevik state taking root in the corpse of Romanov rule. It was the Entente's wish to

create out of Eastern Europe a new bastion of Western Liberalism, one that would avoid

the mistakes of the past Austro-Hungarian and Romanov rulers by enshrining at the core

minority rights for the disparate ethnic populations, many of whom found themselves

citizens of new nation-states that never before existed. Yet these policies were far from

benevolent, as minority rights were believed not to be a means for preserving the

integrity of ethnic distinctiveness but instead as a guarantor against disruptive separatists

feeling that could occur before the ethnic populations fully assimilated into their new

nation-state's culture.



The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, isolated from the West by ideological fervor

and belief in the 'future war'20, themselves had to contend with how to appropriately deal

with ethnic minority populations who, traditionally, held either weak or disruptive ties to

the former Imperial government. Recent historical research strongly suggests that the

Bolshevik regime lifted Imperial forms of governance and organization and re-purposed

them to fit their needs. In the realm of nationalist policy, the Soviet government, just like

the Entente, recognized the danger of unchecked separatist feeling and sought to define

this potential disruption through the implementation of korenizatsiia, or indigiousness,

program.

In this second portion of the essay, both the Western created nation-states of

Eastern Europe and the Bolshevik korenizatsiia represent the endurance of state/society

configurations created in the 19th century. A brief survey of both systems reveals that

previous 'certification' methods employed by the multi-ethnic empires in Austria-Hungary

and Imperial Russia thrived in the more modern conception of the nation-state in the

West, and the nation in the Soviet Union. Far from being new state/society

configurations, these 20th century nations brought continuity to old forms through

continuation of the circulation process described in the beginning of the essay. For newly

minted nation-states, this involved ethnic demarcations of citizens and those not yet

'assimilated', prompting irridentist claims, as in the case of Hungary, and 'dualist' modes

of power sharing, in the case of Yugoslavia, which nonetheless yielded more authority to

one ethnicity over the other. With the Bolsheviks, initial forays into a far more 'liberal'

nationality policy eventually yielded to an imperial conception of the 'Great Russian' as

20 Discuss how Bolshevik leaders had fixation on this future war, impacted choices of governance and development. Stone, “Hammer and Rifle” Others too.



being the only ethnicity worthy of promotion and emulation among the other Soviet

Republics. Briefly examining the initial developments in both Eastern Europe and the

Soviet Union in the 20th century reveals that so-called 'new configurations' of Liberalism,

expressed in nationality policy, were little more than extensions of illiberal models

conjured by the previous rulers of empire.

The New States of Eastern Europe

Woodrow Wilson, in his surprise declaration of the Fourteen Points, ushered in

one of the grandest reconfigurations of political reality Europe had seen in the past 300

years. The specific point establishing self-determination as a means of legitimizing

formulation of new states at once eschewed the old 'Concert of Europe' in favor of a far

more liberal conception of the state/society relationship, while also shoehorning new

states into minority protection policies designed not to facilitate tolerance but

assimilation of smaller populations into the larger, 'certified', nation-states.21 In this

manner, self-determination became an extension of the certification process by which

certain minority groups deemed worthy by the Western powers received the ultimate

prize of a nation-state, while those groups deemed unworthy were forced to settle with

either ethnic amalgamations of nation-states or outright rejection of their identity in favor

of assimilationist policies. To be certain, the increased presence and ability of once

minority populations, such as the Czechs and the Poles, to form their own nation state

marked an increased presence of liberalism in the region, those populations not deemed

21 Of course 'certification' meant many things to the Allied powers- on one hand, they desired to implement a Western European style nation-state network on top of the populations of Eastern Europe, while on the other, they were bound by secret treaties and promises made to various factions in exchange for support against the Central Powers. The peace settlement also revealed a preference for those nations deemed 'successors' of the Western ideal, with other minority populations, such as the Slovenes or Slovaks, essentially denied a seat at the negotiation table. See Bidelux and Jefferies, 410.



worthy or those in isolated pockets of minorities located in the territories of created

nations found little consolation with the new liberal order.

Perhaps most striking about the new nation-states was the use of old state/society

models in establishing their own nationality policies. One of the key differences between

the formation of nation-state in Eastern Europe and the rest of Western Europe was the

substitution of ethnic qualifiers for membership in place of civic conceptions that would

have allowed non-homogenous populations the ability to transform from subject to

citizens. This, essentially, was the same process followed by both Austrian and

Hungarian rulers in their previous decades of rule and when ethnic populations were

given the opportunity to escape their own forced assimilation experience and allowed to

develop their own sense of culture and shared history they, in turn, instituted

assimilationist policies that oppressed the smaller group of minorities in their new

territory.22

It should also be noted that the formulation of post-war Eastern Europe was

highly influenced by the various secret agreements made by representatives of the

Entende powers with the minority populations of the Austro-Hungarian empire that

promised land spoils in exchange for support against the Central powers. Hence the

curious situation of Romania, who managed to secure and win large territorial gains

simply entering the war, very late, on the side of the West. Eastern European

representatives that possessed credibility with the powers of Britain and France, like

those from the Serbian exile government and Czech emigres like Thomas Masaryk, were

able to both secure their 'place at the table' during the Paris peace negotiations and deny

22 Ibid, 395.



other minorities, such as the Croats, Slovenes and Slovaks, any chance to argue their case

for separate nation-states.

The result was an Eastern Europe that, on face, fulfilled the forms of Western

Liberalism but failed to mimic the essential content. The following decades after the

First World War would see nation-states of Eastern Europe quarrel with each other over

territorial disputes, economic disputes (exacerbated by both French and American

abandonment of the region, politically and financially, at the conclusion of the Paris

Peace talks), and ethnic disputes, as the redrawing of Eastern Europe, already a hodge-

podge of peoples, left several pockets of minority ethnic enclaves in larger ethnically-

different 'host' states. As Joseph Rothschild and Nancy Wingfield noted in their work,

Return to Diversity,

“But in the so-called nation-states of the interwar era, an ethnic minority seemed fated, short of war and a redrawing of frontiers, to remain disadvantaged forever, not simply in the neutral statistical sense, but also in terms of political, economic, cultural, and sometimes even civic and legal deprivations. Hence it tended to seek succor from its ethnic and cultural 'mother country' against the pressures of the 'host' state, and thus the dispute was internationalized.”23

While some states, such as Poland, envisioned giving their non-homogenous ethnic

pockets greater autonomy rights, conflicts with the Soviet Union and larger border

disputes eventually pushed authorities to embrace a vision of restoring pre-partion

borders and an emphasis of 'nationalizing' state structures and peoples. Contested ethnic

areas were settled with 'loyal' Polish citizens, a colonization attempt reminiscent of

similar tactics used by both the Hapsburg and Romanov dynasties in establishing, then,

23 Joseph Rothschild and Nancy Wingfield, Return to Diversity 8.



'loyal' imperial subjects in border areas in order to speed along assimilation and

integration of the disparate populations.24

Thus, the new nation-states of Eastern Europe found themselves implementing

nationalism policies that mimicked the ethnic-centered definitions of citizenship

embraced by the illiberal, absolutist empires of the 19 th century. However, unlike the

Romanovs and Hapsburgs, the nation-states of Eastern Europe found some measure of

legitimacy in pursuit of this old program as their content and form, on face, espoused the

same liberal ideals then being advocated by the victorious Western powers. As shall be

seen in the following section, the Soviet Union also attempted to embrace portions of the

liberal program for legitimacy among the ethnically diverse peoples of the former

Russian empire, yet they, too, failed to eschew the illiberal tendencies of the former

Tsarist regime when defining the core characteristics of Soviet identity.

Soviet Korenizatsiia

Unlike the newly created nation-states of Eastern Europe, the Bolshevik forces

had to first fight and endure four years of civil war (1917-1921) before they could

address pressing nationality claims. However, once their power consolidated, the

Bolsheviks could implement programs that, on face, were far more liberal with regards to

minority populations. Knowing full well the failures of the Imperial regime to quell

nationalist sentiment, the Bolsheviks introduced the policy of koreinizatsiia, or

'indigiousness', in an attempt to provide a state/society configuration that would prove

capable of both satisfying local demands for a more autonomous role in their governance

and facilitating the implementation of ambitious social consciousness identity

24 Nick Baron and Peter Gatrell, “Population Displacement, State Building, and Social Identity” 77-79.



construction, i.e. creation of the new 'Soviet Citizen'. Over time, the implementation of

korenizatsiia produced a schematic dichotomy that divided the USSR into West/East

categories, much like those that existed during tsarist rule, and the initial desire to

promote distinctiveness whilst codifying Soviet uniformity gave way to prioritization of

the Great Russian identity over others.

By tracing the development of 'korenizatsiia' and evaluating its ideals and goals

against the that of national programs implemented in Eastern Europe and Africa, I argue

that policy solutions devised by the Bolsheviks, despite its initial supra-liberal approach,

relied upon tsarist conceptions of the state/society configuration- ultimately producing

similar governance instabilities as experienced by the Romanov dynasty. By looking the

specific example of korenizatsiia implementation in Soviet Turkmenistan, one can clearly

see that the Bolshevik ideological goals did not match the reality on the ground. Much

like their European counterparts, the Bolsheviks, upon realization of the disconnect

between expectation and implementation, reverted to familiar patterns of behavior first

expressed by the previous illiberal regimes of the 19th century.

Soviet Turkmenistan and the African Colonial Comparison

One of the primary goals of korenizatsiia, according to Bolshevik ideology, was

to promote class consciousness and development of Soviet identity in an attempt to

defuse tribal conflicts and dismantle land holding establishments. The Turkmen, a

nomadic group that used extensive kinship ties to reinforce their social system,

represented for the Bolsheviks a group not suitable for autonomous rule but capable of

being reshaped by social policies. The idea was to categorize the Turkmen people, who

by nature did not define themselves in terms of class or nation, into western Russian



defined groups of poor, middle, and rich (the infamous kulak). Once sifted into the

various categories, the Bolsheviks could then target the 'poor' and promote them to

leadership positions in an attempt to inculcate proletarian values amongst a group

believed to be held down by tribal inequalities. While this plan looked impressive on

paper and in discussion, implementation of the policy among the Turkmen proved the

error of ideological assumptions held by the Soviet leadership, producing effects in the

nomadic society contradictory to the stated goals.

Take, for example, Soviet efforts at instituting new land holding practices among

Turkmen tribes. The real issue behind land use in the traditional society centered on

water rights and previous to the incursion in this area by Bolshevik agents there existed a

complex sharing system along the Turkmen tied to kinship groupings and behaviors of

social reciprocity. As the central authorities sought to extend and regulate the irrigation

system they inadvertently exacerbated social divides among kinship groups, as some

Turkmen deemed 'poor' or 'kulak' were either given more access or less access,

respectively, to the water supply. The new arrangement, while inline with stated

Bolshevik goals of promoting Soviet identity, blithely trampled on previously established

networks and relationships held by the Turkmen which, in turn, promoted conflict

between tribes instead of defusing previously assumed tensions.25

Of course, one of the primary reasons the korenizatsiia policy for the Turkmen

promoted more conflict than it resolved was that is defined tribal people as incapable of

autonomous rule, thus necessitating direct influence by Bolshevik authorities in order to

25 There is also the example of using Turkmen to staff local, Soviet administrative offices. By assigning positions of power to those deemed class appropriate, i.e. the 'poor' Turkmen, Soviet policies ignored established lines of power and created yet another source of inter-tribal conflict. See Adriene Edgar ???



bring about the desired societal change. This 'top-down' reform for populations deemed

incapable of developing the proper identity harkens back to attitudes held by Imperial

authorities with regards to non-Russian populations. While the Bolsheviks assumed that

implementing land reform and affirmative action reforms would spur the Turkmen to

adopt new characteristics of Soviet identity, when such developments failed to occur in a

timely manner the Bolsheviks could do little more than begin to implement reforms and

changes by instituting, in the Turkmen lands, ethnic-Russian agents. Whereas the

Imperial regime satisfied itself with only minimal contact in the Turkmen lands in

exchange for law and order, Soviet authorities sought direct engagement in shaping the

content and identity of the minority population. As Adeeb Khalid states in his article on

Early Soviet Central Asia, the Bolsheviks sought to integrate Central Asia into Soviet

hegemonic orbit by waging a conquering war on difference.26

The quest for 'similarity', another holdout from tsarist times, thus reemerged in the

korenizatsiia program implemented in the 'backwards' Eastern lands. Indeed, many

aspects of the Bolsheviks program among the Turkmen echoed similar motivations and

ultimate failures encountered by the previous tsarist government in attempting to instill a

'civic' identity. Initial failure in the attempt to fabricate new social consciousness and

sense of Soviet identity in the traditionally tribal Turkmen peoples resulted in direct rule

via ethnic Russian agents of the Soviet government. Terry Martin states that the dilemma

of the Soviet nationality policy lie in its embrace of both an extra-territorial personal

definition of nationality and established definitions of territory linked with governing

power tied to ethnicity of the inhabitants. Hoping to avoid the assimilationist pressures

26 Adeeb Khalid- article???



encountered by 'minority rights' policies found in the West and the new nation-states of

Eastern Europe, the Soviets korenizatsiia program actually exacerbated ethnic tensions

and did little to build towards the utopian future desired by Bolshevik leaders.27 The

failure to inculcate a strong, universalist identity among the varied peoples of the Soviet

Union in the 20's and 30's led to embracing of the ethnic-Russian as the desired archetype

smaller groups or nations should aspire to be. This shift would, in effect, provide the

backdrop to the crushing of 'alternative paths to socialism' expressed by various Eastern

European nations and derided by nervous leaders in the central Soviet bureaucracy.

Yet beyond portending the future, the failure of korenizatsiia to produce the

desired results among minority populations found some measure of congruence with

similar policies pursued by the new nation-states of Eastern Europe and the colonial

powers of Africa.28 As stated above, the Western powers who dictated the terms of peace

after the Second World War predicated establishment of new Eastern European nation-

states upon acceptance of 'minority protection' policies. While this seemed, on face,

similar to the desires expressed by the Soviet policy of korenizatsiia, namely a way to

ease separatist ethnic tensions, in actual practice the two methods diverged wildly as the

new masters of Eastern Europe didn't want to carve out a special space for minorities as

much as they wanted to pressure the smaller populations into assimilation. Soviet

27 Terry Martin noted how korenizatsiia policies implemented, first, in the Ukraine produced debates over the role of Russian population concentrations in participation of governing now ethnically defined territorial units. While korenizatsiia was meant to defuse tensions, its reliance upon stipulating local ethnic control of government actually promoted 'us vs. them' mentalities as the establishment of a larger supra-national Soviet identity failed to take hold. National Soviets, “established a crucial connection between ethnic identity and administrative control of territory.” Affirmative Action Empire, 42.

28 Information for this portion of the essay comes from Peter Blitstein “Cultural Diversity and the Interwar Conjecture: Soviet Nationality Policy in its Comparative Context” Slavic Review vol. 65 no. 2 (Summer 2006)



authorities, on the other hand, sought to create a minority space but one that ultimately

required guidance from the Communist Party.

In the case of African colonial policy, the European nations desired to implement

gradual change that would produce a cadre of low-level workers (peasants, petty clerks,

and laborers) suitable for work in administrative support for the West. They did not

embrace ideals of self-determination or minority protection, as were espoused for the new

nations of Eastern Europe, fearing the consequences transformation of Africans into

'model Europeans' would bring to the concept of European rule. Western powers also

viewed African wage-laborers and other proletariat as 'detribalized' and free from

traditional networks of influence (which the colonial powers co-opted to a great degree),

providing both another source of paranoia and reason to avoid implementing

modernization or nationalization policies in colonial territories.29 The Soviets sought

almost the exact opposite, with their korenizatsiia policy dedicated to producing a model

and modern 'European' citizen, albeit one with a universalist identity couched in Soviet

terms. Viewing the creation of autonomous republics, on one level, as a construct that

would help 'vent' separatist/nationalist pressure and, on another level, a temporary hold-

over sustaining traditional cultures until proper inculcation produced a new Soviet

identity, Bolshevik leaders hoped to avoid the mistakes of the tsarist past by vigorously

embracing some liberalist norms in the pursuit of building a supranational identity. Yet,

as the above demonstrates, the initial failures to secure this supranational ideal led the

Soviet government to embrace a Russian-centered program of preferential treatment.

Conclusions

29 Peter Blitstein, “Cultural Diversity and the Interwar Conjecture: Soviet Nationality Policy in its Comparative Context” Slavic Review 65(2): 283-288



The rise of Nationalism, tied to but behind the rise of Liberalism, commanded

attention by both Western and Eastern European powers as the very foundation of the

social contract between ruler and ruled came into question. A new focus on society,

instead of the state, prompted ruling powers of the day to come up with configurations of

the state-society relationship that would satisfy their local needs and produce, perceived,

benefits liberal economic and governmental doctrines promised. At the center of the

change was the question of population, specifically who constituted a citizen of the newly

established entity of the nation. While previous medieval regimes focused more on

elaborations of central power as the defining aspect of identity, modern states began to

see the benefits defining population as the main aspect of identity. Napoleon recognized

this benefit in his pithy statement, regarding how a man will not give his life for small

amounts of money or distinction, “You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.”

Nationalism was the soul of the population expressed.

Whereas both France and Britain, with their large concentration of homogenous

populations, adopted more civic forms of national identity (albeit in terms that were still

largely ethnically defined, and, of course, not across their entire empire's holdings) the

Hapsburg and Romanov rulers, governing territories of distinctly non-homogenous

populations, came to embrace exclusive ethnic definitions of citizenship over inclusive

civic ones due mainly to early failures in attempting to instill an 'imperial identity' that

surmounted ethnic loyalties. Austria's failed bid for German ascendency, exemplified in

the military loss at Konnigratz, led to the creation of an Austro-Hungarian dualist

configuration of power that increasingly pursued ethnic-centered assimilationist policies

amongst minority groups living in each section of the 'new' empire. Imperial Russia, too,



made initial attempts at pursuing a more civic-centered definition of citizen, yet

ultimately found the potential empowerment of disparate minorities to be a threat to

established institutions of Imperial power. The result in both empires was an

assimilationist policy that favored 'similarity' yet denied equality, all the while seeking to

obliterate distinctiveness of the targeted 'foreign' populations.

World War I changed the political boundaries of the empires in question, but

failed to enact similar change on the models of governance handed down from the

defunct ruling regimes. In both the new nation-states of Eastern Europe and the

autonomous republics of the Bolshevik Soviet Union, supposedly new implementations

of the liberal quest for nationalism embraced familiar illiberal configurations of the state-

society relationship.


russian/e. europe nationalism essay

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