Chapter 2. Europe and Statelessness In 1880, it was widely recognized that the state “was the political expression of the nation” in Europe, with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire as the clear exceptions.290 These nation-states developed in the course of – mainly – the nineteenth century, mostly “through hegemonic unification” and sometimes “through evolution toward autonomy” (e.g. the end of the dynastic union of Sweden and Norway) or even “through revolutionary breakaway of a colony” (in Europe only revolutionary breakaways from empires were witnessed in the Balkans, and later by the Irish Free State).291 The importance of nationalism with regard to the rise of the nation-state is often highlighted in the sense that nationalism can be defined as the pursuit for the ‘nation’ as the system to govern people.292 At the same time, this phenomenon relates to national identity: “Nationalism is perhaps best understood as a kind (or degree) of national identity, urged by individuals or pursued by groups, aiming for a stringent ‘congruence between culture and polity’ and demanding ‘cultural homogeneity within political units and cultural heterogeneity between them’.”293 It is therefore important to observe that in the decades immediately preceding World War I, nationalism had rapidly gained ground as a transformed concept, which emphasized the ethnic and linguistic elements thereto more.294 Confirmation of a transformed conception of nationalism can be found for instance in the writings of Jürgen Osterhammel, who, when discussing the differences between the empire and the nation-state, notes that the nation-state is based on citizens belonging to it, “with a general status based on equal rights and political inclusion”. At the same time, however, minorities needed to battle to obtain special rights.295 Others mention how nationalism changed in the second half of the nineteenth century from “a sense of community with one’s fellow nationals into aggressive feelings of superiority over other nations”296 – in other words: some people (or nations) feel that they are better than others. Joep Leerssen finds that there are different elements that push nationalism towards the ‘right’: 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 JM Roberts, A General History of Europe. Europe 1880–1945 (Longman 1970) 17. The AustroHungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire “could not accept the identity of state and nation” (ibid 19). Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: Global History of the Nineteenth Century (transl Patrick Camiller, Princeton University Press 2014) 407, 412. Cf Douglas Bradburn, ‘Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism’ in Trevor Burnard (ed) Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History (Oxford University Press) last modified: 29 June 2011 <www. oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199730414/obo-9780199730414–0070.xml> accessed 12 September 2021. John Carter Wood, ‘“Blessed is the Nation”? Christianity and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Europe’ in John Carter Wood (ed), Christianity and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Europe. Conflict, Community, and the Social Order (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2016) 11–31, 20. Eric J Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (2nd edn, Cambridge University Press 1990) 101–130. Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: Global History of the Nineteenth Century (transl Patrick Camiller, Princeton University Press 2014) 423. Andreas Dorpalen, Europe in the 20th Century. A History (Macmillan 1968) 3. Intersentia 57