This isn’t really a question, more an expression of gratitude (I hope that’s okay), but I wanted to say as a person who enjoys writing from time to time, I use history, and this sub, a lot for worldbuilding. Topics like these in particular I love to draw from. I’ll definitely be pouring over the questions/answers here. Thank you for letting us tap into y’all’s knowledge!
u/liamkconnell
You mentioned that Australians began to take on a self-image of being more invested in the Empire than the British, perhaps even more British than the British. This might also be visible in Whigish ideology in the American Revolution and u/tdwentzell noted that Canadians also saw themselves as more British than the British in one of his Q&A answers. My question is this, then, is this a precursor to independence movements? Is it a "necessary" component of forming a separate identity from the colonial metropole for colonies marked by significant emigration from the metropole?What role did it play in relations between Australia and Britain?
You suggested that Turkish nationalists might have seen nationalism as a "technology" which could then be utilized to accomplish particular goals. This might minimize or diminish truly felt national unity, etc. on the part of those (future) elites who supported Turkish nationalism. How can we trace the kind of reinforcing back-and-forth between truly held unifying beliefs and intentional "creation" of such ideals? In other words, how much was it picking and using a technology and how much truly perceived group identity?
If war was "personal" as you describe it, and the nobles used it politically and economically, did the "common people" take part? If so, how? What benefits, perceived or real, motivated non-elites? What was there role in warfare?
In your presentation, you noted that Czech communists represented Hus as using religious language to express communist ideals because the language of religion was the only one available to him. In such a way, Hus became a proto-Communist and his religiosity was sidelined as utilitarian. So, how much of what the Czech communists involved in the Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy and in reimagining Czech identity through Hus and Hussites was there attempt at expressing religion in the only language available to them--communism? Or were they all decidedly and truly areligious/anti-religious?
Another excellent panel, thank you very much everyone. Its very interesting hearing about this myth building that happens, and I'm curious just how 'natural' the process is. Are there parts that seem to develop almost by accident? Parts that seem 'planned', or perhaps more directly guided by those who want to create something?
A question that might relate to any of the panelists: what are the limits of conflict as an impulse towards a shared identity? Across these cases, there are potential shared identities, whether white Australasian, Czechoslovakian, Ottoman or so on, didn't end up providing a strong enough foundation for nation building, even when there were real or imagined external enemies. What distinguishes conflict that serves as a suitable foundational myth for the nation, and conflict that doesn't?
Are their any points or parts of your paper you wish you had more time to discuss? Anything you didn't have time to talk about in the video but think is an important point?
u/Hus_Prevails
In the summary of your paper you explained that the communist party co-opted Jan hus's teachings by claiming his core tenants lined up strongly with communist belief but were religiously focused due to living during a time where religious organizations had much more control over government. Was that claim inaccurate? How likely would it be that living in the early to mid 20th century Jan Hus's philosophy would have been more political and less religious? Was he a religious man trying to fix the church because he believed so strongly in religion or a nationalist trying to make the country better by reforming one of its major forces?
Good afternoon and welcome to the “Building the Nation, Dreaming of War: Nation-Building Through Mythologies of Conflict” conference panel Q&A!
This panel explores how people build national communities and identities through shared memories of conflict or fears of future war. From Eastern Europe to Australia, “Building the Nation” discusses myth-building and national identity.
Moderated by me, Juan Sebastián Lewin (/u/aquatermain), this panel features:
Liam Connell (/u/liamkconnell), presenting his paper, “‘Building a nation, dreaming its destruction’: Australian Federation and Fantasies of War”.
In 1901, six colonies federated as the Commonwealth of Australia. It was a moment of optimism, a chance to build a new and fairer British democracy—and it was tinged with fear. From the 1880s to the 1910s, Australasian novelists, politicians and newspapers imagined a coming conflagration in the Pacific. Local “Invasion Literature” warned that sooner or later, Australia would face the Chinese, or the Japanese, or the Russians, or all at once. The process of successful federation was launched by politicians worried that Australia was surrounded by expansionist French and German imperialists. This paper describes how a moment of intense geopolitical change in Oceania was driven by people who feared that they were scant years from a rupture in their political, cultural and racial worlds. Fear built the “White Australia” regime. Fear affected the relationship of those emerging countries to the wider British Empire. Fear marked how they saw the islands of the South Pacific. These coming wars—that never came—would shape the peace of Australasia.
Andrei Oprea (/u/Teeironor), presenting his paper, “War: The Defining Catastrophe of 17th Century Moldavia”.
Moldavia in the 17th century, an autonomous principality under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, had a continuous history of war, ranging from frequent violent struggles for the throne, constant frontier raids, and participation in the external wars of the Sublime Porte. As a result, war became an engrained characteristic of life in the minds of the Moldavian litterati. It is by far the dominant part of all of the country’s chronicles. The Chancery’s documents and the various scribblings left on manuscripts frequently mention it, and even use it to reference time. War is seen from various perspectives: as a plague wrought upon Moldavia by the greedy ambitions of monarchs, even its own rulers; an almost-inevitable consequence of life; and, at times, a chance to attain glory, riches, or vengeance.As a result, it garnered an incredible ideological importance in the minds of Moldavians, even down to the common people. This paper focuses on the perception of war across the various sources: what is its relationship to the idea of political power? How is it portrayed by the various litterati of different backgrounds? And finally, what constitutes a “just war”, if anything?
Buğra Can Bayçifçi (/u/Bugra_Can_Baycifci / /u/BugraEffendi), presenting his paper, “The Balkan Wars from an Ottoman Perspective: Rupture as Creative Destruction?”
The importance of The Balkan Wars (1912–13) as a global milestone is well-documented and emphasised in the literature. Less is said on its psychological and ideological impact on the way Ottomans saw themselves. This paper investigates how the Ottomans made sense of the defeat, while briefly looking at how this compared with contemporary Western views. It then considers how the Balkan Wars caused a ricochet effect. For this, it focuses on how the personal stories of leaders like Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to participants and thinkers like Sevket Süreyya Aydemir and Kılıçzade Ismail Hakkı related to the war. This paper throws light on how the loss of their birthplaces changed their worldviews. As a result, it argues that the Balkan Wars were a ‘creative destruction’ in the sense that they strengthened radical Westernisation and Turkish nationalism. It shows how the trauma of the Balkan Wars gave support to these previously radical views and concludes with remarks on how and why such ruptures and “creative destructions”, such as the one we are currently living through, can be seen as accelerators of history.
Cullan Bendig (/u/Hus_Prevails), presenting his paper, “Behold the Heresiarch’: Jan Hus, Mythologies, and Nationalism in Postwar Czechoslovakia”.
In the early 1950s, three films about the Hussite Reformation were produced by the Czechoslovak national film studio. Collectively known as the Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy, these historical epics presented Jan Hus and the Hussite Wars as a 15th-century proto-Marxist revolutionary moment.
This paper explores how these films fit within a longer tradition of Czech political actors reinterpreting the Hussite Reformation through their own ideological lenses; Alois Jirasek’s rural conservatism, Tomáš Masaryk’s Christian humanism, and Zdeněk Nejedly’s state socialism. The modern secondary literature tends to view this trilogy as a cynical appropriation or misuse of national mythology, but this project of revising national myths to claim political legitimacy was not unique to the postwar communists. These films supported the communists’ “reevaluation of the national character” by presenting Czech national mythologies in a way that resonated at the time with recent historical memory. This is not to diminish the impact that subsequent events may have had on how “Comrade Hus” is seen today. Rather, the Hussite Revolutionary Trilogy exemplifies how nationalism is a core set of beliefs which can facilitate transitions between political orientations and national self-conceptions in moments where the old ideas have been discredited.
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