What is a Nation?

In the United States, over the past few years, events such as the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer and movements such as Black Lives Matter have been putting into question how committed the United States of America is to treating its black citizens fairly. One major point of criticism is the “systemic racism” that permeates public life in the country, putting black people at a disadvantage in the job market, education, academia and politics. On the other hand, many of the most ardent supporters of former president Donald Trump display confederate flags, suggesting nostalgic memories of the pre-civil war period.

In Russia, president Vladimir Putin is accusing Ukraine of being a stooge of Western powers bent on destroying Russian society and threatening the nation’s very existence. He seems to claim that Ukraine is a part of Russian national identity which the west is trying to take away. 

In Europe, during the 2010s a series of anti-EU movements emerged in various countries, calling for a reduction in EU interference in national affairs and a return to national rule. The high point of this trend took place in the United Kingdom, where in 2016 anti-EU activists managed to win a majority in a referendum to leave the EU. 

One common thread in these stories is that they all call into question the concept of nationhood. What is a nation? Is it a homogeneous ethnic group? Is it a concept justified by some historical myth and forever cast in stone? Does nation-forming require the elimination of ethnic diversity? Is internationalism incompatible with nationalism? 

To help find some deeper answers to these questions, it is worth studying a speech given by French historian Ernest Renan, entitled What is a nation? (Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?). Delivered at a seminar in Paris in 1882, the speech presents some very relevant notions for answering the above questions. His views on nationhood reflect the ideology that gave birth to the modern concept of nation-state. 

In his lecture, Renan rejects race as the basis for the unification of people, and says that a common language is not sufficient to forge national solidarity, as exemplified by the fact that the United States and the United Kingdom speak the same language but are far from forming a common nation. As for religion, he says it has become “an individual matter.” Renan also did not see nations emerging from a mere sharing of common interests, nor from any predetermined geographical boundaries. 

So what did Renan see as the basis for forming a nation? One major necessary element is what he called forgetfulness - i.e. erasing unpleasant episodes of history from the collective memory of a nation. All nations, he said, were born from acts of violence, typically war and conquest. For a nation to form out of the ashes of violent conflict, people have to forget the atrocities and be bound by the fact that together they overcame the misery and suffering they had to endure. “For everybody, it’s good to be able to forget” (Pour tous il est bon de savoir oublier). As an example he presents France, where “no citizen today knows if they are a Burgundian, an Alan, a Taifale, or a Visigoth, yet every French citizen must have forgotten the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, or the massacre that took place in the South in the thirteenth century.”

The second important notion in Renan’s analysis is his contention that a nation is “a daily referendum” (un plébiscite quotidien). By this, he meant that nations rely on the constant popular affirmation of their existence. A nation, therefore, exists only as long as its people continue to want to belong to it. If some of the people cease to feel united into a nation, they should be free to leave. Conversely, no nation should want to annex another nation or keep dominating people who do not feel part of that nation. “If doubts arise about national borders, consult the population of the area in dispute. They have the right to an opinion on the issue.” These words sound poignantly relevant today in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Renan saw a nation as something immaterial, a soul, a spiritual principle, based on the past (the collective selection of common memories) and the present (the daily referendum). As such, he considered a nation as something that changes over time and constantly evolves as the aspirations of its people evolve. 

So how could Renan’s concepts provide answers to the issues highlighted at the beginning of this article?

For people in the United States, Renan would suggest that a nation needs to overcome ethnic particularism for the sake of forging a common bond - even if based on selective memory - to feel united with one’s fellow citizens. To Americans who might still remember slavery or the civil war, Renan might say that sometimes it is best to “forget” certain things. 

To Putin, Renan would say that if Ukrainians do not feel part of the Russian nation, he should not force them in any way. “...A nation has no more right than a king to say to a province: ‘You belong to me, I am seizing you.’ A province, as far as I am concerned, is its inhabitants; if anyone has the right to be consulted in such an affair, it is the inhabitant. A nation never has any real interest in annexing or holding on to a country against its will. The wish of nations is, all in all, the sole legitimate criterion, the one to which one must always return.” 

To modern Europeans, he would say that nationhood emerges from recognising that what unites us is more important than what divides us. And although the Europeans are not a single nation, they are more than just an association of countries.

To everybody, these words of Renan’s remain relevant: “we should not abandon the fundamental principle that humans are reasonable and moral, before being assigned to this or that language group, or to this or that race, or being a member of this or that culture”.