How to Define a “Nation”? A Thing, a Group, or a Category?
How to Define a “Nation”? A Thing, a Group, or a Category?

Author(s): László Vörös
Subject(s): History, Nationalism Studies, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Historický ústav SAV
Keywords: Nationalism; nation;
Summary/Abstract: Nationalism and nation have been studied for almost a century now. During this period, a great amount of theoretical and empirical literature was written, ranging from general summarising treatises to detailed case studies. Several authors have tried to systematise and categorise the vast knowledge created on nations and nationalisms. The best-known is the typology by Anthony D. Smith, who divided theories of nation and nationalism into four types – primordialist, perrenialist, ethnosymbolist, modernist – depending on the nature of origination (natural/God-given social entity vs. an outcome of long-term social evolution vs. a modern social construct) and the time of origination (in the ancient times vs. medieval/early modern period vs. in the 19th to 20th century) individual theorists attributed to the “nation”.

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