18Skobla.pdf

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SLOVAK NATIONAL IDENTITY,

SLAVOPHILIA AND EUROPE

D. Skobla

(Levice, Slovak Republic — Warsaw, Poland)

It is appropriate to begin paper on ideas of Slovak national identity

by Ken Jowitt’s remark that «obsession with identity and comparison

with more modern European nations were pervasive among depend-

ent nations and can be seen as expression of dependency per se»

(Jowitt 1976). I contend that Slovak preoccupation with national identity his-

torically was the function of the region’s structural economic backwardness.

Slovak preoccupation with identity happened to be a salient feature of the nine-

teenth century’s ‘National Awakening’ cultural politics as well as of the 1990s

Slovak nationalism.

There are four major approaches in conceptualization of national identity

(Jacobson 1997). Some authors argue that the concept of national identity

should be equated with that of ethnic identity. Since there is no qualitative dis-

tinction between ethnicity and nationality the nation can be seen as self-aware

ethnic group. Intensity of national identity can be understood as modern mani-

festations of the historical phenomenon — of ethnicity. Another approach

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claims that national identity could be best understood as combination of ethnic

elements with those who are politically based. In the same vein as Anthony

Smith, this approach holds that nations cannot be equated with ethnic groups

since former are political communities bound by ties of culture and solidarity.

A different way of approaching the subject-matter is ‘social identity theory’

that was pioneered by Tajfel (1978). He defines social identity as «that part of

an individual’s self-concept that derives from his knowledge of his membership

of a social group together with the value an emotional significance attached to

that membership (Tajfel 1978: 63). An individual’s national identity is bound to

be just one of a great many aspects of his/her social identity. Fourth approach

argues that the global and societal changes in the late twentieth century are pro-

ducing radical transformation in modes of identity construction. These trans-

formations are said to take the form of a growing rejection of nations of fixed

identities. In particular it is hold that perception of national identities is chal-

lenged by processes of globalization, and new identities — fluid and hybrid —

are emerging. In considering the question of the Slovak national identity, the

eclectic employment of all approaches is the most suitable advance.

According to Leszek Kolakowski national identity consists of five elements:

national substance, memory, anticipation, territory and national mythology

(1994). Substance is a national spirit, which expresses itself in specific cultural

life forms and in peculiar ways of collective behavior, especially in the mo-

ments of crises. Historical memory is indispensable for formation of national

identity and it does not matter what in collective memory is true, half-true or

legendary. There are cases of some recently emerged nations, which invent arti-

ficial, mythological linkage with the past. The mythology expressed by a num-

ber of legends fulfills the function of the identifiable beginning that is needed

for the national self-awareness. Anticipation, as much necessary, is thinking in

term’s of tomorrow interests and last, but not least — the territory, a specific

landscape forms the essentiality for national identity.

In my opinion important conceptual problem lies between ‘essentialist’ and

‘constructivist’ stance towards identity. Some authors are generally suspicious

about the ‘obscure’ concept of identity. In their opinion what have to be refined

when speaking about the national identity is «the cognitive use of the concept,

referring to the way in which individuals guided by cultural norms, perceive so-

cial entities and their own place within a world of such entities, and its more

emotive use involving some conception of identification or belonging» (Rex

1996). Some claim that the ‘constructivist’ stance on identity — «the attempt to

‘soften’ the term, to acquit it of the charge of essentialism by stipulating that

identities are constructed, fluid and multiple leaves us without a rationale for

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talking about ‘identities’». (Brubaker, Cooper 2000:1). Accordingly, as putative

identities proliferates, «the term looses its analytical purchase — if identity is

everywhere, it is nowhere» (Ibid.). And «if it is constructed, how can we under-

stand the sometimes coercive force of external identifications?» (Ibid.). Since

the national identity implies the recognition of common ties, formal system of

identification or categorization, Brubaker and Cooper claim, cannot be conflat-

ing with its presumed result — identity. According to them «categorical group

denominations — however authoritative, however pervasively institutionalized-

cannot serve as indicators of real ‘groups or robust identities’» (Ibid.: 2).

What is important for the following considerations is an assumption that

there is a clear equation between notions of ethnic identity and national identity.

I supposed that national identity is a social construct that should be objectified

only to limited extent. On the other hand even if national identity is constructed

its formation is shaped by ‘objective’ contemporary phenomena such as global-

ization and regionalism. Last but not least, what I consider to be important ana-

lytical leverage is the link between national identity and identity politics as pro-

fessed both on national or supra-national level. I suppose that association be-

tween national identity and politics is determined by two suppositions: 1) there

is a tangible correlation between national identity and practical politics of the

nation-state, 2) the basic mechanism of ‘identity politics’ is mechanism of dis-

cursive construction of identities. National rhetoric — a specific discursive

framework — serves to prompt people of widely diverse range of social and

historical backgrounds to recognize their essential identities as national rather

than as based on gender, occupation, class, or place or residence. And construc-

tion of enemies of the nation was an integral part of whole discursive frame-

work. This politics impels individuals to recognize themselves as addressed by

calls to join the national ‘cause’.

Coming back to the constitutive elements of the national identity as formu-

lated by Leszek Kolakowski the important question to be asked is «what are the

substance, memory, anticipation and mythology of the Slovak nation?» The Slo-

vak national identity has been built on collective ties of descent what means that

Slovaks consider themselves to be descendants of the ‘original’ ancient Slovak

community — The Great Moravian Empire of the ninth century. The Slovak na-

tion ideology thus regards the Slovaks as an ethnic nation. Slovak language

constitutes a fundamental sign of the Slovak ancestry. In this way built ‘spirit’

of the Slovakness somewhat underlines a tendency towards ethnic ‘exclusion’. The

Preamble to the Slovak Constitution clearly expresses this concept by declaring

that:

«We the Slovak nation, mindful of our ancestors’ political and cultural legacy

and of centuries’ experience of struggles for national existence and our own state-

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hood, in accordance with the Constatino-Methodian spiritual legacy and the histori-

cal heritage of the Great Moravia, on the basis of the natural right of nations to self-

determination, together with members of national minorities and ethnic groups living

on the territory of the Slovak Republic, in the interests of permanent peaceful coop-

eration with other democratic states, in the endeavor to implement a democratic form

of government, guarantees of a free life, the development of spiritual culture and

economic prosperity, we the citizens of the Slovak Republic resolve...»

Slovakia has been moulded as an ethnic rather than a territorial denominator

and the state has expressed the tendency towards the refusal of principle of terri-

torial citizenship which would form a base for ‘civic nation’. «The key term

around which Slovak domestic and international policy appears to revolve is

that of ‘protection’: protection of religion and culture from Western liberalism,

protection of language, protection of the Slovak ‘minority’ within the southern

regions where ethnic Hungarians are in majority, protection of the national hon-

our from the alleged efforts of critical journalists, protection of state property,

protection of energy resources…» (Elster, Offe, Preuss 1998: 258). This reflects

obvious concern of the new independent Slovak state of the loss of effective

control over the region accompanied by the effort to build a solid Slovak ethnic-

based collective identity.

It seems that on the backdrop of vicissitudes of Central European history,

Slovak key to national self-awareness was lost and found again and again. And

indeed a debate about national identity was revitalized becoming a striking trait

of Slovak nationalism in the 1990s. In order to proceed systematically with

analysis of the modes of Slovak national identity-building it is necessary to re-

turn back to the nineteenth century. The attempts of the nineteenth century’s su-

pra-nationalism (besides they offer opportune analogy to contemporary attempts

to create a supra-national identity in Europe) have some implications on cogni-

tive confusion later permeated into Slovak national ideology and identity poli-

tics by blurring the political difference between notions Slavic and Slovak, re-

spectively Slavness and Slovakness. Cognitive ambiguities, which were accom-

panying Slovak national ideologies from their birth are somewhat, linked to the

identity dilemmas of today.

2. Since Herderian creation of the mythic nation, the Slovaks struggled

enormously hard to have themselves recognized. This cultural-political strive

had been continuously transferred from pre-modern rural environment into

modern Slovakia of the twentieth century. In this chapter I shall give an account

on the ideas of Slovak national identity. I contend that national identities as such

are social constructs and subject of ‘invention’ of the nation’s elites. Based on a

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wide scope of texts ranging from the beginning of the ‘National Awakening’

until the very recent undertakings of noted Slovak intellectuals I have defined

three different concepts of the creation of Slovak self-definition. The absence of

an integral and generally accepted single mythological narrative and the exis-

tence of three rather contradictory concepts points to the thesis that Slovakia is

not fully nationally consolidated.

What was the role of elites in historical Slovak identity-building? More than

any other intellectual from the nations of the Habsburg monarchy, Ludovit Stur 1

made the language question a political one. He contributed decisively to the

codification of the Slovak literary language, based on a dialect of Central Slo-

vakia, and wrote a treatise on its theoretical basis and its grammar. The narrative

on national origins professed by him defined Slovaks as the core Slav nation in

the roots of European civilization. According to him it had been the Slavs who

were called on to serve the budding civilization of the Christian West as the

wall against the onslaught of eastern barbarism (Stur 1978). That was the reason

why the Slavs were lacking behind in education in comparison with other Euro-

pean nations such as the French and the Germans. Whilst other European na-

tions indulging in peace and developing spiritual culture, the Slavs almost in-

cessantly had to wage the wars — these wars inflicted on them immense hard-

ship (Ibid: 191-192). Stur stringently had stressed the superiority of Slavic cul-

ture of the past. According to him the research on the most ancient pre-Christian

culture of the Slavs, if finished, would reveal that the Slavs were not such ‘bar-

barians’ as they are likely to be considered by many. The evidence lies in exis-

tence of proto-Slavic liturgical language, which was enough sophisticated and

suitable for the translation of the Holy Script (Ibid.: 192).

The roots of Stur’s Slavophilia lies in the Herderian persuasion that there are

nations, which already had radiated out their spiritual substance (and by this fin-

ished their own history) and that there are nations, which are possessing full po-

tential of ‘spiritual substance’ and which are only entering ‘history’. The former

includes all western nations — expired, dull and empty. The latter are the Slav

nations, and, among them, the Slovaks as the chosen nation. Stur holds that

1 National-revivalist of younger generation Ludovit Stur (1815-1856) was born into the family of a

Lutheran teacher, this native of the Slovak Trencin County spent few years outside his native lin-

guistic area; he studied theology in Halle and was greatly influenced by the philosophy and aesthet-

ics of Hegel and Herder. After his return back, as lecturer in Czech at the Lutheran lyceum in Press-

burg (Bratislava), he took a leading role in the movement for Slovak cultural and political self-

determination. He also organized the Slovak revolutionary force which initially fought on the side of

the Habsburgs in the Hungarian rebellion of 1848. When Vienna, after its victory over the Hungari-

ans, cancelled the promise of Slovak autonomy, Stur, disappointed, retired from public life. Cf also

Tibetsky 1978.

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