The Role of Language in European Nationalist Ideologies

Abstract

Abstract In his book Nations and Nationalism since 1780, E. J. Hobsbawm concludes that “the phenomenon [of nationalism] is past its peak” (1990:183). Before he gets to this conclusion (apparently written some time in 1989, before German reunification became a realistic possibility and before the process of fragmentation in some countries of the old communist bloc had gained momentum), he shows quite convincingly, and almost prophetically, that a new “Europe of nations” in the Wilsonian sense (e.g., with independent entities such as Catalonia, Corsica, Slovenia, Estonia) could not produce “a stable or lasting political system” (p. 177). For one, “the first thing most such hypothetical new European states would do is, almost certainly, apply for admission to the European Economic Community, which would once again limit their sovereign rights” (p. 177).