National Movements with and without Religion: The Nation and Religion in a Historical Perspective

Abstract

In order to understand the role of religion in the formation of European nations, we need to differentiate the terms we are using when we analyse their relationship. In the case of nation formation, my point of departure is to distinguish two basic types of process: the case of nation-states, i. e. nations with “their own” state and high culture since the Middle Ages, and the case of “smaller nations”, which emerged through national movements, where the ethnic communities tried to achieve all attributes of a fully formed nation. My reflections focus on the second type of nation formation. Speaking about the “religion”, we have to distinguish the role of the Church as an institution, the participation (or not participation) of the clergy, the degree of integration of the religious teaching into the national programme, and finally the presence of religious arguments in the everyday national thought of small nations. There existed no general model of interaction of these four factors in the study of smaller nations.