National Cultures at Grass-root Level
The major dilemma this volume addresses is the function of national identity in a modern society, for despite the trend towards globalization, the world continues to be riddled with national conflict.
Kłoskowska begins by looking at the controversy between two competing concepts of the origin of the nation – political and ethnic. She examines the central issues of the argument, and in particular, the characteristics and effects of ethnic differences on personal identity and the appropriation of national culture. Her theories are based upon autobiographies by individuals belonging to various national minorities in Poland and other areas where ethnic borders are blurred. The group studied included mostly young intellectuals: Ukrainians, Belarussians and Silesian-Germans. She examines the national attitudes of the various countries the ethnic minorities have been forced to live with. In her conclusion, Kłoskowska takes the view that national cultures are either ‘open’ or ‘closed’ and stresses the importance of participating in more than one cultural medium.
National Cultures at the Grass-Root Level is rich in information on contemporary theories of the nation, on its origin, character and future, and offers a deep insight into the complex and often ambiguous reality of national attitudes.
CONTENTS
Antonina Kłoskowska
NATIONAL CULTURES AT THE GRASS ROOTS LEVEL
Foreword
Part I
THE THEORY, HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE NATION
1. Controversies Around the Concept of Nation
The Concept of Political Nation
Culturalistic Approach and Anthropological Perspective
2. Historical Perspective
3. “Patria”--Fatherland, Homeland--as the Correlate of the Nation
Part II
THE CULTURALISTIC SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
4. The Complexity and Diversity of National Symbolic Communities
5. National Stereotypes and the Concept of National Identity
6. Personal Identity as Related to National Identification and to the Appropriation of National Culture (the Valence of National Culture)
7. Empirical Materials, the Concepts and the Methods
Part III
NATIONAL CONVERSIONS
8. National Conversion as a Borderland Phenomenon
9. The Polish Conversion of Adalbert von Winkler
10. German Conversions: Arrested or Realized
Part IV
NATIONAL MINORITIES – THE PERIPHERIES OF DOMINANT CULTURE
11. The Variants of Ukrainity in the Light of Autobiographies
12. The Problem of Belarus Nationality in the Autobiographic Approach
13. Silesian National Dilemmas: the Old Generation of Silesians
14. Silesian National Dilemmas: the Young Generation of Silesians
15. Open and Closed National Attitudes in a Borderland Situation
Part V
THE CENTER OF NATIONAL CULTURE
16. A Portrait of the Wartime Generation in the Background
17. Young Poles in the Period of the Democratic Breakthrough
18. Young Poles Facing Others. An Open or a Closed Nation?
Part VI
THE EPILOGUE ON EMIGRATION
19. The Scales of Polishness
20. The Negation of Polishness and the Obsession with Polishness: Witold Gombrowicz and Jan Lechoń
21. Joseph Czapski: Polish Identification and Cultural Polymorphism
Conclusions: The Nation: What for?
Annex
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index
Summary