Greek nationalism in late Byzantium

[Elfwine]

But then the argument is not "there was no such thing as Greek as distinct from Slavs and Armenians" but rather "there were very few Armenians west of Cilicia/Caesarea"

I think it definitely bears underlining that much (most?) of what in some periods was called the Kingdom of Armenia wasn't under Roman control for most of this period in the first place. There being Armenians in Ani or Vaspurakan doesn't really mean that the people in Sebastia weren't Romanized to at least some extent.

To me that looks consistent with Greek/Slavic/Armenian within the empire's borders being closer to "all Roman(ized)" than fully multi-ethnic.

It seems a bit blurry to me if we're talking the actual frontiers (east or west), rather than areas relatively firmly within Constantinople's control.

 

[Wendell]

Throughout the Palaiologos era, there was a revival of interest in all that that was classically Greek. This in turn, fed and was reinforced by, the Renaissance in Italy. Were Byzantine independence to have continued, it would have evolved toward a state that was outwardly and inwardly Greek, albeit Christian and holding onto the Roman legacy.

 

[Gloss]

Please read my post before arguing against strawmen of your own creation.

Again, not what I said. Please, make an effort to read my posts.

Just because you don't like that those facts undermine your arguments, doesn't mean they are irrelevant or that I'm addressing something you didn't say.
Fact of the matter is that the Ottomans assimilated tons of people and made them Muslim and Turkish speaking, the situation was a bit more complex in the early Ottoman period than in Byzantium but like I said they didn't have the benefit of inheriting centuries of stable unified rule under the classical Romans.

The longer a group was under imperial control, the more it tended to be assimilated into the greater Roman identity. The Slavs of the Peloponnese were mostly Romanized. The Khurramites in Roman territory effectively disappear as a distinct ethnic group within a couple of generations after their entry. Accounts of Arab captives of war or defectors being Romanized abound in the sources. And the Armenians which I brought up (in those cases were they were actual ethnic Armenians rather than Romans claiming Armenian royal descent for reasons of prestige) were swiftly Romanized in the court of Constantinople, their origins mostly becoming relevant in cases of polemic by their political rivals.

Yeah, small dispersed minorities far from their brethren tend to assimilate relatively quickly, there is literally nothing special happening here.
If anything it would be surprising if they didn't assimilate within generations/few centuries.

The Ottomans lasted for several centuries in their own right. That a shared pan-Ottoman identity only became a priority later on is because the priorities of the Ottomans changed as well, and that it failed to take hold is its own story, which involves both native nationalistic movements as well as the foreign interventions that plagued them for their last decades. But it's more than fair to say that the Ottomans were far more legitimately a true multi-ethnic empire than the Romans that preceded them were for most of their existence.

They were a multi-ethnic empire not because of anything that has to do with what the state sought to achieve or what the state pursued but because that's the situation they inherited by nature of being a rapidly expanding empire that stretched from Iraq to Algeria and from Egypt to Crimea, when the Byzantine state with its medieval territories "appeared" by around 700 CE it was already a mostly Greek-speaking Orthodox/Chalcedonian state, the state from 700 CE onwards had virtually no role in maintaining this.

 

[Azrubêl]

I think there's a sharp distinction between "Armenians from actual Armenia as a (semi) independent area of the East." and that identifying - for example - Basil I (and certainly his children or grandchildren or beyond) as Armenian in any meaningful way is probably pushing it quite a lot even if at some point some ancestor of his came from Armenia.

Basil is probably a really good example, though it's a historiographical trend with a lot of significant figures. You see people trying to find Armenians, or considering people who had Armenian descent as Armenians because of that.

In part, it has its roots in early 20th century Armenian nationalist historiography which tried to find Armenian links in significant Roman figures (not really its fault - all of nationalist historiography at the time did the same thing), but repeating such claims is definitely wrong-headed.

So, were there Armenians in Romanía? Absolutely. But was everyone of Armenian descent, or claiming to be of Armenian descent an Armenian? Not really. The majority of those elites in Constantinople and the provinces who had actual, tangible Armenian descent were thoroughly Romanized, and certainly didn't put much stock in 'Armenian' priorities, Armenian culture or Armenian interests. Within a couple of generations, the descendants of say; an Armenian aristocrat taking up service in Constantinople and living there wouldn't differ from their compatriots, no more than a modern American politician descended from German immigrants today would be meaningfully German.

As an example, we have the Life of Saint Maria the Younger, a contemporary of Basil I. Her father was a man from Greater Armenia who emigrated and took up Roman service. Maria was raised in Constantinople, she might not have spoken Armenian at all, and her mother may have been Roman. The text describing her life never once refers to her as an Armenian, though it has no problem acknowledging her father was from Armenia. She married a native Roman, and two of her children had Armenian names, a sign of affective descent. We see similar progression in other families of Armenian descent - a first generation that immigrates from the Armenian homeland, then descendants who are assimilated into the Roman mainstream.

Just because you don't like that those facts undermine your arguments, doesn't mean they are irrelevant or that I'm addressing something you didn't say.

You objectively are not. You are arguing against strawmen, such as me supposedly saying that all Armenians under were supposedly magically assimilated? Or that apparently Anatolia was not gradually Turkified? Point to where I said either of those things. Your seething has no place here.

They were a multi-ethnic empire not because of anything that has to do with what the state sought to achieve or what the state pursued but because that's the situation they inherited by nature of being a rapidly expanding empire that stretched from Iraq to Algeria and from Egypt to Crimea, when the Byzantine state with its medieval territories "appeared" by around 700 CE it was already a mostly Greek-speaking Orthodox/Chalcedonian state, the state from 700 CE onwards had virtually no role in maintaining this.

Once again, your ignorance of history is irrelevant. The Romans were also a rapidly expanding empire, yet you have a Roman ethnogenesis occuring in the provinces by Late Antiquity and most of the tribes, identities and peoples conquered by the Romans ceased to meaningfully exist. By contrast, the millet system in the Ottoman Empire meant that most ethnic groups and identities that entered it also exited it, still in existence. Cases which are exceptions don't change this general rule.

Two different states, different policies and priorities. This should not be difficult to wrap your head around.

when the Byzantine state with its medieval territories "appeared" by around 700 CE it was already a mostly Greek-speaking Orthodox/Chalcedonian state, the state from 700 CE onwards had virtually no role in maintaining this.

Your ridiculous insistence in a magically appearing "Byzantine state" that pops into existence in the 8th century aside, this is false, entirely. There were plenty of emperors who actively desired to assimilate ethnic minorities under imperial rule, offering incentives to immigrants from outside Roman territory to Romanize, including marrying Roman citizens as well as financial aid from the state. Your ignorance of history is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

 

[Elfwine]

As an example, we have the Life of Saint Maria the Younger, a contemporary of Basil I. Her father was a man from Greater Armenia who emigrated and took up Roman service. Maria was raised in Constantinople, she might not have spoken Armenian at all, and her mother may have been Roman. The text describing her life never once refers to her as an Armenian, though it has no problem acknowledging her father was from Armenia. She married a native Roman, and two of her children had Armenian names, a sign of affective descent. We see similar progression in other families of Armenian descent - a first generation that immigrates from the Armenian homeland, then descendants who are assimilated into the Roman mainstream.

This is something I'd like to read more on someday. Not her specifically necessarily, but it would be interesting to see how much that changed for those in the East (but within the empire's borders) vs. actually in Constantinople.

 

[CalBear]

Just because you don't like that those facts undermine your arguments, doesn't mean they are irrelevant or that I'm addressing something you didn't say.
Fact of the matter is that the Ottomans assimilated tons of people and made them Muslim and Turkish speaking, the situation was a bit more complex in the early Ottoman period than in Byzantium but like I said they didn't have the benefit of inheriting centuries of stable unified rule under the classical Romans.

Yeah, small dispersed minorities far from their brethren tend to assimilate relatively quickly, there is literally nothing special happening here.
If anything it would be surprising if they didn't assimilate within generations/few centuries.

They were a multi-ethnic empire not because of anything that has to do with what the state sought to achieve or what the state pursued but because that's the situation they inherited by nature of being a rapidly expanding empire that stretched from Iraq to Algeria and from Egypt to Crimea, when the Byzantine state with its medieval territories "appeared" by around 700 CE it was already a mostly Greek-speaking Orthodox/Chalcedonian state, the state from 700 CE onwards had virtually no role in maintaining this.

Basil is probably a really good example, though it's a historiographical trend with a lot of significant figures. You see people trying to find Armenians, or considering people who had Armenian descent as Armenians because of that.

In part, it has its roots in early 20th century Armenian nationalist historiography which tried to find Armenian links in significant Roman figures (not really its fault - all of nationalist historiography at the time did the same thing), but repeating such claims is definitely wrong-headed.

So, were there Armenians in Romanía? Absolutely. But was everyone of Armenian descent, or claiming to be of Armenian descent an Armenian? Not really. The majority of those elites in Constantinople and the provinces who had actual, tangible Armenian descent were thoroughly Romanized, and certainly didn't put much stock in 'Armenian' priorities, Armenian culture or Armenian interests. Within a couple of generations, the descendants of say; an Armenian aristocrat taking up service in Constantinople and living there wouldn't differ from their compatriots, no more than a modern American politician descended from German immigrants today would be meaningfully German.

As an example, we have the Life of Saint Maria the Younger, a contemporary of Basil I. Her father was a man from Greater Armenia who emigrated and took up Roman service. Maria was raised in Constantinople, she might not have spoken Armenian at all, and her mother may have been Roman. The text describing her life never once refers to her as an Armenian, though it has no problem acknowledging her father was from Armenia. She married a native Roman, and two of her children had Armenian names, a sign of affective descent. We see similar progression in other families of Armenian descent - a first generation that immigrates from the Armenian homeland, then descendants who are assimilated into the Roman mainstream.

You objectively are not. You are arguing against strawmen, such as me supposedly saying that all Armenians under were supposedly magically assimilated? Or that apparently Anatolia was not gradually Turkified? Point to where I said either of those things. Your seething has no place here.

Once again, your ignorance of history is irrelevant. The Romans were also a rapidly expanding empire, yet you have a Roman ethnogenesis occuring in the provinces by Late Antiquity and most of the tribes, identities and peoples conquered by the Romans ceased to meaningfully exist. By contrast, the millet system in the Ottoman Empire meant that most ethnic groups and identities that entered it also exited it, still in existence. Cases which are exceptions don't change this general rule.

Two different states, different policies and priorities. This should not be difficult to wrap your head around.

Your ridiculous insistence in a magically appearing "Byzantine state" that pops into existence in the 8th century aside, this is false, entirely. There were plenty of emperors who actively desired to assimilate ethnic minorities under imperial rule, offering incentives to immigrants from outside Roman territory to Romanize, including marrying Roman citizens as well as financial aid from the state. Your ignorance of history is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

I strongly recommend that y'all both stop, now.

Cut out the "you" statement and sniping.

Play the Ball, not the Man.

It would be unfortunate if it was necessary for one of the Mods to come back into this thread.

 

[Azrubêl]

This is something I'd like to read more on someday. Not her specifically necessarily, but it would be interesting to see how much that changed for those in the East (but within the empire's borders) vs. actually in Constantinople.

Another interesting thing with Armenian names is that like with Germanic names in Late Antiquity, or other ethnic names (such as Etruscan, Oscan or Greek) earlier in Rome's history, you have a tendency for people outside of those ethnic groups to adopt them. In a period where there were lots of successful soldiers and generals who were Armenians or of Armenian extraction, you have native Romans who had no Armenian descent to speak of giving their children Armenian names because they were seen as a sign of prestige and success.

As for the provinces, it's harder to know, especially since there have been mistakes made by various scholars over the years. For example, the theme of Armeniakon has been mistakenly identified by some as being populated mostly by Armenians due to its name, when in fact it was named after a Roman army that was meant to operate in Armenia, then was withdrawn to Asia Minor and gave the territory its name. It was common for Roman provinces to be named after what lay beyond them or close by. The thematic army of Armeniakon does not seem to have consisted of Armenians for example - Armenians are mentioned within its army, but explicitly within a separate unit of their own. The army of that theme was no more ethnically Armenian due to its name than the Legio Germanica was composed of Germans.

There were of course places where there was Armenian settlement - such as the southeast, which had been militarized that way. In any regard, Constantinople for example was not a very diverse place for most of the lifespan of the Romans - the idea of Constantinople as this gigantic melting pot where many different peoples dwelled, preoccupied with trade is backporting images of Ottoman Constantinople, rather than an accurate descriptor of Roman Constantinople. (Funnily enough, the people we now call ""Byzantines"" also weren't a particularly mercantile nation, contrary to popular imagination - most of the empire's incomes came from agriculture, not trade)

 

[Gloss]

Once again, your ignorance of history is irrelevant. The Romans were also a rapidly expanding empire, yet you have a Roman ethnogenesis occuring in the provinces by Late Antiquity and most of the tribes, identities and peoples conquered by the Romans ceased to meaningfully exist.

In fact regional identites DID exist in the 4th century CE:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325974450_'Roman'_identity_in_Late_Antiquity_with_special_attention_to_Gaul_Early_Medieval_Regions_and_Identities

"The most prevalent kinds of self identification that were used during Late Antiquity involved geographical or ethnic, or geographical-cum-ethnic, terms, such as Hispanus or Gallus, a phenomenon that went back to the Roman Republic but became more prevalent as of the third century."
The populations that the Romans conquered didn't have any kind of unified religious identity akin to Christians in the Ottoman state anyway.
I'm not sure why you bring up the pagan Roman empire, it makes no sense to bring it up outside some pointless attempt at connecting what happened in the Roman provinces between 50 BCE and 400 CE to how the Christian Byzantines treated their religious minorities after the retraction of the empire to mostly Greek speaking and mostly Chalcedonian lands.

By contrast, the millet system in the Ottoman Empire meant that most ethnic groups and identities that entered it also exited it, still in existence. Cases which are exceptions don't change this general rule.

The millet system was a simple recognition that religious community wanted to rule themselves using their own laws, it's religious pluralism which is something that existed for most of the pagan Roman empire as well, plus this system existed along side stuff like devshirme and Janissaries, which were definitely assimilationist policies.

Two different states, different policies and priorities. This should not be difficult to wrap your head around.

The Byzantine empire never actually ruled over a large Muslim population for any long periods of time to begin with, trying to compare them to the Ottomans that ruled over millions of Christians makes no sense.
The idea that the 2 states had vastly different a priori policies or mentalities is just non-sense, what's different is the amount of minorities, but both the Ottomans and Byzantines were harsh on their respective "heresies".

There were plenty of emperors who actively desired to assimilate ethnic minorities under imperial rule, offering incentives to immigrants from outside Roman territory to Romanize, including marrying Roman citizens as well as financial aid from the state. Your ignorance of history is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

And the Ottomans made minorities pay Jizya and enacted discriminatory policies, had the Devshirme system, deported unruly semi-nomadic Turkic populations to manage them and colonize the Balkans.

 

[Azrubêl]

In fact regional identites DID exist in the 4th century CE:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325974450_'Roman'_identity_in_Late_Antiquity_with_special_attention_to_Gaul_Early_Medieval_Regions_and_Identities "The most prevalent kinds of self identification that were used during Late Antiquity involved geographical or ethnic, or geographical-cum-ethnic, terms, such as Hispanus or Gallus, a phenomenon that went back to the Roman Republic but became more prevalent as of the third century."
The populations that the Romans conquered didn't have any kind of unified religious identity akin to Christians in the Ottoman state anyway.
I'm not sure why you bring up the pagan Roman empire, it makes no sense to bring it up outside some pointless attempt at connecting what happened in the Roman provinces between 50 BCE and 400 CE to how the Christian Byzantines treated their religious minorities after the retraction of the empire to mostly Greek speaking and mostly Chalcedonian lands.

Why would one possibly bring up the Roman Empire when discussing the Romans? The mind truly boggles at the thought.

Either way, your very citation punctures your argument, since it refers to a phenomenon of provincinal Romans being referred to by geographical terms. Provincials provably partook in Roman culture and considered themselves Romans just as much as people from Italy did. Provincial poets such as Ausonius asserted their Romaness to Italians such as Symmachus. The term Romanía, 'land of the Romans', which would go on to be used to refer to the Roman state by its people for centuries had its origins in the provinces, and was a popular name, not one imposed from above. Athanasios, when railing against the Arians in the fourth century expects monks in Egypt to understand what he means when he refers to Rome as the metropolis. Modestinus refers to Rome as the common patria. Themistius considers the Roman imperial domain a single, unified city. In the East, Greek identity ends up pretty much vanishing and the vast majority of the inhabitants of Greece come to identify as Romans. Whatever the status of regional identities was, it did not preclude people from partaking in Roman culture and identifying as Romans.

One cannot separate the periods of Rome's history arbitrarily, and pretend they have no relation or do not affect each other.

The millet system was a simple recognition that religious community wanted to rule themselves using their own laws, it's religious pluralism which is something that existed for most of the pagan Roman empire as well, plus this system existed along side stuff like devshirme and Janissaries, which were definitely assimilationist policies.

The Roman system is not particularly comparable to the millets, which allowed religious communities to rule themselves with their own laws. There was no attempt to syncretize the other faiths into Islam as the Romans in their pagan period tried introducing foreign cults, or with their attempts to have subjects offer sacrifices to the deified Emperor regardless of faith.

Not to mention that the Ottomans did not just rule over Christians and Jews, but also other Muslims who were of different ethnicities such as Arabs or other Turks. Yet those groups seem to have likewise mostly made it through Ottoman rule intact.

The Byzantine empire never actually ruled over a large Muslim population for any long periods of time to begin with, trying to compare them to the Ottomans that ruled over millions of Christians makes no sense.

It ruled over Muslim populations at points in its history, and we know the policy was generally of assimilating them into Roman structure, as well as conversion. There are no records to my knowledge of Muslim or Jewish Roman subjects being given positions of command, unlike with the Ottomans where you often have important state positions and commands being given to not just converts, but sometimes non-Muslims as well, sometimes to the point of monopolization of certain offices.

While the Medieval Romans could and did accommodate otherness, as a rule they preferred homogeneization into the Roman core.

And the Ottomans made minorities pay Jizya and enacted discriminatory policies, had the Devshirme system, deported unruly semi-nomadic Turkic populations to manage them and colonize the Balkans.

The jizya tax was a fairly common thing among other Muslim states, and depending on the period it could be insignificant (as according to some travelers, the difference might have been five écus a year), not to mention that it's sometimes been brought up as a reason for why there remained significant non-Muslim minorities - conversion could be financially disincentivized.

That the Ottomans sometimes enacted more assimilatory measures does not change the overall arc of their history, which is one of a minority ruling an empire made up of multiple ethnicities and religions, with attempts at a single pan-Ottoman only coming to being later on.

 

[Milites]

He is talking about the 19th century shift from "Roman" to "Greek" identity, not that this "Greek nationalist" has to be a bourgeois-lead or mass popular identity.

Eh, that’s definitely not how I understood the question.

Just out of curiosity, how do you propose a “nationalist” identity could emerge in the 11th/12th centuries?

 

[Fortuna]

Eh, that’s definitely not how I understood the question.

Just out of curiosity, how do you propose a “nationalist” identity could emerge in the 11th/12th centuries?

I don't really know anything on the topic in particular but I know that some people consider the hundred years war as the beginning of French and English "nationalism" with figures like Joan of Arc and stuff like Agincourt. So realistically the constant threat of outright conquest by foreign powers + an ever encroaching Turkish threat in the east could give rise to a similar kind of "nationalism" in the Empire and maybe even the Greeks/Romans in neighboring states. Which if that happened an 1848 style wave of revolts could sweep through the old core Byzantine territories (Greece and Anatolia).

 

[DanMcCollum]

IMHO any definition of nationalism that somehow only applies to post French-Revolution Europe is awfully narrow and arbitrary.

The problem is that that is the academic definition of Nationalism, which generally sees it as a modernist philosophy which seeks to coorelate the nation and the state together, as well as establishing broader political engagement by expanding the definition of 'the nation' to include the middle and lower classes, usually by appeals to a shared identity which can include, but not limited to, language, ethnos, traditions or political ideology.

You can quibble a bit - I've read some scholars that trace the beginnings of nationalism to the English Civil War, but it's hard to push it further back then that. Nationalism as we understand it, is fairly predicated on the increasing levels of education and literacy of the modern people - this allowed nationalist throughts to perculate downward and also enabled the growing discontent of the middle class which was calling for more political power during the time.

Now, having said that, this isn't to say that there weren't other idelogies from earlier eras which filled a somewhat similar niche. One can look at, say, the strength of Jewish identity throughout the Middle Ages for instance. But nationalism isn't simply the maintaining or creation of a group identity (though this is a significant facet of it) and if you water the definition down too far it becomes not only ahistorical, but also loses all practical use as a political or academic term.

 

[Gloss]

The problem is that that is the academic definition of Nationalism, which generally sees it as a modernist philosophy which seeks to coorelate the nation and the state together, as well as establishing broader political engagement by expanding the definition of 'the nation' to include the middle and lower classes, usually by appeals to a shared identity which can include, but not limited to, language, ethnos, traditions or political ideology.

You can quibble a bit - I've read some scholars that trace the beginnings of nationalism to the English Civil War, but it's hard to push it further back then that. Nationalism as we understand it, is fairly predicated on the increasing levels of education and literacy of the modern people - this allowed nationalist throughts to perculate downward and also enabled the growing discontent of the middle class which was calling for more political power during the time.

Now, having said that, this isn't to say that there weren't other idelogies from earlier eras which filled a somewhat similar niche. One can look at, say, the strength of Jewish identity throughout the Middle Ages for instance. But nationalism isn't simply the maintaining or creation of a group identity (though this is a significant facet of it) and if you water the definition down too far it becomes not only ahistorical, but also loses all practical use as a political or academic term.

What do you call it when you see people espousing clearly nationalistic stances and agendas before the early modern era?

 

[DanMcCollum]

What do you call it when you see people espousing clearly nationalistic stances and agendas before the early modern era?

I mean, it would depend who's saying it. Most likely what you'll see is such calls coming from the intelgensia, which is part of the problem. Like I said, a component of modern nationalism is that it should be populist (or aspires to populism): it's about bringing the middle and lower classes into the nation. It's not that there was no concept of the nation prior to, say, the 1600s. Its just that, in most cases, it was a very narrow conception with the nation comprising solely (or mostly) the ruling class. This is why more populist movements prior to this time usually took up the language of religion or loyalty to a dynasty as the main component (or, in the case of peasant movements - class).

To give you an idea: at the time of Poland regaining its independance in the wake of WW1 a fair amount of energy had to be given to nationalize parts the peasantry and engage them in the governing process - even as late as the 20th century, many people's chief loyalty and identity would have been chiefly local (being from a certain town or province) or religious. This isn't to say that a chlopcy from Poznan wouldn't have had some conception that they shared a certain ethnic and religious connection with a city dweller in Warsaw: but it likely would have paled in comparison to the differences they felt (ruled by a different dynasty, different occupations, dialects, living experiences). It's one of the reasons why 19th century nationalists put so much emphasis on the importance of public education, after all - one had to be educated that they belonged to a nation.

And trust me, I used to be right there with you in my conception of nationalism. But the more reading I've done on the subject and the more I studied it, i really have come around to the general academic consensus that it was an political and ideological movement that evolved throughout the Early Modern Period before taking its mature form during the latter 18th and 19th centuries. Which is NOT to say (and I can't stress this enough) that there was conception of ethnicity prior to this time: there certainly was, and anyone arguing otherwise is selling you a false bill of goods. But ethnicity and ethnic identity are not the same thing as Nationalism.

 

[Gloss]

I mean, it would depend who's saying it. Most likely what you'll see is such calls coming from the intelgensia, which is part of the problem. Like I said, a component of modern nationalism is that it should be populist (or aspires to populism): it's about bringing the middle and lower classes into the nation. It's not that there was no concept of the nation prior to, say, the 1600s. Its just that, in most cases, it was a very narrow conception with the nation comprising solely (or mostly) the ruling class.

To give you an idea: at the time of Poland regaining its independance in the wake of WW1 a fair amount of energy had to be given to nationalize parts the peasantry and engage them in the governing process - even as late as the 20th century, many people's chief loyalty and identity would have been chiefly local (being from a certain town or province) or religious. This isn't to say that a chlopcy from Poznan wouldn't have had some conception that they shared a certain ethnic and religious connection with a city dweller in Warsaw: but it likely would have paled in comparison to the differences they felt (ruled by a different dynasty, different occupations, dialects, living experiences). It's one of the reasons why 19th century nationalists put so much emphasis on the importance of public education, after all - one had to be educated that they belonged to a nation.

And trust me, I used to be right there with you in my conception of nationalism. But the more reading I've done on the subject and the more I studied it, i really have come around to the general academic consensus that it was an political and ideological movement that evolved throughut the Early Modern Period before taking its mature form during the latter 18th and 19th centuries. Which is NOT to say (and I can't stress this enough) that there was conception of ethnicity prior to this time: there certainly was, and anyone arguing otherwise is selling you a false bill of goods. But ethnicity and ethnic identity are not the same thing as Nationalism.

But we still have no name for "non-popular nationalism", which is what I would call it personally. I personally see no reason to define elite nationalism as being something inherently different, it's just another type of nationalism.

This is why more populist movements prior to this time usually took up the language of religion or loyalty to a dynasty as the main component (or, in the case of peasant movements - class).

If as you said it ideology and tradition(which ties to a dynasty or government certainly should count) are basis for "modern nationalism" then why wouldn't pre-modern religious nationalism apply?

 

[DanMcCollum]

But we still have no name for "non-popular nationalism", which is what I would call it personally. I personally see no reason to define elite nationalism as being something inherently different, it's just another type of nationalism.

If as you said it ideology and tradition(which ties to a dynasty or government certainly should count) are basis for "modern nationalism" then why wouldn't pre-modern religious nationalism apply?

All good questions! And I fear I'm not explaining myself particularly well, sadly (I keep running to my bookshelf to grab a source to quote andthen remember most my books on the subject are on the other side of the pond.)

To start with your last point first, because I think it's a good one: generally, I feel that nationalism co-opts older traditions to serve it's purpose of creating the nation. To use a practical example: look at the compilation of the Finnish National Epic, the Kalevala (and you should, because it's brilliant, and I'm in love with the Friberg translation into English, but I digress). The work was purposefully, and openly, compiled to help further the cause of the Finnish nation: it helped to show that Finnish culture could produce works of great art, helped to differentiate the history of culture of the Finns from their neghbors, and also looked back into a romanticized Finnish past. And here's the thing, large sections of the work were actually gathered by the author, Elias Lönnrot, as he traveled throughout the Finnish countryside and recorded the old Folk poems and songs of the people. However, after collecting them, Lönnrot organized them into a rough narritive, and actually composed runo poems of his own to help form the connective tissue which tied it together. And I think this is a really great metaphor for the relationship between Nationalism and tradition: Nationalism often takes older traditions, but modernizes their meaning to serve it's own purposes. When the Finnish people were compiling and reciting the original poems which would go on to comprise the Kalevala, they were not doing so in order to support the Finnish nationan: they would have had little concept of such a thing (though, mind you, they likely would have been aware of a Finnish ethnic identity on some level). However, by recording those poems, compiling them, and giving them his own stamp, Lönnrot imbued them with a new, nationalist meaning. A somewhat more political example would be the way in which royalism was adopted by the Action l'Francais at points in time - whatever a 12th century French peasant believes about dynasties, the royalty and traditions, it likely would have born little more than a passing resemblance to that expoused by Far Right movements in inter-war France. (And I would like to be clear here that words like co-opt can be taken negatively, and I don't mean it in that sense here: all living traditions are continually having new meanings added to them to keep them relevent to an era. Traditions which are not seen as relevent will fade away).

And so, one can't take a tradition which is today honored by nationalists and read the modern meaning backwards in time, because it may well have had different or divergent meanings in previous eras.

Now, for your first point: you are correct that there isn't a good name for non-popular nationlist ideas in the pre-modern era, unfortunately. I, personally, will identify them at times as proto-national, or ethnic - but that's me. And, though I will refrain from identifying them as modern nationalism (which I really do fully believe is a modernist philosophy and ideology for the reasons listed in other posts) I do believe that these can be seen as antecedents to modern nationalism in some ways.

If you'd like to explore this latter way of thinking, I'd highly suggest The Antiquity of Nations by Anthony D. Smith which was published in 2004. He explores a lot of these ideas in this work and others, and though I remember having some issues with it when I read it, I'm not opposed to that train of thought (in fact, it's one that I follow myself). So I suspect you might get a lot out of it. (I'd also suggest Hosbawm because ... it's Hobsbawm. Like him or not, the man made good arguments and he's still one of THE names in the study of nationalism).

Also, if you want a good case study that explores the process of HOW nationalism started (and which somewhat proves both of our points), I'd suggest When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in 19th Century Poland (Oxford University Press, 2000) by Brian Porter-Szucs. First he's an amazing scholar, but also Poland proves an interesting case study in that there most certainly was a concept of the Polish nation prior to the 19th century. The collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, furthermore, forced politicians and scholars to explore what they meant by the nation of Poland and how best to define it - and this, coupled with the series of risings and rebellions, also lead to the creation of several differing schools of nationalist thought over the course of the 19th century. I really think you'd enjoy it, and its provides a great narrative of how modern nationalism emerged from older concepts of the nation, how is struggled to become populist, and the differing ways in which people approached it. If this were a Yelp review, I'd say "Can't recommend enough"

 

[Dagoth Ur]

Hellenic nationalism at the time might have actually been a big problem regarding preserving the Byzantine Empire. As it was, Hellenic identity was inseparable from Greek Orthodox Christianity. I've read, but it could be wrong, that a big problem was low demographic output in the Byzantine Empire because so many young people became monks or nuns, so they had basically zero children as a whole. Just several generations of 1% of the population entering monasteries, and especially women entering convents, will add up big time in lost demographic opportunity. Fewer soldiers, lower tax base, etc.

 

[Azrubêl]

The problem is that that is the academic definition of Nationalism, which generally sees it as a modernist philosophy which seeks to coorelate the nation and the state together, as well as establishing broader political engagement by expanding the definition of 'the nation' to include the middle and lower classes, usually by appeals to a shared identity which can include, but not limited to, language, ethnos, traditions or political ideology.

If that is the case, then the Romans already had a good claim of possessing such an ideology. There's a reason Kaldellis often refers to Romanía not as an empire, but the 'nation-state of the Romans', which at times in its history possesed an empire.

But each child received from its father the ancestral traditions of the Romans and the impulse of their genos. And just as the genos of the Jews grew in size in Egypt under the Pharaoh, so did it happen with them: the tribe (phylon) of the Christians increased through the Orthodox faith and holy baptism. Speaking among themselves about their ancestral homeland, they lit in each other’s hearts the secret hope that they might escape.

This example is from the seventh century. It talks about Romans from the Balkan provinces being taken captive by the Avars, resettled, then intermarrying with Bulgars, Avars and other foreigners. Sixty years later, they move against the Avar khan. In this text, the Romans are treated as a genos of their own, separate from foreigners despite no longer being in Roman territory, because they have their own distinct identity, customs, memory of their homeland as well as religion. The children of their mixed marriages did come to identify as Romans too, because they were raised as Romans - showing that Romanness defined less by ancestry and more by culture and connection to the broader community of Romans. In this sense then, Roman ethnicity was bound by narrative more than it was by blood. We see this motif with many in the court who may or may not have been descended from Armenians, Slavs or other such minorities. They were also seen as Roman as long as they followed Roman customs, traditions, spoke the Roman language and followed the Roman religion. Romanía was exceptionally capable at Romanizing minorities, and absorbing them into the Roman whole.

Three centuries later we have Constantine Porphyrogennetos writing:

For each nation (ethnos) has different customs and divergent laws and institutions, it should consolidate those things that are proper to it, and should form and activate the associations that it needs for the fusion of its life from within its own nation. For just as each animal species mates with its own race (homogeneis), so it is right that each nation also should marry and cohabit not with those of a different tribe (allophylon) and tongue (alloglossoi) but of the same tribe (homogeneis) and speech (homophonoi).

This is exceptionally xenophobic in many ways, extreme and in part certainly rooted to Constantine's earlier troubles with his powerful caretakers, but it does show that the Romans had a conception of ethnicity, that ethnic groups did exist and were defined by certain elements. These were not a people who would not understand the concept of a nation. The Romans came to believe themselves a nation, an ethnic group bound by a common narrative, customs, practices, traits and a shared homeland, the domains of Rome, that was separate from other groups. They were not a denaturalized mass, bereft of identity.

In the frontier poem Digenis Akritas, the protagonist's father is a Muslim emir who falls in love with a Roman woman, abandons his people and becomes a Roman himself. He frequently speaks lovingly of Romanía, his new home, linking it with the love for his wife, and considers it his new homeland. This shows that the Romans also believed (certainly enough to put it in their stories) that the state in which they belonged had an identity and interests of its own (separate from the interests and its emperor, who was perceived not as owner of the state but as its first servant), honor that could be satisfied, or offended, made proud by greatness, or ashamed by defeat. One could identify with it, serve it and toil in its name. These are characteristics very close to those of modern states in many ways. Also much like a modern nation-state, it had a name, Romanía, consistently used across the centuries by its people.

The former soldier and later writer Katakalon Kekaumenos in the eleventh century writes that death in battle is not to be feared, if it is on behalf of the patris (fatherland) and emperor, a mentality that one could well think of as nationalist. Notably, the ancestors of Kekaumenos were of non-Roman descent, some even fighting against the Romans, but he also wrote that this did not affect his own loyalty, and even recommends against putting foreigners in high positions in his writing!

Things like this are why I don't think nations and national identities are a modern phenomenon, though nationalism likely is. From the Romans themselves, we also find them remarking that the Bulgarians were remarkably proud of their nation, something which made them more likely to be rebellious. Certain scholars see similar phenomena in Antiquity - Rome in its period as a city-state, or the poleis of Greece certainly had some attitudes that can come off as very national when it came to their denizens and how they perceived their native land.

 

[Gloss]

Hellenic nationalism at the time might have actually been a big problem regarding preserving the Byzantine Empire. As it was, Hellenic identity was inseparable from Greek Orthodox Christianity. I've read, but it could be wrong, that a big problem was low demographic output in the Byzantine Empire because so many young people became monks or nuns, so they had basically zero children as a whole. Just several generations of 1% of the population entering monasteries, and especially women entering convents, will add up big time in lost demographic opportunity. Fewer soldiers, lower tax base, etc.

1% is absolutely nothing, some demographic scholars estimate far larger disparities in unmarried people between Western Europe and Eastern Europe in the early modern era.

 

[Azrubêl]

Hellenic nationalism at the time might have actually been a big problem regarding preserving the Byzantine Empire. As it was, Hellenic identity was inseparable from Greek Orthodox Christianity. I've read, but it could be wrong, that a big problem was low demographic output in the Byzantine Empire because so many young people became monks or nuns, so they had basically zero children as a whole. Just several generations of 1% of the population entering monasteries, and especially women entering convents, will add up big time in lost demographic opportunity. Fewer soldiers, lower tax base, etc.

Far as I'm aware, that's nonsense. Putting aside the matter of 'Hellenism' not really being a thing, 'state declined because people became monks instead of doing X' explanations tend to have no real evidence in the sources.