More Multinational States/Empires

I've searched but couldn't find anything up on it. In a very general sense, and I'm looking mostly at Europe/North Africa/Western Asia- with any PoD post-1000ish is it possible to reduce the balkanization of states by nationality or language? This is a really, really broad question and it's open to any time post-PoD (1200s, 1800s). By fractioning I guess I mean "balkanization", I explain a bit more below.

What I'm thinking of mostly is in multi-ethnic regions like the Balkans (particularly in the Carpathian Basin and the Ottoman Empire), or the border regions alongside the Germanic regions of Europe and Slavic Europe, France pre-revolution (with many spoken variants of Langue d'ocs and langue d'oils), etc. Was it inevitable that many of these cultures and regions would push for independence and autonomy, or would it be possible to have more multi-ethnic oriented nationalities develop in some places. I'm really phrasing this poorly I know but hopefully you sort of intuitively get the question. I'm not looking to prolong these empires or states specifically: I'm speaking in very general terms. Multi-ethnic empires seemed sort of like the norm in many places pre-Industrial Revolution/French Revolution, and then after that for a plethora of reasons (some which could be expounded on by any knowledgeable persons here) it seems like nationalistic consciousness developed in many places.

But it doesn't seem like it has to be that way everywhere. China for instance, while having many unique and un-European problems associated with its unity, manages to maintain a "Chinese" identity despite quite large differences in language, generalized appearances, geography, what have you. Would there be any way for large empires in Europe (or Central Asia being another interest) to maintain many more different languages and dialects, cultures, etc. than OTL while still forging a national identity similar to one being Chinese? *EDIT: Another state that comes to mind is Switzerland. This is more as to what I'm getting at. How would it be possible to encourage more development of "Swiss" like states in Europe; where multiple ethnicities and languages are included? Not asking for everyone to be friends, Europe a happy patchwork of friendly neighbours, etc. Just wondering if more diversity and less singular language tunnel-vision when it came to state-building was an inevitable casualty of nationalism, or whether it was realistically plausible to see more Swiss-like states emerge in Europe (as many parts of Europe are not geographically contingent when it comes to ethnicity).

Sorry for the messy question as well, I had a lot of trouble thinking it out. Thanks for soldiering through it :D.
 
The best example I can think of is Austria-Hungary. Basically if you can get the United States of Greater Austria plan to work then the Empire can hold together indefinitely since the majority of the ethnic groups in the Empire simply wanted more autonomy and not outright independence. The only problem you would face is that the Hungarians would be insanely opposed to the idea since the result would have them lose considerable territory and power. But in the end they would be doomed either way since if they do try anything all the ethnicities in their part of the Empire will side with the Emperor and Germany will not allow the Hungarians to cause trouble for their ally and will support Austria.
 
I think it would be difficult, and verging on impossible. Nationalism is at it's heart a very simple thing. It values an incredibly specific view of a nation or people, usually stating that they/it are superior to all others. This naturally lends itself to a lack of multiculturalism, which is why a country possessing numerous ethnic groups has such trouble composing an effecting national identity. Exceptions to this usual rule of thumb include the United States, whose national identity is multiculturalism, and China. It's important to note that both of these countries still have trouble with the issue, witness violent anti-immigration sentiment in the U.S. and Tibet and Taiwan with China.
 
I think it would be difficult, and verging on impossible. Nationalism is at it's heart a very simple thing. It values an incredibly specific view of a nation or people, usually stating that they/it are superior to all others. This naturally lends itself to a lack of multiculturalism, which is why a country possessing numerous ethnic groups has such trouble composing an effecting national identity. Exceptions to this usual rule of thumb include the United States, whose national identity is multiculturalism, and China. It's important to note that both of these countries still have trouble with the issue, witness violent anti-immigration sentiment in the U.S. and Tibet and Taiwan with China.
I don't think it's as ingrained as you make out, multiethnic states have been the norm for thousands of years (as the OP pointed out) and the modern concept of a nation-state is very recent, suggesting it is not an innate or inevitable part of human nature.

I would suggest the Ottoman Empire as the most likely candidate, it was pretty much the definition of a multicultural empire for most of its existence. Other plausible candidates are the ingraining of the cross-cultural decrees of Alexander the Great, who was big on the mingling of the Greek and Persian cultures (i.e. making his empire last), or a greater success of the Mongol khanates, if one of the western Mongol khanates conquered a large swathe of central Europe it might be able to hold on as a mulitcultural Empire.

One of the biggest problems is that in order for a state to function, you need a language of administration. If it is the language of one of the groups, that is favouritism and will cause resentment in the other groups. If it is not spoken by any of the groups (e.g. Latin), then only the wealthy and educated can afford to learn the language of administration and be involved in the running of the state. And if you teach everyone a new language, then intermingling over a few centuries will probably make them to all intents and purposes a single culture anyway, although it will still be a multiethnic empire, it will be linguistically and culturally uniform.
 
well a few potential munlticultural/ethnic sates that come to mind are the British Empire, the ottoman empire and austria indeed, poland-lithuania, the french empire, some sort of central asian empire, french indochina that remains united, federated europe, surviving czechoslovakia, surviving rhodesia and nyasaland, sweden-finland/denmark-norway, iraq, japan, some kind of pan-african state, and perhaps some sort of scandinavian/iberian/low countries/baltic union.

come to think of it though, there are already several states that fit the bill. America definetly fits the multiethnic part of the description, but we're pretty culturally homogenous, except maybe for what's left of the native american tribal cultures. Canada actually fits the description almost perfectly. Russia in almost all of its incarnations. south africa. India. and also most western european states have ethno-cultural minorities within their borders like the basques, occitans, and welsh.
 

Don Grey

Banned
I think it would be difficult, and verging on impossible. Nationalism is at it's heart a very simple thing. It values an incredibly specific view of a nation or people, usually stating that they/it are superior to all others. This naturally lends itself to a lack of multiculturalism, which is why a country possessing numerous ethnic groups has such trouble composing an effecting national identity. Exceptions to this usual rule of thumb include the United States, whose national identity is multiculturalism, and China. It's important to note that both of these countries still have trouble with the issue, witness violent anti-immigration sentiment in the U.S. and Tibet and Taiwan with China.

China is not a good example. Yes it has sevral minorities most of which are treated horribly. The chinese try to asimilate everyone by any means nessecary.

And W.W.A.F.T. british empire is not a good example either becaue the british did have a racial superiority complex.British rule meant literaly british overlordship.If you can get the racial aspect of british identity out of the equation then yes it will be possible. But at the zenith of the british empire was also the time of european nationalism plus they were not a oldschool empire but a colonial one so that would not be possible it would be against there mind set.You would have to change the culture of there empire and the ruling class to acomplish this which i think is not possible because they have succesed with this thought pattern why change.Russia isnt a good one either lets not forget the the russification policies.And if i were to say those policies werent very plesent i would pass the japanese in understantment.

Or maybe i got the OP wrong what do you exactly mean Midas because yes most of the empires written in posts are multicultural but do you mean a functioning one or one where yes they have moniorities which are greatly opressed and you couldnt join the ruling class for reasons not up to you.
 
I think it would be difficult, and verging on impossible. Nationalism is at it's heart a very simple thing. It values an incredibly specific view of a nation or people, usually stating that they/it are superior to all others. This naturally lends itself to a lack of multiculturalism, which is why a country possessing numerous ethnic groups has such trouble composing an effecting national identity. Exceptions to this usual rule of thumb include the United States, whose national identity is multiculturalism, and China. It's important to note that both of these countries still have trouble with the issue, witness violent anti-immigration sentiment in the U.S. and Tibet and Taiwan with China.

There are more exceptions to the rule than there are adherents to the rule. Because as Westerners we tend to think in these terms, we are often not aware of the multicultural nature of other states.

The following, off the top of my head, are multi-cultural (ignoring small minorities):

Spain
Belgium
Switzerland
Bosnia
Bulgaria
Turkey
Iran
Lebanon
Syria
Israel
Every country in Africa
Afghanistan
All the "Stans"
India
China
Russia

Etc.

There are actually very few states that are ethnically 7 culturally homogeneous, and almost all those are in Europe, and most were achieved through genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Nationalism was an effective ideology for creating new states, but it's certainly not the only option, and its heyday is over.
 
And W.W.A.F.T. british empire is not a good example either becaue the british did have a racial superiority complex.British rule meant literaly british overlordship.If you can get the racial aspect of british identity out of the equation then yes it will be possible. But at the zenith of the british empire was also the time of european nationalism plus they were not a oldschool empire but a colonial one so that would not be possible it would be against there mind set.You would have to change the culture of there empire and the ruling class to acomplish this which i think is not possible because they have succesed with this thought pattern why change.Russia isnt a good one either lets not forget the the russification policies.And if i were to say those policies werent very plesent i would pass the japanese in understantment.


that's why I put the british empire in with the possibilities, rather than the ones that could resonably be called multicultural already. and I do suppose that you're right about russia, at the time I was just puting down anything that came to mind.
 
And W.W.A.F.T. british empire is not a good example either becaue the british did have a racial superiority complex.British rule meant literaly british overlordship.If you can get the racial aspect of british identity out of the equation then yes it will be possible. But at the zenith of the british empire was also the time of european nationalism plus they were not a oldschool empire but a colonial one so that would not be possible it would be against there mind set.

And yet you use the word "British" and not "English", "Welsh", "Scottish" or "Irish"...
 
There are more exceptions to the rule than there are adherents to the rule. Because as Westerners we tend to think in these terms, we are often not aware of the multicultural nature of other states.

There are actually very few states that are ethnically 7 culturally homogeneous, and almost all those are in Europe, and most were achieved through genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Nationalism was an effective ideology for creating new states, but it's certainly not the only option, and its heyday is over.

Certainly, I didn't mean to say that most states currently lack multiculturalism or that many states in Europe are homogeneous- especially coming from Canada and having multiculturalism engrained into my head as national policy from 4 onwards :D.

More of what I meant I guess is how nationalities, such as French, German, etc. all have generally come with certain linguistic strings attached. If you're French, you speak Parisian-standard-derived French. Obviously that's not at all how it works but afaik that was the intent after the French revolution. There are tons of German dialects (many barely even intelligible from each other) but you don't see Poles generally included in the "German identity" (though plenty of Germans have Polish roots etc.).

Was this sort of, an inevitability in Europe I meant? Is it impossible to think of say an Ottoman identity that could be inclusive of many other identities, in the same way American or Chinese is inclusive of other identities while maintaining patriotism, nationalistic kind of stuff etc. Like, would saying Greek-Ottoman, Turkic-Ottoman, Slovenian Austro-Hungarian :eek: in the same way as Irish-American be a possibility in Europe? It was obviously, but there were strong nationalistic undercurrents in those countries that sort of exploded post-1848.

Sorry I keep restating the question poorly in different ways but it's hard to get my tongue over exactly what I want :D. Are Swiss-type federation states possible throughout Europe? I guess that's the best way to phrase it. Is it unthinkable historically to see perhaps a German identity that is inclusive of Poles, Germans, whoever else and can resist attempts to assimulate non-German speaking communities by force and have them consequently consider themselves a German? Sub in any nationality for this.
 
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