National Myth Making in Sweden, Norway and Denmark

AbstractInterwar France saw itself as a rural nation. The First World War, won in the muddy earth of the trenches, elevated the image of the ‘peasant soldier’ to a symbolic height. But paradoxically, it was during this period that the urban population overtook the rural. Against this backdrop, references to the noxious consequences of rural migration increased in frequency and virulence. The condemnation of rural migration was part of the celebration of a French national identity rooted in the past, the earth and other key agrarian values, such as thrift, hard work and property ownership. French peasants are perceived to be the last bearers of this value set. In other European countries too, the same ideological debate was at play. In Italy and Germany, in particular, the regimes were faced with a similar dilemma, championing a racially pure, rural, identity rooted in the past, whilst embracing a modernising revolution. Their parallel attempts at aligning these two ideas are richly suggestive.

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National Myth and Imperial Fantasy: Representations of Britishness on the Early Eighteenth-Century Stage. By Louise H. Marshall. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; pp. 223. $85 cloth.

Theatre Survey ◽

10.1017/s0040557411000214 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 52 (1) ◽

pp. 183-185

Author(s):

Naomi Stubbs

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Eighteenth Century ◽

National Myth ◽

Early Eighteenth Century

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History and National Myth

Metaphors of Spain ◽

10.2307/j.ctvw04dd1.4 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 9-32

Author(s):

José Álvarez Junco

Keyword(s):

National Myth

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Hybridizing the Myth, Allegorizing Algeria

The Transcontinental Maghreb ◽

10.5422/fordham/9780823275151.003.0002 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Edwige Tamalet Talbayev

Keyword(s):

Nation Building ◽

Colonial Period ◽

National Myth ◽

The Core ◽

Mediterranean Island ◽

History Of ◽

The Mediterranean

This chapter teases out the ways in which Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma resists the cohesive power of the Algerian myth of origins elaborated around the time of independence to reveal a Mediterranean transnationalism. The chapter starts by interrogating the conflicted history of the colonial concept of Mediterranean hybridity as both cultural syncretism and biological assimilation from the 1890s to the late colonial period. It then examines exile and the predominance of subjective estrangement in Kateb’s writing. In light of virtually unknown fragments cut out of Nedjma, it shows that the quest for Algeria’s identity cannot be completed without spatial deployment in the Mediterranean island of Djerba. Djerba supplies a model of felicitous mixing between strata of Mediterranean migrations, providing late colonial Algeria with a mythical space where to hone the very workings of its nation-building aspirations in a plural context evocative of Algeria’s own diversity. Kateb’s text reveals a Mediterranean ethos at the core of Algeria’s founding narrative, performing what writer Nabile Farès later dubbed the “re-allegorization of national myth” in a Mediterranean mode.

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A Not-So-Special Relationship America and Britain

Anglo Nostalgia ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190068936.003.0008 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 153-172

Author(s):

Edoardo Campanella ◽

Marta Dassù

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

The United States ◽

Special Relationship ◽

The European Union ◽

Free Markets ◽

National Myth ◽

Absolute Strength ◽

Insurmountable Obstacle ◽

The Difference ◽

Power And Influence

The Brexiteers presented a revived partnership with the United States as the cornerstone of Britain’s new Anglosphere-centered diplomacy. Without the United States, any Anglosphere project would lose meaning, and the future of Britain outside the European Union would be grim. But this chapter argues that the focus on the “special relationship” was based on a delusional national myth. Historically, the specialness, which discounted an enormous gap in terms of power and influence between the two countries, has been more keenly felt in London than in Washington. Since 1945, America’s absolute strength and Britain’s relative weakness has always determined a highly unbalanced relationship. In the eyes of Dean Acheson—Secretary of State in the Truman Administration—British rhetoric surrounding the “special” connection between the two countries reflected nothing more than the UK’s unwillingness to accept its post-imperial status: that of a simple transatlantic intermediary and Anglo-Saxon balancer in European affairs. It has been observed that, from 1945 onwards, the “special relationship” rapidly assumed the character of a “special dependancy”, with Britain being very much the junior partner. Currently, the difference in terms of power and influence between the two countries is as great as in the past—if not even greater, given Britain’s diminished influence in European affairs. On top of that, bridging the policy inconsistencies between “America First” (based on unilateralism and protectionism) and “Global Britain” (based on multilateralism and free markets) might represent an insurmountable obstacle.

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Growing up with a long-awaited nation-state: Personal struggles with the homeland among young diasporic Armenians

Ethnicities ◽

10.1177/1468796819866973 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 520-543 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Leila Wilmers ◽

Dmitry Chernobrov

Keyword(s):

The State ◽

Nation State ◽

Growing Up ◽

Active Engagement ◽

National Myth ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Politics And Culture ◽

Diverse Backgrounds ◽

Independence Era ◽

Regular Contact

This paper explores identification with the nation-state as homeland among young diasporic Armenians in France, Russia and the United Kingdom (UK). For dispersed Armenian communities worldwide, the emergence of a fragile nation-state since 1991 has represented a form of collective goal fulfilment accompanied at times by disillusionment in the national myth of the homeland as a place of sanctuary. We argue that the resulting shift in understandings of homeland markedly differentiates the diasporic experiences of Armenians of diverse backgrounds growing up in the post-independence era from those of previous generations. Key to this shift are ambivalent dynamics between memory and myth integral to personal struggles with the homeland. Analysing original interviews with Armenians aged 18 to 35 in three host states, we unpack how memories of contact with the Armenian state accumulated in youth interact with national myths about the homeland in the context of different family migration histories. The active engagement of young people with homeland myths is shown to play an important role in their recollections of first formative visits to Armenia. Through more regular contact with the state, disappointment in elements of politics and culture that clash with personal imaginings of the homeland can lead to ambivalence in identifying with Armenia. Ultimately, the state plays a key orienting role for many young diasporic Armenians, but clashes between recalled encounters and myths concerning the state can render it a place of partial belonging, unable to fulfil the ideals of the diasporic imagination. The findings highlight the value of attending to interaction between memory and myth in diasporic engagement with ‘homeland’ states more broadly.

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