Enjoying an Empty Edifice

This paper reaffirms the methodological potentials of Lacanian psychoanalysis for the theories of nationalism. From the Lacanian perspective, national consciousness and self-determination are only possible in the fantasmatic frame­work through the (mis)recognition and retroactive construction. National imagination is the form of transference, necessary for performing the nation through invented traditions and rituals. However, beyond symbolization and imaginary (mis)recognition, there is always something that resists closure, linked with the subjects' desire and organized around the lack of the subjects' full enjoyment. Taking together all these aspects, we build an analytical framework for the study of nationalism, which comprises a quadruple system of identifications by referring to the concepts of Ideal-Ego, Ego-Ideal, Super-Ego and specular Other, and illustrate it through the example of the AKP's Turkish nationalism.

Documentary sources and methodological landmarks in the research of the creation of the singer Veronica Mihai in the „Folclor” Orchestra

The study aims to identify the main theoretical and methodological criteria, important in shaping the scientific vision applied to the approach of the subject. The author delimits two distinct periods in the evolution of the singer’s repertoire: the late Soviet period (1968–1991) and the post-Soviet period (1991–1999). The main focus is on the Soviet epoch. Among the documentary sources are the materials stored in the IPNA archive – “TeleradioMoldova” Company, the personal files of the artists, the minutes of the Artistic Council, the musical scores, the library of the editorial offices within the institution. To substantiate the theoretical framework of the study, the author argues the need to instrumentalize the concepts of „Soviet folk song”, „mass song”, „creator&producer networks”, „modernization”, „revitalization”, „invented traditions”, „folklorization”, „new folk songs”, „neo-traditional music”.

Folk Music, Class, and Nation

The identitarian nature of French folk music (both in itself and within art music) is introduced as presenting a challenge to long-standing official French policies of national unity—whether expressed as traditional unity in uniformity or via a newer Third-Republic formulation of unity in diversity. This challenge explains why official French art-musical culture never joined in with the celebratory ethnic-national folk-music practices of other European nations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Instead, French folk music’s relation to the state is characterized by wide-ranging attempts to control and neutralize difference, resulting in invented traditions presented to schoolchildren as their unified patrimoine and composed into an emerging strand of neoclassical dance-form composition that brought together the modal and the folk-like. At the same time, folk music was usefully harnessed as an internal exotic within world’s fairs and as an element of modern tourism, while within opera, the particularism of regionalist composers was censored (sometimes self-censored), and often replaced by vague indicators of childlike Frenchness.

The “Europe – Russia” Dichotomy as an Invented Tradition of Modern Georgian Nationalism

In the article, the author analyzes the transformation of the dichotomy “Europe – Russia” in contemporary Georgian intellectual discourse as well as strategies and forms of positive and negative ideologization of the West and Russia. We state that the hypertrophied role of European and Russian images in the Georgian discourse has resulted from the belief of elites in the collective West as an alternative to Russian infl uence. We analyze the main strategies of forming a positive image of Europe in Georgian intellectual discourse, believing that the development of European motifs and images by several generations of Georgian intellectuals led to the emergence of a unique Georgian Europeanism and the concept of the “Non Typical European” Georgian nation. The development of European images depends on the formation and promotion of the image of Russia as a universal Other. It is assumed that the negative mythologization of Russia resulted from the historical trauma of the loss of statehood, Georgia’s forced history in the Russian Empire and the USSR, as well as the failures in the Russian-Georgian relations in the post-Soviet period. Overall, the author believes that Russian and European narratives have become invented traditions of Georgian identity that infl uence the strategies of elites in Georgian foreign policy.

Teutonic Metal: Effects of Place- and Mythology-based Labels on Record Production

Viking, Mesopotamian and Hellenic metal; place-based metal labels full of mythology are commonplace in metal music. Focusing on ‘Teutonic’ metal, this article analyses such labels through a collaboration with one of the genre’s primary record producers: Karl Bauerfeind. Reflection on sixteen selected album productions with German, British, Swedish and Brazilian bands suggests that imagined communities with symbolic boundaries and shared invented traditions not only shape fan and media discourse but have tangible effects and sonic signatures in record productions, as demonstrated by discussions between bands, producers and record companies. The findings suggest that place- or mythology-based labels evoke vivid, partly fictional, historical inspiration for artists and record producers, which are further negotiated in journalistic media and fan discourse. It is suggested that these imagined communities with respective sonic signatures are both meaningful for fans in their ‘communicative leisure’ practices and used by the music industry as ‘instrumental leisure’ in their marketing efforts.