ABSTRACT
Although societies exist materially as economic and social entities, there is a level of human existence at which collectivities imagine themselves into being and regard themselves and their economic and social activities in a mystical fantastical light as a unique people of destiny. Nationalism is a classic way in which such imagined transformations have taken place. Nationalist consciousness incubates and reproduces vital mythologies which revolve around the stories of an imagined community. The mythologies are stories but not only stories; they are stories with a purpose – they tell their listeners something significant about their existence as members of a community. The myths tell stories that appear to reveal or explain how and/or why the listener’s identity is part of a greater collective identity. They tell how this identity came into being; perhaps they tell or hint at their purpose and destiny. The hero of the story is the people themselves, that is, the collectivity struggling and enduring as one – as a nation.
