ABSTRACT
Religious trials before modern times and nationalist trials today are, at their core, trials over the issue of representation. The 1521 trial of Martin Luther involves considerable drama and two agendas: religious and political. Nationalist trials raise the same questions that religious trials raised before the advent of nationalism. A classic case of a nationalist accused of treason in wartime is that of Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun, who won the 1920 Nobel Prize for Literature and employed his prose talent during World War II for the cause of his country. The clash of nationalists over Ireland—Irish nationalists confronting their English problem and English nationalists encountering their Irish problem—demonstrates the basic patterns of nationalism. The 1922 trial of Mohandas Gandhi is as classic a nationalist trial as can be found. The 1972 trial of Angela Davis parallels the Panther Twenty-One trial.
