ABSTRACT

National indifference is one of the most innovative notions historians have brought to the study of nationalism in recent years. The concept questions the mass character of nationalism in East Central Europe at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Ordinary people were not in thrall to the nation; they were often indifferent, ambivalent or opportunistic when dealing with issues of nationhood.


As with all ground-breaking research, the literature on national indifference has not only revolutionized how we understand nationalism, over time, it has also revealed a new set of challenges. This volume brings together experienced scholars with the next generation, in a collaborative effort to push the geographic, historical, and conceptual boundaries of national indifference 2.0.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

National indifference and the history of nationalism in modern Europe

chapter 1|20 pages

Too much on their minds

Impediments and limitations of the national cultural project in nineteenth-century Belgium

chapter 2|21 pages

From national indifference to national commitment and back

The case of the Trentine POWS in Russia during the First World War

chapter 3|25 pages

Lost in transition?

The Habsburg legacy, state- and nation-building and the new fascist order in the Upper Adriatic

chapter 4|25 pages

National indifference and the transnational corporation

The paradigm of the Bat’a Company

chapter 5|21 pages

Between nationalism and indifference

The gradual elimination of indifference in interwar Yugoslavia

chapter 6|18 pages

Paths to Frenchness

National indifference and the return of Alsace to France, 1919–1939

chapter 7|16 pages

Beyond politics

National indifference as everyday ethnicity 1

chapter 8|19 pages

National indifference, statistics and the constructivist paradigm

The case of the Tutejsi (‘the people from here’) in interwar Polish censuses

chapter 10|21 pages

‘I have removed the boundaries of nations’

Nation switching and the Roman Catholic church during and after the Second World War

chapter 11|23 pages

‘Citizen of the Soviet Union – it sounds dignified.’

Letter writing, nationalities policy, and identity in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union 1

chapter 12|7 pages

Conclusion

National indifference and the history of nationalism in modern Europe