Is nation a modern social construct?
Nation being merely a social construct is a popular opinion amongst left-wing supporters. Most widespread claim is that all nations emerged in the middle of 19th century after the end of feudalism. The people supporting this idea however, either out of uneducation or deliberately, forget that there had been a long period of humanity before the era of feudalism commenced. And in this thousand-years long period of time lies the proof that nations exist much longer than 150 years.
At the very begining it is worth describing what is a nation. Generaly the definition includes group of people living in one place, sharing the same history, language and culture. This definition, in my opinion, misses one important trait - people's self-awarness of their nation. Without national self-awarness we can hardly talk about a nation because being part of a nation consists not only in passive existence but also in active knowledge about being part of that nation and in being active in preserving it.
That is the reason we cannot talk about nations in Africa, for example. Groups of Africans do indeed share a living space, history language and culture and yet they do not see the bigger concept and stay focused mostly on their own tribe. Greatest example of this being the Rwanda genocide and the subsequent trial, where the judges could not come to a decision that the genocide was based on a national ground. One could argue that tribe is one of the many entities forming the nation which might be true, but again, not without national self-awarness and the will of the people to work for their nation. Tribes are merely a predecesors of nations. Bigger than family, but smaller than nation.
First European nation in the history with solid evidence are the Athenians. Athens are well known for its democracy and their democratic regime consequently provides evidence that the Athenians considered themselves a nation. The evidence lies in their "citizenship law". Person had to fulfil several requirements in order to be considered a full-right citizen allowed to vote and to be elected. He must have been adult man with finished military training who was born an Athenian, meaning that slaves or foreigners could not have received Athenian citizenship. This specific requirement effectively proves that the old Athenians used to have some national awarness, otherwise they would simply allow also non-Athenian free men of age to receive citizenship. But they chose not to go the multinational way.
Later on there is the Roman empire. Amongst many things we inherited from the old Romans is the roman law. Ius civile, the ancestor of modern civil law and ius gentium, the ancestor of international law. Ius gentium served for non-Roman people living and doing business in the empire while ius civile served only for Romans. Now, why would Romans need two separate legal system? Knowing that the Roman culture was inspired by the Greek one, answer is simple. Romans, as Athenians did before, valued themselves more than non-Roman inhabitants of the empire, they considered themselves more advanced culturaly and socialy. Obtaining Roman citizenship by other way than birth was for a long time impossible time simply because Romans were proud of their ancestry and did not want anyone to spoil their society. Again, as Athenians had before, Romans also possesed kind of national self-awarness. It also worth noticing that decline of the Roman empire was fastened by awarding the Roman citizenship to non-Romans even though it is not the only reason of its ultimate desintegration.
As you can see in this short historical example, nations did exist thousand years ago and its restoration in the 19th century was merely a return to the very first European cultural and social order. The medieval times, however, almost destroyed the national awarness and replaced it with the three estates. The reasons for a such change will be elaborated in the next article.
At the very begining it is worth describing what is a nation. Generaly the definition includes group of people living in one place, sharing the same history, language and culture. This definition, in my opinion, misses one important trait - people's self-awarness of their nation. Without national self-awarness we can hardly talk about a nation because being part of a nation consists not only in passive existence but also in active knowledge about being part of that nation and in being active in preserving it.
That is the reason we cannot talk about nations in Africa, for example. Groups of Africans do indeed share a living space, history language and culture and yet they do not see the bigger concept and stay focused mostly on their own tribe. Greatest example of this being the Rwanda genocide and the subsequent trial, where the judges could not come to a decision that the genocide was based on a national ground. One could argue that tribe is one of the many entities forming the nation which might be true, but again, not without national self-awarness and the will of the people to work for their nation. Tribes are merely a predecesors of nations. Bigger than family, but smaller than nation.
First European nation in the history with solid evidence are the Athenians. Athens are well known for its democracy and their democratic regime consequently provides evidence that the Athenians considered themselves a nation. The evidence lies in their "citizenship law". Person had to fulfil several requirements in order to be considered a full-right citizen allowed to vote and to be elected. He must have been adult man with finished military training who was born an Athenian, meaning that slaves or foreigners could not have received Athenian citizenship. This specific requirement effectively proves that the old Athenians used to have some national awarness, otherwise they would simply allow also non-Athenian free men of age to receive citizenship. But they chose not to go the multinational way.
Later on there is the Roman empire. Amongst many things we inherited from the old Romans is the roman law. Ius civile, the ancestor of modern civil law and ius gentium, the ancestor of international law. Ius gentium served for non-Roman people living and doing business in the empire while ius civile served only for Romans. Now, why would Romans need two separate legal system? Knowing that the Roman culture was inspired by the Greek one, answer is simple. Romans, as Athenians did before, valued themselves more than non-Roman inhabitants of the empire, they considered themselves more advanced culturaly and socialy. Obtaining Roman citizenship by other way than birth was for a long time impossible time simply because Romans were proud of their ancestry and did not want anyone to spoil their society. Again, as Athenians had before, Romans also possesed kind of national self-awarness. It also worth noticing that decline of the Roman empire was fastened by awarding the Roman citizenship to non-Romans even though it is not the only reason of its ultimate desintegration.
As you can see in this short historical example, nations did exist thousand years ago and its restoration in the 19th century was merely a return to the very first European cultural and social order. The medieval times, however, almost destroyed the national awarness and replaced it with the three estates. The reasons for a such change will be elaborated in the next article.
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