mr. mangan, esq., tweeted not too long ago (link inserted by me): “Finnish nationalism was really weird in that it was begun and lead by ethnic Swedes.”
i don’t think that’s weird at all, because i bet that swedes have a longer history of outbreeding than ethnic finns, and, with more and more outbreeding, a group’s “circle of inclusiveness” widens (i think). i’m not 100% certain that the swedes have a longer history of outbreeding than ethnic finns, but i’m betting that they do based on the fact that the finns are outside the hajnal line and the swedes are not, and the general pattern seems to be that those populations that are inside the hajnal line are long-term outbreeders, while the rest are just not. another example resembling the swedish-finnish one is the irish nationalist movement of the 1700-1800s which was heavily influenced by the more outbred anglo-irish.
(btw, daniel olsson tweeted back to mr. mangan that finnish nationalism started with the fennoman movement which, according to him, was comprised of ethnic finns, but, in actuality, it appears that the earliest fennomen were indeed ethnic swedes!)
in “Nationalism and Vernaculars, 1500-1800” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism, peter burke mentions that in thinking about early european nationalist movements [pgs. 23-24]:
“…a number of distinctions need to be made. One important distinction is that between older nations such as England and France, for instance, and newer nations such as Britain or the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic, which has a better claim than the United States of America to be the ‘first new nation’, since it was founded nearly two hundred years earlier.”
so there we have it yet again — as in so many other aspects (the decline of internal violence, for instance), it is the earliest outbreeders in europe that are the “older nations”, whereas the later nation states, like italy, are inbreeders. unfortunately (for me and my theory), germany doesn’t really fit this picture, unless we try to imagine the holy roman empire as a naiton state?…no, that won’t work…always causing trouble the germans. i still think it’s significant, though, that the earliest european nations were some of my “core”, outbreeding europeans and not any of the peripheral groups.
more from burke:
“A second distinction separates small nations such as the Swedes or the Venetians from larger ones such as France or Spain. (The Venetians were surely as much a nation as anyone in early modern Europe, since the city state was independent, and its inhabitants spoke a distinctive language, now classified as a dialect, while expressions of Venetian patriotism were common.)”
this is also directly related to my point about outbreeding and nationalism — yes, the early modern venetians were a nation, but the reason their nation was so small/narrow compared to england or france was because the italians had a longer history of inbreeding than the english or french. the nation was just venice and not “northern italy” or something larger, because the northern italians’ “circle of inclusiveness” was not as broad as that of the english or french (because the italians were not as outbred).
finally:
“A third is the distinction between nationalism, in the sense of an organized social and political movement, and a more diffuse national sentiment, national consciousness, or national identity — which may be stronger or weaker in different places and times and among different social groups. The fact that in French, for instance, the term *patriotisme* came into use around the middle of the eighteenth century, while the term *nationalisme* emerged in the 1790s, suggests that important cultural changes were taking place at that time. It should be added that although the term ‘nation’ was used more rarely and more vaguely before the late eighteenth century than it has been since that time, proud references to the English, French, Spaniards, Germans, and so on are not difficult to find in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as will be seen later in this chapter, even if the question as to who is Dutch, Swedish, Polish, et cetera, was rarely if ever raised in this pre-passport age.”
yes. this is now on my To Do List — find out more about the evolution of national sentiments/consciousness around europe (and the rest of the world) as well as nationalistic movements. the two are obviously related, but not exactly the same thing. it would be very interesting to know which populations were the earliest at feeling like a nation — especially feeling like a big nation, like “french”.
the historian patrick wormald has argued that the english viewed themselves as “english” already at the time the venerable bede (d.735) was writing his famous history (see, for example, chapter five in The Making of English National Identity). that would be truly incredible if it’s true! presumably the “english” at that time would’ve been just the anglos and not any of the enslaved britons. also, hard to know if it was only the intelligensia, like bede, who held this view, or also the anglo-saxon man on the street.
daniel hannan also makes a cautious argument for an early appearance of the english as a nation in Inventing Freedom [pgs. 73-74]:
“[T]he birth of England as a nation-state can be dated to Alfred’s wars. In 876, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘all the English people who were free to give him their allegiance [in other words, were not under Danish occupation] owned Alfred as their King.’
“This is not the first reference to the English people. The concept of an English race, an Angelcynn, had existed from at least the eighth century, possibly earlier. What was new was the idea that all the Angelcynn, by virtue of their common identity, should recognize a single sovereign.”
again, this seems incredibly early for ideas of a nation to be floating about, but perhaps it’s true. still, hard to know if the english people also felt this, or if it was mostly chroniclers and kings and princes.
Further Research (and Rumination) RequiredTM! (^_^)
nowadays, of course, the “circle of inclusiveness” that many outbreeders hold to has expanded waaaay beyond nationalism to include pretty much everyone on the planet (“invite the world!”) and even the members of other species (for example the calls for human rights for chimps — not there’s there’s anything necessarily wrong with that! (~_^) )
(note: comments do not require an email. i can haz human rights?)
hbd chick 
Readers see also:
Finland & Japan | JayMan’s Blog
How Inbred are Europeans? | JayMan’s Blog
This comment of mine:
“For the record, inbreeding and outbreeding, as HBD Chick and I discuss, is largely separate from intermixing between two groups. You can, for example, mix two inbred, highly clannish populations, say Southern Spaniard/Portuguese with Meso-American Natives – as was the case in Latin America – and the result will be a clannish hybrid population, as is the case in Latin America. Indeed, a genetically mixed population might enhance clannish behavior, because then within-family relationship relative to the group as a whole becomes that more important.
Inbreeding/outbreeding exert their respective effects through the selective pressures each exerts over several generations. Further, HBD Chick and I have note that the trouble with inbreeding might stem from a population being fractured into distinct family groups (clans) which mate almost entirely within themselves, reducing the genetic distance within them but increasing it between them.
By contrast, a type of inbreeding that is spread evenly throughout the population, like the type you have had in Iceland, and perhaps in Finland or in Japan (where, apparently, 3rd and 4th cousin marriage was the norm – the Puritans were also this way), produces a population with a high sense of civic mindedness and low corruption, but a high sense of national identity and ethnic cohesion. The entire nation, in essence, becomes one big clan, which is largely impervious to outsiders. Unfortunately, the breeding populations in say South-Central England, NE France, or W. Germany may have been too large and too mobile for this single isolated breeding group to form, and we see the complete universalist tendencies in these peoples.”
;)
Another possible explanation might be that minorities have an incentive to promote a more state level nationalism, since they are outside the genuine nation proper and in a relatively more precarious position, especially with respect to nationalist feeling. This seems to be a common dynamic.
Regarding Venice and Italy, Italy is also more genetically heterogeneous due to the Roman Empire. Northern European countries are much more genetically homogeneous.
@jayman – “By contrast, a type of inbreeding that is spread evenly throughout the population, like the type you have had in Iceland, and perhaps in Finland or in Japan (where, apparently, 3rd and 4th cousin marriage was the norm – the Puritans were also this way), produces a population with a high sense of civic mindedness and low corruption, but a high sense of national identity and ethnic cohesion. The entire nation, in essence, becomes one big clan, which is largely impervious to outsiders.”
yes, absolutely!
also, wrt finns specifically, they still weren’t converted fully to christianity as late as the mid-1200s (see here and esp. here). and if we can assume that they were marrying closely before they converted — which isn’t a certainty, but is probably a good bet — then that’s quite a late start to The Outbreeding Project in finland. the swedes were prolly a couple hundred years ahead of the finns.
It’d be interesting to look at Ancient Greece, since it was comprised of independent city-states like Renaissance Italy.
Also how would the East Asian countries fit into this? They (China, Korea, Japan) all seem to have a strong sense of national identity without the outbreeding.
@michelson – “It’d be interesting to look at Ancient Greece, since it was comprised of independent city-states like Renaissance Italy.”
yeah, very interesting! i’ve got a couple of posts on ancient greece that are relevant: archaic greek mating patterns and kinship terms and renaissances.
what i think may have happened — and this is based on some VERY scant evidence — is that the archaic greeks were outbreeders, which enabled the fluorescence of the classical greek (athenian) period, but mating patterns narrowed again during the classical period which resulted in corruption, nepotism, etc., increasing. that’s my read anyway. and pretty much the exact same thing happened with the northern italian city-states of the renaissance — earlier in the medieval period, northern italians were comparatively observant of the cousin marriage bans, which enabled the renaissance there, but once the renaissance got going, they (esp. the city dwellers) started marrying closely again — and everything went to h*ll in a handbasket!
@michelson – “Also how would the East Asian countries fit into this? They (China, Korea, Japan) all seem to have a strong sense of national identity without the outbreeding.”
i dunno, i dunno, i dunno! *hbd chick throws up here hands in despair!* doesn’t really fit the theory! =( *hbd chick reach for her handy bottle of whisky….* (~_^)
srsly — dunno. need to read up/think about east asia more. maybe the whole theory needs to be thrown out. or perhaps be seriously revised. we’ll see! (^_^)
@michelson – “Italy is also more genetically heterogeneous due to the Roman Empire. Northern European countries are much more genetically homogeneous.”
yes. that probably helps!
@hubchik
“unfortunately (for me and my theory), germany doesn’t really fit this picture”
I think the religious wars interrupted / skewed the process in many places and they only caught up later.
.
@Michelson
“Also how would the East Asian countries fit into this? They (China, Korea, Japan) all seem to have a strong sense of national identity without the outbreeding.”
I think the general rule is that Europe and east Asia found separate routes to the same place.
Although having said that industrialization and urbanization creates a crash outbreeding program on its own as people migrate from the country to the city unless a culture specifically prevents it – which might imply East Asian countries will go through a double dose of nationalism x years after starting to fully urbanize as the two effects combine. I think you could say Japan did that in the 30s and China may be on the verge of the same.
Really that’s terrible balls about England. It didn’t have any non-fleeting, substantial, unified character until the conquest. It woz Frenchmen wot made it. Sad but true.
1. Dearieme, it did have the regional precursors, however, of Wessex, Wales, Danelaw, Scotland, Mercia. Since the time of Alfred (and in legend, Arthur), there was this reaching toward unity, which the French put the cap on. The Isles were populated by inbreeding, outbreeding, and partial outbreeding populations, which made the approach to nationalism intermittent. I think the North Sea and Channel contacts, clearly between different “nations” and yet culturally similar and biologically related groups, was key. We tend to locate the outbreeding center of gravity in Holland (Amsterdam and Rotterdam), with East Anglia (York to London), Normandy, and Brussels as the secondary foci. But a location actually in the ocean actually sums it up better. The modern world was launched on those lands which barely rose above the North Sea. Because they barely rose above the North Sea. They traded over water rather than over land and had equally good connections, linguistic, genetic, and cultural, with those across the water and over the hills.
2. Jayman, that is a good distinction about partial clannishness and outbreeding versus full cultural embrace of it. I think, at this early examination, the data backs you up on the regionalist versus nationalist sentiments. It highlights that America (and Australia, Canada) have taken a significant step forward in nationalism which includes many groups, but has not been able to close the deal, because the numbers and number of cultures are simply too great.
3. Michelson: yes and yes. Notice that Naziism was not very nationalist, but tribal and racial. Nonteutons within the borders (Jews, Roma, Slavs) were not included, but Teutons outside Germany in Poland and Czechoslovakia were. Real NATIONalism was more Anglospheric. (Yeah, Anglospherism is also tribal, and that’s ironic.)
4. I just linked back to this in a post about fairy tales. I don’t know if that subject is of interest to many here, but it does connect. http://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2014/02/fairy-tales.html
@Jayman: “You can, for example, mix two inbred, highly clannish populations, say Southern Spaniard/Portuguese with Meso-American Natives – as was the case in Latin America – and the result will be a clannish hybrid population, as is the case in Latin America.”
Very much the case! Although from what I’ve seen in my region of descent in Colombia, the hybrids there might be somewhat (only somewhat) less clannish than a lot of the admixed Mexican and Central American populations.
Just wild conjecture based on anecdotal evidence, which is to say no real evidence at all.
“…a type of inbreeding that is spread evenly throughout the population, like the type you have had in Iceland, and perhaps in Finland or in Japan (where, apparently, 3rd and 4th cousin marriage was the norm – the Puritans were also this way), produces a population with a high sense of civic mindedness and low corruption, but a high sense of national identity and ethnic cohesion. The entire nation, in essence, becomes one big clan, which is largely impervious to outsiders.”
Perhaps we should begin referring to this idea as ‘smooth inbreeding versus coarse inbreeding’?
“But a location actually in the ocean actually sums it up better. ”
Yes
“I just linked back to this in a post about fairy tales. I don’t know if that subject is of interest to many here, but it does connect.”
Yes again.
You know, no doubt, that you can claim Irish nationality by virtue of a grandparent. If every country adopted this rule, I could be British, Irish, Australian AND American. See, I am the Anglosphere. In-breeding clansmen, pah! Here’s a suggestion for a rule: if your town has a harbour you are unlikely to be inbred.
@dearieme – “Here’s a suggestion for a rule: if your town has a harbour you are unlikely to be inbred.”
don’t forget the (somewhat special) definition of inbreeding used here on this blog:
“inbreeding = in a population, a general pattern of *regular and sustained* mating between individuals who are related to one another as second cousins or closer.”
“regular and sustained” is important (i think).
“…proud references to the English, French, Spaniards, Germans, and so on are not difficult to find in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as will be seen later in this chapter, even if the question as to who is Dutch, Swedish, Polish, et cetera, was rarely if ever raised in this pre-passport age.”
Not really a history buff, but since I have the Swedish Wikipedia at my disposal I had a look around. It seems that around 1220 the Westgothic law stipulated a certain punishment for killing a Swede – so at that time it was the name of the tribe, but some time around 1400 and onwards there are written records, so-called rime-chronicles (rimkrönikor) that are political in nature and refer to Swedes as not just the tribe of Svioni but including the neighboring tribes as well. They clearly display an us-Swedes-against-those-pesky-foreigners attitude.
@Ivan, “Perhaps we should begin referring to this idea as ‘smooth inbreeding versus coarse inbreeding’?”
I agree, but I think of it as smooth and grainy – grains being the clans. We should also keep in mind that a smooth inbreeding can sometimes be a bottleneck population rather than just reduced clannish inbreeding. I vaguelly recall that Finns originate from a very small group of people. Their relatedness could be more due to that than anything else.
Assistant Village Idiot,
I disagree with your point about Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was very nationalist. The non-Teutons were subjects of the German Empire, citizens of Germany, etc., but they weren’t part of the German nation.
The real meaning of “nation” and “nationalism” has been obscured and altered to mean something like the proposition nation, civic nationalism, and statism today, which are more accurately features of imperialism rather than nationalism. Hence why people have to use the term “ethno-nationalism” today, which would be redundant in terms of the real, original sense of nation and nationalism.
Ivan M – my (Colombian) mother says that the Colombian side of her family comes from the north of Spain – Galicians, etc. The north of Spain is on one side of the Hajnal Line. Perhaps the Mexican and Central American Spaniards were more from Castile or Andalucia or Extramadura?
hbdchick – what’s the timing of welsh nationalism? Did they think of themselves as a single people once the Saxons came over and started conquering their lands? Welsh men would be ineligible to marry Saxon women, which would at least create a strong distinction between the two, possibly leading to nationalism. The Normans seemed to have been less ethnically picky – Saxon nobles who supported William could marry Norman ladies, and the Norman lords quickly started speaking English, allowing the two to become one ethny.
Michelson, I think I see your distinction. Yes, “nation” as an older word was closer to “tribe” than it is now, when it is used almost always as a synonym for residents within certain borders. i was using “nationalism” in that more modern sense. Perhaps that is because I am American rather than European. My sons, who are from Transylvania, think of Romania as both the group and the country under current borders. If pressed to choose, they would side with the tribe rather than the political boundary as definitive. they would agree that Hungarians in Transylvania were Romanians in one sense, but in another, not so much. The closer identification of tribe to nation was certainly present in Germans, perhaps since the time of Fichte.
Nonetheless, I think the page has finally turned, and nationalism now means something closer to “resident within boundaries.” I may be deluding myself in this, as Hispanic persons are clearly of more divided mind than residents of NH.
Finnish nationalism was not started by “ethnic Swedes”. There was no clear-cut Swedish “Herrenvolk” ruling the Finnish majority. The situation was more complex. There were two kinds of Swedishness in Finland, “kultursvenskhet” or upper-class Swedishness and “bygdesvenskhet” or ethnic Swedishness.
When a Finnish-speaking commoner entered the gentry e.g. through education, he took a Swedish name and started to use Swedish as his everyday language. He didn`t become ethnically Swede, he became gentry. It was all about your class status. The founding fathers of Finnish nationalism were mostly people who had experienced this social climb themselves (Elias Lönnrot) or it had happened to an ancestor (J. V. Snellman). They were usually more or less bilingual.
So it was not just about some bunch of intellectuals suddenly developing a romantic admiration for an exotic folk culture. Of course, the general European enthusiasm for ethnicity in the early 19th Century was a necessary precondition. Another underlying reason was the political situation after 1809.When Finland was annexed by Russians as a grand duchy with a self-government, the ruling bureaucrats started to encourage the development of Finnish nationalism. The motto was: “We are not Swedes anymore, we don`t want to become Russians, so therefore let us be Finns.” Fennoman movement was not a revolutionary challenge to status quo but an integral part of Finnish state-formation, which made our independence possible in 1917.
“Did they think of themselves as a single people once the Saxons came over and started conquering their lands?” Gildas (c. 500–570) referred to his countrymen as “Citizens” i.e. they were aware of being descendants of Roman citizens. It’s not clear whether he came from what is now Wales, or Western England, or even Southern Scotland, but yes they seem to have thought of themselves as one people, both the descendants of the Romanised people south of Hadrian’s Wall and the only slightly Roman-influenced people from the allied kingdoms north of the wall. Another clue is the famous Welsh poem The Gododdin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Gododdin, and another the references to the Men of the North http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_Ogledd. There’s a poem about an army of Men of the North marching going to Wales to expel the Irish colonists there.
Mind you, everything about the Dark Ages is bit suspect because so little information survived.
“marching going”: sorry for the muddle there, caused by my sudden thought that they were possibly principally a cavalry army.
Sweden denies entry to Swedish-speaking ethnic Swedes from Ukraine:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/somalis-yes-swedes-no.html
…In 1781, 1,159 Swedish farmers from Dagö in today’s Estonia were displaced to Ukraine. Several years ago a few descendants of these — still Swedes — applied to take up residence in Sweden. But they were rejected immediately.
A few years ago a Swedish family from Gammalsvenskby, Ukraine, applied for a permit in old age to be allowed to settle in Sweden. The family was descended from the Estonian-Swedish population in the village, which still speaks Swedish as their mother tongue.
However, the Migration Board rejected their application, writes the journalist Kjell Albin Abrahamson in Länstidningen Östersund. He recently visited Ukraine and the Swedish village, where grinding poverty still prevails.
“Maybe the Swedish villagers should have instead been illiterates from Somalia,” says Kjell Albin Abrahamson, which for someone in the leftish Swedish press is a very unusual reflection.
@kerubi – “Finnish nationalism was not started by ‘ethnic Swedes’. There was no clear-cut Swedish ‘Herrenvolk’ ruling the Finnish majority. The situation was more complex.”
right. i know that a lot of the swedish-speaking finns were not ethnic swedes, but at the same time, many of them were or were partly swedish somewhere down the line.
an awful lot of the fennoman folks were from western or southern finland, regions which saw the settlement of ethnic swedes. and genetic studies do show that western finns cluster with ethnhic swedes rather than ethnic finns.
looking at the list of prominent fennomans on wikipedia (the ones with links):
– Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen, formerly Georg Zacharias Forsman – father’s family from sweden
– Johan Vilhelm Snellman – family from ostrobothnia (western finland, heavily settled by swedes)
– Emil Nestor Setälä – family from western finland
– Daniel Juslenius – family was from sw finland
– Johannes Linnankoski – family from southern finland
– Juho Kusti Paasikivi, formerly Johan Gustav Helstén – family from southern finland
– Alexandra Gripenberg – ethnic finn, i think – family from eastern finland (now russia) – she looks finnish to me!
– Eero Järnefelt – family from eastern finland (now russia)
– Julius Krohn – baltic german
that’s about half of the most prominent fennomans whose families came from sweden, western finland, or southwestern finland. only a couple came from eastern finland.
there’s a rather heavy swedish influence here, i think. i mean, the fennomans weren’t really coming from savonia or somewhere more in the finnish heartland. they were coming from regions of finland that had been settled by (the more outbred, i think) swedes — and a lot of them appear to have been swedes or part swedes.
@fnn – “Sweden denies entry to Swedish-speaking ethnic Swedes from Ukraine”
yeah. =/ i remember that for some strange reason.
@dearieme – “Really that’s terrible balls about England. It didn’t have any non-fleeting, substantial, unified character until the conquest. It woz Frenchmen wot made it. Sad but true.”
yeah, i have a hard time believing that “the english” in the 800s thought of themselves as “the english”, although perhaps some kings and chroniclers wanted to portray the situation thusly. and this is coming from ME, ms. anglophile herself who wants to credit the english with all things bright and beautiful. (~_^)
so you think it was the froggies, eh? hmmmm….
a number of distinctions need to be made. One important distinction is that between older nations such as England and France, for instance, and newer nations such as Britain or the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic, which has a better claim than the United States of America to be the ‘first new nation’, since it was founded nearly two hundred years earlier.”
And Portugal, the most oldest modern nation of Europe???
Sorry for by comment (i know, my promisse) but i do not see anycomm here talking about the Portugal and the Avis dinasty (XIV).
Greetings from a new Finnish reader and thank you for an interesting blog. Like kerubi earlier in this thread, I’d like to emphasizee, that surnames are particularly bad indicator of ethnic origin in Finland. Earlier everyone, who had a bit of education or money took (or had to take) a Swedish or other “foreign” surname. Even those who were unlucky enough to be drafted in the army were usually given Swedish names (that is why Nyman =Newman is one of the most common Swedish surnames in Finland; army clerks didn’t even try to write difficult Finnish surnames of conscripts). Of course it is true, that most educated elite hailed from Western or Southern Finland: only university was there. But you have to remember that only coastal areas of Finland were ever colonized by Swedes, not Western or Southern inland. Of course very many early Finnish nationalists had a healthy dose of Swedish (or e.g. German) blood in their veins, but that doesn’t mean, that there were not “completely” Finnish early nationalists. Couple of examples from Savonia could be mentioned: Dr. Paavo Tikkanen (one of the first university students, who didn’t change his name) and Dr. Rietrikki Polén.
“Maybe the Swedish villagers should have instead been illiterates from Somalia,” says Kjell Albin Abrahamson, which for someone in the leftish Swedish press is a very unusual reflection.”
Kjell Albin Abrahamson was a major character in MSM a few years ago but this comes from a local newspaper. All the nationwide media suppress this story. Meanwhile all arriving Syrians – without exception – will be granted asylum and most likely their families too. We are talking about at least around 30-50K people. But a handful of ethnic Swedes? No way in hell.
There was quite clearly a sense of English identity prior to the Conquest. The Battle of Brunanburh poem explicitly mentions Mercians and Wessexman fighting against their foes. Also the ending describes the battle as being the most glorious fought since the Angles and Saxons conquered the Welsh! This was 937 or thereabouts.
The Battle of Maldon (fought in 991) has Mercians and Northumbrian men defending Essex against viking attackss, which suggests a common identity. Wulftan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos is also quite clearly directed to all Englishmen.
I’d say there was a vague English identity in the eighth century, but it wasn’t until the ninth or tenth that a proper one came into being.
Nationalism development in Poland was, I think, accelerated because of German colonisation and peaked at times when Poland was fragmented. Just find what archibishop Świnka had to say about Germans… or how Władysław Łokietek punished citizens of Royal city of Kraków.
Also Czech eruption of nationalism seems to be tied to German colonisation. Hus was saying about how Czechs should be hosts in Czech kingdom, not Germans; hussite chronicles say about German being inborn enemies of Czech “language” and all other “Slavic language” . At one point Czech hussites participating on POlish side against Teutons captured Czech mercenaries fighting for Teutons. They BURNED them because they helped Germans against Slavic brethren.
In other words, from this two examples nationalism would emerge when faced with ever-present “others” who are privileged (or when others invade – Polish was much more nationalist in XVII century than in XVI). Nationalism then is needed as a uniting force against “the others”.
BTW Czech definition from the end of XIV century: nation are people united by common blood, language and faith seems to be different from XIX century definition only by “faith” component.
“In other words, from this two examples nationalism would emerge when faced with ever-present “others” who are privileged (or when others invade”
I think that’s right. I think there are two forms: the kind of national consciousness formed by defensive war which is *off* by default in favor of clan/tribe/region loyalties but switches on when attacked from outside and the relatedness form of national consciousness where the nation is seen as the default scale of loyalty and is switched *on* by default.
I am not convinced that Finland really belongs east of the Hajnal line. What is Hajnal`s evidence? As a history student, I read a lot about Finnish history in the Swedish era. I find it difficult to believe that there would have been a fundamental difference in marriage and family structures between Swedes and Finns. Historians who are specialists in this area generally emphasize the similarities between us. After all, we lived under the same law, administration and church for 500-600 years. Since the reign of Gustav Vasa, the Swedish state was pretty good at unifying institutions and customs. I can`t see here a contrast between inclusive-minded Swedes and clannish Finns.
@kerubi – ” I find it difficult to believe that there would have been a fundamental difference in marriage and family structures between Swedes and Finns.”
the difference seems to be (as i guessed) between western and eastern finns — westerns finns (many of them swedish or part swedish) appear to have practiced later marriage (and so should be INSIDE the hajnal line) and had nuclear families, etc., etc., whereas the eastern finns practiced early marriage and had extended families, etc., etc. [see page 38+ here]. and the eastern finns do seem to have been clannish — they had blood feuds and everything!
finland seems to be on the border of the hajnal line.
Thank you for those links, hbd chick! We have known for a long time that there is a major cultural dividing line in Finland. This runs roughly along the borderline of 1323 between Sweden and Novgorod. Recent studies suggest that this is a genetic borderline as well. Western Finns are genetically closer related to Swedes than to Eastern Finns.
@kerubi – “We have known for a long time that there is a major cultural dividing line in Finland. This runs roughly along the borderline of 1323 between Sweden and Novgorod.”
oh, right! thanks. i need to learn more about finland. all i know at this point in time is: nokia, wife-carrying races, and tango. (~_^)
“Western Finns are genetically closer related to Swedes than to Eastern Finns.”
This is nonsense coming from a Finnish mutation of political correctness that makes it obligatory to consider the Swedish minority just as Finnish as any Finn. Any study of “Western Finns” is likely to include a whole lot of Swedes as “Western Finns” and everything we know is perfectly consistent with the idea that there’s no split between Western and Eastern Finns and that the big split that shows up in studies is actually a split between coastal Swedes and inland Finns – it’s just taboo to state that.
BTW this pact to consider Swedes in Finland “just as Finnish” is what Mangan thinks is “Finnish nationalism”. What he’s actually heard of is not any type of nationalism of ethnic Finns but deracinated intellectuals who wanted to declare themselves Finnish regardless of actual background in a bid for status in an emerging country.
The Sibelius example is good. Look at the phoney Latin name. It means that he had some social climbing ancestor who wanted to distinguish the family from the average peasant Svensson. Some ethnic Swedish fisherman called Svensson would not have joined Finnish nationalism and he would have not identified with families like Sibelius who first tried swapping Swedish for Latinisms in a bid for prestige and then moved onto Finnish as another opportunistic idea.
People like that often found themselves hated by Swedes and mistrusted by Finns but the shock of World War II, the sudden unfashionableness of radical ethnic nationalism and the fear of Russia forced a compromise and this current pact was the winning vision. But consider stuff like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimosodat
Ethnic Finnish nationalists flocked to volunteer to fight for Estonians and other peoples that you’ve likely not even heard of simply out of intuitive kinship recognition. Somehow all the intellectual constructions that Swedish artists and intellectuals came up with to consider themselves Finnish didn’t inspire them to similar risk taking. What a mystery.
@Jakko Raipala:
“‘Western Finns are genetically closer related to Swedes than to Eastern Finns.’
This is nonsense coming from a Finnish mutation of political correctness that makes it obligatory to consider the Swedish minority just as Finnish as any Finn. Any study of “Western Finns” is likely to include a whole lot of Swedes as “Western Finns” and everything we know is perfectly consistent with the idea that there’s no split between Western and Eastern Finns and that the big split that shows up in studies is actually a split between coastal Swedes and inland Finns – it’s just taboo to state that.”
I thought that. That’s why I didn’t put much stock in that. We need some investigation of Finland that can genetically segregate the population.
It’s definitely worth noting while Finland may be between Sweden and Russia in many cultural respects (e.g., ethnic nationalism), it definitely closer to the Western nations over all (e.g., very low levels of corruption, and hence, presumably, clannishness).
The Finns (like the Icelandic and the Japanese) seem to behave as if the whole country is one big clan…
I have a hard time taking anybody serious, that think Bede is real. The English wrote out of their history at one point that they are at least partially a Scandinavian nation, and replaced it with partially fake history. That Bede uses years from Christ for dating, should disqualify him right away.
There is nothing in English history books that can explain why English is a Scandinavian language, but if we assume Franklin was correct in that the British Isles were the America of the remaining nations of the North Sea, it is no longer is a mystery, as the same thing happened there, as later happened in the USA. Fist you had many different colonies, where war led to one nation controlling it all, before another war broke the consolidated colony away from the home country.
As for the Finns, what I have read, it is that the Scandinavian admixture came from middle Norway, and not from Sweden, which at that time was a petty kingdom in the Stockholm area. According to the Sagas, the Finns had three nations Estonia, Finland and Queenland, and they seem to have been on roughly the same technological level as the Scandinavians.
The Scandinavians can not admit they eradicated functioning nations, hence the bullshit about the Sami, that in reality is just Finns and Queens, with some Samoyed admixture for the Reindeer-Lapps. What is funny, is that it is Samish people that have found out this themselves, by looking up their own ancestry in old church books etc.
Fear about Russia pretending to be the defenders of the Finnish people, and taking Northern Scandinavia, might also have played it’s part in having disappeared Queenland and Finland from the history books.
yes, the early modern venetians were a nation, but the reason their nation was so small/narrow compared to england or france was because the italians had a longer history of inbreeding than the english or french. the nation was just venice and not “northern italy” There were not real conflicts on interest with trade rival Genoa. Venice was run to benefit the people who ran it. I don’t go for this ‘trait’ explaination, it assumes states and entities size is a result of some trait of clannishness or openness. Whether to join a larger social unit, or defect from it, is basically determined by self interest consideration of how to prosper Venice prospered as a city state
Italian fascism and German National socialism must be considered nationalist movements. What both had in common was that they were responses to the growth of communism. Is it argued there is no difference between communism and nationalism as mass movements require outbred populations. How explain the Russian and Chinese revolutions on this basis?
[…] If you remain skeptical of this theory, all is fine, but let me tell you something — it does a decent job explaining why the Swedish welfare state works perfectly fine for Scandinavians, but results in utter dysfunction for Somali refugees. It explains why democracy persistently fails in certain parts of the world, despite billions of dollars spent on aid, foreign advisers, and the best advice of seasoned policymakers — some people don’t give a damn about people outside their extended family, and you can’t change that. It explains why there is a west-east cline in Europe for corruption, social trust, and civic mindedness, inasmuch as they can be measured by political scientists — Ukrainians are much more corrupt than the Norwegians, and they’ve been this way for a long time [see big summary post on the hajnal line | hbd* chick]. It does NOT say that all human behavior is [completely] genetically mediated, or that altruism is automatically greater in societies were people have been marrying unrelated persons. Which is why one or two generations of marrying more distant relatives – or marrying outside the group entirely – won’t produce a substantial change in a people’s behavioral traits. Long-term selective pressures are necessary [see this comment of mine]. […]
[…] Japan. These societies demonstrate that the distribution of close marriage may be important, as I’ve noted previously. Taiwan, and for that matter, Singapore and Hong Kong, present similar challenges for HBD […]
[…] suggests that a large fraction of whites are exceptions from tribalism because of past extensive out-breeding. With this unique heritage that now seems to have become pathological, it can be seen why […]