The Nationalization of Culture Orvar Lofgren Lofgren , Orvar 1989 : Th e Nationali zation of Cultur e. - Ethnologi a Europ aea XIX: 5-23 . Although na tional.ism is an exa mple of a cultur al fol'ce which in many cases has overrul ed 0U1er, traditional identit ies and loyalties in 19th and 20th centur y 11ociety, the st udy of n ationalism has not been focused very much on th e culLw:al praxis of naLional identity formation and harin g. As a result , the ideology and politics of nationali sm are far better unders tood than the creation of Hungari an­ ness and wedi.shness. This paper discusses some approaches in the national-cultur e buildin g of very­ day life, using mainly Swedish examples. The focus is also on nati onal cult ur e as a battle ar ena, where different interest groups use argum ents about national unity or heritage in hegemonic struggles. Different types of "nationalization processes" are discussed, as for example ways in which certain cultural domains come to be defined as national, how nation.al space is transformed into cultural space , or the way in which every new gener­ ation not only is nationalized into a given heritage but also creates its own version of a common, national frame of reference. Docent, fil .dr. Orvar Lofgr en, Department of Europ ean Ethnology, Lund Uni ­ versity, Finngatan 8, S-22362 Lund. gary. In Budapest Tamas Hofer had, together Revisiting the national project with a group of colleagues, analysed the con­ Nationalism is of special interest to that struction of a Hungarian national identity and branch of anthropology within which most of the crucial role of folk culture in this process, in the following essays were produced : European Stockholm Ake Daun and Billy Ehn, among ethnology, a discipline born in the nineteenth others, had been studying Swedish mentalities century as a child of nationalism and Herder's and changing self-representations , especially Volksgeist. European ethnology and folklore in the light of the recent waves of immigration developed with the more or less explicit goal of to Sweden (cf. Daun & Ehn 1988). In Lund a salvaging and assembling "national" folk cul­ group including Jonas Frykman and myself tures . This strongly ideologically charged pro­ had worked on a project concerning class for­ ject also included ideas about folk mentalities mation and culture-building in nineteenth­ or national character. and twentieth-century Sweden, where one of Later gen erations of ethnologists faced the our main tasks was to scrutinize ideas about a task of critically deconstructing these pioneer modern and homogeneous Swedish national attempts at creating a national folk heritage, culture and to look at the extent to which cli­ and it is only after such a purge that it has ches and notions of national homogeneity con­ become possible to return to the question of cealed a cultural differentiation based upon national identity and culture with new theor­ factors like class, gender and generations (see etical perspectives. Lofgren 1986). This collection of papers was born out of this These various approaches of deconstructing recent ethnological interest in new perspec­ and reconstructing national culture-building tives on the making and remaking of national had led all ofus towards an interest both in the cultures. The starting point was a collabora­ ways in which national rhetoric had been used tion between researchers in Sweden and Hun- as an argument in hegemonic conflicts be- 5 tween competing interests and classes in Hun­ "Symbols and reality in national culture: The n garian and Swedish society during the last cen­ Hungarian case". Here the cultural battle over tury (Do some Hungarian/Swedes claim to be who represents the true Hungarian identity more Hungarian/Swedish than others?), but has been carried out within a very different also in the question of how behind this ideologi­ social structure. He discusses the various cal facade of national unity, an actual national­ paths developed in attempts to construct a ization of shared cultural understandings and Hungarian identity and heritage through uses knowledge had been established. To what ex­ of folk culture and the competing interests in­ tent, for example, do Swedes or Hungarians of volved in these processes. today share common frame of reference com­ A neglected field of study is the strong mod­ pared with the situation fifty or a hundred ern connection between sport and nationalism. years ago? In his paper, "National feeling in sport", Billy It became evident that the cultural politics of Ehn discusses the national rhetorics of sport nation building and the process of nationaliz­ and the ways in which they express national ing culture are best studied within a compara­ sentiments and loyalties, using material tive framework, in order not to be blocked by mainly from Swedish sport journalism . the occupational disease always threatening Katalin Sink6's paper "Arpad versus Saint scholars looking at their native culture: what Istvan: Competing interests in the figurative we in Sweden call "home-blindness". representation of Hungarian history" looks at This collection of essays is the first result of a processes of confrontation and negotiation be­ joint discussion of Hungarian and Swedish re­ tween competing national heroes, symbolizing search into the making and remaking of na­ two different sets of ideas about Hungary and tional cultures. 1 Hungarianess, which have been used by differ­ Ake Daun's contribution, "Studying national ent groups for different purposes over the cen­ culture by means of quantitative methods" turies. mainly deals with the methodological problems Lena J ohannesson discusses a different of studying contemporary culture on a national genre of figurative representations in her pa­ level combining qualitative and quantitative per "Anti-heroic heroes in more or less heroic approaches. Drawing from an ongoing re­ media". She looks at the ways in which Swed­ search project he discusses various strategies ish anti-heroes have been portrayed in 20th for locating basic themes and personality traits century media and the ways in which these on a national level, trying to avoid the pitfalls national images are comments on "Swedish" of earlier grandiose speculations about "na­ virtues and vices. tional character". Food seems to have a magic position in the Jonas Frykman's paper "Social mobility and maintenance of an national identity among ex­ national character" looks at ideas about what patriots, who long to feel the tastes of the old is seen as "typically Swedish" and relates them country. Lists of what is "typical" Swedish of­ to the culture-building of Swedish intellectuals ten include food-items. In her paper, "From in the making of the modern welfare state. It is peasant dish to national symbol: An early de­ their style of life and outlook on the world that liberate example", Eszter Kisban traces a very has often been expressed in terms of "national marked Hungarian example of the making of a character". He analyses the social and cultural national dish and the ways in which this Hun­ conditions under which such images of culture garian symbol has been used in cultural poli­ and personality are produced - a society with a tics as well as in the tourist industry market­ high degree of mobility. ing of Hungarian culture. His analysis of a national setting, where pro­ gressive intellectuals have dominated the dis­ course on national culture and "Swedishness" New dialogues can be compared to Peter Niedermii.ller's paper The scope of the papers indicates the new kind on class and national culture in Hungary, of interdisciplinary dialogues developed in the 6 field of study of national culture and identity. This early twentieth-century version of a · For a long time this kind of dialogue was poorly royal command may illustrate the first analyt­ developed. Although there were some attempts ical problem, that of working with concepts at cross-disciplinary exchanges, a fairly con­ which cannot easily be moved around in his­ ventional division of labour existed, in which tory. An adjective like "national" or "Swedish" historians concentrated on nationalism as a has totally different connotations for different political and ideological phenomenon, whereas epochs and different social groups. The twen­ anthropologists mainly worked within the con­ tieth-century message of the importance of be­ ceptual framework of ethnicity, mostly with an ing Swedish would have made very little sense emphasis on synchronic perspectives . This tra­ to Gustav Vasa's peasant subjects. Swedish­ ditional division is, however, slowly disinte­ ness is a quality which can hardly be used grating , as historians become more interested transhistorically, at least not without a dis­ in nations as cultural formations and anthro­ cussion of how this elusive trait is defined or pologists have begun to interest themselves in redefined in different historical settings. the cultural politics of nation-building. 2 In the same way we have an extensive de­ Up till a few years ago research on national bate on the concept of nationalism. Should it be identity was to a great extent focused on the reserved for the ideological and political move­ ideology and politics of nationalism, often ments from the late eighteenth century on­ within a framework of exposing nationalism as wards, as a product of the intellectual climate a type of false consciousness. There were so of the American and French revolutions? Is it many myths of national culture, so much ide­ possible or meaningful to talk about national­ ological rhetoric waiting to be scrutinized and ism in medieval England or sixteenth-century exposed. (A fairly typical example of this genre Sweden? It seems to me reasonable to make an is Ernest Gellner's book "Nations and Nation­ analytical distinction between the concepts of alism" from 1983.) This was a necessary phase patriotism and nationalism in this comparative of research which now enables us to look in a context, as representing two different cultural more detached way at nationalism as a cul­ paradigms in nation-building.