"Nationality"

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Paul Gallagher wrote

> Of course, other factors come into play here, the most obvious one 
> being which "nationality" the person considers primary. In the case of 
> Americans, most of whom are proud of their adopted country, it is 
> common to say they are Americans most of all and also secondarily of 
> Italian, Irish, etc. descent. From what you said this evening, the 
> German Russians consider themselves primarily Germans and secondarily 
> residents of Russia, so it would be natural for them to call 
> themselves "Russian Germans." Compare for example Jewish American vs. 
> American Jew -- both possibilities exist according to the desired 
> emphasis.


It is good that you put "nationality" in quotes here, for it (and 
"nation") has at least two meanings in the literature on national identity:
1) ethnic identity, descent, extraction (usually "natsional'nost'" or 
"etnos" in Russian),
2) civic or state identity, or citizenship (usually "grazhdanstvo").

Thus to speak of the "Jewish nation" as it existed over centuries of 
Diaspora, or of "Russian nationalism" - is to use the terminology in the 
first sense.   But to speak of the "American nation" or the "United 
Nations" is to use it in the second sense.  The French have a "nation" 
in both senses of the word, while the Kurds have a "nation" in only the 
first sense of the word.  The traditional literature on nationalism 
(Kohn, Gellner, Connor, Greenfeld, etc.) tends to focus on the first 
sense of the word.

Valerii Tishkov, former Minister of Nationalities in the Eltsin 
government, observed that, in the post-Soviet space, some "nations" have 
been trying to expand from the first sense of the term to the second.  
Alas, Chechnya/Ichkeria is the bloodiest example.

Regards to the list.

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere

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