Народы Центральной Европы: формирование национального самосознания. ХVIII-ХІХ вв по А. С. Мыльников (review)

463 Ab Imperio, 3/2003 Andriy ZAYARNYUK A. C. Mыльников. Народы Цен- тральной Европы: формирование национального самосознания. ХVIII-ХІХ вв. Санкт-Петербург: Петрополис, 1997. Myl’nikov’s book can be seen as a continuation of his two previous books dealing with ethnic and national consciousness in early modern Eastern and Central Europe.1 This is despite the fact that the author himself does not mention his earlier works and places his book more in the context of investigating the formation and development of Central European nations. Myl’nikov views the process of nation-formation as occurring in the 18th-19th centuries and connects it with the transition from feudalism to capitalism. For Myl’nikov, Central Europe, for this particular period, coincides with the Prussian, Habsburg and Russian monarchies, although in the case of the latter it seems to be limited to the non-Russian nations of the Empire’s “western borderlands.” Myl’nikov defines his task as a comparative investigation of the “national self-consciousness,” which played “key and most generalizing role” in the formation of the region’s “incomplete” (in original “not posessing the full right” – nepolnopravnykh) nations. According to the author, national self-consciousness was part of a larger cultural system, which, in turn, was being transformed in the transition from feudalism to capitalism . National self-consciousness is represented as having grown up from the interaction of ethnic, social and “spiritual” contexts of the age. This self-consciousness had a “multidimensional structure,” which included self-definition, selfpositioning and self-assertion. While the first two could be connected largely with intellectuals and their work, the last one indicated a more mature stage in the development of the nations, the involvement of the masses, and the fulfillment of key ethno-psychological functions. The stage of a nation’s self-assertion was characterized by the growing importance of signs and symbols . National symbols combined into symbolic systems providing an explanation for national differences. Drawing on the reserve of symbols gathered in the pre-national period, the nations composed their own symbolic inventories. The author stresses the selectiveness of this process , the formation of new national 1 Мыльников А. С. Картина славянского мира: Взгляд из Восточной Европы. Этногенетический легенды, догадки, протогипотезы XVI - начала XVIII века. СПб., 1996. 464 Рецензии/Reviews semiotic systems, which had little to do with the history of concrete symbols , the meaning of which could be understood only in the context of this new national system. The main function of nationalized symbols was to unite an ethnic group, thus contributing to the development of national consciousness. National self-consciousness, being a new phenomenon, was not inserted from above, but combined both guidance, represented by the city as a generator of national consciousness and spontaneity represented by the village, the reservoir of national consciousness.The development and elaboration of national theories by the patriotic intelligentsia was successful only because it was supported by the spontaneous growth of national consciousness among the wider masses. Myl’nikov represents the theoretical elaboration of national consciousness and its constant modernization as the process of “structuration.” The mode of this process was patriotism. The author makes a distinction between pre-national patriotism, which reflected feudal realities and modern national patriotism. Modern national patriotism went through three periods , which basically coincide with Hroch’s A, B, and C phases. While the national bourgeoisie was using patriotism for its own means, patriotism had first of all a democratic and humanist value for the progressive national intelligentsia. The author tries to solve the problem of the relationships between national and “people’s (narodnaia) culture.” Mel’nikov states that the ethnic culture of the transitional period from feudalism to capitalism was as heterogeneous as the social structure. Some phenomena of people’s culture interacted with upper (ordodominant) culture, and participated in the formation of national culture, and some did not. These two main subcultures interacted intensively during the process of national formation and we can trace their influence on each other, which varied in the concrete cases of each nation. The formation of national culture meant “objectivation” of the national self-consciousness. National culture provided communicative space for the accumulation and distribution of knowledge. Myl’nikov’s discussion of culture as communicative space concentrates on two aspects – books and theatre. The growth of publishing strengthened national languages and together with educational reforms led to the growth of the consuming...