Nationalism on the Margins - Brendan Karch

on both the mechanisms of state power and the promise of social uplift to convert local
citizens, Polish nationalists were fighting against these tides and relied largely on
transforming social grievances, and what one scholar has called a national “inferiority
complex,” into support for the Polish nation. 16
Although an examination of a unique border zone, this study of local nationalist
politics in Oppeln/Opole is intended to apply to cases beyond the small sub-region.
Limiting the project to this micro-region is more than a convenient delimiting factor in
choosing evidence: its geographic scale is key to both the theoretical framing and
conclusions. This work is intended to help fill a gap in our understanding of nationalization
processes at the level of local politics and everyday society, particularly in areas subject to
two competing national movements. In so doing, it draws into question long-standing
assumptions about the relationship between ethnic groups, modern nations, and national
self-determination.
NATIONALISM, ETHNICITY, AND DEMOCRACY
In analyzing the construction of nation-states at the local level, it is particularly
important to distinguish between elite and popular consciousness, between nationalist
activists and the broader populace. Miroslav Hroch has argued that national development
often depended on an educated, socially elite corps of activists who could lead less-educated
“unawakened” populations towards national consciousness. In the case of Central European
nationalisms, particularly among subject peoples of the Russian, Austrian, and German
Empires, this elite corps was only established in the nineteenth century when nationalists
16 On the “inferiority complex” see Stanisław Ossowski, "Zagadnienia więzi regionalnej i więzi narodowej na Śląsku
Opolskim," Przegląd Socjologiczny IX, no. 1-3 (1947): 119.
10