Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

Nationalizing Minorities and Homeland Politicstural nationality; and (3) the assertion, on the basis of this ethnoculturalnationality, of certain collective cultural or political rights. 9This approach is analytically and methodologically rewarding. At the sametime, Brubaker does not concentrate on the national minority, but on theinterplay of the three elements. While this approach is very useful, onemust, nevertheless, go further and focus more on the national minority.After the definition of the entity, one should also look at the definition ofthe nationalism of a specific group:Minority nationalist stances characteristically involve a self-understandingin specially “national” rather than merely “ethnic” terms, a demand forstate recognition of their distinct ethnocultural nationality, and the assertionof certain collective, nationality-based cultural or political rights. 10The nation and the national minority can be defined in many ways, butone can capture their dynamic aspect only by analyzing them in terms ofongoing processes, such as nationalism. Obviously, I use nationalism asa value-free and descriptive concept, in the sense of a politics based on thenationality principle.Furthermore, I am interested in the mechanisms and patterns ofthese processes because my assumption is that one must analyze the verysame mechanisms in the case of national minorities. Taking into considerationthe actors and the agents involved, one can understand the interplayof different types of nationalism, but not the policy of the national minority.In order to understand this policy, one should describe it sociologically,taking into account both the expressed political goals and the hidden,but assumed ends. Obviously, I have to answer how one can analyze anunfinished process, and how one can anticipate the outcome. In my view,this question cannot be answered with scientific rigor. What are the criteriafor a nation? When can one say that the nation exists? One knows thatthe German, the French, the Hungarian, the Romanian, etc. nations doexist, moreover, one has no doubts about this, even though they are ina permanent process of transformation.Walker Connor is rightly stressing the “when” question. 11 Nevertheless,he only narrows the time span by arguing that nationalism is a massphenomenon and only with the integration of the masses into the body ofthe nation one may consider the process finalized. As a matter of fact,both Hroch and Connor emphasize the importance of the mass characterof nationalism. As Hroch puts it, “the process of nation-forming acquiresan irreversible character only once the national movement won mass support,thereby reaching phase C.” 12 However, by analyzing the process and253