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

ZOLTÁN KÁNTORthe related mechanisms, one can avoid the hypothetical final stage: the“built,” “assembled,” or “formed” nation (or national minority). I agreewith those who suggest that there are no objective criteria for the formednation; and this is obviously true for national minorities as well. Thenation, once “awakened,” must not fall asleep again – this is the nationalists’credo. There is no example of any state or nation, especially in East-Central Europe, that relinquished the nationalizing project. One canestablish that the nationalizing process has started, but it is impossible todecide upon the moment of its end because there are no criteria thatdefine the successfully accomplished process. Moreover, even if the elite(politicians, intellectuals, etc.) consider that the process has reached anend, one has to maintain, sometimes to “re-build,” and to “refurbish” thenation. Since nationalism has appeared, the process is permanent. Nationalismhas become the central ideology of the state, especially in the easternpart of Europe.Some authors spend considerable energy on demonstrating thatthe nation-state, the nation, or the state are dying or losing their importance.Others, such as Michael Mann, claim that nation-states are diversifying,transforming, but their foundations remain, more or less,untouched. 13 It is not my intention to enter into a debate about thefuture of the nation-state, considering that predictions on the issue donot facilitate the analysis of processes. One possible approach to nationalconflicts in Eastern Europe is to stress the parallel and often conflictualprocesses of nation-building. Once the ideal of the nation becameimportant, there does not seem to be any sign that it will loose itssalience. Nationalism may be transformed, but it remains an importantorganizational principle in our world.One of the essential questions on national minorities is their distinctivedynamics. However, not so much has been written on this issue.The literature on minority nationalism usually searches for “deeper”explanations, and generally analyzes the national minority in the presentcontext. Such works are usually written by the members of that particularnational minority, and focus on their claims toward the state orthe majority. These authors are not interested in social phenomena, butmake an effort to provide solutions for achieving the goals of the minority.In such studies, the national minority is sharply separated from thedynamics of the ethnocultural nation. From the moment when itbecame a national minority, many studies focus on the manifestationsof nationalism in a given context, but fail to explain it as a process.Therefore, one must examine the formation of the ethnocultural nationand the nation-building process in order to understand the dynamics ofthe national minority’s politics.254