Nationalism, Nation-building, and the Decline of Empires

Seminars & International Conference, May 22-27, 2023

Monday

May

2023

Saturday

May

2023

Nationalism is reappearing on the international scene in acute and aggressive forms, despite decades of economic globalization, the development of a cosmopolitan culture, and supranational integration as in the case of the European Union and other centers of global or regional aggregation on the economic, financial, legal, and institutional levels. It is reappearing also as a reaction to these phenomena and is feeding political forms such as sovereignism and populism in Western democracies. This is leading to exclusionary forces, intolerance, racism, and the search for scapegoats within minority, foreign, and migrant communities. The ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine stems from Russian nationalism in its most extreme and radical forms arising from the collapse of the Soviet Union, heir to the Tsarist imperial system. Ukraine, like so much of Eastern Europe, lies at the crossroads of the decline of the three empires, Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian between the 19th and 20th centuries. The Balkan crisis of the 1990s with its civil wars and ethnic cleansing is part of the same cycle of events that followed the fall of communist regimes. The process of the formation of European nations suggests the usefulness of a comparative analysis of the history of these supranational imperial systems.

Europe seemed almost to have built immunity towards conflict through unitary policies and a refocusing of identity as a continental aspiration rather than a nationalist one. However, destabilizing forces have taken root in Western society, plying nationalist ideals as a catchall cure for internal dissatisfaction and despondency. Nowhere is this playing out more evidently than in Russia, but the effects of this ideology can be spotted all over Europe and the world. Where there are no military wars going on, it is possible to identify another type of conflict, cultural wars, taking hold in the Western world, strengthening nationalist movements by manipulating religion and gender debates.

The conference will provide a structural, in-depth understanding of the way wars and the collapse of empires allow for the formation or strengthening of national identities and narratives, as well as the self-recognition of nations emerging from such processes in the global arena. Historians, political theorists, sociologists, and philosophers will address the key research questions in expert panels and seminars with young scholars.

Program

Monday - 22 May
Seminars - @ Boston College Ireland

9:15 AM
Registration & Welcome – Jonathan Laurence

9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Lecturer 1 – Alessia Passarelli

11:00 AM -11:15 AM
Break

11:15 AM - 12:45 PM
Lecturer 2 - Karen Barkey

12:45 PM - 1:45 PM
Lunch

1:45 PM
FMSH Practical Workshops*:
Group A: Sylvie Gangloff - Research Funding;
Group B: Francis Lemaitre - Research; Databases;
Group C: Remi Houlez - Using Media

3:45 PM - 4:00 PM
Break

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
2 Thematic Student Workshops

Tuesday - 23 May
Seminars - @ Boston College Ireland

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Lecturer 3 - Mark Duncan

10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Break

11:00 AM -12:30 PM
Lecturer 4 - Jonathan Laurence

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
FMSH Practical Workshops*:
Group A: Sylvie Gangloff - Research Funding;
Group B: Francis Lemaitre - Research; Databases;
Group C: Remi Houlez - Using Media

3:30 PM - 3:45 PM
Break

3:45 PM - 5:15 PM
2 Thematic Student Workshops

Wednesday - 24 May
Seminars - @ Boston College Ireland

9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Lecturer 5 - Mike Cronin

10:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Break

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Lecturer 6 - Cengiz Aktar

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
FMSH Practical Workshops*:
Group A: Sylvie Gangloff - Research Funding;
Group B: Francis Lemaitre - Research; Databases;
Group C: Remi Houlez - Using Media

3:30 PM
Walking tour and Dinner at Pub TBD for Students and Speakers - Leave from BCI

* The practical sessions organized by the FMSH will be on the following:
1. Writing and disseminating research through sounds and images
2. Horizon Europe funding opportunities and recommendations
3. Databases as a tool for Social Sciences and Humanities. An introduction through MySQL

Thursday - 25 Ma
Conference - @ Freemason Hall

9:00 AM Welcome
Jonathan Laurence, Clough Center (Boston College), Giancarlo Bosetti, Reset DOC

9:30 AM - 11:00 AM - The burden of nationalism on the post-imperial landscape and in Europe
● Karen Barkey (Bard College)
● Robert Gerwarth (University College Dublin)
● Constantin Iordachi (Central European University) - Liberalism, Nationalism and Minorities: The Making
of Nation-State Citizenship in Post-Ottoman Balkans.

11:00 AM Coffee Break

11:30 AM - 1:00 PM - The Sick Man of Europe and neo-Ottoman ambitions
● Cengiz Aktar (University of Athens EKPA) - Observations on the illiberal outcome in the post-imperial
successor state Turkey
● Salim Çevik (German Institute for International and Security Affairs) - From Empire to Nation: Religious and Ethnic Pluralism in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey
● Johanna Chovanec (University of Vienna) [VIRTUAL]

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Lunch

2:30 PM- 4:30 PM - Russian Nationalism and the “Russian World”
● Riccardo Cucciolla (Università degli Studi di Napoli - Orientale)
● Mark Kramer (Harvard University) - Putin and Putinism: Autocratic and Imperial Ambitions
● Marlène Laruelle (George Washington University) [VIRTUAL]

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - 2 Thematic Student Workshops

Friday - 26 May
Conference - @ Freemason Hall

9:30 AM - 11:00 AM - The Soviet Legacy
● Anna Colin Lebedev (Université Paris Nanterre) - Memory and amnesia of the Soviet past in the Ukraine war
● Andrea Graziosi (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) - Stalin's and Soviet Theory of Nationality and Nationalism: Intellectual Roots and Political Legacy
● Yaroslav Hrytsak (Catholic University of Lviv) - The Third Ukraine: A Case of Civic Nationalism

11:00 AM Coffee Break

11:30 AM - 1:00 PM - Habsburg: The conflict between identity and integration
● Marco Bresciani (Università degli Studi di Firenze) - Fascist Ideas, Practices and Networks of "Empire":Interwar Italy as Post-Habsburg History
● Pieter Judson (European University Institute) - Prison of Peoples? Conflict Management in Habsburg Central Europe, 1848-1925
● Clemens Ruthner - Bosnia-Herzegovina: (colonial and imperial) Lessons to be learned from the Habsburg Monarchy

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Lunch

2:30 PM- 4:30 PM - The weight of nationalism and borders today
● Daniela Luigia Caglioti (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) - Citizenship and nationalism: inclusion and exclusion in interwar Europe;
● Mike Cronin (Boston College Ireland) - Sport and Nationalism
● Yuli Tamir (Beit Berl College) [VIRTUAL]

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - 2 Thematic Student Workshops

Saturday - 27 May
Conference and Seminars - @ Boston College Ireland

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM - Student Workshop Presentations

11:30 AM Coffee Break

11:45 AM - 1:00 PM - Roundtable: The changing balance among superpowers: nations and neo imperial ambitions
● Anna Colin Lebedev (Université Paris Nanterre)
● Andrea Graziosi (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II)
● Pieter Judson (European University Institute)
● Mark Kramer (Harvard University)
● Mark Lilla (Columbia University)