mr. mangan, esq., tweeted not too long ago (link inserted by me): “Finnish nationalism was really weird in that it was begun and lead by ethnic Swedes.”

i don’t think that’s weird at all, because i bet that swedes have a longer history of outbreeding than ethnic finns, and, with more and more outbreeding, a group’s “circle of inclusiveness” widens (i think). i’m not 100% certain that the swedes have a longer history of outbreeding than ethnic finns, but i’m betting that they do based on the fact that the finns are outside the hajnal line and the swedes are not, and the general pattern seems to be that those populations that are inside the hajnal line are long-term outbreeders, while the rest are just not. another example resembling the swedish-finnish one is the irish nationalist movement of the 1700-1800s which was heavily influenced by the more outbred anglo-irish.

(btw, daniel olsson tweeted back to mr. mangan that finnish nationalism started with the fennoman movement which, according to him, was comprised of ethnic finns, but, in actuality, it appears that the earliest fennomen were indeed ethnic swedes!)

in “Nationalism and Vernaculars, 1500-1800” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism, peter burke mentions that in thinking about early european nationalist movements [pgs. 23-24]:

“…a number of distinctions need to be made. One important distinction is that between older nations such as England and France, for instance, and newer nations such as Britain or the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic, which has a better claim than the United States of America to be the ‘first new nation’, since it was founded nearly two hundred years earlier.”

so there we have it yet again — as in so many other aspects (the decline of internal violence, for instance), it is the earliest outbreeders in europe that are the “older nations”, whereas the later nation states, like italy, are inbreeders. unfortunately (for me and my theory), germany doesn’t really fit this picture, unless we try to imagine the holy roman empire as a naiton state?…no, that won’t work…always causing trouble the germans. i still think it’s significant, though, that the earliest european nations were some of my “core”, outbreeding europeans and not any of the peripheral groups.

more from burke:

“A second distinction separates small nations such as the Swedes or the Venetians from larger ones such as France or Spain. (The Venetians were surely as much a nation as anyone in early modern Europe, since the city state was independent, and its inhabitants spoke a distinctive language, now classified as a dialect, while expressions of Venetian patriotism were common.)”

this is also directly related to my point about outbreeding and nationalism — yes, the early modern venetians were a nation, but the reason their nation was so small/narrow compared to england or france was because the italians had a longer history of inbreeding than the english or french. the nation was just venice and not “northern italy” or something larger, because the northern italians’ “circle of inclusiveness” was not as broad as that of the english or french (because the italians were not as outbred).

finally:

“A third is the distinction between nationalism, in the sense of an organized social and political movement, and a more diffuse national sentiment, national consciousness, or national identity — which may be stronger or weaker in different places and times and among different social groups. The fact that in French, for instance, the term *patriotisme* came into use around the middle of the eighteenth century, while the term *nationalisme* emerged in the 1790s, suggests that important cultural changes were taking place at that time. It should be added that although the term ‘nation’ was used more rarely and more vaguely before the late eighteenth century than it has been since that time, proud references to the English, French, Spaniards, Germans, and so on are not difficult to find in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as will be seen later in this chapter, even if the question as to who is Dutch, Swedish, Polish, et cetera, was rarely if ever raised in this pre-passport age.”

yes. this is now on my To Do List — find out more about the evolution of national sentiments/consciousness around europe (and the rest of the world) as well as nationalistic movements. the two are obviously related, but not exactly the same thing. it would be very interesting to know which populations were the earliest at feeling like a nation — especially feeling like a big nation, like “french”.

the historian patrick wormald has argued that the english viewed themselves as “english” already at the time the venerable bede (d.735) was writing his famous history (see, for example, chapter five in The Making of English National Identity). that would be truly incredible if it’s true! presumably the “english” at that time would’ve been just the anglos and not any of the enslaved britons. also, hard to know if it was only the intelligensia, like bede, who held this view, or also the anglo-saxon man on the street.

daniel hannan also makes a cautious argument for an early appearance of the english as a nation in Inventing Freedom [pgs. 73-74]:

“[T]he birth of England as a nation-state can be dated to Alfred’s wars. In 876, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘all the English people who were free to give him their allegiance [in other words, were not under Danish occupation] owned Alfred as their King.’

“This is not the first reference to the English people. The concept of an English race, an Angelcynn, had existed from at least the eighth century, possibly earlier. What was new was the idea that all the Angelcynn, by virtue of their common identity, should recognize a single sovereign.”

again, this seems incredibly early for ideas of a nation to be floating about, but perhaps it’s true. still, hard to know if the english people also felt this, or if it was mostly chroniclers and kings and princes.

Further Research (and Rumination) RequiredTM! (^_^)

nowadays, of course, the “circle of inclusiveness” that many outbreeders hold to has expanded waaaay beyond nationalism to include pretty much everyone on the planet (“invite the world!”) and even the members of other species (for example the calls for human rights for chimps — not there’s there’s anything necessarily wrong with that! (~_^) )

(note: comments do not require an email. i can haz human rights?)