"Ethnic Nation: Values and Interests" (continued) - Karen AGEKYAN

Karen Agekyan's article "The Ethnic Nation: Values and Interests" (continued) is devoted to analyzing the conditions and limits of applicability of the concept of "nation" to ethnic communities of the pre-modern era, as well as the mechanisms of transformation of an ethnos into an ethnic community and further into a political nation.

Introduction and Methodology

The author formulates two opposing methodological errors that should be avoided when studying the genesis of nations:
— an artificial "ageing" of the nation, attributing its existence long before the era of Modernity;
— a sharp opposition of the pre-national and the national, treating the nation exclusively as a product of the Modern era.

Instead, it is proposed to view the formation of a nation as a centuries-long and contradictory process, in which the vectors of mobilization of an ethnos into a nation and the reverse demobilization compete with one another.

Key Proposition

A full-fledged ethnic nation is defined by three interrelated parameters:
— awareness of the nation as the primary value and priority;
— internal equality of members of the community;
— the political field as the main arena for the struggle for common interests.

"Horizontal" and "Vertical" Types of Communities

Drawing on the concepts of Ernest Gellner and Anthony Smith, the author examines the structure of pre-modern society, built on estate and religious distinctions. A distinction is introduced between two types of ethnic communities:
— the "horizontal" type — a privileged estate with ethnic self-awareness, not interested in spreading its culture to the lower strata (the Polish gentry, the Hungarian nobility);
— the "vertical," "demotic" type — a community encompassing all social strata and united by a common culture and common defense (Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Irish, Basques, etc.).

External Oppression as a Factor of Consolidation

The author shows that the "vertical" cross-estate unity of an ethnos is most often formed under the influence of external pressure and discrimination, rather than privileges. An extensive quotation is given from David Ananyan's work on the Armenian melikdoms, illustrating how a shared vulnerability before external authority bound the melik and the population subject to him more closely than formal hierarchy did.

The Locality of Peasant Communities

The question of the limits of ethnic self-awareness under conditions where a patriarchal subsistence economy prevailed is examined separately. With reference to Karl Deutsch and again to David Ananyan, it is argued that an exchange economy and the intensification of communications are a necessary condition for the transition from a local, communal identity to a broader "national awakening." In the absence of such conditions, as the example of eastern Armenian reality at the beginning of the 19th century shows, the various social strata of the Armenians (meliks, peasants, artisans, clergy) did not constitute a "collective personality" with a unified will and awareness of common belonging.

Conclusion

The key conclusion of the article is that the transformation of an ethnos into a nation is a process requiring a combination of several factors: cross-estate ethnic solidarity, caused more often by external oppression than by privileges, as well as economic conditions ensuring intensive intra-ethnic communications. Without these preconditions, ethnic self-awareness remains localized within individual communities and does not grow into the conscious unity of a nation as a subject of political history.