CZESLAW MILOSZ
On Nationalism
A
famous manifesto of 1848 began with the words: "A specter is haunt–
ing Europe, the specter of Communism." Now, at the end of the twen–
tieth century, looking back at the history of many decades, we recognize
the validity of those words written by Marx and Engels. From our per–
spective, however, another statement would have also been true: "A
specter is haunting Europe, the specter of nationalism." It is an open
question as to which of those two specters has proved its greater ability
to become reality. However, while many thousands of pages have been
dedicated to Communism, nationalism remains elusive, not openly con–
fronted, and even shameful. In view of the magnitude of evil perpetrated
in the name of a nation confronting another nation, as well as the absurd
doctrines justifying the unique vocation of one's own nation, that
reticence in recognizing the importance of the phenomenon is under–
standable. And yet wherever we look in the world today we see the ex–
treme vitality of various nationalisms engaging human lives and making
people ready to die in the name of a given nation.
At the end of the eighteenth century the word
nation
started to at–
tract attention because the French nation was a great motoric force in
the history of that period. The French nation was bound by the ideals of
the rights of man and of the French Revolution; to be a Frenchman
meant to make a choice, and in fact foreigners would proclaim them–
selves Frenchmen because they shared the revolutionary ideal. Spawned in
a way by the philosophers of the French Enlightenment, the Revolution
was bringing forward a peculiar commitment to the universal ideas of
brotherhood, of equality, and of liberty as a bond of all who belonged
to
la nation.
All of us who like myself have been primarily engaged in the
history of literature rather than the study of history itself are aware of the
central role played by Romanticism in Europe, especially in East Central
Europe.
Nation
in Romanticism means something very different from
la
Editor's Note: "On Nationalism" and "Reality" are excerpted from
Beginning
with
My
Streets
by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Madeline G. Levine , to be
published by Farrar, Straus
&
Giroux. Translation copyright
©
Farrar, Straus
&
Giroux, Inc. All rights reserved.
