Small nations: Hroch’s typology of national movements

Abstract

The paper is an interpretation of the theory of national movements of "small Nations" formulated by the Czech historian Miroslav Hroch in his book Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe and later writings. In his interest for Hroch’s typology of national movements the author was motivated by the idea to explore its applicability in understanding the process of emergence of Serbian and other South Slavic (Balkan) nations. Since Hroch’s writings are virtually unknown in domestic academic literature, in the first part of the paper the basic theoretical assumptions and the results of his comparative study of emergence, developmental dynamics and structure of "national revivals" of non-dominant ethnic groups or European "small nations" are presented. Next, in the second part of the paper Hroch’s typology of national movements is described in more detail, with special attention paid to his characterization of the "insurgent" or "Balkan" type of these movements. The closing part of the paper is devoted to Hroch’s comparison of old and new (postcommunist) national movements, where the use of Hroch’s historical approach in understanding the phenomenon of "postcommunist nationalism" is exposed to critical consideration.