Ethnologia Europaea

Although nationalism is an example of a cultural force which in many cases has overruled other, traditional identities and loyalties in 19th and 20th century society, the study of nationalism has not been focused very much on the cultural praxis of national identity formation and sharing. As a result, the ideology and politics of nationalism are far better understood than the creation of Hungarianness and Swedishness. This paper discusses some approaches in the national-culture building of everyday life, using mainly Swedish examples. The focus is also on national culture as a battle arena, where different interest groups use arguments about national unity or heritage in hegemonic struggles. Different types of "nationalization processes" are discussed, as for example ways in which certain cultural domains come to be defined as national, how national space is transformed into cultural space, or the way in which every new generation not only is nationalized into a given heritage but also creates its own version of a common, national frame of reference.

The use of qualitative method, e.g. field observation in natural settings and informal in-depth interviews, has long been considered a hallmark of European ethnology - just as participant observation has been named the primary method of social anthropology. This paper argues, however, that quantitative methods, including representative samples of whole populations and structured interview instruments, may be necessary for studies of national culture. This thesis is elaborated using cross-cultural data which have been gathered and analyzed in efforts to describe the national culture of Sweden.

National character is seen here as the competence people develop in the encounter with social conditions. Using "typically Swedish" characteristics as described by Gustav Sundbärg and Åke Daun - extrospection, starchiness, efficiency, avoiding conflicts - I describe the conditions that encourage such attitudes. The basic assumption is that they characterize people with easy social mobility: only a fifth of Sweden's educated and professional class comes from homes with an academic tradition. Pictures of the national character are painted by this group. Many academics come from the conscientious working class or from lower-middle- class families striving to climb; they have been active in associations and popular movements. They have sought to prove their capability, defining themselves in relation to their work, and displaying few striking personal or cultural traits. This gave them a place in hierarchical structures of the expansive public and private sectors. The capability strategy is discussed in Ulf Hannerz's dichotomy of perspective and message. The empirical material comes from interviews and memoirs. Today there are signs that the features of the starchy Swede are being replaced by flashier personal and cultural traits, at least in the educated class. Capability no longer ensures success. I suggest that this is due to the narrowing of the influx to universities and the availability of alternative careers outside the hierarchical orders.

This paper deals with the formation of Hungarian national culture at the turn of the century, showing how divergent cultural strategies and practices were applied in step with changes in social structure. The peculiarly Hungarian experience results from the dual social structure which divides Hungarian national culture into two independent parts. On the one hand there is the ancient peasant culture with strong ties to oriental tradition. On the other hand there is the urban or bourgeois culture which was associated with modernization. This dual character of Hungarian society and of Hungarian national culture I interpret as the coexistence of symbolic and real dimensions of national culture.

The sporting world is a profitable field of cultural studies, especially when it comes to such subjects as feelings and collective identity. Considering its rich social life, its emotional expressions, and its most obvious nationalistic symbolism, sport should have a central place in the general research on nationalism and national culture. In this article the author discuss Swedish sports journalism as a symbolic transformation of sporting activities into national pride and disappointment. Most of the examples are fetched from the Winter Olympic Games of 1988 in Calgary. One general observation is that nearly everything that sporting personalities do, and journalists say or write, is in some way a contribution to the construction of Swedish national feeling.

Symbolic representations of national heroes are a rich field for the analysis of changes in national ideology and politics. This paper looks at the making of two Hungarian heroes: chieftain Árpád and Saint lstván, both belonging to the pantheon of the nation's founders. Over the centuries they have symbolized two different sets of ideas about Hungary and Hungarianness and formed the basis of two competing national iconographies. Through the medium of the figurative arts we can follow how these national symbols have been used by different interest groups over the centuries and how their representations have been charged with new meanings: the East versus the West, the nationalists against the Habsburgs, Protestantism against Catholicism, tribal history versus royal legitimacy, etc. This dualistic character of national consciousness which can be found in many other national settings as well, must not only be seen as a symbolic battle arena for competing interests, but also as an instrument for compromises and reorientations in the construction and reconstruction of national identity.

Symbolic representations in the visual arts are defined not only by their contents and formal arrangements but also by the media in which they are presented. The Swedish preference for deheroized heroes has created a national heroic iconography far from that of the public bronze monuments. It was in the illustrated weeklies of the nineteenth century, in the comic strips and the photographic journalism of this century that the national ideal of the unidealized man was created: he is a humble but witty and somewhat anarchistic anti-superman. An experiment in the 1940s to apotheosize the ordinary worker in comic strips was a flop, however. The comic strip medium lacked heroic connotations and so the message was missed. It is within the tradition of photographic documentarism that the ordinary Swede has been given his most sublime apotheosis.

The process of shaping national culture coincides with the production of traditions in which special meaning is given to increasing numbers of elements of everyday life. This paper discusses an example relating to food. The example is older than the mass-production of tradition. During the decades around 1800 it was the relatively numerous nobility who went in for the national idea in Hungary. When Austrian enlightened absolutism strove to unify the dependent countries, the Hungarian national features were endangered in the late 18th century. Most of the Hungarian nobility put up resistance which manifested itself both in political opposition and in the production of national symbols, in noblemen's clothing and peasant food alike. The peasant dish they chose as a symbol was further fostered at home, so that it soon reached the refined table physically as well.

Woodland-peasant adaptation in Austria meant small and medium sized farming units, small proportions of servants and day-labourers, a relatively small necessity to recruit extrafamily labour. Kinship and neighbourhood were the dominant principles of social organization. Patron-client relations played a comparatively marginal role. Family-labour and exchange-labour between kinsmen were the dominant forms of labour recruitment, generalized reciprocity the dominant exchange principle. Woodland-peasant adaptation was the product of ecological and cultural factors. The ecological factors were medium altitude (400-600 m), rough climate and poor soil. The cultural factors were the manorial system till 1848; compared to eastern Europe a relatively weak form of peasant dependency; the Austrian path to modernization in the field of agriculture (contrary to the English or Prussian paths to agricultural modernization, large numbers of medium and small-sized peasant units survived, which maintained their predominantly precommercial character until the Second World War) and undivided land inheritance, which prevented fragmentation. In Austria the woodland-peasant society was, apart from the Alpine societies with divided land inheritance, the only type of rural society that represented a peasant society in the real sense of the word: Peasant domination and a small proportion of rural lower classes. This type of rural society was a great contrast to the "servant-societies" of Alpine Austria and the "day-labourer societies" of the lowlands. In the two latter societies the peasants had become a minority from the 18th century at the latest; the rural lower classes dominated quantitatively.

People transform inherited cultural patterns to serve their needs under new circumstances. Networks of kindred relationships exemplify this process. Under socialist conditions in Bulgaria, kindred relationships assist in people 's transitions from cooperative farming to the working class, and from rural to urban life. Kin connections also contribute to solving life problems for which social solutions are not yet adequately institutionalized. Research should examine kin networks in their contemporary roles, rather than viewing the importance of kinship connections as merely an anachronism.

Around 800 A.D. the Adriatic Island of Korčula and adjacent Pelješac Peninsula commenced upon distinct courses in population movement, the results of which are evident today in demographic structure and linguistic patterns. This divergence encompasses contrasting experiences in political control, land tenure, economic development, epidemics, and physical-social isolation. Korčula and Pelješac fell under different political-economic spheres of influence, which imposed different restrictions upon land tenure and population mobility. Korčula retained relatively greater autonomy and isolation, while Pelješac was the regular recipient of off-peninsular settlers. As a consequence, demographic characteristics of the current population of Pelješac reflect a "mechanical" increase over the past twelve centuries while expansion on Korčula has been based mainly upon natural population growth. Additionally, Korčula exhibits more clearly defined dialect areas while Pelješac is linguistically more heterogeneous.

In the working-class neighbourhood in Amsterdam, a study was conducted into how the original residents experienced living side by side with the numerous newcomers in their immediate environment, and how they put it into words. More than a third of the people in the neighbourhood are Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and members of other ethnic minorities. Attention is devoted to stories told by the older residents of the neighbourhood about their experiences with the ethnic minorities. These stories provide insight into the image the neighbourhood's original residents develop of the newcomers, and how it is related to their self-image of people who live in a «degenerate " neighbourhood and whose status in Dutch society is low. Although the power difference between the “outsiders" and the "established" in the neighbourhood are negligible, the older residents tend to emphasize their own superiority. It is not based on their social position or high status in society, but on the belief in the value of being "born and bred" in the Netherlands, of being a "real'' Dutchman. The purpose of the stories is to exaggerate the power difference between themselves and the ethnic minorities. The desire to dissociate themselves from the minorities "they are not our kind of people and we want to make sure everyone realizes that" and the demand for assimilation "they have to conform to our way of doing things" are both designed to preserve the little that is left of their own identity and way of life.

Zwischen der deutschen und der französischen Schweiz existieren viele Beziehungen, die ethnologisches Interesse wecken. Im vorliegenden Fall betrifft dies den » Welschlandaufenthalt «: Ein populäres Kontaktmuster für junge Deutschschweizer, die sich nach Schulabschluss für ein Jahr in die Westschweiz begeben, um dort Französisch zu lernen. Wahrend man Töchter aus begüterten und bürgerlichen Schichten zu Erziehungs- und Bildungszwecken eher in Pensionate oder Institute schickt, werden Mädchen einfacherer Herkunft in eine Privatfamilie plaziert, wo sie als Haushalt- und Kindermädchen ein Volontariat absolvieren. Zwischen diesen Aufenthaltsmodalitäten bestehen Zusammenhänge , die sich aus einer sehr alten Bildungstradition ableiten lassen. Zu ihr gehören das Praktikum des mittelalterlichen Fernhandelskaufmanns, Studienaufenhalte an auswärtigen Universitäten, Erziehungsdienste an französischen Hofen und Adelshäusern ebenso wie Kriegsdienstleistungen und Auslandsreisen, denen Aufenthalte in Pensionaten und später Volontariate für Dienstboten und Haushalthilfen folgten. Die Popularisierung des Welschlandaufenthalts enthüllt eindrücklich die curriculare Bedeutung und belegt, dass alle Kontaktmuster einen Übergang zum Erwachsenenalter markieren, sei es als Erziehungsabschluss, sei es als Statuspassage mit Prestigegewinn. Höher als der Spracherwerb bewertet werden die individuellen Anpassungsleistungen an eine fremde Kultur: Es geht um eine ausserhäusliche Lehrzeit als Bewährungs- und Reifeprobe. Fremdaufenthalte dieser Art stehen in einer europäischen Erziehungstradition mit interkultureller Prägung, wie ein Blick auf andere Länder zeigt.