Approaching the nation

Although our contemporary world is marked throughout by the importance of questions of identity, something increasingly reflected in the directions of contemporary social–scientific research, in the general field of nationalism studies the issue of the attraction and salience of national identities has not been sufficiently examined. This is partly due to the hegemonic position of modernist and constructionist approaches in the relevant literature. In opposition to the common doxa reproduced by nationalist myths, contemporary research on the nation tends to stress the constructed character of national identity: the nation is primarily understood as a modern social and political construction. Thus, more emphasis is placed on the production of nationalism under specific historical conditions than on its reproduction, that is, on the remarkable continuity marking the identification with nations – a continuity observed in various geographical, social and historical milieus.