The static model
The framework developed by Kohn (1944) of a Western civic nationalism different in origin, essence and form to that of Eastern ethnic nationalism was the standard framework to understand nationalism for much of the post-war era. Kohn’s (1944) static framework argued that Western states were civic from their inception in the late 18th century.
Kohn (1940, 1944, 1982) believed Western nationalism was inherently different because it evolved in conjunction with political rights and was therefore civic. This civic nationalism owed more to territorial than ethno-cultural factors. It was also inclusive in the sense of allowing anybody within the given territory of a nation-state to become a citizen, irrespective of ethnicity, race or gender. The civic nationalism that developed in Kohn’s West was individualistic, liberal, rational and cosmopolitan. The roots of Western nationalism lay in the age of enlightenment, liberty, the rule of law and individualism. In the American and French revolutions, individual liberty played a predominant role in mobilising revolutionaries. The American national idea, for example, was based on individual liberty and tolerance which overcame ethnic differences (Kohn 1982, p.64).
Eastern nationalism was defined by Kohn as backward looking, prone to conflict, tribal and irrational. Eastern nationalism was primitive because it focused its energy on building a new national identity and was tied to religion, language and nationality. It lacked a ‘high culture’ and therefore focused upon ethno-cultural issues (Gellner 1983; Smith, A.D. 1996, pp.77–83).
Kohn (1940, 1944, 1982), Gellner (1983) and other scholars believed it was inevitable that the East would tend towards creating authoritarian and culturally repressive systems while the West would establish liberal democratic states. This trend was also inevitable because of backward socio-political and socio-economic levels of development in the East which lacked a large bourgeois and was more closely bound up with absolutist regimes.
As seen since the fall of communism in 1991, this has not been the case and central-eastern Europe, the three Baltic states, and Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia have created democracies. However, Kohn’s framework is possibly applicable to Russia and most former Soviet republics which have become authoritarian regimes.
Eastern nationalism was more prone to ethnic conflict because it inevitably had to resort to a greater degree of historical myth making, which we see in Russia (see Chapters 6 and 7). Nationalistic regimes sustain themselves with domestic and foreign enemies (Shevtsova 2014), again an inherent feature of Putin’s Russia. In a climate of state sponsored Ukrainophobia, Russian occupation authorities in Crimea are perennially in search of Ukrainian ‘spies’ and ‘diversionary’ agents (Moyseyeva 2021). Russia has initiated or supported through proxies eight military conflicts in Azerbaijan, Georgia (in the early 1990s and 2008), Moldova, Chechnya (in the 1990s and early 2000s), Crimea, and eastern Ukraine. Putin has plunged Russia into three wars and caused the worst crisis in relations with the West since World War II. Russia’s enemies include an internal ‘treacherous’ opposition in the pay of Western intelligence agencies while on the external front, Russian leaders promote a state under siege from the West with whom it is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. Russia’s information war heavily targets Ukraine (Kuzio 2016).
Kohn (1982) believes the East was rife with border conflicts because the boundaries of nation-states did not coincide with ethnic groups and there were demands for border changes. Russian nationalists never viewed the borders of the Russian SFSR or Russian Federation as those of the Russian ‘imagined community’ (Andersen 2006), view Ukraine and Belarus as ‘Russian’ lands and Eurasia as its exclusive sphere of influence.
Kohn (1982) did not necessarily see the expansion of Western empires in negative terms. If the West possessed a ‘superior civilisation’ and a civic nationalism, contact between Western civic states and colonies would be beneficial to the latter. ‘Through contact with the modern West, Asian civilizations and peoples were revitalized,’ Kohn (1982, p.84) believed. England’s liberal civilisation, ‘infused a new spirit into Asia and later into Africa’.
Praise for Western colonialism is no longer acceptable in Western scholarship. This is not the case in Russia where Russian state officials and nationalists continue to claim the Tsarist Empire and the USSR were beneficial to the non-Russian peoples. Putin (2021) believes the Tsarist Empire and the USSR were beneficial to Ukrainia...
