2. Michelet’s interrogations

the context of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Qu’est-ce qu’une Nation? was preceded by La Guerre entre la France et l’Allemagne (The War Between France and Germany).2

My aim here is to analyse Renan’s message with regard to the formation of a united Europe as well as the integration of former Communist countries in the European federation. What was the main point of Renan’s analysis? That the nation is ‘an idea that seems clear and straightforward, but which, if misinterpreted, could prove dangerous’. Human experience has varied greatly over the course of history, and to ignore this would lead to serious misunderstandings of the past and the present. For example, Athens and Sparta were organised differently than autonomous states such as France or England; densely populated regions such as China, Egypt or ancient Babylon were unlike the Carolingian Empire, which was composed of different nations; communities without a nation – for example, the Jews in late antiquity and the Middle Ages – defined their identity through religion, setting them apart from communities that belonged to confederations such as Switzerland.

Renan distinguishes between nations with different socio-political structures, suggesting that it is impossible to adopt an umbrella term that would include all kinds of identities, as the historical context, as well as the religion, language and race of different communities, gives them their own specific characteristics:

Classical antiquity featured republics, municipal royalty, confederations, local republics, empires; it did not have nations in the way we might understand the term... Athens, Sparta, Sidon and Tyre were centres of patriotism, but they were relatively small kingdoms. Before their absorption into the Roman Empire, Gaul, Spain and Italy were ensembles of communities often linked together, but without central institutions or dynasties. The Assyrian Empire, the Persian Empire and Alexander’s empire were not homelands. There have never been Assyrian patriots; the Persian Empire was a vast feudal system. No nation traces its origins back to Alexander’s colossal adventures, despite their significant impact on the general history of civilisation. The Roman Empire was closer than any of these to being a homeland… It

was associated with peace and civilisation, synonymous with order. During the last stages of the empire, a true feeling of ‘Roman peace’ that replaced chaotic barbarism was experienced by elevated souls such as enlightened priests and scholars. But an empire twelve times larger than present-day France cannot be described as a state in the modern sense.3

Ernest Renan possessed a profound understanding of classical civilisation, along with Jewish and Christian history, which allowed him to form his own theories regarding the past. He was particularly interested in social and political structures, but was also fascinated by great personalities and ground-breaking ideas, although he never favoured a metaphysical interpretation of history. The most important aspect of Renan’s Qu’est-ce qu’une Nation? is its insistence that the past must be reinterpreted. Also noting the way in which the interpretation of facts changes from one era to another, he focused on the often conflicting connotations of the idea of nation. In his view, the empire built by Alexander the Great could not be described as a homeland, and therefore the concept of nation could not be applied to it; he pointed out the differences between the Roman civilisation and the French state, as well as ancient kingdoms and modern nations. Within the same text, he rejected the connection between the Merovingian era and the French Revolution of 1789.4 Moreover, he aptly described the nation as ‘a daily plebiscite, in the same way that the existence of the individual depends on the permanent concrete evidence put in the service of life’. On the other hand, echoing Michelet and Quinet, Renan argued that ‘our predecessors determine who we are’.

The two different perspectives on the idea of the nation illustrate the opposition between past and present, history and law (or sociology), origins and contract, left and right.5 Renan traces the problem of differentialism on the basis of nationality to the expansionism of early medieval administrations. For example, the invasion of the Germanic peoples stimulated differentiation as it contributed to the emergence of the military aristocracy, the establishment of dynasties, the diversification of racial groups and the fragmentation of the territories of the old Western Roman Empire. Communities were no longer divided from each other on the basis of religious differences,