Interview with Miroslav Hroch

As one of the leaders of the resistance against apartheid in South Africa, Nelson Mandela constructed and lived different images of himself over the years to suit his various audiences at home and abroad. His roles included those of youth activist, volunteer‐in‐chief in campaigns of civil disobedience, lawyer, defendant, and prisoner, leader of the African National Congress (ANC), commander‐in‐chief of the ANC's armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the world's most famous political prisoner, president of South Africa (1994–1999), elder statesman, as well as that of universal icon in the struggle for justice and reconciliation. However, Mandela's opponents portrayed him differently, with the South African government framing him as a terrorist and a communist. The label “terrorist” was also used by the US government, which placed Mandela and other leading ANC members on a list of “terrorists” who were barred from entering the country unless a waiver was granted by the US secretary of state. Mandela's name was finally removed from this list in July 2008, just before his 90th birthday.

The main goal of Historical Studies on Central Europe is to provide an interdisciplinary and international platform for disseminating new findings on Central Europe and enhancing the dialog on it. In this spirit, the editors have decided to launch a series asking prominent scholars of the region: their personal motivations for choosing Central Europe as their field; their view on central questions of methodology, trends, and definition, as well as their opinion on the status of the field. Miroslav Hroch is professor emeritus at Charles University (Prague), where he founded a Seminar in Comparative History in 1994. He wrote pioneering comparative works on the question of nation formation, most notably Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe (1985; originally published in German in 1968). With his comparative researches on national movements, Professor Hroch earned international recognition, in 1997 he received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University, Sweden. His other significant books include In the National Interest. Demands and Goals of European National Movements of the Nineteenth Century: a Comparative Perspective (2000); European Nations. Explaining their Formation (2015, originally published in German in 2005).

Along with their expression on red blood cells, ABO blood group antigens (namely, A, B, AB and O) are also highly expressed by a large number of human cells and tissues including epithelia, platelets, vascular endothelia and neurons1,2. Over the last 50 years, various investigators have assessed whether this biological characteristic of the ABO blood system has a clinical significance beyond that played in transfusion and transplantation medicine. Indeed, there is now a large body of evidence on the role of ABO antigens in the pathogenesis of various systemic diseases, including cancer, infectious disorders and cardiovascular diseases3–6. Considering the role played by the ABO system in neurogenesis7, some investigators have studied the system’s relationship with ageing-related neurodegenerative disorders, but with conflicting results. While no significant differences was found in ABO blood group distribution in Parkinson’s disease patients compared with controls in two studies conducted by Strang8 and by Chia and Liu9, in another study published by Kak and Gordon there was an excess of blood group B among patients with Parkinson’s disease10. No significant association between ABO blood groups and Alzheimer’s disease was found by Renvoize11 or, more recently, by Vasan and collegues12. The interest in the link between ABO antigens and neurological disorders has been recently renewed thanks to two further published studies13,14. The first case-control study (495 cases with cognitive impairment and 587 controls) was conducted by Alexander and colleagues and tested the possibility that non-O blood type adults might show poorer cognitive trajectories13. The authors found that AB blood type and increased coagulation factor VIII levels were associated with a higher incidence (odd’s ratio for AB blood type vs O blood type: 1.82, 95% confidence interval: 1.15–2.90; odds ratio for each 40 IU/dL higher factor VIII: 1.24, 95% confidence interval: 1.10–1.38) of cognitive decline. In the second, more recent study, De Marco and Venneri investigated volumetric differences in grey matter between O (76 cases) and non-O (113 cases) healthy individuals14. Surprisingly, the authors observed that O blood type, compared with non-O blood type, was associated with larger volumes of grey matter in the cerebellum and temporal-mediotemporal/limbic regions, suggesting that O blood group might play a protective role against those ageing-related neurodegenerative conditions, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, associated with volumetric loss in these cerebral areas. The most reasonable explanation for the protection exerted by O blood type against the cognitive decline typical of ageing-related neurodegenerative disorders lies in the lower levels of circulating von Willebrand factor and factor VIII levels observed in O blood type individuals than in non-O blood type individuals, which could reduce the risk of thrombotic adverse events, including those in the brain, in the former group15–17. This hypothesis is compatible with the results of a recently published systematic review and meta-analysis documenting a positive association between increased levels of some haemostatic markers, including von Willebrand factor, in vascular dementia and cognitive impairment18. The increased prevalence of O blood type found in centenarians in two recent studies by our group19,20 is also in agreement with these findings, suggesting that individuals with group O might be less vulnerable to age-related illnesses with a resulting longer life-expectancy. However, another possible intriguing mechanism could involve the anti-angiogenic properties of von Willebrand factor, resulting in a positive modulation of brain vascular endothelium in O blood type individuals21, who have lower von Willebrand factor and factor VIII plasma levels than non-O subjects. Further experimental and clinical studies on large cohorts of patients are needed to elucidate the association between ABO blood type and degenerative neurological disorders and the underlying pathogenic mechanisms.

In this ongoing research we are going to have a look at the starting point for the burgeoning national feelings with two smaller nations: the Slovak and the Flemish national movement. Building on the methodological framework of nationalism researcher Miroslav Hroch, one can discern a threefold stage - model in the national movements of the smaller nations in Europe, which is a thesis still needing more empirical evidence. This article attempts to compare at least one aspect of early nineteenth-century nation - building: How were the literary societies functioning in both national movements? We are working in a time scope of the first half of the 19 th century and ask ourselves the questions: until which extend reached literary societies? What was their impact? Which people were their readers, their public? Was their language, and their language-spreading aim representative for the whole nation? What similarities and differences can be found in Flanders and Slovakia in this field? Important support can be obtained from the NISE - network, which attempts to create a database on a European scale in order to stimulate and optimize comparative and transnational research on nation building.

SUMMARY: In this article Miroslav Hroch attempts to explore the historical roots of linguistic components of national identity. The article combines general observations on the nature of the linguistic situation in early modern Europe and the relationship between linguistic and other identities. Introducing the concepts of diglossia and bilingualism, Hroch analyzes the linguistic situation in early modern Bohemia before and after 1620. Arguing that diglossia was acceptable to many in the divided society of the ancién régime , Hroch nevertheless pays attention to linguistic tensions in those areas of Bohemian life where Czech was preserved (in particular, in monastic orders). Hroch also explores the emergence of the Czech national movement’s linguistic demands and argues that around the beginning of the 19th century these demands acquired a new meaning, which centered on the role of language as an instrument of civil equality. Accordingly, Hroch argues, Czech linguistic nationalism can be interpreted in the framework of the emergence of civil society and the growing demands for political participation. Yet, Hroch argues, these new demands sustained their appeal to the masses due to the presence of historical memory of the former efflorescence of the Czech language prior to 1620 and of the subject position of this language in the Austrian monarchy. Hroch’s article thus revisits traditional interpretations of linguistic nationalism as ethnic and non-civic and offers a new perspective on the linguistic demands of national movements in the context of the social history of nationalism.

The Estonian and Latvian national movements: An assessment of Miroslav Hroch's model

Although comparative studies of nationalism have recently experienced a resurgence, few attempts have been made to analyse the reciprocal influences exerted upon one another by nationalist movements. This article distinguishes between a domino effect which denotes a concrete change at the governmental level, and a demonstration effect which signifies more general influences on nationalist movements exerted by ‘external’ models. A comparative analysis of external ideological influences on Basque and Catalan nationalism reveals that the domino effect metaphor does not easily apply to nationalism, while demonstration effects are often confined to certain sectors of these nationalist movements, generally the most radical ones.

Numerous writings on intellectuals as learned or professional middle class have been published since the sixties for the obvious reason that this social group played a central role in the struggle for independence from which they emerged as the new leaders or ralers of new nations. Furthermore, being protagonist of change the intelligentsia showed their pre-eminence in giving their society a modern shape. Those studies show clearly the striking similarities of the characteristics of the intelligentsia from various developing countries. Their emergence was closely related to the expansion of western education, their marginal socio-historical location created the propensity to protagonize modernization, their oppositional role was inherent in their being a counter-elite in the colonial power structure. More similarities or parallel development can be brought up in our comparative study between India and Indonesia by asking the following questions: (1) Within the frame-work of the colonial setting what kind of factors were at work in creating the intelligentsia; (2) To what extend did endogenous factors impede the mobility and dynamics of the intelligentsia; (3) Did the intelligentsia's social origin put constraints on their capacity to accommodate themselves to new situations; (4) In fulfilling their function as intellectuals did they succeed in playing their leadership role in the nationalist movement; (5) Which structural conduciveness was necessary in order to provide a leverage to antagonize the establishment; etc. What kind of political commitment one came across among the intelligentsia? Were new ideologies quite instrumental in endorsing the intelligentsia's political role? Did they succeed in realizing political modernization?

DILINAME was founded first of all as an outreach project, targeting the general public in order to raise awareness of the European national movements and to disseminate their history and activities. However, it is also aimed at the academic field as well as political foundations and various forums assisting with the comparative study, at least at an early stage, of pro-independence and nationalist democratic movements on a European level. A third additional goal would be to improve knowledge on other issues (social, economic, cultural, etc) among the different stateless nations.

As Latin America’s most well-defined multinational region, Central America stands apart primarily for its distinctive status as an isthmus between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, surely its most historically consequential feature, but not its only one. Ever since its separation from the Spanish monarchy two centuries ago, Central America’s fraught political history has been marked by antagonistic tendencies within the region both for and against unification, by successive national and regional movements in favor of reform, revolution and counter-revolution, and by the intervention of external powers, particularly the United States. As a result, a persistent pattern of violence, instability and lawlessness has also distinguished its political history, as its economy continues to rank among the poorest of Latin America. This introductory essay interprets the region’s largely unsought separation from Spain (a process that spanned the years 1808 to 1821) as the hinge event of the last 500 years, having launched what the author calls Central America’s ongoing, two-century “crisis of order.” The cross-regional and country-level essays that follow this introduction reach back to the period before the Spanish conquest and proceed to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Each chapter aims to both synthesize and evaluate the main directions of the historiography related to its particular theme. The overall purpose of the volume is to highlight both Central America’s distinctiveness as a region and the attributes it shares with the rest of Latin America, while encouraging the comparative study of national, cross-national, and subnational historical experiences both within Central America, and between it and other places within and beyond Latin America.