Alexander Maxwell, "Everyday Nationalism in Hungary: 1789-1867" (De Gruyter, 2019)

Mar 17, 2021

Everyday Nationalism in Hungary

1789-1867

Alexander Maxwell

Hosted by Steven Seegel

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Summary

Everyday Nationalism in Hungary: 1789-1867 (De Gruyter, 2019) examines Hungarian nationalism through everyday practices that will strike most readers as things that seem an unlikely venue for national politics. Separate chapters examine nationalized tobacco, nationalized wine, nationalized moustaches, nationalized sexuality, and nationalized clothing. These practices had other economic, social or gendered meanings: moustaches were associated with manliness, wine with aristocracy, and so forth. The nationalization of everyday practices thus sheds light on how patriots imagined the nation's economic, social, and gender composition.

Nineteenth-century Hungary thus serves as the case study in the politics of "everyday nationalism." The book discusses several prominent names in Hungarian history, but in unfamiliar contexts. The book also engages with theoretical debates on nationalism, discussing several key theorists. Various chapters specifically examine how historical actors imagine relationship between the nation and the state, paying particular attention Rogers Brubaker's constructivist approach to nationalism without groups, Michael Billig's notion of 'banal nationalism, ' Carole Pateman's ideas about the nation as a 'national brotherhood', and Tara Zahra's notion of 'national indifference.'

Alexander Maxwell studied at the University of California Davis, Georg-August University in Göttingen Germany, and Central European University before completing his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He held brief postdoctoral positions in Erfurt, Swansea, Reno and Bucharest before joining the faculty of Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand, where he is currently associate professor of history. His is the author of Choosing Slovakia: Slavic Hungary, the Czech Language, and Unintended Nationalism (I.B. Tauris, 2009), and Patriots Against Fashion: Clothing and Nationalism in Europe’s Age of Revolutions (Palgrave, 2014). He has published widely on Central European history, nationalism theory, and history pedagogy. He is currently researching Habsburg Panslavism.