Creating the Nation: Identity and Aesthetics in Early Nineteenth-century Russia and Bohemia

by David L. Cooper

 Offering an incisive new study of literature and nationalism, Cooper examines fundamental developments in Russian and Czech literature and criticism from 1800 to 1830, a period that has largely been neglected in the English-language scholarship. While other books have focused on the question of why developing nations look to literature as a source of national identity, Cooper asks why ideas of nationality were necessary for critics and writers seeking to evolve new genres and forms and modernize literary values. Cooper’s ambitious work produces a clear picture of the paradigm shift in literary values that drove the development of national identity and demonstrates how critical this period is to understanding the major trends and concerns of Russian and Czech literatures over the 19th century.

With its broad scope, this groundbreaking comparison of two national literatures will interest a wide range of scholars and students of cultural and intellectual history and those who study the interaction between nationalism and literature. Creating the Nation will appeal to historians and historically minded political scientists and sociologists, along with specialists in Russian and Czech literatures. 

300 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 2010

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cooper’s chief point is that scholars, caught up in analysis of nationalism, have failed to understand literary developments on their own terms. More so than a work about nationalism, then, this is a work about literature, by a literary expert. Cooper argues that scholars (literary scholars and historians alike) have not “adequately explored” the reasons for the rise of “national literatures” as a theme of the nineteenth century. This is key both for understanding the development of nationalism, he argues, and for understanding particular nations. For this reason, he turns to two nations with significant scholarly discussion of nationalism, Russia and Bohemia. Cooper’s work is intensely thoughtful and highly detailed, but it does have its missteps. The suggestion that the literary movement towards a national literature created nationalism is simply too large a claim to be proven conclusively here (29). The discussion of education’s role is a fascinating way to move this part of his argument forward, but it comes late in the text to clinch his claim that literature, more than other cultural arenas, was the prime mover behind ideas of the nation (229).