The National Idea as a Research Problem

The notion of nation has long been the object of interest of historians, philosophers, sociologists, historians of literature and linguists. The range of use of this term has been as wide as it has been imprecise. The variety has been, on the one hand, the derivative of many areas of study within which the term ‘nation’ was used and, on the other, of the national culture which has been the basis for these generalizations.

The lack of precision in the use of the notion proves that it is semantically open and shows that the national question, on the ground of many cultures, constitutes a problem not only for the researchers.

The present volume entitled The National Idea as a Research Problem is composed of papers that were presented at the international conference organized by the Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences on 3-5 October 2000. Articles of a few authors who did not participate in the conference but sent their texts for publication have also been included.

The idea of the conference arose from the desire to hold a truly scientific discussion on the functionality of the notion of nation. That was the reason for the interdisciplinary platform of that meeting. In addition, the organizer wanted to confront the strictly theoretical deliberations with practice. The Bulgarian-Macedonian relations, which are burdened with a lot of emotions, had been chosen on purpose since they constitute a spectacular, clear-cut exemplification of the strictly theoretical considerations.

Due to the meeting and the heated debate we realized the necessity of systematic research into the national idea. At the same time, they served the purpose of breaking down the national prejudices and stereotypes concerning ourselves.

There are sociologists, a philosopher, historians of thought and historians of material, historians of culture, folklorists, linguists and historians of literature among the authors of the articles. The interdisciplinary character of the conference and of the prepared volume contributes to a better understanding of the specific Balkan regional character in its Macedonian and Bulgarian form.

A supraregional dimension has been granted to the discussion on the national idea by the contributions of Polish scholars as well as of researchers from Serbia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. It is also the context explaining the Balkan specific character.