How do peasants come to think of themselves as members of a nation?
The widely accepted argument is that national sentiment originates
among intellectuals or urban middle classes, then "trickles down"
to the working class and peasants. Keely Stauter-Halsted argues
that such models overlook the independent contribution of peasant
societies. She explores the complex case of the Polish peasants of
Austrian Galicia, from the 1848 emancipation of the serfs to the
eve of the First World War.
In the years immediately after emancipation, Polish-speaking
peasants were more apt to identify with the Austrian Emperor and
the Catholic Church than with their Polish lords or the middle
classes of the Galician capital, Cracow. Yet by the end of the
century, Polish-speaking peasants would cheer, "Long live Poland"
and celebrate the centennial of the peasant-fueled insurrection in
defense of Polish independence.
The explanation for this shift, Stauter-Halsted says, is the
symbiosis that developed between peasant elites and upper-class
reformers. She reconstructs this difficult, halting process, paying
particular attention to public life and conflicts within the rural
communities themselves. The author's approach is at once
comparative and interdisciplinary, drawing from literature on
national identity formation in Latin America, China, and Western
Europe. The Nation in the Village combines anthropology, sociology,
and literary criticism with economic, social, cultural, and
political history.
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