NATIONAL SECURITY

Martin STUR (1)

THE SEMANTIC FIELD “NATION, STATE, PEOPLE AND CITIZEN” FROM ANOTHER THAN LEGAL POINT OF VIEW: ORIGIN, FORMS AND DYNAMICS IN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

Abstract:	The significance of this semantic field today is largely legal, but we are interested in its cultural, literary and social dimension in European languages, because its various forms originate before the legal system and their place in people’s thinking and actions has a dynamic that depends more on state of culture than on the state of the legal system. Today, in addition to the health crisis, we are experiencing a crisis in relation to what this semantic field represents, from nationalism, which absolutizes and abuses it, to globalism, which rejects everything it represents and provides only insufficient compensation. Our goal is to trace the origin, history and actual potential of singular forms, their motivation and function, so that we can assume their significance for the future. The individual words of this sematic field pass between individual languages, and although we focus mainly on the Romance and Slavic languages, changes in meaning also pass through the entire European area, and a comprehensive picture is created only in comparison with other European languages.  Original motivation of singular words creating the semantic field in European languages Why are we focusing just on European languages? Isn’t that inappropriate in postcolonial time? They are geographically and culturally connected languages, which share external, ideological and religious influences and although Indo-European languages predominate among others, the search for etymology and history is still more difficult than it seems at first glance.
Keywords:	Nation; state; people; citizen; semantic
Contact details of the authors:	(1) mstur@ukf.sk  (2) peter_kopecky2002@yahoo.com
Institutional affiliation of the authors:	(1) and (2) Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia
Institutions address:	Tr. A. Hlinku 1, 949 01, Nitra, Slovakia  Phone: +421 37 6408 111 e-mail: ukf@ukf.sk

Nowadays, nation and people have different meanings and values in cultural life, which change significantly over time and according to political regimes. The significance of this semantic field today is largely legal, but we are interested in its cultural and social dimension in European languages. The individual forms have their origins in prehistory and their dynamics in people’s thinking and actions depends more on the state of culture than on the state of the legal system. At the present time, we are experiencing a certain crisis of perception of what this semantic field represents: from nationalism, which absolutizes and abuses it, to globalism, which rejects everything a nation represents. Our goal is to monitor changes in the meaning of individual forms, starting from their motivation and function versus historical development to the present day.

 

1. Origin

The first step for us is to find the origin, since it nonetheless had to be different, given the fact that nation, state and homeland did not exist in prehistory. The words themselves are older and originally had to mean something else.

Individual terms covering this semantic field can be divided into two groups according to motivation. The first originally means birth – it includes words derived from the Latin natio and the Slavic národ (nation). The second indicates at the beginning of history the meaning of army, flock, fighting party, although in the case of individual forms another earlier etymology can also be reconstructed. It later referred to the lowest, but relatively free, strata of society. This is the case of the German Volk, the Latin populus, the English folk, the Serbian puk (older meaning to be found, for example, in the Slovak pluk). Such motivation, or at least connotation, can also be found in the Slavic ľud (in the Romanian ludu), the German Leute, the Irish tuatha, the Lithuanian and Latvian tauta. It is also the root of the Deutsch ethnonym and the designation Tóth of Slovaks by the Hungarians, which in Romanian is Tăut. Conversely, the leadership and control of such a community is motivated by the semantic field of the German Reich, the Slavic ríša, the Latin regnum, the more recent Polish państwo or the Russian государство. Although they have the meaning of power, domination, or controlled territory, this motivation often decreases in use similarly to the word region. This semantic field either delimits or intersects with the meanings of the words discussed herein.

In European languages, the most common root for designating this semantic field is the Latin nation. In Romance languages, these derived words were domesticated; in Germanic and Slavic languages they either gained ground at the expense of domestic words, or coexist with them. Elsewhere it is the expression of the elevated style of Latin origin, or in some cases the source is English or French.

In Western Romance languages and in English, the root is the Latin noun natio[1]. It is derived from the passive perfect participle (g)natus (born) of the verb nascor, nasci (to be born). Related words are natura (naturalness, nature, literally what is given by birth), but a little further on is also genus (kin). At the same time, the term denoted by nation at present refers to people of different origins and natures, including what they share and what differentiates them. (Nation in French also means the entirety of citizens: le présidents´adreesse à la nation.) Words derived from the Latin gens[2], the Romance gente (tribe, people, nation) ale close not only through their meaning but also through their origin.  In fact, there is a full range of radicals associated to the same Indo-European root, and the same goes for the motivation; the designation of people of the same origin, i.e. kin took the shift to natio only after the relatedness of the words ceased to be obvious.

The Slavic “nation”

The original Slavic forms are roughly synonymous, while their forms and connotations resemble, in spite of more complex motivations. The structure is obvious: the prefix, originally the preposition na and rod, the root (H)rodh-eie. The word rod (kin) has a similar meaning as the lat. genus, although its signification of “nation” is mostly obsolete.  In Slavic languages, the verb rodiť means to breed, to give birth, what is true of a woman as well as of trees, for example.

Through ablaut it seems to be close to the forms of to counsel, order, to control/direct. The Romanian norod has a Slavic basis, and it later on acquired the connotations of crowd.1.4 Ľud, Leute[3].

The word is obviously old and well documented for the Germanic and Slavic languages; in Greek it might have combined with ελεύθερος and in Latin with liber – free. The people are free, although they are common, simple people, originally a battle party of ordinary free fighters at the lowest level of the hierarchy. All Slavic languages denoted man as a member of the people. It is derived from the word čeľaď (servants, the whole extended family; compare the Hungarian családi or čelo. This is because, unlike leaders, servants had short hair or uncovered heads (so their foreheads could be seen…). It seems certain that the word man originally designated a servant.

The English Folk[4], the German Volk, the Romance populus[5], and derivatives.

It seems that at least the Germanic and Slavic forms come from the Indo-European polHgh. The originally armed crowd is gradually transformed into an integrated combat unit and during peacetime into folk. In Slavic languages it has rather maintained the original meaning of regiment, although in Serbian puk is also folk.

It is slightly more complicated with the Latin forms. Duplication seems to have occurred: the form publicus is probably influenced by another basis. The form plebes also seems to be close in meaning.

The Lithuanian and Latvian tauta, the Irish tuath, the German Deutsch; Tóth as a designation of Slovaks in Hungarian

If we assume a connection with the Slavic adjective cudzí (foreign), the shift may be related to the distinction between ours versus foreign, while in the case of the Germans it could already be identified with the opposite pole. In the case of the Hittite tuzzi, we do not agree with the opinion of Benveniste, who does not like the derivation of the meaning of národ (nation) from the meaning of armáda (army). Much more convincing are Kloekorst’s arguments against the derivability of the form. In the case of Gheg Albanian, the form of tëtanë is possible, which would connect to the Illyrian substrate. Vocalism might be a problem, though it is worth mentioning that the etymology is suggested by a didactic rather than an academic source[6]. Orel[7]does not mention this etymology at all.

Commonly mentioned related forms have a different meaning, but in case they are truly related, they shed light on something. There are two in their essence and they differ in form and motivation, and in the case of a common origin, then it is a distant and uncertain one. The word cudzí (foreign, strange)[8]fits very well, through its motivation, into the overall picture. The problem is the final consonant. The second one works as an ethnonym – Ján Stanislav states: “Near the middle Danube lived those Slavic associations of tribes and then nationalities, which the Hungarians called the name Tót (from the Indo-European tauta – nation, people). This name was called the ancestors of the Slovaks, partially of the Croats and of the Slovenes. The Hungarians called the other Slavs in a different manner.”[9] The connection may also be that the inhabitants of these areas used the designation Slavs as their own. The vowel and the final consonant indicate a non-Slavic Indo-European origin, which could be Germanic, Illyrian or another.

The Basques

Of the many European cultures, only the Basques survived, from a linguistic point of view, after the arrival of Indo-European languages. Like all ethnic groups, they are genetically, culturally and linguistically heterogeneous in origin. They have a number of old Latin, Romance and probably Celtic, Germanic, possibly even Iberian elements in language and culture. However, they also have their own language core, which probably has something in common with the Caucasian languages (Georgian?), though data is too sporadic and the gaps in time and space are too wide. While the Basque nationalism did not emerge until the activity of Sabino Arana at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the study of language and culture itself is undoubtedly older. In order to refer to the people and the nation, apart from the word nazio of Latin origin, they use the word herri (people, nation, country).  Its original assumed meaning is army or the fighting part of the people.  Motivation is thus close, but still, it is yet difficult to identify the moment and mechanism of occurrence of the shift. All this in spite of the fact that the relationship with the Caucasian languages seems convincing at first glance.

Finno-Ugric languages

Finno-Ugric languages are considered newer in Europe compared to the Indo-European ones, although they have penetrated Eastern Europe longer in advance. From our point of view, they can be divided into two branches: one of them is the Ugor branch, represented by the Hungarians, and the other which includes, among the larger nations, the Finns, the Estonians or the Lapps. The Hungarian word nemzet[10] (nation) is motivated similarly to words from the Latin natio and of Slavic origin. But it is derived from a different form, nemz (to conceive, to procreate, to give birth) which comes from nem (gender, female sex). Folk is rather nép, a word of uncertain origin. We will probably be interested in the older meaning of crowd, scum, military procession….

In the more closely related languages of the Finnish, the Karelians, and the slightly different one of the Lapps, several forms can be observed. For us, the most interesting is kansa[11] (folk), which is usually derived from the Old Germanic form hansō This word means flock, fellowship. (Hanza?) but also a crowd, a military procession. It also seems to be related to the Slavic sused, i.e. neighbour, (the Polish sąsiad preserves the nasal sound). The content can also be related to the Latin consilio. It would correspond through form as well as through the original motivation. Another form is väki, which indicates in the first place strength, power, but also violence, repression, army in Estonian and other languages. Less common in this sense is rahvas, for which the etymological doublet raavas (mature, adult) and the Old Germanicþrawwaz are mentioned. However, both connections are highly uncertain, unclear and outside our semantic field. In Estonian, nation is rahvus, which is apparently derived from rahvus; the Finnish kansakunta, in turn, is a composite of kansa (folk) and kunta. The latter designates the idea of community, whereas in compounds: corps, armed unit. Kansa, on the other hand, rather refers to ethnicity while the later more modern kansakunta to nationality.

2. Historical development of the semantic field

In prehistory, communities were mostly ancestrally related – culture and language often crossed their borders in a significant measure. The first empires were united under a monarch, to whom supernatural power was attributed, and who personified the state (L´Etat, c´estmoi …), and thus would act as an autocrat. Higher culture in the Bronze Age was again associated with the palaces of the monarchs, to a narrow class of priests and officials. An almost global culture has developed. Although the common people were free, they had virtually no access to education and decision-making in public affairs. Within the borders of today’s Europe, we now have deciphered written monuments from Crete, from the area of the Mycenaean culture… But archaeological data show that broad areas from the Western Mediterranean area and the Balkans had a similar cultural character. The turning point came after 1200 B.C. when a wave of destruction swept through this area. Some settlements, such as king Nestor’s Pylos completely disappeared, whereas elsewhere it was the elite that disappeared; the so-called Sea Peoples were stopped by Egypt and did not reach Mesopotamia.[12] Perhaps this collapse of the elites also contributed to the fact that in this area the monarch could become a god only after death, just as in Rome.

Approximately between this time and the beginning of classical antiquity, there is a lack of higher culture, as its demise has traditionally been associated with the Dorian invasion. They merely embodied attitudes that were virtually ubiquitous in the European part of the western Mediterranean Sea; attitudes expressed opposition to religiously or militarily maintained domination.

In classical antiquity, the Greeks considered autocracy (despotism) to be typical of the barbarians because, unlike the latter, they lived in polis. It was an area of personal freedom and responsibility. Although democracy, the rule of the people, was not the sole form of organization, aristocracy, oligarchy, or even tyranny meant no longer neither absolute nor sacred power.

The word ἔθνος (éthnos) is of uncertain origin, it may have initially referred only to foreigners, it could also be based on the verb ἔθω derived through combination swé (its). It is important to mention that to the initial meaning of group, procession, crowd, herd, flock a negative connotation is gradually added: in the Bible thus appears the plural pagans. However, this was not until the Hellenic period, when the free people had already lost influence over the state.

Other designations for folk, especially the common one, is to be found in Greek: laós λαός[13]. It seems to be close to the origin and meaning of the Slavic meaning of folk. However, it certainly also has the meaning of procession, army, and later on military servant. Here we can think of a source for the designation laik (laity).

Another important word is demos, δῆμος[14], which seems to have originally referred to part[15]. Within the semantic field it similarly designates crowd, mass, the lowest and most numerous free social class.

Alexander the Great has weakened the principles of people’s participation in government. He practically ended the functioning of the polis and received the divine honours of the Egyptian pharaoh. After his death, the individual successor states became the bearers of a mixed, open, cultivated and rich, but significantly less free culture. Here, architectural, linguistic and religious elements were mixed. In large and complicated state units, the free people became a mass, scum. The folk had difficult access to education and even more restricted access to decision making. A higher official, business and military class became profiled, which despised and feared uneducated people.

Rome became a kingdom, although only the last three Etruscan kings are historically known. The last of them, the Latin Tarquinius Superbus, aroused such hatred by the autocratic government that no further ruler of Rome dared to accept the title rex (king). The Republic of Rome, res publica libera (free public affair) gradually became a military superpower and its legions served the SQPR standing for Senatus Populusque Romanus (i.e. the Senate and the Roman people). The Senate was in the first place, but the free people were still seen as a challenge. For a long time, most of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were slaves treated as property with no rights. Most of the free ones were not citizens, but released slaves, the original inhabitants of the conquered territories and immigrants. It was not until 212 that Caracalla granted citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire, so as to collect taxes from them.

Christianity initially meant spiritual emancipation, which could not be fully achieved in a state. It accepted people into its community regardless of their status and origin. During the reign of Constantine the Great, Christianity became tolerated at first, it later on gained an equal status and after his death it was turned into state religion. Thus the spiritual hierarchy intertwined with the state.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West and the transformation of the Byzantine Empire into an autocracy, culture in many places declined to such an extent that historical continuity was disrupted. Although the feudal system is not based on slavery, it is markedly stratified from top to bottom. This is valid for both the church and for the secular power. People are identified by landowner, parish and only through them with the feudal state (cuiusregio, eiusreligio). The state (its head) is the anointed head, consecrated by the church, unless the church ruled directly. Only with the development of cities did the bourgeoisie develop. From among the people emerged the strata of the tradesmen, craftsmen, clerks, successful artists, as the first universities were being established. Humanism is born, which, in addition to canonical languages and the culture of the nobility and clergy, also deals with the language of the bourgeoisie. The latter gradually become the third strata. The word nation already refers to the interested and political faction of university teachers and students. It only mistakenly refers to their origin.

With the Renaissance, the ideals of freedom come to life, at least in towns, which, thanks to the improved living situation of a part of the population, offered a better place for education, culture and critical thinking. The “folk” language of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio is actually the language of the secular culture of cities. In the Baroque people were still united or separated rather by religious, political and economic interests than by language and customs.

The Enlightenment is a period when, as seen from above, from the position of the monarch and scholars, the “nation” is discovered to its lowest social classes. It aims at providing them at least basic education, personal freedom and opportunities for employment. He considers these strata to be part of the state and a source of talent to be no longer wasted. Thus, the idea of serving the people as a moral commitment arises. This project in France led to encyclopaedias, liberalism[16], and finally to revolution; in the Habsburg Empire, Pázmány and Maria Theresa slowly started it. Joseph II drove the project so far that his reforms came to nought. Many were not implemented until the 20th century.

In many countries, the peak of the cultural status of this semantic field is the Romantic period. At the same time, as nationalism was emerging, inside it the despised social class became the celebrated one while religion also treated it in a similar celebrating way. In the beginning, this idea is undoubtedly highly beneficial. One does not identify primarily with kin, region, but with the whole community, especially with those who are the most numerous. They did not have privileges, but they were still entitled to freedom, education and a decent life. The national language has already become the subject of cultural eVol.ution during the Enlightenment, which acquired a folk character in Romanticism. The nation became a combination of elements: state-related, ethnic, popular, mythical and contemporary. The national revival in this period helped to preserve and develop the cultural identity of nations that had lost their statehood, such as the Poles, for example, or such as the Slovaks or the Catalans who had not had it for an extended period of time. At the same time, the strata that carries the romantic artistic, as well as the social, but sometimes also political program, is usually narrow, small, but it is often essential for the development of national identity.

Perhaps the strongest is the German Romanticism. The Germans did not have a basis for identity, which for the Roman nations, despite discontinuity, is historical. Therefore, they sought it in folk customary and oral traditions, myths, folklore, and fairy tales (and gradually elsewhere, too: for example in Italy, etc.). In England, Germany and partly in France, it gradually merged with the scientific and technical revolution. At the same time, it was an attempt to preserve the traditions of the rural people. That is, what becomes lost in the transition to civil society, industrial and urbanized society, it remained part of identity.

In the period of Romanticism, the individual meanings of this semantic field (nation) are even more significantly interconnected. There is a remarkable progress and effort towards the liberation of the people. In the period of realism, naturalism and the beginning of modernity, the interest in the individual, internal and social life of a person belonging to the lowest layer of society deepens. Problems arise almost globally … In a dehumanized society, ways are being sought to revive or update tradition. Opportunities are being sought to combine the progress of science and technology with civic and individual fulfilment. Colonialism, acting from a position of cultural superiority, and the decline of obsolete state structures and entities (such as Austria-Hungary, Tsarist Russia, Turkey) lead to pathological attitudes such as racism and anti-Semitism, taking on a sectarian character.

In World War I, nations were forced to fight for their greatest oppressors. Although its end removed some of the most dysfunctional and obsolescent regimes (Tsarist Russia, Turkey, etc.), interwar Europe was far from justice, peace and stability. The idea of a nation-state collided with the fact that ethnic and state borders could not be covered (Romania, Serbia, Czechoslovakia) and several nations felt offended. The global economic crisis in the 1930s and the rise of totalitarian to criminal regimes (Germany) did not help to raise political awareness either….

The Second World War divided the world bipolarly, while the fate of nations was again decided solely by the powerful ones (Munich: “About us, without us!” …). After the war, the Communist Bloc imposed the idea of “socialist internationalism”, though it was de facto neither socialist nor international Postmodernism tried to get rid of all ideologies and of the “-isms”. In the name of plurality, however, it denied more or less happy and traditional values. Gradual urbanization turned rural traditions only into folklore. Far too early, nation and people became a legal fiction rather than objectively valued cultural entities. And to those whom they label the new proletarians, they wanted to repeatedly deny them identity and equality. (All people are equal, but some are more equal than others…)

Finally, speaking of semantics, especially adjectives with the meaning of national, popular, public practically converge today in most European languages. At best, the first two adjectives come close to the meaning of folk. At the same time, we encounter a revival of nationalism, which becomes associated with fundamentalism, or even fanaticism. It is motivated by negative emotions, fear of the different, inferiority complexes, and fear of global competition. The material and spiritual manifestations of a nation often become a tourist attraction. As a result, forms that are economically viable are preferred over those that are one’s own and domestic. On the one hand, there is a growing interest in exploring the past, but it has a rather conservative to museum-like dimension. However, it is objectively necessary because cultural elements can still be revived. On the other hand, there is an effort to develop the incentives of folk culture to higher artistic level, which is rather elitist in nature.

Pop culture works more on a globalizing to global level, although it sometimes manages to popularize the popular element. Politicians often use the people’s card without really trying to understand and fix real social problems; on the contrary, they are harming the people on behalf of the people.

Conclusions

So does the idea of a nation and a people have a future? Every effort needs to be made to assure equal rights to those who were unlucky economically, socially and educationally. Therefore, in marginalized groups, often at the bottom of the social hierarchy, it is necessary to build education (at least full primary education), to develop culture and a healthy relationship to one’s own identity. Plurality does not mean superiority or erasure of differences which have positive potential. The contribution to the national culture is also a contribution to universal culture and vice versa. The development of art, science, philosophy and culture in general on a national level is not in opposition with the universal level, but on the contrary, the only meaningful way towards the future.

Bibliography

Books

1. Benveniste Émile, Hittite et Indo-Européen. Études Comparatives, Bibliothèque Archéologique et Historique de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie d’Istanbul, Librairie Adrien-Maisonneuve, Paris, 1962
2. Cline, Eric H., 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Princeton University Press, Princeton 2014
3. McPherson, Fiona, Indo-European Cognate Dictionary, Wayz Press, Wellington, 2018
4. Metsmägi, Iris; Sedrik, Meeli; Soosaar, Sven-Erik, Eesti etümoloogiasõnaraamat,: Eesti Keele Instituut, Tallinn, 2012
5. Orel, Vladimir E, A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Brill, Leiden –  Boston, 2003
6. Orel, Vladimir E., Albanian Etymological Dictionary, Brill, Leiden- Boston,  2008
7. Rejzek, Jiří, Český etymologic kýslovník (3. vyd. (2. přeprac. a rozšíř.) vyd.), Leda, Praha, 2015

Studies

1. De Vaan, Michiel, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, in ”Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series”, Brill, Leiden – Boston, 2016
2. Derksen Rick,  Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon in ”Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series ”,Brill, Leiden – Boston, 2007
3. Eőry, Vilma,  Értelmezőszótár+ in ”Explanatory Dictionary Plus”, TintaKönyvkiadó, Budapest, 2007
4. Kloekhorst, Alwin, Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon in ”Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series”, Brill, Leiden – Boston 2008
5. Lysý, Jozef, Ľud a národ: Hurbanovské filozofické myslenie, in  ”Pravda”, 2017
6. Stanislav, Ján,  Staroslovienskyjazyk. 1. vyd. Zväzok 1 in ”Veľká Morava a Panónia. Kultúrnyjazyk a písomníctvo. Konštantín Filozof, Metod a Klimentsloviensky. Fonetika”, Slovenské pedagogic kénakladateľstvo, Bratislava, 1978

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