Description
Book SynopsisHow do peasants come to embrace nationalist sentiment? Exploring the complex case of Poles in Austrian Galicia, the author challenges the widely-accepted argument that national sentiment originates among intellectuals or urban middle classes, then "trickles down" to peasants and the proletariat.
Trade ReviewThe Nation in the Village prompts a generous run of intriguing questions pertinent to (and often challenging) the prevailing historiography of nationalism and the peasantry in Poland.
* Slavic and Eastern European Review *
Insightful and innovative... Stauter-Halsted's book is a fine example that draws on a dazzling array of printed and archival sources to reveal what peasants themselves were saying, writing, thinking, and dreaming about any future Polish nation.... The fresh approach to the village and identity will make a strong contribution to the literature on nationalism, peasant studies, and the public sphere. it should be essential reading for anyone interested in modern Europe, the peasantry, and national identity.
* H-Net Reviews *
Keely Stauter-Halsted's new monograph combines the best of intellectual worlds: it is not only richly informed by theoretical and historical works on identity formation, civil society, subaltern studies, peasant nationalism, and cultural studies but by extensive materials from archives in Warsaw, Krakow, and Lvov. The result of her intellectual efforts in an insightful study of the political, social, and cultural transformation of Galician serfs into members of the Polish nation during the postemancipation period and how the peasants themselves were instrumental in this transformation.... She set the bar quite high for those who wish to investigate the creation, establishment, and maintenance of a Polish national identity.
* Slavic Review *
This study makes an important contribution to the growing literature on nationalism in Eastern Central Europe.
* Polish Review *
This volume makes a major contribution to the ever-growing literature of nationalism by emphasizing the plurality and dynamism of the process. It is well illustrated and indexed and includes an excellent bibliography.
* Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Roots of Nationalism in the Polish Village
Part I. Politics in the Postemancipation Galician Village
1. Emancipation and Its Discontents
2. The Roots of Peasant Civil Society: Premodern Politics in the Galician Village
3. Customs in Conflict: Peasant Politics in the Viennese Reichstag and the Galician Sejm
4. Making Government Work: The Village Commune as a School for Political Action
Part II. The Construction of a Peasant Pole
5. The Peasant as Literary and Ethnographic Trope
6. The Gentry Construction of Peasants: Agricultural Circles and the Resurgence of Peasant Culture
7. Education and the Shaping of a Village Elite
8. The Nation in the Village: Competing Images of Poland in Popular Culture
9. The Village in the Nation: Polish Peasants as a Political Force
Conclusion: The Main Currents of Peasant Nationalism
Bibliography
Index
