Anthony D. Smith’s idea of the nation. Controversy around definitions

Abstract

This paper focuses on the category of the nation introduced by Anthony David Smith. The author attempts to answer the following questions: what does actually constitute a nation, what is the origin of a nation, and how does a nation exist. The main point of this paper is the evolution of the Smith’s definition of the nation, which has already been debated. The analysis presented here aims to show that the changes introduced by Smith to the definition of the nation actually helped clarify this definition, while the basic definition of the nation remained a consistent and interesting concept for different theories of the nation, and in particular those coming from political sciences. In addition, this paper presents some major ideas of that British scientist and the main research schools studying the subject. This paper mainly focuses on the analysis of the changes introduced by Montserrat Guibernau, a sociologist from the University of Cambridge, and attempts to explain motivations which drove Smith to introduce changes to his definition. So far, none of the scientists exploring the British scientific thought has attempted to show how Smith’s idea of the nation could be useful for Christian social teaching. Therefore, this paper includes some recommendations, which may be helpful for researchers interested in the field of the theory of nation. The ethnosymbolic concept of the nation, as defined by Smith, seems to correspond also with the concept of the nation that is characteristic of the Polish school of humanism. But while it is briefly mentioned in this paper, this problem is not explored in depth, as a possible subject of future research.