This essay argues that Andersons

definition of the nation as a community

that is imagined, limited and sovereign,
while correctly identifying nations as
constructed, is insufficient. In fact,
Anderson fails to give a definition at all, by
not explaining how the nation is distinct
from other styles of community.
Consequently, his community could be
imagined in premodern times.

A critique of
Benedict
Andersons
Imagined
Communities
Konstantin Sietzy

Introduction
When Benedict Andersons Imagined Communities was published in 1983, it arrived right in the middle
of a large, and largely one-sided series of texts purporting modernist origins of nationalism. Neither
was Anderson the first to regard nationalism and nations as constructed, as he himself acknowledges
(Anderson, 2006: xii),1 nor is Imagined Communities still very present in contemporary modernist
writing on the subject, except as an obligatory cursory reference (cf. e.g. chapter one in Hutchinson
and Smith, 1994; Breuilly, 2006: xliv). Nevertheless, Andersons phrase of the imagined community
has remained resonant inside and even outside of the academic study of nationalism for over four
decades.
Thus it is more than surprising that upon careful consideration Anderson does not give an
operational definition of the nation at all. Anderson fails to define the nation as a discrete entity by
failing to describe how it is distinct from other styles of community (Andersons term). In
consequence, imaging a community in Andersons sense is by no means possible only in modern times;
this can be illustrated by showing that his criteria apply without alteration to, for example, a medieval
city.

The Nation as an Imagined Community

Andersons classic definition of the nation as an imagined community is analytically convincing and
empirically observable: the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their
fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their
communion" (Anderson, 2006: 6). It is also minimalist. In fact, imagined can be stretched to denote
the simple fact that the nation is a constructed idea, not (necessarily) rooted in empirically observable
qualities. Requiring the empirical-historical existence of such primordial qualities (as opposed to a
belief that they exist!) is largely discarded in contemporary literature on the subject. Two processes in
which the modern nation works as an imagined (in the sense of constructed) community relate to
collective forgetting: forgetting the very fact that the common past is invented, and forgetting that
nationalism itself exists, as a precondition for nationalist sentiments diffusing through every aspect of
society and culture.
Why would the nation not be imagined? As far back as Joseph Stalin, observers have pointed
out that a common language is one of the characteristic features of a nation. (Stalin, 1994: 19;
emphasis in the original). Van den Berghe (1994: 96-97) presents a socio-biological perspective

Steven T. Engel points out correctly that the fundamental insight that nations were founded on imagination
was recognized by Rousseau 200 years before Anderson (Engel, 2005: 537).

when he proposes that ethnic and race sentiments are to be understood as an extended and
attenuated form of kin selection. Yet the empirical validity of such primordial attachments is largely
discounted by present-day scholars. Breuilly (2005: 32-33) claims that ethnic myths or memories do
not matter. People have plenty of other ways to provide collective identity. Furthermore, Eller and
Coughlan (1993) demonstrate that primordialists provide only unsatisfactory explanatory models.
The folly of primordial ties is illustrated vividly by the twentieth-century history of the
Germanic states of Central and Western Europe. The core countries containing linguistically German
populations, Austria, Switzerland, and the Federal Republic, have long developed into distinct
communities that are both limited and sovereign. Despite this, ethno-linguistic ties (in the passive
rather than active sense of the word) remain. Anyone claiming that Swiss-German is a distinct
language rather than a dialect (Blocher, 2013) has never travelled to the alemannisch region of
Southern Germany, comprising the strip of land between Rhine and Lake Constance, where a dialect
almost identical to that on the other side of the Swiss-German border is spoken2 (and on top of this
displays a distinct ignorance of the state-of-the-art of linguistics theory; cf. Glaser, 2013). As for
Austrian, the differences are still more insignificant. Ethnically, that the question of a renewed
Anschluss is not even part of Austrian public discourse is admirably demonstrated by the fact that a
sweeping web search reveals not a single public opinion poll on this topic since at least the 1990s
(converse to the above, Switzerland must not be mentioned here). 3
Given the recency of this development (in the Austrian case, historical consensus is that the
1938 Anschluss referendum, polling 99.73%, required no ex post manipulation by the authorities; cf.
Verein demokratische Bildung, 2003) it becomes clear that a central part of imagining is forgetting the
very fact that the nations different groups common past is invented, or in Billigs terms: the nation,
which celebrates its antiquity, forgets its historical recency (Billig, 1995: 38). Secondly, but of at least
the same importance, is a nations ability to forget its inherent nationalism itself. Relegating
nationalism to the collective subconscious is a vital step on a nations path to maturity. Whereas in
conflicted nations, open nationalism is an important tool of promoting social cohesion for elites,4 in
established societies it is at most separatist, or extreme-right groups, that openly run on an explicitly
nationalist platform. Governmental leaders, on the contrary, master the art of habitually evoking

Interestingly, a major distinguishing character of the dialects is the common sporadic influence of French
through pronunciation and gallicisms.
3
The mass exodus of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary post-1945 provides no
objection to this argument, but rather illustrates the instrumental nature of identity with regards to
distinguishing between us and them: prior to 1933 (and perhaps even 1939), these identities provided little
cause for friction.
4
Cf. e.g. Gregorian (1967) on constructive nationalist discourse in the media in early 20th-century Afghanistan.

nationalistic sympathies, daily reproduction of the nation-state, in such a way that this reminding
is so familiar, so continual, that it is not consciously registered as reminding (Billig, 1995: 6).To Billig,
the metonymic image of banal nationalism is not a flag which is being consciously waved with fervent
passion; it is the flag hanging unnoticed on the public building (Billig, 1995: 8).

The Nation as a Distinct Style of Community

Thus, in a sense, Andersons factor of the community being imagined is a necessary but, as indicated
above, not a sufficient condition for it to present a nation. He is emphatic in pointing out that
"communities are to be distinguished by the style in which they are imagined (Anderson, 2006: 6).
Yet he does not actually explain how the nation is different in style from other communities.
Anderson posits the nation against the dynastic realm as well as the religious community;
but this is a historical argument, displaying the origins of nations, rather than an analytical one. One
can imagine a variety of forms of governance unit other than the nation-state that satisfy Andersons
conditions of being a community imagined as both limited and sovereign (and indeed in the sense that
Anderson employs these terms; this criticism is not merely semantic!). One of these possible
alternatives is the medieval European city. 5

Premodern Imagined Communities The Medieval City

European (and perhaps non-European) cities of the Middle Ages can be shown, at minimum in the
abstract (but compatible with a plethora of historical examples), to befit Andersons four criteria for
constituting a nation.
They were:
a. imagined, because "in fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face
contact (and perhaps even those) are imagined," according to his own definition (Anderson,
2006: 6);
b. limited, because a medieval town, by definition, imagined itself as "coterminous with
mankind" (again, Anderson's definition of "limited") less than a nation;
c. sovereign, because it may equally "dream of being free"; in fact, multiple were (the Swiss
city states of Geneva or Basle, for example, or the German Hansestdte); and even if under

The choice of this particular time-period is arbitrary; any premodern example could work. Indeed, the
academic avoidance of the question of nationality among Ancient Greek city states is instructive. Gellner
(2006: 14) is the only one to make even a cursory reference to Greek city states, only to dismiss them in a
single sentence.

a federal system, it may be highly contentious to assign the status of the (most) relevant
"governance unit" to the federal government (cf. Hechter, 2000: 10);
d. a community, because the existence of "deep, horizontal comradeship" is dubious at the
least for modern nations themselves; under Anderson's qualification that it may exist
"regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each," (Anderson,
2006: 7) it is possible just as much in a township; and similarly because Anderson joins in
the standard academic conception6 of how this community is realised, namely, that
"millions of people willingly die for such limited imaginings" which of course may also
be equally true for the medieval town (again, refer to the examples of the Swiss towns - e.g.
the Second Kappeler War of 1531, costing the lives of hundreds of citizens in defence of
their cities; cf. Meyer, 1977).
Thus, imagining in Andersons sense is clearly possible in premodern times.
At the same time, without falling into the trap of equating the "nation" with "nation-state", it
can be safely claimed that the medieval city or village did not constitute a nation in any conventional,
modern usage.7 Anderson himself would presumably instinctively deny this usage when asked; in fact,
he uses the two as distinct entities in multiple instances throughout the text (e.g. Anderson, 2006: 42).

Conclusion
Andersons concept of the nation as imagined proves to be a necessary but insufficient component of
its profitable definitions. Nations are imagined because they construct a common identity bonding
together a number of individuals far larger than the practical benefits of grouping together warrant
(except, perhaps, in wartime). Primordial attachments are not a relevant criterion as empirical
examples show. Furthermore, a crucial component of such imagining is an implicit agreement to
forget, both the very constructedness of a nations collective history itself, and the artificiality of its
constant flagging.
Yet nations form only one of a multiplicity of possible imagined communities, even if one
remains close to all of Andersons own definitional criteria. As such, it is very possible to construct
such an imagined community in premodern times, and historical examples supporting this view
abound, for example amongst Europes medieval cities.

Cf. e.g. Billig (1995: 1).

Gellner (1964: 152): "What are the political units for most of human history? Small tribal or village units; city
states; feudal segments loosely associated with each other or higher authority; dynastic empires; the loose
moral communities of a shared religion. How often do these political units coincide with those of 'nations', i.e.
linguistic and cultural boundaries? Seldom."
7

Ultimately, Anderson makes a valuable contribution through enriching the academic

vocabulary by a catchy phrase (in a non-ironic way; this mere fact has helped to popularise Andersons
book and thus open up the academic study of nationalism one further bit beyond the ivory tower),
and through a certain extent through his novel ideas on print capitalism (Anderson, 2006: chapter 2).
Yet the disproportion between, when Anderson is cited in contemporary debates, the focus on these
two ideas and the almost complete ignorance of the remaining pages of Imagined Communities, gives
testimony to the extent to which his ideas have been assimilated into the mainstream of modernist
writing on the subject.

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