View source for Social:National myth

{{Short description|Inspiring narrative about a nation's past}}
[[File:René-Antoine Houasse - The Dispute of Minerva and Neptune, 1689.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.3|''The Dispute of Minerva and Neptune'' ({{circa}} 1689 or 1706) by René-Antoine Houasse, depicting the founding myth of Athens]]
A '''national myth''' is an inspiring [[Social:Narrative|narrative]] or [[Social:Anecdote|anecdote]] about a [[Earth:Nation|nation]]'s past. Such myths often serve as important national symbols and affirm a set of national values. A national myth may sometimes take the form of a national epic or be incorporated into a [[Religion:Civil religion|civil religion]]. A group of related myths about a nation may be referred to as the '''national mythos''', from μῦθος, the original Greek word for "myth".

A national myth is a legend or fictionalized narrative which has been elevated to a serious mythological, symbolic, and esteemed level so as to be true to the nation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Renan |first=Ernest |year=1882 |title=Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?|title-link=:s:fr:Qu'est-ce qu'une nation ? }}</ref> It might simply over-dramatize true incidents, omit important historical details, or add details for which there is no evidence; or it might simply be a fictional story that no one takes to be true literally,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Abizadeh |first=Arash |year=2004 |title=Historical Truth, National Myths, and Liberal Democracy |journal=Journal of Political Philosophy |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=291–313 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9760.2004.00201.x}}</ref> but contains a symbolic meaning for the nation. The national folklore of many nations includes a founding myth, which may involve a struggle against [[Social:Colonialism|colonialism]] or a war of independence or unification. In many cases, the meaning of the national myth is disputed among different parts of the population.
{{Nationalism sidebar|Development}}
In some places, the national myth may be [[Philosophy:Spirituality|spiritual]] in tone and refer to stories of the nation's founding at the hands of a [[Religion:God|God]], several gods, leaders favored by gods, or other supernatural beings. National myths serve many social and political purposes. National myths often exist only for the purpose of state-sponsored [[Social:Propaganda|propaganda]]. In totalitarian [[Social:Dictatorship|dictatorship]]s, the leader might be given, for example, a mythical supernatural life history in order to make them seem god-like and supra-powerful (see also [[Social:Cult of personality|cult of personality]]). However, national myths exist in every society. In [[Philosophy:Liberalism|liberal]] regimes they can serve the purpose of inspiring civic virtue and self-sacrifice,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Miller|first=David|year=1995|title=On Nationality|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-828047-5}}</ref> or of consolidating the power of dominant groups and legitimizing their rule.

== Background ==

National myths have been created and propagated by national intellectuals, who have used them as instruments of political mobilization on demographic bases such as [[Social:Ethnicity|ethnicity]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Safty |first=Adel |title=Leadership and Conflict Resolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BAMntG01-lwC&pg=PA273 |year=2002 |publisher= Universal publishers |location= USA |isbn=1-58112-617-4 |page=273 |quote= Shnirelman (1995) considers nationalist myths ... created by national intellectuals and propagated by the intelligentsia with the aim of using this myths as an instrument of ethno-political mobilization under interethnic conflicts. }}</ref>

=== Social background ===

The concept of [[Social:National identity|national identity]] is inescapably connected with myths.<ref>{{Citation |last=Cameron |first=Keith |title=National identity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aL2VArrJnzcC&q=%22nationalistic+myths%22&pg=PA106 |year=1999 |publisher= Intellect|location=Exeter, England |isbn=978-1-871516-05-0 |oclc=40798482 |page=4 |quote= Myth is inextricably linked with the concept of national identity }}</ref> A complex of myths is at the core of every ethnic identity.<ref>{{Citation |last=J. Kaufman |first=Stuart |title=Modern hatreds: the symbolic politics of ethnic war |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Plw98pTk5wC&q=myth+of+%22eternal+nation%22&pg=PA25 |year=2001 |publisher=Cornell University Press |location= New York|isbn= 978-0-8014-8736-1|oclc= 46590030|page=25 |quote= The core of the ethnic identity is the "myth-symbol complex" — the combination of myths,...}}</ref> Some scholars believe that national identities, supported by invented histories, were constructed only after national movements and [[Social:Nationalism|national ideologies]] emerged.<ref>{{cite book|last=Østergaard|first=Uffe|title=Classical and modern social theory|year=2000|publisher=Blackwell|location=Malden, Mass.|isbn=978-0-631-21288-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_PeGtsC2Hp4C&q=nationalist+myths+first+emerged+%22national+movements%22&pg=PA448|author2=Heine Andersen |author3=Lars Bo Kaspersen |access-date=8 September 2011|page=448}}</ref>

All modern national identities were preceded by nationalist movements.<ref>{{cite book|last=Østergaard|first=Uffe|title=Classical and modern social theory|year=2000|publisher=Blackwell|location=Malden, Mass.|isbn=978-0-631-21288-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_PeGtsC2Hp4C&q=nationalist+myths+first+emerged+%22national+movements%22&pg=PA448|author2=Heine Andersen |author3=Lars Bo Kaspersen |access-date=8 September 2011|page=448}}</ref> Although the term "[[Earth:Nation|nation]]" was used in the [[History:Middle Ages|Middle Ages]], it had usually an ethnic meaning and seldom referred to a state. In the age of nationalism, it was linked to efforts aimed at creating nation-states.<ref>{{cite book|last=Østergaard|first=Uffe|title=Classical and modern social theory|year=2000|publisher=Blackwell|location=Malden, Mass.|isbn=978-0-631-21288-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_PeGtsC2Hp4C&q=nationalist+myths+first+emerged+%22national+movements%22&pg=PA448|author2=Heine Andersen |author3=Lars Bo Kaspersen |access-date=8 September 2011|quote= We can, for example, certainly encounter term "nation" in the Middle Ages, but the word meant something completely different than in the age of nationalism, where it is inextricably linked with the efforts to create an associated state.|page=448}}</ref>

=== Psychological background ===

Besides their social background, nationalist myths have also a [[Social:Psychology|psychological]] explanation which is connected with the nationalist myth of a stable [[Social:Homeland|homeland]] [[Social:Community|community]]. The [[Complexity|complexity]] of relations within the [[Philosophy:Modernity|modern]] external world and the incoherence of one's inner psychological world can result in anxiety which is reduced by static self-labeling and self-construction and gaining an imaginary emotion of stability.<ref>{{Citation |last= Brown |first= David |title= Contemporary nationalism: civic, ethnocultural, and multicultural politics |year= 2000 |publisher= Routledge |location= London; New York |isbn= 0-203-38025-8 | oclc= 43286590 |page= 24 | chapter= Contemporary nationalism | chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=uUPt5HiudwAC&q=%22nationalist+myth+is%22&pg=PA24 | quote = The nationalist myth of permanent, fixed, homeland community, derives its emotional power, according to psychoanalysis, from the anxieties generated by the fragility of the sense of self, the ego, in the face of both the complex ambiguities inherent in relationships with the external modern world, and also of the disintegrative incoherence of the inner, psychological world. In an attempt to escape the resultant anxiety, the individual engages in an act of self-labelling and self-construction which is essentially static, inserting him or herself into the institutions of society, so as to 'seek out a name' and thence attain an imaginary sense of stability [...].
}}
</ref>

== Mythopoeic methods ==
Traditional [[Social:Mythopoeia|myth-making]] often depended on literary story-tellers - especially epic poets. Ancient Hellenic culture adopted [[Biography:Homer|Homer]]'s Ionian ''[[Religion:Iliad|Iliad]]'' as a justification of its theoretical unity, and Virgil (70 - 19 BCE) composed the ''Aeneid'' in support of the political renewal and reunification of the Roman world after lengthy civil wars. Generations of medieval writers (in poetry and prose) contributed to the Arthurian Matter of Britain, developing what became a focus for English nationalism by adopting British Celtic material. Camões({{circa | 1524}} - 1580) composed in Macao the ''Lusiads'' as a national poetic epic for Portugal; [[Biography:Voltaire|Voltaire]] attempted a similar work for French mythologised history in the ''Henriade'' (1723). Wagnerian opera came to foster German national enthusiasm.

Modern purveyors of national mythologies have tended to pension off the poets and often appeal to the people more directly through telling phraseology in media. French pamphleteers spread the ideas of [[Social:Liberté, égalité, fraternité|Liberty, Equality and Fraternity]] in the 1790s, and American journalists, politicians, and scholars popularized mythic tropes like "Manifest Destiny", [[History:American frontier|"the Frontier"]], or the "Arsenal of Democracy". Socialists advocating ideas like the [[Social:Dictatorship of the proletariat|dictatorship of the proletariat]] have promoted catchy nation-promoting slogans such as "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "Kim Il-sung thought".<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Portal
 | first1 = Jane
 | chapter = The Kim Cult
 | title = Art Under Control in North Korea
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zWH05CbG02kC
 | location = London
 | publisher = Reaktion Books
 | date = 2005
 | page = 90
 | isbn = 9781861892362
 | access-date = 6 February 2020
 | quote = [...] a North Korean's conversation is full of phrases such as 'Kim Il-sung thought', 'Kim Il-sungism', 'dedication to Kim Il-sung' and 'the Great Leader Kim Il-sung'.
}}
</ref>

== Primary myths ==

Two of nationalism's primary myths are connected with beliefs in:<ref>{{Citation |last=Brown |first=David |title=Contemporary nationalism: civic, ethnocultural, and multicultural politics |year=2000 |publisher=Routledge |location=London; New York |isbn=0-203-38025-8 |oclc= 43286590 |pages=23, 24 |chapter= Contemporary nationalism |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=uUPt5HiudwAC&q=%22nationalist+myth+is%22&pg=PA24}}</ref>
# ''community's permanence'' (the myth of the eternal nation), based on its national character, territory and institutions and on its continuity across many generations, and
# ''community's common ancestry'' (myth of the common ancestry).

== Consequences ==

Nationalist myths sometimes tend to stimulate conflicts between nations,<ref>{{cite book|last=Edward Brown|first=Michael|title=Nationalism and ethnic conflict|publisher=MIT Press|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|page=67|isbn=978-0-585-35807-9|year=1997|quote=... we do argue that tendency to breed conflicts is inherent to typical nationalist myths}}</ref> to magnify distinctive characteristics of the national group and to overstate the threat to the nation posed by other groups propagating militant fulfillment of their goals.<ref>{{cite book|last=Schnabel|first=Albrecht|title=Conflict prevention from rhetoric to reality: Organizations and institutions|year=2004|publisher=Lexington Books|location=Lanham, Md|isbn=978-0-7391-0738-6|author2=David Carment|quote= overemphasize the cultural and historical distinctiveness of the national group [and its territory], exaggerate the threat posed to the nation by other groups, ignore the degree to which the nation's own actions provoked such treats, and play down the cost of seeking national goals through militant means.| pages=45, 46}}</ref>

==List of national myths==
*Dangun: Mythical founder of Korea.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Service (KOCIS) |first=Korean Culture and Information |title=Dangun, Father of Korea: Korea’s foundation tale lends itself to many interpretations : Korea.net : The official website of the Republic of Korea |url=https://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/Culture/view?articleId=121092 |access-date=2023-11-25 |website=www.korea.net |language=en}}</ref>
*Emperor Jimmu: The mythical founder and first emperor of Japan.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-01-09 |title=The First Emperor of Japan - Kashihara, Nara |url=https://en.japantravel.com/nara/the-first-emperor-of-japan/60970 |access-date=2023-11-25 |website=JapanTravel |language=en}}</ref>
*Icelandic Sagas: Sagas relating to Iceland<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Edda & the Sagas of the Icelanders |url=https://www.islit.is/en/promotion-and-translations/icelandic-literature/the-edda-and-the-sagas-of-the-icelanders/ |access-date=2023-11-25 |website=Miðstöð íslenskra bókmennta |language=en}}</ref>
*Kalevala: National epic of Finland<ref>{{Cite web |last=Varpu |date=2023-05-06 |title=Kalevala of Finland: Exploring the Fascinating Meaning and Characters of the National Epic |url=https://herfinland.com/kalevala-finland/ |access-date=2023-11-25 |website=Her Finland |language=en-US}}</ref>
*[[Social:Kingdom of Fanes|Kingdom Of Fanes]]: The national myth of the Ladin people.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Fanes' saga |url=http://www.ilregnodeifanes.it/inglese/summary.htm |access-date=2023-11-25 |website=www.ilregnodeifanes.it}}</ref>
*Kosovo Myth: Serbian national myth based on legends about events related to the 1389 Battle of Kosovo<ref>https://www.islamicity.org/90051/the-birth-and-power-of-the-kosovo-myth/</ref>
*Kupe and Māori settlement in New Zealand<ref>{{cite web |last1=Howe |first1=K.R. |title=Ideas about Māori origins - 1920s–2000: new understandings |url=http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ideas-about-maori-origins/page-5 |website=Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand |access-date=29 September 2022 |date=2005}}</ref>
*Master race: Nazi ideology [[Social:Propaganda|propaganda]] of pseudoscientific racial theories purporting that ethnic Germans belonged to a superior [[Unsolved:Aryan race|Aryan]] or [[Social:Nordic race|Nordic race]], which combined with other antisemitic myths (including stab-in-the-back), which resulted in [[Place:Nazi Germany|Nazi Germany]] and its justification for [[Social:World War II|conquering]] [[Earth:Europe|Europe]] (for [[History:Lebensraum|"living space"]]) and for [[Social:The Holocaust|The Holocaust]], its genocide of those it mythologized were threats and lesser races, primarily [[Religion:Jews|Jews]].
*[[Unsolved:Promised Land|Promised Land]]: the [[Place:Land of Israel|Land of Israel]] that the Abrahamic God promised to the Israelite tribes in the Torah narrative.
*Treaty of Waitangi, treated as the founding document of contemporary New Zealand<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Renwick |first1=William |title=The Undermining of a National Myth: The Treaty of Waitangi 1970-1990 |journal=The Journal of New Zealand Studies |date=1991 |volume=3 |issue=4 |publisher=Victoria University of Wellington}}</ref>

==See also==
* Anzac spirit
* [[Religion:Civil religion|Civil religion]]
* Euromyth
* [[Social:List of world folk-epics|Folk epics]]
* Founding myth
* [[Philosophy:Imagined community|Imagined community]]
* [[Earth:Nationalism and archaeology|Nationalism and archaeology]]
* [[History:Nationalist historiography|Nationalist historiography]]
* [[History:Nationalization of history|Nationalization of history]]
* [[Social:Mythomoteur|Mythomoteur]]
* [[Social:Nation branding|Nation branding]]
* National epic
* National monument
* [[Unsolved:National mysticism|National mysticism]]
* [[Philosophy:Noble lie|Noble lie]]
* [[Philosophy:Political myth|Political myth]]
* Primordialism
* Ernest Renan
* ''What is a Nation?''

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==

* {{Cite book |last=Renan |first=Ernest |year=1882 |title=Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? |title-link=:s:fr:Qu'est-ce qu'une nation ? }}
* {{Citation |last=Birch |first=Anthony |title=Nationalism and national integration |year=1989 |publisher=Unwin Hyman |location=London; Boston |isbn=978-0-04-320181-7 |oclc=18684137 }}
* {{Citation |last=J Hobsbawm |first=Eric |title=Nations and nationalism since 1780 : programme, myth, reality |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KEulhck_l8kC&q=Nations+and+nationalism+since+1780+:+programme,+myth,+reality |year=1990 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge [England]; New York |isbn=978-0-521-33507-2 |oclc=20294449 }}
* {{Citation |last=R O'G Anderson |first=Benedict |title=Imagined communities : reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism |year=1991 |publisher=Verso |location=London; New York |isbn=978-0-86091-546-1 |oclc=23356022 |url=https://archive.org/details/imaginedcommunit00ande_0 }}
* {{Citation |author=Geoffrey Hosking |author2= George Schöpflin |title=Myths and nationhood |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hhbkVsc2u_IC&q=%22nationalist+myths%22+consequences&pg=PA153 |year= 1997 |publisher=Routledge in association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London |location=New York |isbn=978-0-415-91973-9 |oclc=38110006 }}
* {{Citation |last=Cameron |first=Keith  |title=National identity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aL2VArrJnzcC&q=%22nationalistic+myths%22&pg=PA106 |year=1999 |publisher= Intellect|location=Exeter, England |isbn=978-1-871516-05-0 |oclc=40798482 }}
* {{Citation |last=Gutiérrez |first=Natividad |title=Nationalist myths and ethnic identities : indigenous intellectuals and the Mexican state |year=1999 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location= Lincoln |isbn=978-0-585-31059-6 |oclc= 45731495}}
* {{Citation |last=J. Kaufman |first=Stuart |title=Modern hatreds : the symbolic politics of ethnic war |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Plw98pTk5wC&q=myth+of+%22eternal+nation%22&pg=PA25 |year=2001 |publisher=Cornell University Press |location= New York|isbn= 978-0-8014-8736-1|oclc= 46590030}}
* {{Citation |last=J. Geary |first=Patrick |title=The myth of nations: the medieval origins of Europe |year=2002 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, N.J. |isbn=0-691-11481-1 |oclc=47182376 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/mythofnationsmed0000gear }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Abizadeh |first=Arash |year=2004 |title=Historical Truth, National Myths, and Liberal Democracy |journal=Journal of Political Philosophy |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=291–313 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9760.2004.00201.x }}

{{Nationalism}}
{{Ethnicity}}
{{Media manipulation}}

[[Category:Mythography]]

{{Sourceattribution|National myth}}