On peoples, history, and sovereignty

The article opens with materials from the author’s research among east Slavs in Poland: a close-up portrayal of villagers classified as Ukrainians in the Polish People’s Republic, some of whom had no developed national consciousness; and an equally brief account of a postsocialist project in a nearby city, in which the boundaries between rival peoples were clearly drawn. Explanations for inconsistencies between individuals and enduring tensions between groups must be sought in the complicated history of this ethnic borderland. Collective identities and peoplehood are plastic. Outcomes are shaped by many factors: language and religion are fundamental, but account must also be taken of the contingencies of imperial politics, violence, industrialization, and the aspirations of intellectuals. The distinction between historical and non-historical peoples is found to be useful, but neither Ernest Gellner’s theory of nationalism nor conventional accounts of colonialism have much traction in this case. The implicit presentism of those who sacralize state boundaries at one point in time in the name of “sovereignty” has affinities with the functionalist presentism developed by Bronisław Malinowski in very different, non-European contexts. While that paradigm has few adherents nowadays, Malinowski’s posthumous critique of the state and “political sovereignty” is salutary for understanding the ongoing catastrophe in Ukraine.