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Regional Integration as a function of Empire (RIFE). Manchester: Stefan Berger; Alexei Miller; Centre for the Study of
Cultural Forms of Modern European Politics (Cultmep) at the University of Manchester, 24.05.2007-26.05.2007.
Reviewed by Sven de Roode
Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (June, 2007)
Regional Integration as a function of Empire (RIFE)
overcoming empires. The crucial question to imperial
states was which parts and nations of the empire were
to be integrated and which were to remain peripheries
of the nation-state. This decision often depended on the
intentional prevention of the emergence of nationalism
in imperial peripheries, although opposition to empires
could not only emerge in their peripheral regions, but
also at the core, among the imperial elites. However, imperial states such as Austria and Russia, claimed that certain areas within their territory would not belong to the
imperial nation. At the same time, areas that were not
part of the empire, could be perceived as part of the imperial territory. This raises the question how these territories were defined. Among other devices for such definitions Miller pointed out mental-mapping, education
(school-books) and memorials. He emphasized the importance of inter-imperial rivalry and of historical narratives as ideological foundations of empires. Miller indicated that attention should be drawn to reciprocal influences of nationalisms at the core and in the peripheries,
to the influence of core nationalism on excluded regions
as well as to the balance between the promotion and the
challenge of regional integration through nationalism at
the imperial core.
The workshop on regional integration as a function
of empire was organised by Stefan Berger and Alexei
Miller at the Centre for the Study of Cultural Forms of
Modern European Politics (Cultmep) at the University
of Manchester (www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/cultmep/). It
was sponsored by the Jean Monnet Centre at Manchester,
the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures and
the British Academy. The following report was written
by Sven de Roode (cand. Phil. University of Manchester).
As Berger indicated in his welcoming remarks, problems of cultural constructions of spatial identities in empires and interrelations between processes of nation- and
empire-building have been of special interest to Cultmep,
which brings together considerable expertise in this area
of research. Against the backdrop of several papers about
different multi-ethnic continental and overseas empires
such as Russia, Habsburg, France, Germany, Spain and
the Ottoman Empire the participants, who came from
several European countries, discussed frameworks for
the comparison of empires and patterns of colonial imaginations.
Alexei Miller (Central European University) opened
his introductory presentation with two propositions.
While nation-building processes would not be blocked
Differences between empires raise questions of comby empires, empires would not necessarily be shaped by
parability. Stefan Berger (University of Manchester)
nation-states. In contrast, empires influenced and sup- talked about six clusters of themes that are of significance
ported nation-building processes as well as constructions for the comparison of empires:
of empires. Imperial failures and successes influenced
- Ideology and mental-mapping
nation-building processes in the core country. Accord- Elites
ingly, nation-building processes in the core areas of em- Transportation, communication, public spheres
pires would have to be understood as supporting, not
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- Migration
- Economy
- Empire-legacies in the twentieth century
building like the Trans-Siberian railway
- conflicts about political rule within Empires (e.g. Indian Mutiny, Boer War, Polish uprising in 1863)
- cultural representation of empires
- imperial military and war experience
The workshop continued with a paper presented by
Joern Leonhard (University of Freiburg). Leonhard introduced a project dealing with opportunities and crises
of multi-ethnic empires in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. It is currently funded by the Gerda Henkel
Foundation and directed by Ulrike von Hirschhausen
(Hamburg) and Leonhard. It scrutinizes the Ottoman,
Habsburg, British and Russian empires in comparative
perspective. Leonhard pleaded for overcoming of the historiographic paradigms of “rise” and “decline” of empires
and the according deconstruction of national historiographies which have focused too much on the apparently
successful model of established nation states. The idea of
this project is rather to look at nationalizing empires and
their complex and interactive relation with imperial nation states. As a preliminary definition, the four Empires
in comparison were distinguished by ethnic diversity, a
composite structure and blurred boundaries. The comparison of the selected empires would be of particular
interest because they represented different political and
constitutional systems: Whereas the Ottoman and the
Russian empires were based on autocratic systems, Habsburg’s absolutism and Britain’s emerging parliamentary
democracy underwent crucial transformations in the period under research. In all cases religion and confession
were used as stabilizing tools. All four empires were distinguished by the different ethnic composition of their
population. Whereas e.g. only 20% of the Habsburg population were German, 50% of the Russian empire’s population were regarded as Russian.
Leonhard then presented some preliminary results.
He emphasized that many instruments of imperial integration that were expected to create a more stable
imperial structure in fact had a disintegrating effect.
The workers involved in the Siberian railway-building
for instanmce became important disseminators of antigovernment propaganda during the Russian Revolution.
School policies and newly introduced mass-conscription
did not automatically result in integrative effects either.
To conclude Leonhard pointed a set of problems and
hypothesis:
- the comparison between nationalizing empires and
imperial nation states needs to be focused not in order
to generate new ideal models, but to better understand
the effect of model transfers since the second half of the
nineteenth century
- the internal differentiation of imperial spaces and
borderlands and their contemporary perception is of fundamental importance
- expectations of integrative means need to be confronted with the concrete implementation of such means
and contemporary resistance against it
- “imperial” and “colonial” were not mere dichotomies, but rather “situative” concepts: the Irish were
both imperial in terms of their service in the military and
colonial administration, yet they were at the same time
objects of colonial rule from London.
Only the British Empire survived the First World
War, however, elements of imperial continuity have to be
taken into account also with regard to the Soviet Union,
the nation states emerging from the Habsburg monarchy
and the new Turkish Republic. The project therefore pays
attention to the different meaning of imperial legacies in
the twentieth century. From a methodological point of
view, the project combines comparison, transfer analysis
and entangled history/histoire croisée as the interconnection between the four cases and their perception of
the nation state model is of fundamental importance.
The following discussion circled around the problems involved in defining key concepts such as empire
or multi-ethnicity. There were differences between empires in dealing with their internal ethnic heterogeneity.
In spite of differences in minority-policies it turned out
that many empires, such as the Ottoman, the French and
British - but not Habsburg - only very reluctantly came
to acknowledge the existence of multi-ethnic structures
in order to avoid disintegrative effects.
Chris Williams (University of Wales, Swansea) focussed on nation-building and regional integration in the
Leonhard continued with a presentation of the dif- British Isles. He started off with a claim for the necessity
ferent research levels. The project’s comparative clusters and significance of a clear terminology. In spite of the
include
English hegemony neither Scotland nor Wales could be
understood as colonies and even with regard to Ireland
- infrastructural projects as instruments of exploring
imperial space, e.g. the Suez-Canal, or imperial railway one would have to be careful to use this term. Williams
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pointed out that nation-building processes did not occur
on purpose, that there existed no blueprint for a nationbuilding policy. The related policy was due to reasonable
momentary necessities. Because of its implications of
conscious coordination the term ’nation-building’ therefore, would be problematic. Williams continued with
an outline of the British nation-building processes and
stressed the significance of the British Empire for the
emergence of British nationhood. Referring to the comparative clusters introduced by Berger, Williams stressed
the usefulness of ideology, elites, communication, migration and economy. The empire was essentially British,
with elites of all parts of Britain taking part in the imperial endeavour. Scots, Welsh and Irish migrated to England, respectively the mainland, and were successfully
integrated. The economy as well as means of transportation such as railways further integrated Britain. Only
in the 1960s, after the dissolution of the empire, the rise
Scottish and Welsh nationalisms threatened British unity.
ichende Geschichte Europas) talked about nationbuilding and regional integration in the German Empire.
The fact that the empire was composed of individual
states which were represented in a powerful assembly,
the Reichsrat, fostered its appropriation on basis of affiliations to regions and Heimat. This encouraged considerable regional differences of imperial representations.
Feelings of affiliation to Heimat were particular strong
in the German peripheries, which were characterized by
ethnic diversity. Therefore, attitudes of borderland minorities resembled a litmus test of the integrative power
of the German Empire. The nearness of ’the other’ complicated the demarcation from the other as an instrument
of national integration in the borderlands. Often there
occurred a discrepancy between minority policies of the
centre and regional political actors, who had considerable
room for manoeuvre. Regional actors tended to integrate
rather than marginalise ethnic minorities.
In the following Bauerkämper concentrated on Posen
and Alsace-Lorraine as examples of German imperial
borderlands. The population of Posen consisted of a
large share of Poles, who were perceived as inferior
Catholic other. The German government pursued a policy of forced integration and repression in the eastern
provinces of Prussia. It attempted to drive the Poles out
of these territories and encouraged Germans to move in.
In contrast to the oppressive policies of the central government regional actors attempted to integrate the Poles.
However, neither attempts at Germanization were successful.
In the following presentation Bertrand Taithe (University of Manchester) treated the French case. Leaving
aside the Napoleonic, continental empire Taithe started
off by describing the emergence of notions about the necessity of a new empire during the Restoration between
1815-30. Contemporary thinking was ruled by the idea
that France should export its universal values on behalf
of the nation. This thinking provided the empire with
an utopian quality. In this regard Britain became of importance as the imperial other. French colonial thinking was dominated by theories of assimilation. The colonized would have to become French. At the same time,
a strong regionalism within France, predominantly articulated in terms of culture and language, however not
politically, emerged. This would have had the peculiar
effect that, linguistically and culturally, some colonies
were more rooted in France than some core regions. The
French regions were not necessarily more French than
the imperial colonies, however French regional identities
unfolded stronger in the colonies than in the homeland.
Economy and migration fostered the emergence of strong
relations between particular regions and colonies as e.g.
between Lyon and Indochina or Marseille and Algeria.
Moreover, some French colonies, such as Algeria on its
neighbours or Saharian hinterland or Senegal on its Sudanese hinterland, became original forces of imperialism.
Taithe concluded that the French empire was a product
of itself not of the centre. The multi-centrifugal shape
of the empire continues to influence migration patterns
between France and the empire.
Governmental policies in Alsace were more contradictory. On the one hand, they were characterised by
non-intervention. It was assumed that tolerance of regional cultures would increase the Alsatian population’s
willingness to integrate. At the same time, however, traditional regional cultural festivals were suppressed because of their subversive potential. Moreover, the government itself supported traditional festivals and folk
culture in order to increase the political integration of
Germany’s western periphery. Although the majority of
Alsatians were Catholic, they were not depicted as inferior as the Poles in the Prussian East.
Bauerkämper concluded that one could not think of a
coherent German imperial policy. He claimed that an investigation of German imperialism must distinguish between its continental and overseas variants.
The following discussion dwelt on different imperial
strategies to guarantee unity in face of ethnic and reliArnd Bauerkämper (Berliner Kolleg für Vergle- gious diversity. Nationalization became a major chal3
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lenge to nineteenth century’s empires. Stefan Berger
pointed out that the success of unifying policies depended on both geography and chronology. Maiken Umbach emphasized the crucial role of regionally based confessional divides. Whereas the significance of religious
cleavages, especially with regard to Germany, was generally agreed upon, Bauernkämper pointed out that the
role of religion may not be overestimated. In spite of being Catholic, Alsatians, in contrast to Poles, were not depicted as the Catholic other. Moreover one would have
to take into account the internal divide of Protestantism.
Therefore economy would have to be regarded as a more
important factor of imperial integration. The religious,
regional, economic and cultural dimension would have
reinforced each other. Andrea Komlosy pointed out that
differences between land-based and overseas empires’
strategies of integration have to be considered.
versity of Vienna) who talked about nation-building and
regional integration in the Habsburg Empire. Komlosy
remarked that, whereas Habsburg imposed an imperial
conduct on trans-Leithania, it applied a national policy
on cis-Leithania. Referring to the clusters introduced by
Berger and Miller, Komlosy pointed out five areas of significance for the analysis of the Habsburg Empire:
ingly there did not emerge a strong anti-imperialism
among Habsburg-educated Italians, who rather seeked
their way into the imperial system. Job opportunities in
the bureaucratic structure of Habsburg encouraged Italians to sustain the empire. Italian local rivalries created
trenched differences in local attitudes to Napoleon and
Habsburg.
Xose-Manuel Nunes-Seixas (University of Santiago
de Compostela) tackled nation-building and regional integration in the Spanish Empire distinguishing several
imperial phases which had different effects on forms of
regional integration. He emphasized that whilst the early
modern empire afforded many opportunities for regional
integration, this was far less the case with the nineteenth
century Spanish empire. Many inhabitants of Spanish
- difficulties of forming a German nation
- regional self-government vs central administration
- language policy/linguistic assimilation
- non-synchronity of political and economical developments at the core
- migration policy
She continued by relating the main nations of the empire to the named aspects. She distinguished Germans,
Bohemian Germans, Czechs, Carpetians and Hungarians
David Laven (University of Manchester) tackled the and concluded by specifying the different forms of selfproblem of the Italian periphery in the Napoleonic and images among those groups as well as their position in
the economical system. Both, Germans and Bohemian
Habsburg empires. After some introductory remarks
Germans would have had an imperial identity and would
about the changing status of Italy as imperial periphery of Habsburg and France, Laven stressed Italy’s im- have to be located at the empire’s economic core. The
portance as zone of conflict between the two empires. latter would also be true for the Czechs, who in contrast
Whereas Habsburg was threatened by Italy’s instability to the Germans had a national identity. Carpetians and
as a potential cause of French invasion, France’s Ital- Hungarians also had a national identity but were placed
at the economic periphery.
ian endeavours were driven by its conflict with Habsburg and an intentional general bellicosity to maintain
Drago Roksandic’s paper pointed to the huge imporits military machine. The Italy policy of both countries tance of dynastic structures derived from empires which
was strongly influenced by the personal factor. For dif- mattered often to this very day. He emphasised the comferent reasons Napoleon and Franz Joseph I were highly plexity of these structures impacting on the local develsensitive with regard to Italy. The wealth of Lombardy- opment and the diverse nationalization processes on the
Venetia was a common drive of imperial conduct in Italy. Balkans. He reminded his audience that the Habsburg
Whereas Habsburg was aware of Italy’s regional diver- empire officially knew no minorities, only nationalities.
sity, France’s imperial conduct in Italy resembled its And he concluded by reviewing the attitudes prevaling
overseas imperialism. Italians were to be turned into on the Balkans vis-à-vis the Habsburg empire.
Frenchmen. Both empires regarded Italians as an inferior
The discussion about the Habsburg empire threw up
race. Laven emphasized the usefulness of the elite-cluster
for the analysis of Habsburg and French imperialism in the question whether it should be included at all in comItaly. Whereas Napoleon wanted to militarize the Ital- parisons of nationalizing empires, as it so clearly did not
ian elites, Habsburg attempted to educate potential ser- aim to nationalize its own core. Such nationalizing novants. Although Italians largely resented military ven- tions were present in the Hungarian sub-empire, but not
tures there arose pro-Napoleonic feelings. Correspond- in the Austrian core.
David Laven was followed by Andrea Komlosy (Uni4
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colonies were happy enough to be subjects of the Spanish monarchs, but far more unwilling to be subjects to a
liberal Spanish nation which would not give them equal
citizenship rights. Within diverse colonial nationalisms
in the periphery, the Spanish centralist state was often
criticised for being responsible for the failure of Spanish
imperialism. In Spain itself, the Spanish liberals were not
that interested in the Spanish empire and concentrated
instead on nation building on the Iberian peninsula.
tionalizing pointed at attempts to create homogeneity by
imposing a sense of Russianness through well-directed
Russification of the different peoples in the empire. The
imperializing strategy was more permissive with regard
to cultural diversity. It embraced the assumption that
the allowance of cultural heterogeneity would create loyalty among the different peoples. At the same time the
Tsar was regarded as a supranational, overarching authority. Although neither process was successful in stabilizing the empire, both survived the 1917 revolution
Feroze Yasame (University of Manchester) talked and continued to have an effect until the end of the Soviet
about the Ottoman Empire.
Yasame provided an Union. With regard to the clusters introduced by Berger
overview of the Ottoman Empire’s history, which he deand Miller, Rieber referred to language, elites, technolscribed as one of terminal decline and increasing deogy, economy and representative institutions as means
pendency on the European powers. The Ottoman Em- to promote integration by both strategies. Rieber distinpire was marked by different organizing principles such guished institutional weakness, cultural diversity and the
as multi-confessional multi-ethnicity and the predom- fragmented social system as three core areas in which
inance of the Muslim faith as well as lose territories the Russian elites faced problems in their attempts to
with fluctuating boundaries. Attempts to integrate the
unify the empire. Russia’s institutional weakness was
empire through nation-building occurred comparatively
displayed by the absence of an unifying government.
late. The Ottoman state’s self-understanding did not al- Aside from the Tsar there was no central body to coorlow notions of core and periphery and it was very re- dinate imperial policies. The lack of an efficient central
luctant to accept the principle of nationality, even with administration resulted in the creation of alternative cenregard to the Turkish nation. Nineteenth century at- tres of government, which affected the effectiveness of
tempts to integrate the non-Muslim population of the
integrating policies. This tendency was increased by inempire were paralleled by attempts to create a Musternal power struggles about colonization and migration
lim imperial identity. This was complicated by inter- policies. The lack of coordination between central and lonal, congregational differentiation of the Muslim faith. cal governments turned Russia into an ’under-governed
Since the 1860s however, the Ottoman state’s failure fos- state’. The cultural diversity of the Russian Empire, its
tered a shift from Ottoman to an Islamic, Muslim politi- wide range of cultures, religions and social elements incal self-imagination. This tendency was strengthened by
creased the difficulties of creating unity. Russia’s highly
conflicts with Christian states and Muslim population’s
differential cultural scene, its cultural complexity made it
migration from lost territories into the empire such as difficult to define Russianness and increased the difficulty
Crimea and the Balkans. The Turkish revolution estab- to govern the empire. This problem was fostered by a
lished the rule of Turkish nationalism. The Turks were fragmented social structure. The different societal groups
perceived as the only power capable of keeping the Ot- enjoyed different social and legal status which hampered
toman Empire together. Since decades the emergence
attempts to create a sense of corporate citizenship among
of a Turkish nationalism had been fostered by conscripthe Russian peoples.
tion. Although conscription addressed Turks, Kurds and
Arabs alike, Turks were least resistant to it, which fosThe following discussion dwelt on religion, monartered Turkish domination of the army. Moreover, ad- chies and migration as factors of integration and disministration, education and press had been dominated persion in empires. Religion and monarchies were cenby Turks for a long time. After the war the new Turkish tral integrative factors in the Christian empires. Yasame
government implemented well-directed migration poli- pointed at the comparable meaning of religion for the
cies and aimed at the creation of a national bourgeoisie Ottoman/Turkish case. Miller emphasized that one had
in order to consolidate the Turkish state. In spite of the to scrutinize the transformation of monarchies, their nalost war Turkish nation-building was successful.
tionalization and the ways in which monarchies were instrumentalized to integrate the respective empires. KomAl Rieber (Central European University) delivered a losy and Yasame compared the Ottoman and Habsburg
paper about the Russian Empire. Rieber distinguished empires with regard to the status of their composing entwo main strategies – nationalizing and imperializing –
tities after their break-up. Yasame claimed that it would
of the Russian elites to keep the empire together. Na5
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be a matter of opinion to regard the Turkish state as a
successor of the Ottoman empire or to claim that it rescued the empire. Austria in contrast was only one among
the other successor states of the empire.
increased the efficiency of imperial administrations and
economy and integrated the emerging global communication. Since telegraph lines had to cross different empires’ territories, the telegraph intertwined empires also
geographically – it created networks of power.
Maiken Umbach (University of Manchester) tackled
the topic of federalism and colonial imagination. Umbach
emphasized the significance of the geographical diversification of homelands, colonies and even the metropolitan centres of empires. This diversification would relate
to different types of involvement in the imperial endeavour. This would be of particular importance with regard
to Germany. Umbach claimed that colonial imaginations
became central to formation processes of German selfimages since the eighteenth century. However, the centrality of colonial imaginations would not necessarily imply pro-imperialistic attitudes. Britain served as the imperial other – a projection surface for the claim that German colonialism would be more ethical and thus superior to the British. Such juxtapositions also became of
importance within nation-states, particularly Germany.
The different German regions were marked by a variety of attitudes to colonialism. Umbach criticised the
tendency to essentialize the state. Referring to the latter as an uniform actor would be an over-simplification
of a competitive structure of different actors. To illustrate her claim Umbach dwelt on the different endorsement of colonialism in Hamburg and Berlin. Whereas,
until the early nineteenth century, Hamburg’s elites remained relatively disinterested in colonialism, they were
enticed into the imperial endeavour by Berlin’s subsidies,
i.e. Berlin invested in the emergence of colonial imagination. Anti-colonial attitudes dwindled in the nineteenth
century. Umbach supported her assumptions by a presentation of colonial iconography in Hamburg.
Based on the possible understanding of the European
Union as empire, David Tréfás (University of Zürich)
tackled the question if one can think of the existence of
a European public sphere and common European selfimaginations. Tréfás presented preliminary findings of
an ongoing project about the emergence of a European
public sphere and a common European self-imagination.
The project is based on a quantitative content analysis of
reporting on selected events in different premium newspapers in Germany (partly including the GDR), France,
Great Britain, Switzerland, Austria and Hungary and covers a time frame from the mid-1950s to the first years
of the new millennium. Tréfás outlined the theoretical background of the project and pointed out a set of
preconditions for the emergence of a European public
sphere, such as intensive and sustained coverage and the
same interpretation, but not necessarily the same opinion, of the respective issue. He described communication in public spheres as precondition for the emergence
of common self-imaginations. Tréfás concluded that the
findings of the study imply the emergence or even existence of a European public sphere, however, not the
emergence of a common European self-imagination. Existing notions of Europeanness would reflect national
self-images, i.e. Europeanness only exists in nationally
filtered adaptations.
The final discussion circled around the achievement
of imperial integration through means of communications such as telegraph, newspapers and railways. Al
Concentrating on telegraph systems Marsha Siefert Rieber pointed out that all systems of integration served
(Central European University) treated the impact of im- as means of subversion and suppression at the same time.
perial communication systems on regional integration in Andrea Komlosy established that means of integration
the Russian, Ottoman and British empires. Telegraph consciously excluded some regions and thus contributed
systems were distinguished by a huge capacity of trans- to the differentiation between core and periphery, to the
mission of information and reduced distances between regional diversification of empires. At the end of the conimperial cores and peripheries. She emphasized the sta- ference, Alexei Miller and Stefan Berger, as co-organisers
bilizing function and significance of telegraph systems of the conference, gave expression to their hope that it
for both, the integration of empires and nation-building would be possible to publish the proceedings of the conprocesses. Telegraph systems were essential for the ference in due course.
build-up of an imperial communication infrastructure,
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:
http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/
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Citation: Sven de Roode. Review of , Regional Integration as a function of Empire (RIFE). H-Soz-u-Kult, H-Net Reviews.
June, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=27956
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