Irredentism: it's a thing.

A brief note: the purpose of this post isn't to be political. It's just to point out that irredentism is a thing, it's long been a thing, and it's going to continue to be a thing. So media reports that compare Putin to Hitler on the basis of irredentism alone are just trying to go for shock value instead of actually informing you about what irredentism in Europe has looked like over the past 100 years.

Before we begin, here's a quick and dirty definition of irredentism: a belief that advocates for the annexation of neighboring territories based on the same ethnicity, language, and/or culture, actual or alleged.

Irredentist claims to territory existed before Hitler. It's what helped WWI get started. The Serbian nationalist group, the Black Hand, wanted (mostly, vaguely) the part of "Serbia" that was in the Austro-Hungarian empire to join the Kingdom of Serbia (led by a reluctant, somewhat terrified, and resentful Peter the 1st).

After WWI, Italian fascists, feeling robbed by the Treaty of Versailles, made irredentist claims on a part of the Croatian coast (look up the brief history of the Italian fascist Free State of Fiume).

Irredentism is currently a thing for ethnic Hungarians living in Romania, Slovakia, parts of the Ukraine, the Burgenland area of Austria, Croatia, and Serbia. In 1920, after the signing of the Trianon Treaty, Hungarians lost roughly 70% of their empire. 1/3 of all Hungarians after 1920 lived outside of Hungary's borders (Slovakia, Romania, etc.)

Around 1989, talking about the Trianon Treaty became a way to unify Hungarians against the crumbling USSR. Unfortunately, the Trianon Treaty also became part of Hungarians' efforts to reclaim Hungarian culture, and distinguish between the "real Hungarians" and the "cosmopolitans." Guess who the "cosmopolitans" were?

The people today advocating for Hungarian irredentism and bemoaning/bewailing the Treaty of Trianon are part of Hungary's successful far-right parties. In fact, a quick googling of Hungary and anti-Semitism led me to this NPR post from AN HOUR AGO. The headline reads "Increased Hostility Against Jews and Roma in Hungary" and points out that Hungary is more anti-immigrant and hostile to minorities than anywhere else in (western, central) Europe right now:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/03/09/287342069/increased-hostility-against-jews-and-roma-in-hungary

So when you perhaps stumble across a news item about another small town in Hungary erecting a Trianon Treaty statue to memorialize their victimization and celebrate the unity of Hungarian culture, think about what that statue might mean:

As you can probably tell by now, my natural inclination is to be suspicious of irredentist claims to territory because they reinforce the notion of an organic, natural, pure community (thanks, Gottfried Herder!). If everyone were to just come together, goes the line of thinking, our national community would just fall neatly and naturally into place.

As someone who has always, *always* been the outsider to these "natural communities" I especially distrust and dislike this idea. Yes, people are being "included" into a greater body but you sure as hell had better believe that some people are being excluded, too. I felt excluded as a black girl growing up in Vienna, Austria. And then I came to the States, thinking it would be better (and it is, to a certain extent) only to discover that Langston Hughes had a to write a poem called, "I, Too, Sing America." Only to hear people talk about the "real America" that existed in farmlands in Kansas or the mountains of Montana - places that were majority white.

So forgive me for not applauding irredentists for their particular brand of nationalism. It's not my "thing."

Have any other examples of irredentism you'd like to share with us? Leave it in the comments.

Oh Canada: Landscape as Nation and Fake Folksongs

Continuing the discussion on Canadian nationalism, I would like to take a moment and consider the 1954 currency series that was issued by the Canadian Mint:

The other bills ($20, $50, $100) are in the same ilk

If I had to sum up the country from this series of currency alone, I would say, 'Canada: we have landscapes, but no people.'  However, a closer look at these images reveals that in addition to these various panoramas, we also have resources.  For instance, on the $1, we have plains suitable for growing wheat.  On the $5, we have trees, just waiting to be logged.  Even the $2, with its gentle, rolling hills, suggests that some kind of agriculture is taking place since the whole countryside looks so tamed.  While there were some modifications to these scenes made in the next currency series (issued in 1969)--such as the inclusion of a schooner on the $5 and the Canadian parliamentary building on the $1--the $20 retained this idea of Canada as Scenic Landscape Panorama:

Indeed, Canada as land of primary resources and nature was reflected in a very popular series of videos issued by Environment Canada (government entity) and the National Film Board, entitled Hinterland Who's Who.  These short clips would provide a brief documentary about a specific creature that was found in the Canadian wilderness.   These videos have appeared on Canadian television since 1963, and continue to run even today, although they have been revamped for a more modern format.  The theme music is iconic and makes a fabulous ringtone:

The calls have 'come to symbolize Canada's wilderness because of their lonely, haunting quality.'

The impression that one has, between currency and wildlife videos, is that Canada is a vast, lonely place, inhabited by many creatures, but few (if any) people.  This is, in fact, pretty accurate, since Canada is large and, in places, sparsely populated.  But how to represent its people?

One answer came with another National Film Board video entitled, 'The Log Driver's Waltz,' which was also shown on television and in movie theaters.   This 1979 version provided animation for the song written by Wade Hemsworth, a Canadian songwriter who also saw how logging camps operated during the 1950s.  There is a 1955 Smithsonian Folkways album of his music entitled 'Folk Songs of the Canadian North Woods,' although 'The Log Driver's Waltz' is not one of the selections included.  While I would hate to make a generalization about the entire nation based on this cartoon, my suspicion is that most of us believed this song to be much older, one that originated in logging camps and possibly one that was sung by lumberjacks. 

I suspect that part of the popularity of this particular cartoon (and I would guarantee that most Canadians remember it and could even sing the chorus) is that it reflects what are generally viewed as Canadian values--and not just in the Canadian wildlife that appears while the log driver is going down the river (i.e., moose and beaver).  The verse about the narrator having to dance with white-collar men, such as the doctors and lawyers, but preferring the log driver reflects a particularly Canadian idea that all of us are entirely equal.  There is very little concept of elitism in Canada, and certainly elitism is not grounded in education.  So while our narrator's parents might prefer for her to choose a more rich and stable man, she is perfectly content with a blue-collar worker.

I wouldn't make such a big deal about the possible intention of minimizing the authorial influence in favor of a folk interpretation if it wasn't something that happened in a second case as well.  The song 'Barrett's Privateers' might be one of the few that many Canadians would know and consider to be 'a part of our heritage' (as some of the other National Film Board videos would put it).  This song seems to be especially authentic: it mentions actual Canadian locations (Halifax, Sherbrooke); it tells the story of a boat crew and their adventures; and it sounds, well, 'old':

Except that it's really from 1976. 

So then why has it taken a place as a purportedly authentic song?  I would suggest that this song contains some sentiments that Canadians want to think are timeless.  Take, for instance, the chorus, which is repeated multiple times: 'I was told we cruise the seas for American gold/We'd fire no guns.'  What could be more Canadian than that?  'Let's go pillage the neighbours, but not do any harm while we are doing it.  Sorry.'  Of course, things don't go as planned, and it is an American ship (specifically, a 'bloody great Yankee hove') that takes down the Antelope.  Perhaps even worse, the American ship is laden with gold ('god damn them all'), so there is something here about thwarted aspirations--a feeling that Canada seems to know well when competing with its neighbors to the south.

This folk-ish quality also has a long legacy in Canadian music, as evinced in the 1990 song 'Home for a Rest,' by Spirit of the West (this is also the designated song that had to be played late at night in Canadian clubs during the 1990s and a frequent favorite at weddings).  While there was no suggestion that this was some kind of ancient Canadiana, it is hard not to hear the distinct folk roots of this piece in the violin parts and the song as a whole, and I would suggest that it fits with the other selections as something that sounds kind of old, but really isn't:

For more information about Canadian currency:

http://www.currencymuseum.ca/national-currency-collection/

Oh Canada: inventing a tradition for a polite and clean nation

I grew up in a country that regularly featured propaganda videos in movies and on television to teach me about my culture and heritage.  No, I wasn't behind the Iron Curtain or in a place run by a dictator: this took place in Canada on a regular basis.  Government-supported films were created (by the National Film Board) to offer insights into what made us Canadians.  Why was this necessary?  Because Anglo Canadian culture was not particularly well defined, from what I recall.  Sure, we all had to read Canadian literature in school, but I didn't find that Canada had the same kinds of nation-defining events as America (and we are constantly comparing ourselves to America, even when we don't admit it).  There was no real equivalent to American Thanksgiving, for instance, which is a holiday steeped with rituals, formal and informal.  Canada Day had fireworks, but nothing on par with the Fourth of July.  In fact, growing up I think that many of us had the idea that Canada didn't really amount to all that much, in the world, but we were clean and polite.

[I think that this has shifted drastically, but that may have to wait for another post]

This is not to say that all Canadians were walking around with a lack of identity.  Some groups had defined themselves very well.  Take, for instance, French Canada, which had a slew of folk songs, literature, plays, and even television.  In fact, my favorite Canadian television show when I was growing up came from Quebec.  It was called Lance et compte, and it was basically the Canadian response to Dallas, only with hockey.  Yes, it was a primetime soap opera based around the fictional Quebec Nationals team (thinly veiled for the Quebec Nordiques, they even shared a logo), and it was phenomenal.  I remember scenes like one of the Soviet players defecting via the Canadian embassy in Paris.  This was engaging stuff when you were a young Canadian:

I will post more later about French Canadian identity, which is a fascinating and complex topic.  Jewish Canadian identity was also relatively well-defined, and in fact substituted somewhat for Canadian identity as a whole, at least in the realm of high school literature that we had to read.  The only Canadian book that I remember reading in school was Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1955), which I hated with the power of a thousand suns because I found the main character repugnant.  We were not given any context for his character and this may have been my first exposure to the concept of Jewishness as a potentially separate group within what we had been taught was a cohesive whole.  Perhaps more context would have improved my experience, but in the end, I gained little insight into what it was to be an Anglo Canadian, since Duddy was Jewish and in Montreal, which means he was subject to what is effectively an entirely different culture than my Anglo-Saxon Ontario upbringing.

(You might find it weird that we didn't read Margaret Atwood, who is possibly the most effective chronicler of Anglo Canadian life that I know, with Cat's Eye being her best work in this regard.  I do too.  Maybe she talked about sex or women or some other scary and uncomfortable subject, and therefore could not be included in the curriculum.  Why not Robertson Davies?  There were better options).

English Canada has a bad habit of stealing the culture of French Canada.  Today, you can find poutine hailed as a Canadian dish (French fries, gravy, and cheese curds, YUMMY YUM, even if it is a heart attack on a plate).  However, it's really from Quebec.  When I was growing up, you only found poutine in Quebec, never anywhere else.  To say that it represents Canada as a whole would be a little bit like if New Englanders suddenly appropriated barbeque as their own.  The South would, obviously, rise up, led by irate pit masters.  Canadians may be too polite to rise up, but certainly they take no issue with adopting French (or Canadian-Jewish) cultural icons as their own.  Even the folk songs that I remember from school were mostly from Quebec:

And one from Newfoundland:

I didn't feel any closer attachment to Newfoundland culture than I did to that of Quebec.  However, I do find it notable that I don't remember a single unique Ontario song from when I was growing up.

I should probably point out that I was part of a French immersion program, so I spent more time speaking and learning about French than many Canadian students.  However, I am fascinated with how much Quebec informs Canada's culture as a whole, and how strange the notion of an Anglo Canadian culture was.  This topic will be the subject of future 'Oh Canada' posts.