After the late eighteenth century, with the rise of industrialization, the definition of the nation has shifted in a particular way. When the French and American revolutions gave birth to modern Nation-states, the debate has started on which phenomena, nations or nationalism, has come first? Are nations a modern invention of modern age or are they natural, given phenomena? Or are nations a given and its roots continues as the invention of modernization?
Primordial and Modern theories are two opposite perspectives to explain nations and nationalism. While Primordial perspective accepts nations as natural phenomena, Modernists define nations as invented communities that have shaped by industrialization. Even though it seems that there is a dilemma between these two approaches, they can live in harmony, coexist and help us to understand nations and people’s relationship with nations from pre-modern world to modern world.
The sense of belonging somewhere is in human nature to feel more secure. People tend to belong the communities to describe their identities to others. If they cannot satisfy their identification needs, they feel lost. Therefore, identities play a significant role in human life. Primordial perspective meets people’s need for identification. It assumes that identity is given and this given identity based on some indescribable attachments such as race, language, blood, race, religion, etc. The primordialist Clifford Geertz describes these attachments ineffable but coercive ties which are the results of the long process of crystallization.1 He underlines that primordial identities are natural and cannot explain with social interaction. They existed before nationalism. Besides, another primordialist Harold Isaacs mentions that the born of identities begin with born of a person into a particular group. He states that a physical body, a language, a person’s name are the elements to describe the fundamental identity of eve...