Modernism

According to various modernist theories by 1800 no nation had ever had more, than local loyalty. National identity and unity wes constructed from above, by the European states, as it was necessary for modernization of economics and society. Printing press and capitalism was considered as a necessary precondition of nationalism by modernist theoreticians. According to their viewpoint ethnic conflicts are indispensable side effects of nationalism[1].
Contemporary theoreticians are influenced by postmodernism and point to social constructivism of nations. Benedict Anderson terms nations as “imagined communities”. Ernest Gellenr admits: “Nationalism is not an awaking of nations’ self-consciousness: It gives birth to nations on various places, where they had not existed in the past”. Anderson and Gellenr use the terms imagined and invented neutrally and descriptively. In this context, nations are not considered as a factual and fantastic substances[2].

[1]Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org/
[2]Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org/