What is a nation?

The famous lecture delivered by Ernest Renan at the Sorbonne, 11 March 1882 'Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?' can be found translated in English in the book Nation and Narration which is edited by Homi K. Bhabha. Some abstracts from the lecture follow:

Nations, in this sense of the term, are something fairly new in history. Antiquity was unfamiliar with them; Egypt, China and ancient Chaldea were in no way nations-No nation traces its origins back to Alexander the Great’s momentous adventure, fertile though it was in consequences for the general history of civilization.

p. 11 Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical, error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial. Unity is always effected by means of brutality; the union of northern France with the Midid was the result of massacres and terror lastng for the best part of a century.

Yet the essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have forgotten many things. FNo French citizen knows whether he is a Burgundian and Alan, a Taifale, or a Visigoth, yet every French citizen has to have forgotten the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, or the massacres that took place in the Midi in the 13^th century.

The modern nation is therefore a historical result brought about by a series of convergent facts. Sometimes unity has been effected by a dynasty, as was the case in France; sometimes it has been brought about by the direct will of provinces, as was the case with Holland, Switzerland, and Belgium; sometimes it has been the work of a general consciousness, belatedly victorious over the caprices of feudalism, as was the case in Italy and Germany.