Polylingual Nationalism in East-Central Europe and the BalkansMaxwell, Alexander (Avtor) Stergar, Rok (Avtor) nationalismlanguagesmultilingualismCentral EuropeBalkansPolylingual nationalism refers to national concepts that imagine more than one language asintegral to the titular national community. In East-Central Europe and the Balkans, polylingualnationalism has not been a focus of comparative or theoretical research, since nationalist his-toriographies have instead emphasized the link between nations and languages, conflatinglinguistic revival efforts with the so-called “national revival” of the 19th century. Nevertheless,patriots in East-Central Europe and the Balkans have also imagined various national conceptsso that the nation encompassed speakers of different languages. This article traces key devel-opments in the history of polylingual nationalism in the region. It suggests that the success ofethnolinguistic nationalism was contingent. Writing polylingual nationalism back into theregion’s history offers a fuller picture of how competing loyalties interacted and why today’snationalisms ultimately took the forms that they did.20262026-08-17 13:25:02Članek v reviji185671sl