Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 04/2014

Resisting Hegemony: Transformations of National Identity Under Foreign Occupation

Robert Person

February 2014

The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies

Abstract

How does the content of national identity change under foreign occupation? Using historical sources and analysis of Estonian nationalist discourse in the late Soviet period, this article demonstrates how and why Estonians built identity boundaries to delegitimize Soviet occupation. Adapting the content of their national identity in order to emphasize that “we” are the opposite of “them,” Estonians adopted attributes of their own identity formed in dialectic opposition to perceived Russian attributes. However, not all “others” are equal: under occupation, identity development is oriented in opposition to the negative “other” rather than positive “others” toward which the occupied might aspire.