Abstract
The nation is a modern invention. The nation was the ultimate goal of political authorities. It is also the ultimate goal of all the demands of the people, as the object which one was prepared to go to war and to die for. In the feudal epoch, people generally identified with a religion or a lord, rather than a Nation. The French Revolution was a crucial moment for the development of national identities. It became the consensus model in the course of the 19th century (Eric Hobsbawm). Maybe in early modern Poland, you can speak of a nation.
Different thesis were elaborated about the nation. The first one is the ethno-national thesis, particularly developed by A. Smith. According to him, there are 5 main elements which constitute the nation: a historic territory, common myths and historic memories, a mass public culture, common laws and duties for all members of the nation, a common economy with freedom of movement for all members of the nation. The ethnic distinctiveness is for Smith the sine qua non condition of the nation. The idea of ethnicity did exist but it changed across time. In Medieval times, nationalism was not an ideology. The mass construction only occurred in the 19th century. Hobsbwan criticized this conception of the nation.
