How national identity is formed and why some countries are much more patriotic than others

On a dark night of 1939, three ghostly figures clad in white capes and hoods approached a Russian camp on skis, carrying backpacks loaded with Molotov cocktails. Its objective? A shack containing essential equipment, which was soon set on fire.

Then something unexpected happened: the targets of the attack began to cheer.

Only 27 days before, Finland had been invaded by Soviet Russia, in a much-discussed event similar to what is happening in Ukraine today, reports BBC Future journalist Zaria Gorvett.

The faction, a Finnish ski patrol, operated by Lake Ladoga in the vast taiga forest, in the then southeast of the country (now part of Russia), a place covered by several centimeters deep of glistening snow from November to April and where winter temperatures regularly drop to -05 ºC.

The 160.0000 Finnish soldiers were vastly outnumbered by the Russian army, which consisted of about 549.000 soldiers and 2.000 sophisticated T2 tanks, while they themselves relied primarily on horses and reindeer, Gorvett notes.

But the defending side had a great advantage: the strength of the national identity of its population.

Although Finland was a country relatively new at the time, having gained independence from Russia on its own 22 years before, his people she was already proud of her nation.

And during the Winter War, as it was later known, the Finnish people united around their common enemy to become more patriotic never.

In the letters of the time they spoke of the nation as their homeland and emphasized sentiments such as duty and sacrifice. They called this collective force “the spirit of the Winter War”.

“They (the Russians) certainly underestimated the national identity of the Finns“, tells Zaria Gorvett the professor of modern British history at King’s College London, who has written several books on national identity, including Storied Ground: Landscape and the Shaping of English National Identity(“Historic ground: landscape and formation of the English national identity”).

Even Finland’s tactics were imbued with a deep sense of their own culture and an intimate knowledge of their land.

On the one hand, their troops moved on skis, a skill that most people in the country learn as children to this day and that it is better suited to a snowy environment than trudging on foot, as most Soviets did.

The Finns also wore more appropriate clothing, always camouflaging themselves against the snow present in cozy white capes, instead of thin khaki uniforms.

His use of horsesagainst tanks provided another unexpected and surprising advantage, because there were few roads in the main battle areas and the vehicles were noisy and easily frustrated by the terrain.

When times got tough, they could always turn to the sisu, a local form of resilience that implies a stoic determination, explains Zaria Gorvett.

At Lake Ladoga, the Soviets were particularly demoralized: many were frozen and did not have the same sense of protecting their own land and people.

So when the Finnish troops appeared and lit up the sky with a hogue ra of their belongings, they… did nothing. According to a contemporary report in the New York Times, instead of fighting back, Russian troops ran into the flames to warm their hands.

Just three months after the first raid on its territory, Finland dissuaded its invaders and managed to keep the vast majority of its land, although the country ceded the 11% and then allied with Germany Nazi in World War II.

This contrasts with what happens with another nation with great patriotic determination, Great Britain, a country with more than three continuous centuries as a continuous nation, but that has some of the lowest rates of national love on the planet

Today, only 15% of young people from 18 to 24 years in the UK describe themselves as “very” patriotic, according to a government survey.

In another survey, the 28% Of the youngs He failed the controversial “Life in the UK” exam, which is designed to assess a person’s knowledge of British traditional values, political culture, history and law, many of the things that set the country apart from any other. (This test is required for immigrants applying for citizenship).

This raises some interesting questions: how do they get the populations their national identities? Why are some countries so much more patriotic than others? And are these feelings healthy or harmful?

• The war of Winter: Finland’s desperate struggle to survive against the might of the Soviet Union

An abstract concept

One of the reasons why national identities are so important is the nature of the countries themselves.

“If you think about it, all states are artificial constructions”, he tells Zaria Gorvett Professor of History and Politics at the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom and founder of the academic journal National Identities, Pippa Catterall.

“They only work because the people have a certain sense of identification with them”.

The areas that humanity has designated as “states” are not based on any kind of universal logic, although they often have its roots in some sort of cultural legacy.

Most are also not discrete geographic entities, like a single island. Instead, are cultural constructions and exist because their populations, and in many cases, the international community, have agreed that they exist,

As the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari points out in the book by 2011 “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”, if a population collectively changes its mind about a country or disappears , whether due to war, famine or migration, their nation also disappears.



Since the human civilization began, countless countries and empires have come and gone because people stopped believing in them, since the Republic Roman to Ancient Egypt, the Papal States, Persia, and East Germany such.

The stronger the national identity of a country, broadly defined as the sense of belonging of its population and the confidence in its political system, the easier it will be for it to continue. Then patriotism overlaps and people feel proud to be part of that club, says Zaria Gorvett

“For Generally, it is a good idea for regimes to build some kind of sense of identity like the state”, says academic Pippa Catterall, “because it allows them to control territory, to control the streets, etc., more effectively”.

She points out that people tend to think of the machinery of government in terms of institutions like Parliament, but arguably a national identity is just as important, although intangible, can give legitimacy to a political regime.

Nationalism is a step further. It co-opts a person’s ideas about what distinguishes their home territory and leads them to directly support it as a political entity.

As a passionate believer in a particular state, you may want to help further its interests, such as invading elsewhere to acquire resources.

A common enemy

Perhaps the fastest route to feelings of belonging is a threat foreigner.

Before the Winter War, the Finnish population was nationalistic but theirs was a fractured country, divided among those who supported the Finnish Socialist Workers’ Republic communist and White Finland, which opposed them, recalls Zaria Gorvett.

They had clashed during the Civil War that followed the declaration of independence from Russia decades before, and the country had not yet recovered.

Then the Soviets appeared with their tanks and encouraged both political parties in Finland to work together to achieve a common goal. To this day, the Winter War is considered a central force in their survival as a nation.

This route to a sense of unity has also been operating in Ukraine for the last three decades, since the country was founded in 1991 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

It has gradually distinguished itself from its Russian neighbor by becoming more European, as Threats from the Kremlin increase. “The Russians helped create the Ukrainian national identity very quickly,” says Caterall.

“And this is, you know, one of the things of the national identity,” says Readman. “Actually, fighting a war, I guess it’s pretty cliché, you define yourself in relation to what you’re not. Coming to understand what you are in relation to what you are not”.

An ingenious invention

However, there are many other ways to quickly acquire a national identity.

Catterall gives the example of the Middle East.

In the early 20th century, the region was largely controlled by the declining Ottoman Empire.

But in 1916, six years before it finally collapsed, two diplomats, one from Britain and one from France, got together and made a secret deal on how they will divide his remains between the spheres of influence of their two countries.

This was the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and laid the foundation for the creation of many Middle Eastern countries over the next decade, including the forerunners of Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Other nations in the region also emerged or drew their borders amid the chaos.

“Many of these “post-colonial states”, such as av As they are known, they were plucked from nowhere: British and French meddling ignored existing divisions, such as those based on language, ethnicity, and religion, and created new countries rooted in what was politically convenient for Europe at the time, explains Zaria Gorvett.

“All the lines on the map in the Middle East were drawn by the European powers at some point, like in Africa. So how do you build a sense of ‘there’s a town’ in these states when you’re dealing with artificial constructions?” says Catterall.



The answer was to invent a national identity. The “invented traditions” are those that have the appearance of being inherited from previous generations, but in reality they were created quickly and artificially.

An example of this is the Scottish skirt, used in all kinds of events, from weddings to football matches. There are thousands of different patterns, and which one is used is supposed to depend on the historical clan to which the ancestors belonged.

But as the English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper pointed out in his groundbreaking book of 1983 The Invention of Tradition (“The invention of tradition”), tartan -the type of fabric traditionally associated with Scotland- has been used by those who live in the highlands for centuries. But it was not an important part of the highland community’s identity.

Then, in the 18th century, Scotland began to change its brand, presenting itself first as the original Celtic homeland, when in fact much of its population had emigrated from Ireland, and then as a nation culturally distinct from England, with which it shared many of its authentic traditions.

Similar examples occur with camel racing and hunting with birds of prey (falconry) in the United Arab Emirates and the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, and which some experts consider to be somewhat invented traditions.