Tags
Archduke Otto, Civilization, Country, History, Language, Nation, Nationalism, Patriotism, Tradition
And, still more important, the whole conception [of the nation-state] is opposed to a rule so general that it must be rooted deeply in the nature of mankind. There exists almost no country which could include all the parts of one race without including considerable parts of other races. We are bound to conclude from this that community of language is rarely, if ever, the decisive element to consider in forming states. There are other factors which together, or even occasionally singly, are no less important, e.g. geography, security, religion, economy, tradition, history. And once we override all these elements in favor of one, the linguistic, we are certainly in danger of creating artificial states which cannot last.
-Otto von Habsburg, Danubian Reconstruction
