When we hear the word “genocide” we at once remember the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. About 6 million of people became victims of the Holocaust, 1.5 million of Armenians were killed in the Armenian Genocide, these huge numbers will always remain in our minds. A lot of people lost their families, homes and the ability to live in peace. These actions, by no means, left imprint on our ancestors whose peaceful life was disrupted. The problem of genocide is currently central problem of our time. It is a crime against humanity, crime which has irreversible consequences on lives of millions of people. It was done by the dreadful and crack-brained actions of the people who wanted to turn their nationalistic perceptions into practical deeds. In my opinion, it is important to grasp the roots of this type of crime and to why people commit it. Nowadays, even after so many years, this problem stays open because it had some influence on the development of the countries and the relations between them. Many people think that nationalistic inclinations straightway stoke controversy among people. Thus, the question is raised, can the genocide be viewed as a result of nationalism? To begin answering this question it is important to understand what are the definitions of the genocide and nationalism and how this two terms are connected with each other. Nationalism has many meaning, one of it is an ideology which is based on the assumption that interests and values of the state must prevail than interests of an individual or a group. It is oriented to develop and defend identity of a nation which is based on joint characteristics within society: language, cultural heritage, race. Moreover, it implies the nation’s sense of pride. Nationalism has many variations: civic, ethnic, religious, ideological, territorial. They may have different backgrounds but the idea of one nation in the center stays the same. It also can be divided in two directions: bellicose (chauvinism) and defensive nationalism. The first one has a negative connotation: it is forwarded against peoples and it bears in itself danger not only to the other states but also to its society, because people should obey to its rules and bring the values of the state to front. Second one characterizes the depressed nations that have experienced foreign pretensions and sloped to the super-patriotism and distrust of other nations, for example, peoples who were affected by the Soviet totalitarianism (the peoples of the Baltic countries). The ethnic origin is the most significant part of characterizing the nation. In this ideology the idea of merger of the ethnic and political side of state becomes crucial. The society becomes more united and it is difficult for it to accept “foreigners” and, as a result, this can lead to racism and chauvinism. If we consider genocide, it can be said that it is a killing of an ethnic group of people for the purpose to destroy its existence. It was firstly introduced by the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944. He made this term by uniting “geno-” (from Greek “tribe, race”) and “-cide” (from Latin “to kill”). There are several meanings of genocide which include: killing of people, humiliation, causation of physical and psychical harm, introducing methods which will negatively influence on the births in the society. Both two terms – nationalism and genocide come along with together.
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The extolment of one nation which tries to put itself as a dominant, unavoidably triggers to discriminatory actions towards the rival nations. This, unfortunately, can end as a genocide. Nationalism can be attended by the assimilation – process within one nation loses its identity through the replacement of other nations’ features. Thus, it causes liquidation of this identity by the cruel methods. In many situations, certain group of people starts to think that it’s nation might be the only nation in the whole world or it decides to eliminate or to destroy particular nation because it’s values, religion or just people’s appearance do not coincide with the perceptions of those instigators of the conflict. There are a lot of examples of how nationalism influenced people to commit such a crime. The most well-known is the Armenian Genocide (1914-1923). It was a mass destruction of people on the territories, controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The Turks elaborated the plan of the elimination of Armenians
The extolment of one nation which tries to put itself as a dominant, unavoidably triggers to discriminatory actions towards the rival nations. This, unfortunately, can end as a genocide. Nationalism can be attended by the assimilation – process within one nation loses its identity through the replacement of other nations’ features. Thus, it causes liquidation of this identity by the cruel methods. In many situations, certain group of people starts to think that it’s nation might be the only nation in the whole world or it decides to eliminate or to destroy particular nation because it’s values, religion or just people’s appearance do not coincide with the perceptions of those instigators of the conflict. There are a lot of examples of how nationalism influenced people to commit such a crime. The most well-known is the Armenian Genocide (1914-1923). It was a mass destruction of people on the territories, controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The Turks elaborated the plan of the elimination of Armenians