Patriotism: Insights from Israel By Eyal Lewin

homeland, is referred to as the Great Patriotic War. Perhaps the prelude to these military confrontations, the largest of their kind in history, with unprecedented ferocity and immense destruction, is the French invasion of Russia, a war that was immortalized in Russian literature and music as the Patriotic War of 1812. In both cases, the common people allegedly stood firmly, in spite of a natural individual preference, in order to save Mother Russia, Rossia-Matushka, from its assailants.

Patriotism is defined as one’s love of one’s country, one’s birthplace, and its landscapes. It is an affection stemming from feelings of a deep, almost biological connection resembling kin relationship (Schaar, 1981; Viroli, 1995). A more comprehensive definition refers mainly to the phenomenon’s aspect of narrated feelings and takes patriotism to be the collective story one tells one’s child when putting him or her to bed; it is the common legacy that stems from the collective self perception and is anchored at the very foundations of any society (Tamir, 1997).

However, patriotism’s definitions are somewhat vague because in scholarly literature, the term is often used to describe different phenomena in diverse geographical locations or historical circumstances (Ball, Farr, & Hanson, 1989; Conovan, 2000; Eastwood, 1992; Horowitz, 1995). For different people, whether they are in the same situation or experience dissimilar events, the term patriotism might stand for diverse beliefs and concepts, sometimes turning political discourse to no more than an argument concerning the meaning of patriotism (Sullivan, Fried, & Dietz, 1992).

One example to illuminate this last point can be taken from a 20th-century incident. Until 1945, Adolf Hitler and his close followers could have been considered patriots by millions of Germans. Fighting the war against Germany’s enemies was naturally regarded as patriotism, whereas dissidents, such as the White Rose group, were viewed as German society’s fifth column and were therefore executed for betrayal once they were discovered. When Count von Stauffenberg and his coconspirators were caught about 2 years later, they were tried for high treason. Some of them were strangled to death with piano strings, and even in death were not spared any indignity—their bodies exhumed and cremated.