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The poetic sacrifice: Cultural saints and literary nation building

Discussing sacrificial narratives as germane to community building owes a debt to Girard. In his anthropology, sacrificing and posthumously sanctifying scapegoats – marginal otherness within a group – consolidates communities and reinforces their relation to the sacred (Girard 1996: 69–140). Whereas Girard considers this mechanism universal and subconscious, modern nations’ sacrificial narratives often use the term sacrificewith the structure of symbolic exchange (i. e., sacrifice for internal cohesion or international recognition). The apparently subconscious naturalness and universality of Girard’s scapegoat mechanism corresponds to the modern notion of ideology and its management of social contradictions. Giving form and meaning to everyday experience, national ideology subconsciously interpellates individuals. However, it complements this mise en pratique with self-reflected pronouncements such as proclamations and narratives. Drawing on Bhabha’s notorious “nation and narration,” the cognitivist Hogan argues that modern nations maintain internal cohesion (especially during crises) through narrative modes of the heroic, romantic, and sacrificial (Hogan 2009: 192–212). The prototypical nationalist sacrificial narrative “begins with some communal sin. This is punished by communal devastation. [...] The devastation may be reversed only through a communal sacrifice, often the sacrifice of a human life” (194). National movements in East-Central European peripheries produced multifaceted narratives representing their histories in terms of sacrifice. Below I focus on a sacrificial narrative featuring a national poet as the suffering redeemer.