《WHAT IS A NATION?》
本期为大家带来的是Ernest Renan（厄内斯特•勒南）的《WHAT IS A NATION?》（民族是什么？）（英文原版）；New York：Columbia University Press（纽约：哥伦比亚大学出版社）。
这是原版的英文书，作者是厄内斯特•勒南，勒南是19世纪法国著名的宗教学家、哲学家和历史学家，这本《民族是什么》是研究现代民族主义思想的必读物，也常常被学界所引用和探讨，基于其刚好位于“现代民族与民族主义传播（西方学界大多认为是1789年法国大革命之后，现代民族主义正式形成）”前后，因此也被视为西方民族主义研究的先驱和奠基人之一，具有广泛的影响力。
虽然书名为“民族是什么？”，但全书对很多政治问题进行了探讨，本期只节选第9章的WHAT IS A NATION?(QU’EST-CE QU’UNE NATION?, 1882)（民族是什么？1882年)）进行介绍。
I propose to analyze with you an idea that seems clear, but lends itself to the most dangerous misunderstandings. The forms of human society are exceedingly varied. The vast agglomerations of men in China,Egypt, or the most ancient Babylonia; the tribes of the Hebrews, the Arabs; the city-states of Athens or Sparta, the assemblies of disparate lands after the fashion of the Achaemenid Empire,1 the Roman Empire,the Carolingian Empire; the communities without a fatherland, preserved by a religious bond, such as those of the Israelites and the Parsees; nations,such as France, England, and most modern European independent entities;confederations after the fashion of Switzerland and America; kinships,such as those that race, or rather language, establishes between the different branches of the Teutons or the different branches of the Slavs—here are types of groupings, each of which exists, or has existed, and cannot be confused with another except with the direst of consequences.（我建议和你分析一个似乎很清楚的观点，但它会引起最危险的误解。
人类社会的形式多种多样。在中国、埃及或最古老的巴比伦，有大量的人类聚集地;希伯来人部落，阿拉伯部落;雅典或斯巴达的城邦，按照阿契美尼德帝国、罗马帝国、加洛林帝国的方式，由不同土地组成的集合体;没有祖国，由宗教纽带保护的社区，如以色列人和帕西人;像法国、英国这样的国家，以及大多数现代欧洲的独立实体;像瑞士和美国那样的联盟;亲属关系，比如种族，或者语言，在条顿人的不同分支或斯拉夫人的不同分支之间建立的关系——这里是不同的群体类型，每一个都存在或曾经存在过，不能与另一个混淆，除非有可怕的后果。）
At the time of the French Revolution, it was believed that the institutions of small independent cities, such as Sparta and Rome, could be applied to our large nations of thirty to forty million souls. Nowadays, a far graver mistake is made: race is confused with nation, and a sovereignty analogous to that of truly existing peoples is attributed to ethnographic, or rather, linguistic groups. Let us attempt to reach some precision on these difficult questions, in which the slightest confusion regarding the meaning of words at the beginning of the argument may lead in the end to the most disastrous mistakes. It is a delicate thing that we propose to do; it is almost a vivisection; we will be treating the living as one ordinarily treats the dead. We shall employ the most absolute detachment and impartiality.（在法国大革命时期，人们认为，像斯巴达和罗马这样独立的小城市的制度可以适用于我们三千万至四千万人口的大国。
如今，人们犯了一个严重得多的错误:把种族与国家混淆了，把类似于真正存在的民族的主权归于民族志，或者更确切地说，归于语言群体。让我们试着精确地回答这些困难的问题，在辩论开始时，对单词含义的最轻微的混淆可能导致最后最灾难性的错误。我们提议做的是一件很微妙的事情;这几乎是一次活体解剖;我们会像对待死者一样对待生者。我们将采取最绝对的超然和公正的态度。）
The modern nation is therefore a historical result brought about by aseries of convergent facts.（现代民族是由一系列趋同的事实所带来的历史结果）
According to some political theorists, a nation is above all a dynasty,representing an ancient conquest, which was first accepted and then forgotten by the mass of the people. Following the theorists I speak of, the grouping of provinces produced by a dynasty, by its wars, its marriages, its treaties, ends with the dynasty that had established it. It is quite true that the majority of modern nations were made by a family of feudal origin,which had contracted a marriage with the soil and was in some sense a nucleus of centralization.（根据一些政治理论家的观点，一个国家首先是一个王朝，代表着一种古老的征服，它先是被人民大众接受，然后被人们遗忘。按照我所提到的理论家的说法，一个王朝通过战争、联姻和条约所产生的各省的组合，到建立它的那个王朝时就结束了。的确，大多数现代国家都是由封建出身的家庭组成的，这些家庭与土地缔结了婚姻，在某种意义上是中央集权的核心。）
Anyway, the eighteenth century had changed everything. Man had returned, after centuries of abasement, to the ancient spirit, to self-respect, to the conception of his rights. The words ‘fatherland’ and ‘citizen’ had recovered their meaning.（无论如何，十八世纪改变了一切。经过几个世纪的屈辱，人类回到了古老的精神，回到了自尊，回到了对自己权利的认识。“祖国”和“公民”这两个词恢复了它们的意义。）
The national principle is as just and legitimate as that of the primordial right of races is narrow and full of danger for true progress.（民族原则与种族的原始权利原则一样是公正和合法的，但对于真正的进步来说，这一原则是狭隘的和充满危险的）
A Frenchman is neither a Gaul, nor a Frank, nor a Burgundian. He is what emerged from the cauldron in which, under the direction of the king of France, the most diverse elements have fermented together.（法国人既不是高卢人，也不是弗兰克人，也不是勃艮第人。他是在法国国王的指导下，最多样化的元素发酵在一起的大锅中出现的东西。）
I am very fond of ethnography; it is a science of rare interest; but, as I would wish it to be free, I wish it to be without political application.（我非常喜欢人类学；这是一门很少感兴趣的科学；但是，正如我希望它是自由的一样，我希望它不受政治的影响。）
What we have just said of race must also be said of language. Language invites unity; it does not impose it.（我们刚才谈到的种族，也必须谈到语言。语言创造团结；它没有强加。）
The community of interests is assuredly a powerful bond between men. Do interests, however, suffice to make a nation? I do not think so.Community of interests brings about trade agreements. Nationality has a sentimental side to it; it is both soul and body at once; a Zollve-rein is not a fatherland.（利益共同体无疑是人与人之间的强大纽带。然而，利益足以构成一个国家吗?我不这么认为。利益共同体带来了贸易协定。国籍有感伤的一面；它既是灵魂又是身体；缰绳不是祖国。）
Geography, or what are called natural frontiers, certainly plays a considerable part in the division of nations. Geography is one of the essential factors in history.（地理，或所谓的自然边界，无疑在国家分裂中起着相当大的作用。 地理是历史的重要因素之一。）
A nation is a spiritual principle, the outcome of the profound complications of history, a spiritual family, not a group determined by the configuration of the earth.（一个民族是一种精神原则，是历史悠久的并发的产物，是一个精神的家庭，而不是一个由地球构造决定的群体。）
A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things that, in truth, are but one constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other in the present. One is the possession in common of a richlegacy of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form.（一个民族是一个灵魂，一个精神原则。 事实上，有两件事只是一个构成了这个灵魂，这个精神原则。 一个是过去，另一个是现在。 一种是共同拥有丰富的记忆遗产； 另一种是目前的同意，共同生活的愿望，以及使一个人以不可分割的形式获得的遗产的价值永存的意愿。）
A nation is therefore a vast solidarity, constituted by the sentiment of the sacrifices one has made and of those one is yet prepared to make. It presupposes a past; it is, however, summarized in the present by a tangible fact: consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life.（因此，一个国家是一个巨大的团结，由一个人已经做出的牺牲和那些尚未准备做出的牺牲的情感构成。 它以过去为前提； 然而，它现在被一个具体的事实所概括：同意，明确表达的继续共同生活的愿望。）
在勒南看来，What Is a Nation?（民族是什么？）——“aneveryday plebiscite”（日常公民投票）。
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