Nationalism has long been the subject of analysis and debate. Has it been a positive or
negative factor in human development? Since nationalism first took hold in Europe in the late
18th and early 19th centuries scholars have developed various theories and historical
narratives to describe this worldwide ideological and political phenomenon. But how does
nationalism work? How do certain groups of people become nationalities? What concrete
mechanisms have been adopted by governments and or intellectual leaders to transform often
disparate individuals into groups who become conscious of their common identity and
distinctiveness from others? No new theory of nationalism is put forth in From Nowhere to
Somewhere. Rather in a memoiristic and clearly personal manner the text provides a kind of
nuts-and-bolts guide to nationality-building. It focuses on developments during the last half
century among Carpatho-Rusyns or Ruthenians a numerically mid-sized stateless people living
in the heart of Europe and among the diaspora it has spawned in the United States. To
paraphrase the most famous person of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry Andy Warhol the reader of this
book will discover how Carpatho Rusyns a previously unknown people from nowhere have become
recognized and can now be found somewhere.
