Everyday Nationalism and Kranjska Sausage among Slovenian Immigrants in the United States

The article analyzes the role of Kranjska sausage (Slv. kranjska klobasa) in everyday nationalism among Slovenian immigrants in the United States from 1919 to 1945. It explores how a nation reproduces itself through everyday practices, habits, and ways of being, particularly related to everyday nationalism. The thesis is that nationalism is not only a product of institutional actions but is also reproduced outside official, formal, and instrumental frameworks at the level of largely unreflected everyday practices. The article is based on an analysis of texts containing the phrase “kranjska klobasa” that appeared in Slovenian migrant newspapers of record in the United States in the period 1919–1945.
Keywords: everyday nationalism, banal nationalism, material culture, newspapers, kranjska sausage

The article analyzes the role of Kranjska sausage (Slv. kranjska klobasa) in everyday nationalism among Slovenian immigrants in the United States from 1919 to 1945. It raises the question of the everyday in the reproduction of nationalisms and national identities or rather explores how the nation reproduces itself through everyday practices, habits, and ways of being. In doing so, it problematizes the concept of everyday nationalism. The article’s thesis is that nationalism, and with it, national identity, are not only products of institutional action but are also reproduced outside official, formal, institutional, and instrumental frameworks at the level of largely unreflected everyday practices, decisions, representations.
The article provides more than just another critique of the “grand” theories of nations and nationalism with little regard for the question of everyday life and everyday culture. It brings into the discussion of everyday nationalism, and nationalism in general, a discussion of material culture, of the importance of things in the formation and reproduction of nationalisms, which, at least among scholars of nations and nationalism, has largely remained almost completely ignored. The article also brings a methodological challenge to the study of everyday nationalism, which has been accused of an ahistorical approach focused on contemporary aspects of nationalism. The article is based on an analysis of texts containing the phrase “kranjska klobasa” that appeared in Slovenian migrant newspapers of record in the United States in the period 1919–1945. The papers analyzed include Amerikanski Slovenec, Ameriška domovina, Edinost, Glas naroda, Glasilo K.S.K. jednote, Prosveta, Enakopravnost, Proletarec and Ave Marija.