Otto Bauer and the Question of Nationalities.

This text aims at explaining the way Otto Bauer defines nation in The question of nationalities. He starts from the concept of national character and traces back to the concept of common destiny. The latter conceived within Marx's materialistic theory of history, expresses the constant interaction, the direct and indirect communication of co-nationals. Nation is not only the state or a given economic territory, but a permanent interaction mediated by «cultural possessions». This proposition constitutes an enrichment of the marxist theory of history in which are integrated cultural and psychic factors often not token into account. They are never treated asan abstraction, as is the case of a cultural or psychological reading of history.