It depends largely on how much the contemporary culture defines itself from some element of the real or imagined past. Fascist Italy wanted to restore and/or strengthen the association of then-contemporary Italians to the ancient Romans, largely driven by the dissonance between Italy's historical pretentions and real geopolitical status. Repeated military defeat has severed one from the other, whereby a modern Italian is likely to feel pride in a general sense about individual or collective triumphs popularly ascribed, while simultaneously expressing cynicism about his fellow countrymen of the present day.
Nazi Germany had similar allusions to an imagined past for many of the same reasons. Germans felt a great dissonance between their reduced status in the aftermath of WWI and their collective identity as a first world nation. Because there existed no documented ancient Germanic state, they simply created one from an amalgam of foreign myths and outright lies. The Rig Veda is evidence that some group of ancient people, likely from current day Iran, wrote in an ancient "Aryan" language. Through many levels of alteration and distortion, this becomes "evidence" that a race of superhumans migrated from India to Germany, which was conveniently the location of those fabricating the narrative. Thus, one's ancestors are no longer from the loose confederation of Germanic tribes inhabiting central Europe, but from an imaginary super race that had an advanced culture and language but somehow neglected to use either of them after leaving Iran. I can't speak for how contemporary Germans identify with the past, if at all, but from my interactions, I sense a fair amount of pride in the present, and significantly less focus on the past, a sort of inverse of the Italian, who wishes to belong to any time except the present. Again, it has much to do with their current socioeconomic status.
The better off you (or the group you identify with) are doing in the present, the less you feel the need to link to a glorious past, real or imagined.
Bothered_Withersby t1_j08zsln wrote
Reply to How do countries that lack long, ancient histories and myths (or feel they lack it), or have lost all records of them, compensate for this loss or absence? Can these invented ancient myths become as "legitimate" as the truly old histories/myths of countries that have them? by raori921
It depends largely on how much the contemporary culture defines itself from some element of the real or imagined past. Fascist Italy wanted to restore and/or strengthen the association of then-contemporary Italians to the ancient Romans, largely driven by the dissonance between Italy's historical pretentions and real geopolitical status. Repeated military defeat has severed one from the other, whereby a modern Italian is likely to feel pride in a general sense about individual or collective triumphs popularly ascribed, while simultaneously expressing cynicism about his fellow countrymen of the present day.
Nazi Germany had similar allusions to an imagined past for many of the same reasons. Germans felt a great dissonance between their reduced status in the aftermath of WWI and their collective identity as a first world nation. Because there existed no documented ancient Germanic state, they simply created one from an amalgam of foreign myths and outright lies. The Rig Veda is evidence that some group of ancient people, likely from current day Iran, wrote in an ancient "Aryan" language. Through many levels of alteration and distortion, this becomes "evidence" that a race of superhumans migrated from India to Germany, which was conveniently the location of those fabricating the narrative. Thus, one's ancestors are no longer from the loose confederation of Germanic tribes inhabiting central Europe, but from an imaginary super race that had an advanced culture and language but somehow neglected to use either of them after leaving Iran. I can't speak for how contemporary Germans identify with the past, if at all, but from my interactions, I sense a fair amount of pride in the present, and significantly less focus on the past, a sort of inverse of the Italian, who wishes to belong to any time except the present. Again, it has much to do with their current socioeconomic status.
The better off you (or the group you identify with) are doing in the present, the less you feel the need to link to a glorious past, real or imagined.