Sharon Snyder and David Mitchell recently suggested that there is a convergence between nationalism and able-ism leading to what they term "ablenationalism" (Snyder - Mitchell 2010: 113). Such understanding of an intimate bond between nationalism and a conception of bodily ab/normality rests on the assumption, that the formation of modern national state entailed not only standardization and homogenization of national languages - but also normalization of bodies and bodily practices.
According to this approach, national discourses should be analyzed as certain forms of biopolitical reasoning and as a form of governance of the individual as well as collective national body (Davis 2003: 106). This presentation demonstrates the usefulness of thinking the nationalism through body and disability which would be demonstrated on few examples from the history of Czech nationalism at the turn of the 19th century.