actually i spent the rest of my shift wracking my brain over whether or not hrokr and the ysmirists are truly skyrim nationalists...
if you go off their short-term goal of
liberating skyrim from the imperial empire,
establishing the ysmirist military in replacement,
re-establishing the high-king(s) as the leader of skyrim rather than a mere figurehead, and
unifying their holds
all of which they eventually succeeded with in the coup of solitude, then yes, they were ideologically nationalists in that they were enforcing their self-sovereignty and self-determination.
but at the same time, their enemies were the stormcloaks— and it wasn't just because they were a threat to skyrim unification, but because they were aggressive ethnonationalists (including their terrorizing of the true natives to southwestern skyrim, the reachmen). ysmirists were hostile towards any idea of racial, religious, or cultural supremacy.
we can argue all day on whether or not nationalism inherently implies perceived supremacy and prejudice; in my opinion when nationalism is utilized for the sake of resistance and liberation against persecution, it is not inherently negative. but, at the same time, for ysmirists to self-identify with skyrim nationalism would conflict with their longer term goals, which were to expand their endeavors past skyrim and dismantle the imperial empire entirely (and considering alduin's army had now under hrokr's rule become a subsection of the ysmirist military, it was sort of like a redemption arc for them). this means ysmirism doesn't end within skyrim's borders at all and therefore can't really be described as nationalism.
fwiw, this is about the time hrokr dropped out of the ysmirists, not because they wanted to stay within skyrim's borders, but because they had achieved godhood through the voice and for philosophical reasons believed that to continue to spearhead any political endeavor was now a moral dilemma. this is something them and the ysmirist leader, farahan, get into debates about constantly (and hrokr of course enjoys this since dragons love to argue).
the closest real life ideology that matches the ysmirist flavor of nationalism is "liberation nationalism" where nationalism begins and ends with the liberation of their nation from the imperial empire, where the 'nation of skyrim' or 'people of skyrim' is defined simply by who has made their home in skyrim and is currently suffering under the corrupt imperial empire's rule. this applies to literally everyone. for it to mean anything otherwise, for the 'nation' to be defined even by just culture or religion, would conflict with hrokr's very upbringing, as their grandparents were literally refugees from morrowind.
so basically the short answer is that ideologically ysmirism is engaging in skyrim nationalism in the form of liberation nationalism, but once those short-term goals were met in the form of the coup of solitude, it didn't really fit that definition any more
















