Throughout the 20^th century, Syrian national identity had witnessed some crises. This paper investigated the concept of nation is used by Syrian modernists and intellectuals in 20^th century. It does so by refer to their attempts to create and redefine a new national identity. In this way, we showed the differences between that modernist by typology their view, it also argued that these differences are based upon their different standpoint, social class, occupational background and career. For the purpose of the study we used The hermeneutic approach of Quentin Skinner. This article points up the need for more attention to rhetorical perspective for reach a high level knowledge of some concepts like nation, nationalism, as well as the importance of variety of standpoints of thinkers. It should be noted that concept of nation has a dynamic meaning in history so by ground-clearing and highlighting the context, we can understand it better.

Keywords: nation, Syria, Sati al-Husri, Antoun Saadeh, Najib Azuri, Shakib Arsalan, Constantin Zureiq

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