Nationalism in Europe
Meaning of Nationalism:
Nationalism is the idea of a
sense of common identity and a sense of belongingness to a particular
geographical area. Apart from this it is also a sense of attachment to a
particular culture. It should be kept in mind that culture encompasses a
variety of factors, like language, cuisine, costumes, folklores, etc.
The Rise of Nationalism in Europe
During the nineteenth century,
nationalism emerged as a force which brought about sweeping changes in the political
and mental world of Europe. The end result of these changes was the emergence
of the nation-state in place of the multi-national dynastic empires of Europe.
Nation state
French philosopher Ernst Renan (1823-92) criticises the
notion suggested by others that a nation is formed by a common language, race,
religion, or territory. According to him a nation-state was one in which the
majority of its citizens, and not only its rulers, came to develop a sense of
common identity and shared history.
The French Revolution (1789) and the
Idea of the Nation:-
The first clear expression of
nationalism observed during French Revolution. French Revolution led to the
transfer of sovereignty from the monarchy to a body of French citizens.
Steps taken by French revolutionaries
to create a sense of collective identity amongst
the French people.
(1)
The ideas of la patrie (the fatherland) and le citoyen (the citizen).
(2)
A new French flag, the tricolor, replaced former royal flag
(3)
New hymns were composed, oaths taken and martyrs commemorated.
(4) A centralised administrative system,
uniform laws.
(5)
Internal customs duties and dues were abolished and a uniform system of weights
and measures was adopted.
(6)
Regional dialects were discouraged and French, as it was spoken and written in
Paris, became the common language of the nation.
Effects of French Revolution on Other
Countries:-
In 1797 Napoleon invades Italy;
Napoleonic wars begin. French armies which moved into Holland, Belgium,
Switzerland and much of Italy in the 1790s, carried the idea of nationalism
abroad.
Napoleon:-
In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned
himself Emperor of France. He set out to conquer neighbouring European
countries, dispossessing dynasties and creating kingdoms where he placed
members of his family. Napoleon saw his role as a moderniser of Europe. He
introduced the Civil Code of 1804 – usually known as the Napoleonic Code.
This Code was exported to the
regions under French control. In the Dutch Republic, in Switzerland, in Italy
and Germany, Napoleon simplified administrative divisions.
Main
features
®
Napoleon abolished the feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom and
manorial dues.
®
In the towns, guild restrictions were removed.
® Uniform
laws, standardised weights and measures, and a common national currency
® Initially,
many saw Napoleon as a liberator who would bring freedom for the people. But
the initial enthusiasm soon turned to hostility, as it became clear that the
new administrative arrangements did not go hand in hand with political freedom.
Increased taxation, censorship, forced conscription into the French armies
required to conquer the rest of Europe, all seemed to outweigh the advantages
of the administrative changes. He was finally defeated at Waterloo in 1815.
Many of his measures that carried the revolutionary ideas of liberty and modern
laws to other parts of Europe had an impact on people long after Napoleon had left.
The making of nationalism in Europe
® In
the mid-eighteenth-century modern day Germany, Italy and Switzerland were
divided into kingdoms, duchies ( territory ruled by duke ) and cantons ( small
administrative division).
® Eastern
and Central Europe were under autocratic monarchies.
Example:
The Habsburg Empire that ruled over Austria-Hungary, for example, was a
patchwork of many different regions and peoples. It included the Alpine regions
– the Tyrol, Austria and the Sudetenland – as well as Bohemia, where the
aristocracy was predominantly German-speaking. It also included the
Italian-speaking provinces of Lombardy and Venetia. In Hungary, half of the
population spoke Magyar while the other half spoke a variety of dialects.
In Galicia, the aristocracy spoke Polish. Besides these three dominant groups, there also lived within the boundaries of the empire, a mass of subject peasant peoples – Bohemians and Slovaks to the north, Slovenes in Carniola, Croats to the south, and Roumans to the east in Transylvania. Such differences did not easily promote a sense of political unity. The only tie binding these diverse groups together was a common allegiance to the emperor.
In Galicia, the aristocracy spoke Polish. Besides these three dominant groups, there also lived within the boundaries of the empire, a mass of subject peasant peoples – Bohemians and Slovaks to the north, Slovenes in Carniola, Croats to the south, and Roumans to the east in Transylvania. Such differences did not easily promote a sense of political unity. The only tie binding these diverse groups together was a common allegiance to the emperor.
Society of Europe
® (1)
Aristocracy (The highest class in
certain societies, esp. those holding hereditary titles or offices) The
Aristocracy Socially and politically, a landed aristocracy was the dominant
class on the continent. They owned estates in the countryside and also
town-houses. This powerful aristocracy was, however, numerically a small group.
® (2)
Peasantry
The majority of the population was
made up of the peasantry. To the west, the bulk of the land was farmed by
tenants and small owners, while in Eastern and Central Europe the pattern of
landholding was characterised by vast estates which were cultivated by serfs.
® (3)
New Middle Class
In Western and parts of Central
Europe the growth of industrial production and trade meant the growth of towns
and the emergence of commercial classes whose existence was based on production
for the market. In Central and Eastern Europe these groups were smaller in
number till late nineteenth century. It was among the educated, liberal middle
classes that ideas of national unity following the abolition of aristocratic
privileges gained popularity.
Idea of Liberal Nationalism
® Ideas
of national unity in early-nineteenth-century Europe were closely allied to the
ideology of liberalism. The term ‘liberalism’ derives from the Latin root
liber, meaning free.
® (1)
For the new middle classes liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and
equality of all before the law. Politically, it emphasised the concept of
government by consent.
® (2)
In the economic sphere, liberalism stood for the freedom of markets and the
abolition of state-imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and capital.
® Example:
Formation
of Zollverein
Napoleon’s administrative measures
had created out of countless small principalities
a confederation of 39 states in German region. Each of these possessed its own
currency, and weights and measures. A merchant travelling in 1833 from Hamburg to Nuremberg to sell his goods would
have had to pass through 11 customs barriers and pay a customs duty of about 5
per cent at each one of them. Such conditions were viewed as obstacles to
economic exchange and growth by the new commercial classes, who argued for the
creation of a unified economic territory allowing the unhindered movement of
goods, people and capital.
In 1834, a customs union or Zollverein was
formed at the initiative of Prussia and joined by most of the German states.
The union abolished tariff barriers and reduced the number of currencies from
over thirty to two. The creation of a network of railways further stimulated
mobility, harnessing economic interests to national unification. A wave of
economic nationalism strengthened the wider nationalist sentiments growing at
the time.
A New Conservatism after 1815
® Following
the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, European governments were driven by a spirit of
conservatism.
Basic philosophy
® Conservatives
believed that established, traditional institutions of state and society – like
the monarchy, the Church, social hierarchies, property and the family – should
be preserved
The Vienna Congress
® In
1815, representatives of the European powers – Britain, Russia, Prussia and
Austria – who had collectively defeated Napoleon, met at Vienna to draw up a
settlement for Europe. The main intention was to restore the monarchies that
had been overthrown by Napoleon, and create a new conservative order in Europe.
The Congress was hosted by the Austrian
Chancellor Duke Metternich.
Main features of the treaty of Vienna
1815 (Austria)
® The
Bourbon dynasty, which had been deposed during the French Revolution, was
restored to power, and France lost the territories it had annexed under
Napoleon.
® A
series of states were set up on the boundaries of France to prevent French
expansion in future.
® The
kingdom of the Netherlands, which included Belgium, was set up in the north and
Genoa was added to Piedmont in the south.
® Prussia
was given important new territories on its western frontiers, while Austria was
given control of northern Italy
® The
German confederation of 39 states that had been set up by Napoleon was left
untouched. In the east,
Russia was given part of Poland
while Prussia was given a portion of Saxony.
The Revolutionaries
® During
the years following 1815, the fear of repression drove many
liberal-nationalists underground. Secret societies sprang up in many European
states to train revolutionaries and spread their ideas. To be revolutionary at
this time meant a commitment to oppose monarchical forms that had been established
after the Vienna Congress, and to fight for liberty and freedom. Most of these
revolutionaries also saw the creation of nation-states as a necessary part of
this struggle for freedom.
Giuseppe Mazzini
The Age of Revolutions: 1830-1848
July Revolution in France (1830)
® The
Bourbon kings, who had been restored to power during the conservative reaction
after 1815, were now overthrown by liberal revolutionaries who installed a
constitutional monarchy with Louis Philippe at its head.
Greek War of Independence (1821-32)
The revolution of 1848 in France
® In
the year 1848 food shortages and widespread unemployment brought the population
of Paris out on the roads. Louis Philippe was forced to flee. A National
Assembly proclaimed a Republic, granted suffrage to all adult males above 21.
Revolt by weavers of Silesia (Poland)
® Earlier,
in 1845, weavers in Silesia had led a revolt against contractors who supplied
them raw material and gave them orders for finished textiles but drastically
reduced their payments.
Frankfurt Parliament (1848)
Final Outcome
® Though
conservative forces were able to suppress liberal movements in 1848, they could
not restore the old order. Monarchs were beginning to realise that the cycles
of revolution and repression could only be ended by granting concessions to the
liberal-nationalist revolutionaries. Hence, in the years after 1848, the
autocratic monarchies of Central and Eastern Europe began to introduce the
changes that had already taken place in Western Europe before 1815. Thus
serfdom and bonded labour were abolished both in the Habsburg dominions and in
Russia. The Habsburg rulers granted more autonomy to the Hungarians in 1867.
The Romantic Imagination and National
Feeling
Culture played an important role in
creating the idea of the nation: art and poetry, stories and music helped
express and shape nationalist feelings.
Romantic artists and poets generally
criticised the glorification of reason and science and focused instead on
emotions, intuition and mystical feelings. Their effort was to create a sense
of a shared collective heritage, a common cultural past, as the basis of a
nation.
Other Romantics such as the German
philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder
(1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the
common people – das volk. It was through folk songs, folk poetry and folk
dances that the true spirit of the nation (volksgeist) was popularised. So
collecting and recording these forms of folk culture was essential to the
project of nation-building.
The emphasis on vernacular language
and the collection of local folklore was not just to recover an ancient
national spirit, but also to carry the modern nationalist message to large
audiences who were mostly illiterate. This was especially so in the case of
Poland, which had been partitioned at the end of the eighteenth century by the
Great Powers – Russia, Prussia and Austria. Even though Poland no longer
existed as an independent territory, national feelings were kept alive through
music and language. Karol Kurpinski, for
example, celebrated the national struggle through his operas and music, turning
folk dances like the polonaise and mazurka into nationalist symbols.
Role of Language- Case of Poland
Language too played an important
role in developing nationalist sentiments. After Russian occupation, the Polish
language was forced out of schools and the Russian language was imposed
everywhere. In 1831, an armed rebellion against Russian rule took place which
was ultimately crushed. Following this, many members of the clergy in Poland
began to use language as a weapon of national resistance. Polish was used for
Church gatherings and all religious instruction. As a result, a large number of
priests and bishops were put in jail or sent to Siberia by the Russian
authorities as punishment for their refusal to preach in Russian. The use of
Polish came to be seen as a symbol of the struggle against Russian dominance.
Unification of Germany
Unification of Italy
Italians were scattered over several
dynastic states as well as the multi-national Habsburg Empire. During the
middle of the nineteenth century, Italy was divided into seven states, of which
only one, Sardinia-Piedmont, was ruled by an Italian princely house.
The north was under Austrian
Habsburgs, the centre was ruled by the Pope and the southern regions were under
the domination of the Bourbon kings of Spain.
The Strange Case of Britain
General information
(1) England – only England
(2) Great Britain – England +
Scotland + Wales
(3) United Kingdom - England +
Scotland + Wales + Northern Ireland
A new ‘British nation’ was forged
through the propagation of a dominant English culture. The symbols of the new
Britain – the British flag (Union Jack), the national anthem (God Save Our
Noble King), the English language – were actively promoted and the older
nations survived only as subordinate partners in this union.
Visualising the Nation
Artists in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries found a way out by personifying a nation. In other words
they represented a country as if it were a person. Nations were then portrayed
as female figures.
Example
France- Marianne
Germany- Germinia
Negative Effects of Nationalism
® By
the last quarter of the nineteenth century nationalist groups became
increasingly intolerant of each other and ever ready to go to war. The major
European powers, in turn, manipulated the nationalist aspirations of the
subject peoples in Europe to further their own imperialist aims.
® The
most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871 was the area
called the Balkans.
Effect on Rest of the World
Nationalism, aligned with
imperialism, led Europe to disaster in 1914. But meanwhile, many countries in
the world which had been colonised by the European powers in the nineteenth
century began to oppose imperial domination. The anti-imperial movements that
developed everywhere were nationalist, in the sense that they all struggled to
form independent nation-states, and were inspired by a sense of collective
national unity, forged in confrontation with imperialism. European ideas of
nationalism were nowhere replicated, for people everywhere developed their own
specific variety of nationalism. But the idea that societies should be
organised into ‘nation-states’ came to be accepted as natural and universal.
