The Rise of Nationalism, 1800-1850
Nationalism is the belief that groups of people who share a common identity, as shown by their speaking a common language, a common culture, and a common history, should have a national state of their own. Before 1800, few parts of Europe were organized into national states. More often, a single monarch ruled over populations speaking several different languages, or else groups (such as the Germans and Italians) were divided into many different states. In central and eastern Europe, populations speaking different languages often shared the same territory; for example, in Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic), peasants spoke Czech, but townspeople usually spoke German.
The French Revolution was a great impetus to nationalism. The French provided an example of a people consciously organizing itself on national lines, with national laws, a national army, and emotional national symbols like the tri-color flag. Napoleon’s conquests inspired feelings of nationalism in many of the countries he occupied. This experience made Germans, Spaniards, and Italians more conscious of what they had in common and what made them different from the French.
The Treaty of Vienna (1815), which ended the Napoleonic wars, ignored these national feelings. Under its policy of restoration, most territories were given back to the rulers they had had before 1789. Movements for national unification and independence therefore turned to revolutionary tactics to promote their cause. They appealed to the ideal of freedom put forward in the French Revolution.
Nationalism was closely associated with the romantic movement in art, music, and literature. Romantic artists depicted heroic scenes from their countries’ past; poets tried to express the unique qualities of their nation’s soul. Romantic composers often incorporated folk melodies in their music. Nationalists and romantic artists often saw religion as an important part of national identity.
I. The Age of Nationalism
A. Reaction against the Enlightenment
B. The French Revolution and nationalism
C. Napoleon and nationalism
II. The Social Bases of Nationalism
A. Nationalism and the middle classes
1. liberalism and nationalism
2. the economic bases of nationalism
B. Nationalism and the people
C. Nationalism and youth
III. Italian Nationalism: A Case Study
A. Obstacles to national unity in Italy
1. territorial divisions
2. cultural differences
3. social conflicts
B. Joseph Mazzini and ‘Young Italy’
1. nationalism as a religious ideal
2. nationalism and democracy
C. Camillo Cavour and liberal nationalism
1. economics and politics
2. pragmatic policies
Excerpts from the writings of Mazzini (1805-1872)
“Nations are the individuals of humanity; they must all work together for the conquest of the common goal; each according to its geographic position, its own particular aptitudes and the means which nature has provided for it.”
“A nation is the association of all those men who, by reason of their language, the geographic conditions under which they live, and the part assigned to them by history, form a single unit, recognize the same principles, and make their way under the guidance of the same laws toward the same goal.”
“True association can only be between those who are equal in their rights and duties. The first consequence of Association and of Equality for all its members is this: that no family and no individual can assume exclusive authority over the whole… Sovereignty belongs to the nation alone.”
Pragmatic nationalism in Italy (from the politician Camillo Cavour):
"If the action of the railways diminishes
these obstacles and perhaps even abolishes them, it will give the greatest
encouragement to the spirit of Italian nationality. Communications, which help the incessantmovement of people in
every direction, and which will force people into contact with those they do
not know, should be a powerful help in destroying petty municipal passions born
of ignorance and prejudice."
Romantic nationalism in France (from the historian Jules Michelet)
“While doubtless every great nation represents some idea of importance to mankind, it is far truer of France; if she were to be eclipsed, to come to an end, the bond that holds the world together would become weak, dissolved and probably destroyed…”
A 19th-century critic of nationalism (Lord Acton, British historian)
“Nationality is founded on the perpetual supremacy of the collective will, of which the unity of the nation is the necessary condition… It overrules the rights and wishes of the inhabitants, absorbing their divergent interests in a fictitious unity; sacrifices their several inclinations and duties to the higher claim of nationality, and crushes all natural rights and all established liberties for the purpose of vindicating itself… Where the political and national boundaries coincide, society ceases to advance, and nations relapse into a condition resembling that of men who renounce intercourse with their fellowmen…”