Chapter 1: The Rise of Nationalism in Europe

Events and Processes

• Hamey Musee
• Reprint 2025-26

Nationalism in Europe

• Frédéric Sorrieu's Vision (1848):
  • French artist who created a series of four prints.
  • Visualized a world of 'democratic and social Republics.'
  • The first print depicts people of Europe and America marching and paying homage to the Statue of Liberty.
  • Liberty is personified as a female figure holding the torch of Enlightenment and the Charter of the Rights of Man.
  • Shattered remains of absolutist institutions are on the ground.
  • People are grouped as distinct nations with their flags and national costumes.
  • The United States and Switzerland lead the procession as established nation-states.
  • France, identified by the revolutionary tricolour, is next, followed by Germany bearing the black, red, and gold flag.
  • The German peoples were not yet a united nation at the time.
  • Other peoples in the procession include Austria, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Lombardy, Poland, England, Ireland, Hungary, and Russia.
  • Christ, saints, and angels in the heavens symbolize fraternity among nations.
• Key Concepts:
  • Absolutist: A government with no restraints on its power.
  • Utopian: An ideal society that is unlikely to exist.
• Nationalism in the 19th Century:
  • Emerged as a force that brought sweeping changes in Europe.
  • Led to the emergence of the nation-state in place of multi-national dynastic empires.
  • A modern state is characterized by centralized power and defined territory.
  • A nation-state is characterized by a sense of common identity and shared history among its citizens.
• Ernst Renan - What is a Nation?:
  • French philosopher (1823-92) who delivered a lecture at the University of Sorbonne in 1882.
  • The lecture was subsequently published as an essay entitled ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?’ (‘What is a Nation?’).
  • Renan critiqued the notion that a nation is formed by a common language, race, religion, or territory.
    • Argued that a nation is the result of long-term endeavors, sacrifice, and devotion.
    • Common glories in the past and a common will in the present are essential conditions.
    • A nation is a large-scale solidarity and its existence is a daily plebiscite.
    • A nation should not annex a country against its will.
    • The existence of nations guarantees liberty.
  • Plebiscite: A direct vote to accept or reject a proposal.

The French Revolution and the Idea of the Nation

• French Revolution (1789):
  • The first clear expression of nationalism.
  • France was a full-fledged territorial state under an absolute monarch.
  • The revolution transferred sovereignty from the monarchy to French citizens.
  • The people would constitute the nation and shape its destiny.
• Measures and Practices:
  • French revolutionaries introduced measures to create a sense of collective identity.
  • Ideas of la patrie (the fatherland) and le citoyen (the citizen) emphasized a united community with equal rights.
  • A new French flag, the tricolour, replaced the royal standard.
  • The Estates General was elected by active citizens and renamed the National Assembly.
  • New hymns were composed, oaths taken, and martyrs commemorated.
  • A centralized administrative system was put in place.
  • Uniform laws were formulated for all citizens.
  • Internal customs duties and dues were abolished.
  • A uniform system of weights and measures was adopted.
  • Regional dialects were discouraged, and French became the common language.
• Mission to Liberate Europe:
  • The French nation aimed to liberate the peoples of Europe from despotism.
  • Students and educated middle classes began setting up Jacobin clubs.
  • The French armies moved into Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy in the 1790s.
  • The French armies carried the idea of nationalism abroad.

Napoleon's Reforms

• Reforms:
  • Napoleon introduced reforms in territories under his control.
  • He destroyed democracy in France but incorporated revolutionary principles into the administrative field.
• Napoleonic Code (Civil Code of 1804):
  • Did away with privileges based on birth.
  • Established equality before the law.
  • Secured the right to property.
  • Exported to regions under French control.
• Administrative Changes:
  • Simplified administrative divisions in the Dutch Republic, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany.
  • Abolished the feudal system.
  • Freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues.
  • Removed guild restrictions in towns.
  • Improved transport and communication systems.
• New-Found Freedom:
  • Peasants, artisans, workers, and new businessmen enjoyed new freedoms.
  • Uniform laws, standardized weights and measures, and a common national currency facilitated the movement of goods and capital.
• Mixed Reactions:
  • Initially, French armies were welcomed as harbingers of liberty in places like Holland, Switzerland, Brussels, Mainz, Milan, and Warsaw.
  • Enthusiasm soon turned to hostility.
  • New administrative arrangements did not go hand in hand with political freedom.
  • Increased taxation, censorship, and forced conscription outweighed the advantages.
    *Europe After the Congress of Vienna, 1815

The Making of Nationalism in Europe

• Mid-18th Century Europe:
  • No 'nation-states' existed as they are known today.
  • Germany, Italy, and Switzerland were divided into kingdoms, duchies, and cantons.
  • Eastern and Central Europe were under autocratic monarchies.
  • Diverse peoples did not share a collective identity or common culture.
  • They spoke different languages and belonged to different ethnic groups.
• Habsburg Empire:
  • Ruled over Austria-Hungary.
  • A patchwork of different regions and peoples.
  • Included the Alpine regions, Bohemia, the Italian-speaking provinces of Lombardy and Venetia, Hungary, and Galicia.
  • Diverse groups included Bohemians, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, and Roumans.
  • A common allegiance to the emperor was the only tie binding these diverse groups together.
• Social and Political Structure:
  • A landed aristocracy was the dominant class.
  • They were united by a common way of life and spoke French for diplomacy.
  • Their families were often connected by ties of marriage.
  • The majority of the population was the peasantry.
  • Land was farmed by tenants and small owners in the west.
  • Vast estates cultivated by serfs characterized landholding in Eastern and Central Europe.
• Emergence of Commercial Classes:
  • The growth of industrial production and trade led to the growth of towns and the emergence of commercial classes.
  • Industrialization began in England in the second half of the eighteenth century.
  • New social groups came into being: a working-class population, and middle classes made up of industrialists, businessmen, and professionals.
  • Ideas of national unity gained popularity among the educated, liberal middle classes.
• Important Dates
  • 1797: Napoleon invades Italy; Napoleonic wars begin.
  • 1814-1815: Fall of Napoleon; the Vienna Peace Settlement.
  • 1821: Greek struggle for independence begins.
  • 1848: Revolutions in Europe; artisans, industrial workers and peasants revolt against economic hardships; middle classes demand constitutions and representative governments; Italians, Germans, Magyars, Poles, Czechs, etc. demand nation-states.
  • 1859-1870: Unification of Italy.
  • 1866-1871: Unification of Germany.
  • 1905: Slav nationalism gathers force in the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.

What did Liberal Nationalism Stand for?

• Liberalism:
  • Derived from the Latin root liber, meaning free.
  • Stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law.
  • Emphasized government by consent.
  • Stood for the end of autocracy and clerical privileges, a constitution, and representative government through parliament since the French Revolution.
  • Stressed the inviolability of private property.
• Suffrage:
  • Equality before the law did not necessarily stand for universal suffrage.
  • In revolutionary France, the right to vote and get elected was granted exclusively to property-owning men.
  • Men without property and all women were excluded from political rights.
  • Only for a brief period under the Jacobins did all adult males enjoy suffrage.
  • The Napoleonic Code went back to limited suffrage and reduced women to the status of a minor.
  • Women and non-propertied men organized opposition movements demanding equal political rights.
• Economic Sphere:
  • Stood for freedom of markets and the abolition of state-imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and capital.
  • A strong demand of the emerging middle classes.
• German-Speaking Regions:
  • Napoleon’s administrative measures had created a confederation of 39 states.
  • Each possessed its own currency, weights, and measures.
  • Merchants had to pass through 11 customs barriers and pay a customs duty of about 5 per cent at each one.
  • Duties were often levied according to the weight or measurement of the goods.
  • Each region had its own system of weights and measures.
  • The measure of cloth, for example, was the elle, which varied in length in each region.
    • Frankfurt: 54.7 cm
    • Mainz: 55.1 cm
    • Nuremberg: 65.6 cm
    • Freiburg: 53.5 cm
• Customs Union (Zollverein):
  • Formed in 1834 at the initiative of Prussia and joined by most of the German states.
  • Abolished tariff barriers and reduced the number of currencies from over thirty to two.
  • The creation of a network of railways further stimulated mobility.
  • Economic nationalism strengthened wider nationalist sentiments.

A New Conservatism after 1815

• Conservatism: A political philosophy that stressed the importance of tradition, established institutions and customs, and preferred gradual development to quick change
• Post-1815 European Governments:
  • Driven by a spirit of conservatism.
  • Believed that traditional institutions like the monarchy, the Church, social hierarchies, property, and the family should be preserved.
  • Realized that modernization could strengthen traditional institutions.
  • A modern army, an efficient bureaucracy, a dynamic economy, and the abolition of feudalism and serfdom could strengthen autocratic monarchies.
• Congress of Vienna (1815):
  • Representatives of Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria met to draw up a settlement for Europe.
  • Hosted by the Austrian Chancellor Duke Metternich.
  • Drew up the Treaty of Vienna of 1815 with the object of undoing the changes that had come about during the Napoleonic wars.
  • The Bourbon dynasty was restored to power.
  • 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.
  • The kingdom of the Netherlands, which included Belgium, was set up in the north.
  • Genoa was added to Piedmont in the south.
  • Prussia was given important new territories on its western frontiers.
  • Austria was given control of northern Italy.
  • The German confederation of 39 states was left untouched.
  • Russia was given part of Poland.
  • Prussia was given a portion of Saxony.
  • The main intention was to restore the monarchies and create a new conservative order.
• Conservative Regimes:
  • Set up in 1815 were autocratic.
  • Did not tolerate criticism and dissent.
  • Sought to curb activities that questioned the legitimacy of autocratic governments.
  • Imposed censorship laws to control what was said in newspapers, books, plays, and songs.

The Revolutionaries

• Liberal-Nationalists:
  • Driven underground by the fear of repression.
  • Secret societies sprang up to train revolutionaries and spread their ideas.
  • Being revolutionary meant opposing monarchical forms and fighting for liberty and freedom.
  • Saw nation-states as a necessary part of the struggle for freedom.
• Giuseppe Mazzini:
  • Italian revolutionary born in Genoa in 1805.
  • Became a member of the secret society of the Carbonari.
  • Exiled in 1831 for attempting a revolution in Liguria.
  • Founded Young Italy in Marseilles and Young Europe in Berne.
  • Believed that God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind.
  • Italy had to be forged into a single unified republic.
  • This unification alone could be the basis of Italian liberty.
  • Secret societies were set up in Germany, France, Switzerland, and Poland following his model.
  • Metternich described him as 'the most dangerous enemy of our social order'.

The Age of Revolutions: 1830-1848

• Revolutions:
  • Liberalism and nationalism became associated with revolution in many regions of Europe.
  • Led by liberal-nationalists belonging to the educated middle-class elite.
• France (1830):
  • The Bourbon kings were overthrown by liberal revolutionaries.
  • A constitutional monarchy was installed with Louis Philippe at its head.
  • 'When France sneezes,’ Metternich once remarked, ‘the rest of Europe catches cold.’
• Belgium:
  • The July Revolution sparked an uprising in Brussels.
  • Belgium broke away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
• Greek War of Independence:
  • Mobilized nationalist feelings among the educated elite across Europe.
  • Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth century.
  • The growth of revolutionary nationalism sparked a struggle for independence in 1821.
  • Nationalists got support from Greeks living in exile and West Europeans.
  • Poets and artists lauded Greece as the cradle of European civilisation.
  • Lord Byron organised funds and fought in the war, where he died in 1824.
  • The Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 recognised Greece as an independent nation.

The Romantic Imagination and National Feeling

• Role of Culture:
  • Culture played an important role in creating the idea of the nation.
  • Art and poetry, stories and music helped express and shape nationalist feelings.
• Romanticism:
  • A cultural movement which sought to develop a particular form of nationalist sentiment.
  • Romantic artists and poets criticised the glorification of reason and science.
  • Focused instead on emotions, intuition, and mystical feelings.
  • Sought to create a sense of a shared collective heritage, a common cultural past.
• Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803):
  • Claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people – das volk.
  • The true spirit of the nation (volksgeist) was popularized through folk songs, folk poetry, and folk dances.
  • Collecting and recording these forms of folk culture was essential to nation-building.

The Grimm Brothers: Folktales and Nation-building

• Grimm Brothers:
  • Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in the German city of Hanau in 1785 and 1786.
  • They collected old folktales.
  • They spent six years travelling from village to village, talking to people and writing down fairy tales.
  • In 1812, they published their first collection of tales.
  • They became active in liberal politics, especially the movement for freedom of the press.
  • They published a 33-volume dictionary of the German language.
• Impact
  • The Grimm brothers saw French domination as a threat to German culture.
  • They believed that the folktales they had collected were expressions of a pure and authentic German spirit.
  • They considered their projects of collecting folktales and developing the German language as part of the wider effort to oppose French domination and create a German national identity.
  • 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.
• Poland:
  • Poland had been partitioned at the end of the eighteenth century.
  • National feelings were kept alive through music and language.
  • Karol Kurpinski celebrated the national struggle through his operas and music.
  • He turned folk dances like the polonaise and mazurka into nationalist symbols.
  • After Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced out of schools.
  • In 1831, an armed rebellion against Russian rule was crushed.
  • 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.
  • The use of Polish came to be seen as a symbol of the struggle against Russian dominance.

Hunger, Hardship and Popular Revolt

• Economic Hardship (1830s):
  • Years of great economic hardship in Europe.
  • Enormous increase in population.
  • More seekers of jobs than employment.
  • Migration from rural areas to overcrowded slums in cities.
  • Small producers faced competition from imports of cheap machine-made goods from England.
  • Peasants struggled under feudal dues and obligations in regions where the aristocracy still enjoyed power.
  • The rise of food prices or a year of bad harvest led to widespread pauperism.
• The Year 1848:
  • Food shortages and widespread unemployment.
  • The population of Paris came out on the roads.
  • Barricades were erected, and Louis Philippe was forced to flee.
  • A National Assembly proclaimed a Republic.
  • Granted suffrage to all adult males above 21.
  • Guaranteed the right to work.
  • National workshops were set up to provide employment.
• Silesian Weavers' Revolt (1845):
  • Weavers led a revolt against contractors who supplied them raw material and gave them orders for finished textiles but drastically reduced their payments.
  • A large crowd of weavers marched up to the mansion of their contractor demanding higher wages.
  • They were treated with scorn and threats.
  • A group of them forced their way into the house and smashed its elegant window-panes, furniture, and porcelain.
  • Another group broke into the storehouse and plundered it of supplies of cloth.
  • The contractor fled but returned with the army.
  • Eleven weavers were shot.

1848: The Revolution of the Liberals

• Liberal Revolutions:
  • Revolutions led by the educated middle classes occurred parallel to the revolts of the poor.
  • Events of February 1848 in France led to the abdication of the monarch and a republic based on universal male suffrage.
  • Men and women of the liberal middle classes combined demands for constitutionalism with national unification in Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  • They took advantage of growing popular unrest to push for a nation-state on parliamentary principles.
• Frankfurt Parliament:
  • A large number of political associations came together in the city of Frankfurt.
  • They decided to vote for an all-German National Assembly.
  • On 18 May 1848, 831 elected representatives marched to take their places in the Frankfurt parliament convened in the Church of St Paul.
  • They drafted a constitution for a German nation to be headed by a monarchy subject to a parliament.
  • Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia, rejected the crown.
  • The social basis of parliament eroded as it was dominated by the middle classes.
  • Troops were called in, and the assembly was forced to disband.
• Issue of Women's Rights:
  • The issue of extending political rights to women was controversial.
  • Women had formed political associations, founded newspapers, and taken part in political meetings and demonstrations.
  • They were denied suffrage rights during the election of the Assembly.
  • When the Frankfurt parliament convened, women were admitted only as observers.
• Aftermath:
  • Conservative forces suppressed liberal movements but could not restore the old order.
  • Monarchs began to realize that they could only end cycles of revolution and repression by granting concessions to liberal-nationalist revolutionaries.
  • Autocratic monarchies of Central and Eastern Europe began to introduce changes that had already taken place in Western Europe.
  • Serfdom and bonded labour were abolished in the Habsburg dominions and in Russia.
  • The Habsburg rulers granted more autonomy to the Hungarians in 1867.

The Making of Germany and Italy

• Germany:
  • After 1848, nationalism moved away from democracy and revolution.
  • Nationalist sentiments were mobilized by conservatives for promoting state power.
  • Middle-class Germans tried to unite the German confederation in 1848 but were repressed.
  • Prussia took on the leadership of the movement for national unification.
  • Otto von Bismarck was the architect of this process, carried out with the help of the Prussian army and bureaucracy.
  • Three wars over seven years – with Austria, Denmark, and France – ended in Prussian victory and completed unification.
  • In January 1871, the Prussian king, William I, was proclaimed German Emperor in a ceremony at Versailles.
  • The new state emphasized modernizing the currency, banking, legal, and judicial systems.
  • Prussian measures and practices became a model for the rest of Germany.
• Italy:
  • Italy had a long history of political fragmentation.
  • Italians were scattered over several dynastic states and the multi-national Habsburg Empire.
  • In the mid-19th century, Italy was divided into seven states.
  • Sardinia-Piedmont was ruled by an Italian princely house.
  • The north was under Austrian Habsburgs, the center was ruled by the Pope, and the southern regions were under the domination of the Bourbon kings of Spain.
  • Italian language had many regional and local variations.
  • Giuseppe Mazzini sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic in the 1830s.
  • Sardinia-Piedmont, under King Victor Emmanuel II, unified the Italian states through war.
  • A unified Italy offered the possibility of economic development and political dominance.
  • Chief Minister Cavour led the movement to unify Italy.
  • Through a diplomatic alliance with France, Sardinia-Piedmont defeated the Austrian forces in 1859.
  • Armed volunteers under Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray.
  • In 1860, they marched into South Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and drove out the Spanish rulers.
  • In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy.
  • Much of the Italian population remained unaware of liberal-nationalist ideology.
    }

The Strange Case of Britain

• British National Identity:
  • Some scholars argue that Great Britain is the model of the nation-state.
  • The formation of the nation-state was the result of a long-drawn-out process, not a sudden upheaval or revolution.
  • There was no British nation before the eighteenth century.
  • Primary identities were ethnic – English, Welsh, Scot, or Irish.
  • All ethnic groups had their own cultural and political traditions.
  • As the English nation grew in wealth, importance, and power, it extended its influence over the other nations.
  • The English parliament, which seized power from the monarchy in 1688, was the instrument through which a nation-state, with England at its centre, was forged.
• Act of Union (1707):
  • Between England and Scotland resulted in the formation of the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain.’
  • England was able to impose its influence on Scotland.
  • The British parliament was dominated by its English members.
  • Scotland’s culture and political institutions were suppressed.
  • The Scottish Highlanders were forbidden to speak their Gaelic language or wear their national dress.
  • Large numbers were forcibly driven out of their homeland.
• Ireland:
  • Suffered a similar fate.
  • A country divided between Catholics and Protestants.
  • The English helped the Protestants of Ireland to establish their dominance over a largely Catholic country.
  • Catholic revolts were suppressed.
  • After a failed revolt led by Wolfe Tone and his United Irishmen (1798), Ireland was forcibly incorporated into the United Kingdom in 1801.
• New British Nation:
  • Was forged through the propagation of a dominant English culture.
  • Symbols of the new Britain – the British flag (Union Jack), the national anthem (God Save Our Noble King), the English language – were actively promoted.
  • Older nations survived only as subordinate partners in this union.
• Ethnic: Relates to a common racial, tribal, or cultural origin or background that a community identifies with or claims

Visualizing the Nation

• Personifying the Nation:
  • Artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries personified the nation.
  • Represented a country as if it were a person.
  • Nations were portrayed as female figures.
  • The female form did not stand for any particular woman but gave the abstract idea of the nation a concrete form.
  • The female figure became an allegory of the nation.
• French Revolution:
  • Artists used the female allegory to portray ideas such as Liberty, Justice, and the Republic.
  • The attributes of Liberty are the red cap or the broken chain.
  • Justice is generally a blindfolded woman carrying a pair of weighing scales.
• Nineteenth Century:
  • Similar female allegories were invented to represent the nation.
  • In France, she was christened Marianne, underlining the idea of a people’s nation.
    • Marianne's characteristics: red cap, the tricolour, the cockade.
  • Statues of Marianne were erected in public squares.
  • Marianne images were marked on coins and stamps.
  • Germania became the allegory of the German nation.
    • Germania wears a crown of oak leaves, as the German oak stands for heroism.
    • Allegory: When an abstract idea (for instance, greed, envy, freedom, liberty) is expressed through a person or a thing. An allegorical story has two meanings, one literal and one symbolic
      *Meanings of the Symbols
      *Broken chains: Being freed
      *Breastplate with eagle: Symbol of the German empire – strength
      *Crown of oak leaves: Heroism
      *Sword: Readiness to fight
      *Olive branch around the sword: Willingness to make peace
      *Black, red and gold tricolour: Flag of the liberal-nationalists in 1848, banned by the Dukes of the German states
      *Rays of the rising sun: Beginning of a new era

Nationalism and Imperialism

• Late Nineteenth Century:
  • Nationalism became a narrow creed with limited ends.
  • Nationalist groups became intolerant of each other and ever ready to go to war.
  • European powers manipulated the nationalist aspirations of subject peoples to further their own imperialist aims.
• The Balkans:
  • The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871.
  • A region of geographical and ethnic variation comprising modern-day Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia, and Montenegro.
  • Inhabitants were broadly known as the Slavs.
  • A large part was under the control of the Ottoman Empire.
  • The spread of romantic nationalism and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire made this region very explosive.
  • European subject nationalities broke away from its control and declared independence.
  • The Balkan peoples based their claims for independence or political rights on nationality.
  • Different Slavic nationalities struggled to define their identity and independence.
  • The Balkan area became an area of intense conflict.
  • The Balkan states were fiercely jealous of each other and each hoped to gain more territory at the expense of the others.
  • The Balkans also became the scene of big power rivalry.
• European Powers:
  • There was intense rivalry among the European powers over trade and colonies as well as naval and military might.
  • Each power – Russia, Germany, England, Austro-Hungary – was keen on countering the hold of other powers over the Balkans and extending its own control over the area.
  • This led to a series of wars in the region and finally the First World War.
• Impact of Nationalism and Imperialism:
  • Nationalism, aligned with imperialism, led Europe to disaster in 1914.
  • Many countries in the world which had been colonized by the European powers began to oppose imperial domination.
  • The anti-imperial movements were nationalist, and they struggled to form independent nation-states.
  • European ideas of nationalism were nowhere replicated.
  • The idea that societies should be organized into ‘nation-states’ came to be accepted as natural and universal.