Synopsis

1. The French Revolution and  the Idea of the Nation

·           In 1848, Frederic Sorrieu, a French artist, prepared a series of four prints visualising his dream of a world made up of "democratic and social Republics", as he called them.

·           Artists of the time of the French Revolution personified Liberty as a female figure.

·           In Sorrieu's Utopian vision, the peoples of the world grouped as distinct nations, identified through their flags, and national costume.

·           During the nineteenth century, nationalism emerged as a force which brought about sweeping changes in the political and mental world of Europe.

·           The first clear expression of nationalism came with the French Revolution in 1789.

·           The ideas of La patrie. (the fatherland) and Le citoyen (the citizen) emphasised the notion of a united community enjoying equal rights under a constitution.

·           A new French Flag, the tricolour, was chosen to replace the former royal standard.

·           The Estates General was elected by the body of active citizens and renamed the National Assembly.

·           Regional dialects were discouraged and French, as it was spoken and written in Paris, became the common language of the nation.

·           With the outbreak of the revolutionary wars, the French armies began to carry the idea of nationalism abroad.

·           "The Civil Code of 1804" - usually known as the "Napoleonic Code" did away with all privileges based on birth, established equality before the law and secured the right to property.

·           Napolean simplified administrative divisions, abolished the feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues.

·           Peasants, artisans, workers and new businessmen enjoyed a new-found freedom.

·           Businessman and small scale producers of goods, in particular, began to realise that uniform laws, standardised weights and measures, and a common national currency would facilitate the movement and exchange of goods and capital from one region to another.

·           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.

 

2. The Making of Nationalism in Europe

·   ·         Eastern and Central Europe were under autocratic monarchies within the territories of which lived diverse peoples.

·     ·          The Habsburg Empire that ruled over Austria-Hungary, for example, was a patchwork of many different regions and peoples.         

·     ·         In Hungary, half of the population spoke Magyar while the other half spoke a variety of dialects.

·    ·          In Galicia, the aristocracy spoke Polish.

·    ·         Socially and politically, a landed aristocracy was the dominant class on the continent.

·   ·          Ideas of national unity in early-nineteenth-Century Europe were closely allied to the ideology of liberalism.

·     ·         The term 'liberalism' derived from the Latin root liber, meaning free.

·    ·          For the new middle classes liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law.

·   ·          Yet, equality before the law did not necessarily stand for universal suffrage.

·    ·          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.

·   ·          The measure of cloth, for example, was the 'elle' which in each region stood for a different length.

·      ·         An 'elle' of textile material bought in Frankfurt would get you 54.7 cm of cloth, in Mainz 55.1 cm, in Nuremberg 65.6 cm in Freiburg 53.5 cm.

·      ·          In 1834, a customs union or Zollverein was formed at the initiative of Prussia and joined by most of the German states.

·   ·         Following defeat of Napolean in 1815, European Governments were driven by a spirit of conservatism.

·     ·         In 1815, representatives of the European powers - Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria - who had collectively defeated Napolean, met at Vienna to draw up a settlement for Europe.

·   ·          The Congress was hosted by the Austrian Chancellor Duke Metternich.

·   ·         The main intention was to restore the monarchies that had been overthrown by Napoleon, and create a new conservative order in Europe.

·   ·         Conservative regimes set up in 1815 were autocratic.

·         One of the major issues taken up by the liberal - nationalists, who criticised the new conservative order, was freedom of the press.

·   ·         The Italian revolutionary Giueseppe Mazzini, Born in Genoa, in 1807, a member of the secret society of the Carbonari.

·     ·         Mazzini believed that God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind.

·   ·          Metternich described him as "the most dangerous enemy of our social order." Eastern and Central Europe were under autocratic monarchies within the territories of which lived diverse peoples.

·   ·         The Habsburg Empire that ruled over Austria-Hungary, for example, was a patchwork of many different regions and peoples.         

·     ·           In Hungary, half of the population spoke Magyar while the other half spoke a variety of dialects.

·      ·         In Galicia, the aristocracy spoke Polish.

·   ·          Socially and politically, a landed aristocracy was the dominant class on the continent.

·   ·           Ideas of national unity in early-nineteenth-Century Europe were closely allied to the ideology of liberalism.

·   ·         The term 'liberalism' derived from the Latin root liber, meaning free.

·   ·           For the new middle classes liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law.

·    ·         Yet, equality before the law did not necessarily stand for universal suffrage.

·   ·          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.

·   ·           The measure of cloth, for example, was the 'elle' which in each region stood for a different length.

·     ·           An 'elle' of textile material bought in Frankfurt would get you 54.7 cm of cloth, in Mainz 55.1 cm, in Nuremberg 65.6 cm in Freiburg 53.5 cm.

·     ·         In 1834, a customs union or Zollverein was formed at the initiative of Prussia and joined by most of the German states.

·   ·         Following defeat of Napolean in 1815, European Governments were driven by a spirit of conservatism.

·    ·         In 1815, representatives of the European powers - Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria - who had collectively defeated Napolean, met at Vienna to draw up a settlement for Europe.

·   ·          The Congress was hosted by the Austrian Chancellor Duke Metternich.

·   ·         The main intention was to restore the monarchies that had been overthrown by Napoleon, and create a new conservative order in Europe.

·   ·         Conservative regimes set up in 1815 were autocratic.

·   ·           One of the major issues taken up by the liberal - nationalists, who criticised the new conservative order, was freedom of the press.

·    ·         The Italian revolutionary Giueseppe Mazzini, Born in Genoa, in 1807, a member of the secret society of the Carbonari.

·   ·          Mazzini believed that God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind.

·   ·         Metternich described him as "the most dangerous enemy of our social order."

 

3. The Age of Revolutions: 1830-1848

·                The first upheaval took place in France in July 1830.

·                Metternich once remarked  "When France Sneezes", the rest of Europe catches cold.

·                Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth century.

·                Poets and artists lauded Greece as the cradle of European civilisation and mobilised public opinion to support its struggle against a Muslim Empire.

·                The English poet Lord Byron organised funds and later went to fight in the war, where he died of fever in 1824.

·                The Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 recognised Greece as an independent nation.

·                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.

·                German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people - das volk.

·                Volksgeist is the true spirit of the Nation.

·                Karol Kurpinski, celebrated the national struggle through his operas and music.

·                The 1830s were years of great economic hardship in Europe.

·                In the year 1848, food shortage and widespread unemployment brought the population of Paris out on the roads.

·                National Assembly proclaimed a Republic granted suffrage to all adult males above 21, and guaranteed the right to work.

·                On June 4 at 2 pm, a large crowd of weavers emerged from their homes and marched in pairs up to the mansion of their contractor demanding higher wages.

·                On 18 May 1848, 831 elected representatives marched in a festive procession to take their places in the Frankfurt Parliament convened in the Church of St.Paul.

·                When the Frankfurt parliament convened in the Church of St. Paul women were admitted only as observers to stand in the visitor's gallery.

·                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.

·                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.

 

4. The Making of Germany and Italy

·                After 1848, National statements were often mobilised by Conservatives for promoting state power and achieving political domination over Europe.

·                Otto von Bismarck, chief minister of Prussia was the architect in the process of unification.

·                In January, 1871, the Prussian kings, William I was proclaimed German Emperor in a ceremony held at Versailles.

·                The unification of Germany had demonstrated the dominance of Prussian state power.

·                The new state emphasised on modernising the currency, banking, legal and judicial systems in Germany.

·                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 Italy was under Austrian Habsburgs.

·                The centre part was ruled by the Pope.

·                The southern regions were under the domination of Bourbon kings of Spain.

·                During the 1830s Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic.

·                The failure of revolutionary uprisings both in 1831 and 1848 meant that the mantle now fell on Sardinia Piedmont under its ruler king Victor Emmanuel II to unify Italian states through war.

·                Through a tactful diplomatic alliance with France engineered by Cavour, Sardinia - Piedmont succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859.

·                In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy.

·                The peasant masses who had supported Garibaldi in Southern Italy had never heard of Italia and believed that "La Talia" was Victor Emmanuel's wife.

·                The primary identities of the people who inhabitated the British Isles were ethnic ones - such as English, Welsh, Scot or Irish.

·                The English nation steadily grew in wealth, importance and power, it was able to extend its influence over the other nations of the Islands.

·                 The English Parliament, which had seized power from the monarchy in 1688 at the end of a protracted conflict, was the instrument through which a nation-state, with England at its centre, came to be forged.

·                The Act of Union (1707) between England and Scotland that resulted in the formation of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain' meant, in effect, that England was able to impose its influence on Scotland.

·                The growth of a British identity meant that the Scotland's distinctive culture and political institutions were systematically suppressed.

·                Ireland suffered a similar fate. It was a country deeply divided between Catholics and Protestants.

·                After a failed revolt led by Wolfe Tone and his united Irishmen (1798). Ireland was forcibly incorporated into the United Kingdom in 1801.

·                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 order nations survived only as subordinate) partners in this union.

5. Visualising the Nation

·                     The female figure became an allegory of the nation.

·                     In France, Marianne gave the idea of a people's nation.

·                     Marianne images were marked on coins and stamps.

·                     Germania, became the allegory of the German nation.

·                     In visual representations, Germania wears a crown of oak leaves, as the German oak stands for heroism.

6. Nationalism and Imperialism

·                          The female figure became The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871 was the area called the Balkans.

·                          The Balkan was a region of geographical and ethnic variation comprising modern day Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia - Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro whose inhabitants were broadly known as the Slavs.

·                          A large part of the Balkans was under the control of the Ottomon empire.

·                          The Balkan people based their claims for independence or political rights on nationality and used history to prove that they had once been independent, but had subsequently been subjugated by foreign powers.

·                          Nationalism aligned with imperialism, led Europe to disaster in 1914.

·                          The anti-imperial movements that developed everywhere were nationalists, 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.