HISTORY

1. THE RISE OF NATIONALISM IN EUROPE

FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE IDEA OF A NATION
The first clear expression of nationalism came with the French Revolution in 1789. 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 or descent.
Painting by Frederick Sorrieu—Concept of a Nation State
A series of 4 paintings by Sorrieu named Democratic and Social Republics in 1848. The given print was
named ‘The Pact Between Nations’. In his utopian vision, the peoples of the world are grouped as distinct
nations, identified through their flags and national costumes led by Switzerland and USA.
Steps taken by French Revolutionaries to Create a Sense of Collective Identity
• The ideas of la patrie (the fatherland) and le citoyen (the citizen) emphasized the notion of a united
community enjoying equal rights under a constitution.
• New French Flag, French was spoken as a common language
• Hymns were composed, Oaths taken, martyrs commemorated,
• National Assembly was elected-- Centralised Administrative System
• Internal customs duties were abolished
• A uniform system of weights and measures adopted.
CIVIL CODE OF 1804/ NAPOLEONIC CODE
• Did away with all privileges based on birth, established equality before the Law
• Secured the right to property
• simplified administrative divisions,
• abolished the feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues.
• Transport and communication systems were improved.
Criticism of the Civil Code
• 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 the Europe all seemed to
outweigh the advantages of the administrative changes.
What happened when the news of the events in France reached the different cities of Europe?
• Students and other members of educated middle classes began setting up Jacobin clubs.
• Their activities and campaigns prepared the way for the French armies which moved into Holland,
Belgium, Switzerland and much of Italy in the 1790s.
• With the outbreak of the revolutionary wars, the French armies began to carry the idea of nationalism
abroad.
THE MAKING OF NATIONALISM IN EUROPE
(Habsburg Empire was a patchwork of many different regions and peoples)
• It included the Alpine regions – 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 of them spoke a variety of
dialects
• Besides German, Italian and Polish, there also lived within the boundaries of the empire, many peasant
groups-- Bohemians and Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats and the Roumans.
• The only tie binding these diverse groups together was a common allegiance to the emperor.
THE ARISTOCRACY AND A NEW MIDDLE CLASS
Which 3 major groups comprised European society during the mid-18 century?
 • Aristocracy: Owned large estates, the dominant group, united by a common way of life, spoke French,
connected by ties of marriages, powerful aristocracy, numerically a small group.
• Peasantry: formed the majority of the population. Small landowners and tenants
• New Middle Class: came up in the wake of industrialization in western and central Europe, a working-
class population, made up of industrialists, businessmen, professionals, educated, liberal middle
classes who brought ideas of national unity and abolition of aristocratic privileges.
LIBERAL NATIONALISM
What do you understand by Liberal Nationalism?
• Meaning Socially: The term ‘liberalism’ derives from the Latin root liber, meaning free. Liberalism
stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law.
• Politically it meant government by consent. A constitution and representative Parliament.
• Economically, it meant the abolition of state-imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and
capital.
• Drawback: The right to vote and to get elected was given exclusively to property-owning men. Men
without property and all women were excluded from political rights.
ZOLLEVERIN
What was zolleverin?
A customs union formed in 1834 at the initiative of Prussia—and joined by most of the German states. It
abolished tarrif barriers and reduced the number of currencies from over 30 to two.
A NEW CONSERVATISM
Who were the Conservatives?
Conservatives established traditional autocratic institutions after the fall of Napoleon in 1815—the
Conservatives believed monarchy, the Church, social hierarchies, property and the family should be preserved.
TREATY OF VIENNA
When and where was the treaty of Vienna drawn up? What was its main intention?
• 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—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.
HOW DID THE TREATY OF VIENNA CHANGE THE MAP OF EUROPE?
• The Bourbon dynasty was restored to power, and France lost the territories it had annexed under
Napoleon.
• A series of states were set up on the boundary of France to prevent French expansion in future.
• The kingdom of the Netherlands was set up in the north and Genoa was added to Piedmont in the
south.
• Prussia was given important territories on its western frontiers, Austria was given control of northern
Italy.
• Russia was given part of Poland while Prussia was given a portion of Saxony
• The German confederation of 39 states set up by Napoleon was left untouched.
List the features of conservative regimes set up in 1815
• Autocratic regimes
• did not tolerate criticism and dissent,
• imposed dictatorship,
• curbed activities that questioned the legitimacy of autocratic govt.
THE REVOLUTIONARIES
The Revolutionaries opposed monarchical forms that had been established after the Vienna Congress, and to
fight for liberty and freedom—by the creation of nation states
GIUSEPPE MAZZINI
• Giuseppe Mazzini, born in Genoa in 1807, became a member of the secret society of the Carbonari.
• He was sent into exile in 1831 for attempting a revolution in Liguria.
• He formed two secret societies-- Young Italy in Marseilles and Young Europe in Berne.
• Mazzini believed that god had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind.
• Secret societies were set up in Germany, France, Switzerland and Poland.
• Metternich described Mazzini as ‘The most dangerous enemy of our social order’.
THE AGE OF REVOLUTIONS (1830-1848)
Liberalism and nationalism came to be increasingly associated with revolution in many regions of Europe
The July Revolution in France in 1830s, Belgium broke away from Netherlands, Greek War of
Independence—Metternich said, ‘When France sneezes, the rest of Europe catches cold.’
• An event that mobilised nationalist feelings among the educated elite across Europe was the Greek
war of independence.
• Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the 15th century.
• The growth of revolutionary nationalism in Europe sparked off a struggle for independence amongst
the Greeks which began in 1821.
• Nationalists in Greece got support from other Greeks living in exile and also from many West
Europeans who had sympathies for ancient Greek culture.
• The Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 recognised Greece as an independent nation.
ROMANTIC IMAGINATION AND NATIONAL FEELING
How did culture play an important part in developing nationalism?
What is Romanticism?
• A cultural movement which sought to develop a form of nationalist sentiment-- criticised the
glorification of reason and science, focused on emotions, intuition and mystical feelings.
• German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was
to be discovered among the common people – das volk. Volksgeist (the spirit of the nation)
• Karol Kurpinski, a Polish nationalist celebrated the national struggle through his operas and music,
turning folk dances like the Polonaise and Mazurka into nationalist symbols.
• The Polish language was forced out of schools and the Russian language was imposed
everywhere. 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.
• The Grimm Brothers collected folk tales popular among children and adults and published their
first collection of fairy tales. They saw French domination as a threat to German culture. Both
became active in liberal politics, especially for freedom of the press. They also published a 33-
volume dictionary of the German language.
HUNGER, HARDSHIP AND POPULAR REVOLT
• Rise in population all over Europe-- migrated to the cities-- overcrowded slums.
• Small producers in towns faced stiff competition from imports of cheap machine-made goods from
England.
• Peasants struggled under the burden of feudal dues.
• The rise of food prices or a year of bad harvest led to widespread pauperism.
• In 1848 the population of France came on the roads, forced Louis Phillippe to flee, France was
proclaimed a Republic.
• In 1845, weavers in Silesia led a revolt against the oppression of contractors who gave them raw
materials and orders but reduced wages.
1848—THE REVOLUTION OF THE LIBERALS
 • In the German regions a large number of political associations came together in the city of Frankfurt
and decided to vote for an all-German National Assembly.
• 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.
• 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.
• Women were denied suffrage rights during election in the Frankfurt Parliament. They stood in the
Visitor’s gallery as observers.
• In the years after 1848, the autocratic monarchies of Central and Eastern Europe began to introduce
changes-- serfdom and bonded labour were abolished.
UNIFICATION OF GERMANY
• Germans in 1848 tried to unite the different regions of the German confederation into a nation-state
governed by an elected Parliament. This liberal initiative to nation-building was repressed by the
monarchy and the military, supported by Junkers of Prussia.
• Prussia took on the leadership of the movement for national unification. Its chief minister, Otto Von
Bismarck carried out the Unification 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 the process of unification.
• In January 1871, in the unheated Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles the Prussian king,
Kaiser William I, was proclaimed German Emperor.
• The nation-building process in Germany demonstrated the dominance of Prussian state power.
• The new state placed a strong emphasis on modernising the currency, banking, legal and judicial
systems in Germany.
ITALY UNIFIED
• Italy had a long history of political fragmentation. Italians were scattered over several dynastic states
as well as the multi-national Habsburg Empire.
• Italy was divided into seven states, of which only one-- Sardinia-Piedmont, was ruled by an Italian
princely house.
• During the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini put together a programme for a united Italian Republic. He had
also formed a secret society called Young Italy.
• The failure of revolutionary uprisings in 1831 and 1848 meant that the mantle now fell on Sardinia-
Piedmont under its ruler King Victor Emmanuel II to unify the Italian states.
• Chief Minister Cavour through a tactful diplomatic alliance with France succeeded in defeating the
Austrian forces in 1859.
• Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray. In 1860, they marched into South Italy and the Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies and succeeded in winning the support of the local peasants in order to drive out the
Spanish rulers. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed King of United Italy.
THE STRANGE CASE OF BRITAIN
• In Britain the formation of the nation-state was not the result of a sudden upheaval or revolution. It
was the result of a long-drawn-out process.
• There was no British nation prior to the eighteenth century. The primary identities of the people who
inhabited the British Isles were ethnic ones — such as English, Welsh, Scot or Irish. All these ethnic
groups had their own cultural and political traditions.
• But as 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 resulted in the formation of the 'United
Kingdom of Great Britain.’
• Scotland's distinctive culture and political institutions were systematically suppressed. The Catholic
clans that inhabited the Scottish Highlands suffered terrible repression whenever they attempted to
assert their independence.
• The Scottish Highlanders were forbidden to speak their Gaelic language or wear their national dress,
and large numbers were forcibly driven out of their homeland.
• After a failed revolt led by Wolfe Tone, Ireland too was forced to join the United Kingdom in 1801.
VISUALISING THE NATION
• Female allegories were invented by artists in the nineteenth century to represent the nation.
• In France she was christened Marianne, a popular Christian name, which underlined the idea of a
people's nation. Her characteristics were drawn from those of Liberty and the Republic — the red cap,
the tricolour, the cockade.
• Statues of Marianne were erected in public squares to remind the public of the national symbol of unity
and to persuade them to identify with it. 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.
NATIONALISM AND IMPERIALISM
THE BALKANS
• The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871 was the area called the Balkans. It
was a region of geographical and ethnic variations whose inhabitants were broadly known as the Slavs.
• A large part of the Balkans was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. The spread of the ideas of
romantic nationalism in the Balkans together with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire made this
region very explosive.
• When the European nationalities broke away from the Ottoman, the rebellious nationalities in the
Balkans also thought to win back their independence.
• The Balkan states were fiercely jealous of each other and wanted to gain more territory than the others.
• Each power—Russia, Germany, England, Austria-Hungary wanted to control the Balkans.
• This led to a series of wars in the region and finally the First World War.