Zollverein, German Identity, and Polish Resistance

Rise of Nationalism in Europe

• In 1848, French artist Frédéric Sorrieu created a series of prints envisioning a world of democratic and social republics.
• In the first print, people of Europe and America march in a long train, paying homage to the Statue of Liberty.
• Liberty is personified as a female figure bearing the torch of Enlightenment and the Charter of the Rights of Man.
• The foreground shows shattered symbols of absolutist institutions.
• Sorrieu's utopian vision depicts the world's people grouped as distinct nations with their own flags and costumes.
• The United States and Switzerland, already nation-states, lead the procession past the Statue of Liberty.
• France, identifiable by the revolutionary tricolor, has just reached the statue, followed by the people of Germany showing their liberal hopes to unify into state under a democratic government.
• Christ, saints, and angels in the heavens symbolize fraternity among nations.
• Nationalism emerged as catalyst for political and mental change in 19th-century Europe.
• The end result was nation-states replacing multinational dynastic empires.
• A modern state has a centralized power exercising control over a defined territory.
• A nation-state is where most citizens develop a sense of shared identity, history, or descent.
• This commonness was forged through struggles and the actions of leaders and common people.

Ernst Renan: What is a Nation?

• According to French philosopher Ernst Renan (1823-92), a nation is not based on a common language, race, religion, or territory.
• Renan said a nation is the culmination of shared endeavors, sacrifices, and devotion
• According to Renan, nations need a heroic past, great men, and a shared glory to establish a national idea and maintain solidarity through a daily plebiscite
• A nation guarantees liberty, and its existence is a necessity to avoid a world dominated by a single law or master.

The French Revolution and the Idea of the Nation

• Nationalism was clear in the French Revolution of 1789.
• France was a full territorial state under absolute monarchy in 1789.
• The Revolution transferred sovereignty from the monarchy to French citizens
• French revolutionaries created collective identity among the people.
• Ideas of la patrie (the fatherland) and le citoyen (the citizen) created equal rights under a constitution.
• The tricolor replaced the royal standard as the new French flag.
• The Estates General was renamed the National Assembly and elected by active citizens.
• New national hymns were composed, oaths were taken, and martyrs were commemorated.
• A centralized administrative system created uniform laws for all citizens.
• Internal customs duties and dues were abolished, and uniform weights and measures were adopted creating a common language.
• The mission of France was to liberate Europe from despotism and to help other people to become nations.
• Students and educated middle classes in Europe began setting up Jacobin clubs after hearing news from France.
• The French armies, influenced by the Jacobin clubs, moved into Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy in the 1790s.
• revolutionary wars broke out and the armies carried the idea of nationalism abroad.
• German journalist Andreas Rebmann designed an German almanac cover in 1798 showing the French Bastille being stormed and a fortress to represent the despotic rule accompanied with the slogan "The people must seize their own freedom!"

Napoleon's Reforms

• Napoleon implemented reforms in territories under his control like those already introduced in France.
• Through a return to monarchy, Napoleon destroyed democracy in France, but he incorporated revolutionary principles to make the system more rational and efficient.
• The Civil Code of 1804, known as the Napoleonic Code, abolished privileges based on birth, established equality, and secured property rights.
• This Code was exported to regions under French control.
• In the Dutch Republic, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, Napoleon simplified administrative divisions, abolished the feudal system, and freed peasants from serfdom.
• Guild restrictions were removed in towns, and transport and communication systems were improved.
• Businessmen and producers benefited from uniform laws, standardized measures, and a common national currency.
• Reactions to French rule were mixed.
• The armies were welcomed as harbingers of liberty in places like Holland, Switzerland and cities like Brussels, Mainz, Milan and Warsaw.
• Enthusiasm turned to hostility when administrative arrangements did not coincide with political freedom.
• Increased taxation, censorship and conscription for French armies outweighed administrative changes.
• Following Napolean's loss Battle of Leipzig in 1813, he is represented as a postman on his way back to France losing territories.

The Making of Nationalism in Europe

• In the mid-18th century, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland were divided into kingdoms and cantons with autonomous rulers.
• Eastern and Central Europe was under autocratic monarchies with diverse peoples who lacked a collective identity or common culture.
• The Habsburg Empire ruling Austria-Hungary was a patchwork of regions and peoples.
• It included Alpine regions, Tyrol, Austria, Sudetenland, Bohemia, Lombardy, Venetia, Hungary, and Galicia, the aristocracy spoke Polish
• A sense of political unity was not promoted easily because groups were tied by allegiance to the emperor.
• Socially and politically, a landed aristocracy was the dominant continental class that was united by a common lifestyle and spoke French as their common language and were often connected by ties of marriage.
• They were a numerically small group, and the majority of the population consisted of peasants.
• The west was characterized by tenants and small owners while Eastern and Central Europe was characterized by vast estates cultivated by serfs.
• Industrialization came later in France and the German states where new social groups emerged like a working class and middle class that wanted national unity .

Liberal Nationalism

• National unity in early-19th-century Europe was connected to liberalism.
• Liberalism meant freedom for the individual and equality before the law for the new middle classes.
• It emphasized government by consent, the end of autocracy, and a constitution.
• Liberals wanted inviolability of private property.
• Equality before law did not mean complete equality and voting was restricted to men and women.
• The Napoleonic Code went back to women having a minor status.
• Women and non-property holding men organized movements demanding equal rights.
• Economically, liberalism sought freedom of markets and abolition of state restrictions on the movement of goods and capital.
• The German-speaking regions created a customs union or zollverein in 1834 which abolished tariff barriers and reduced currencies.

Conservatism After 1815

• European governments were driven by conservatism after Napoleon's defeat in 1815.
• Conservatives wanted to preserve traditional institutions of state and society like the monarchy, Church, social hierarchies, property, and the family
• Modernization in fact strengthened traditional institutions like the monarchy.
• A modern army, efficient bureaucracy, dynamic economy, and the abolishment of feudalism could strengthen autocratic monarchies of Europe.
• European powers representatives - Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria - met at Vienna to create settlement for Europe.
• The Congress was led by Austrian Chancellor Duke Metternich.
• The Bourbon dynasty was restored to power, and France lost territories annexed under Napoleon.
• States were set up on France's boundaries to prevent expansion.
• The kingdom of the Netherlands included Belgium, Genoa was added to Piedmont in the south, and Austria given control of northern Italy.
• The German confederation of was left untouched and Russia was given part of Poland while Prussia was given a portion of Saxony with a goal to create a new conservative order.
• Conservative regimes did not tolerate criticism or dissent which sought to question autocratic governments.
• They also imposed censorship laws to control freedom of speech in newspapers, books, plays and songs.

The Revolutionaries

• Following 1815, repression drove liberal nationalists underground, creating secret societies.
• Being revolutionary meant opposing monarchies and fighting for liberty.
• Revolutionaries viewed nation-states as vital to the cause.
• Giuseppe Mazzini (born in Genoa in 1805) was an Italian revolutionary and member of the Carbonari secret society.
• He founded Young Italy in Marseilles and Young Europe in Berne, with members from Poland, France, Italy, and German states.
• Mazzini believed God intended nations to be natural units. In order to have Italian liberty, Italy needed to be have unification to the existing patchwork of small states and kingdoms
• Secret societies were set up in Germany, France, Switzerland, and Poland.
• Mazzini's opposition to monarchy and his vision of democratic republics frightened conservatives.
• Duke Metternich described him as 'the most dangerous enemy of our social order'.

The Age of Revolutions: 1830-1848

• As conservative regimes gained power, liberalism and nationalism became associated with revolution.
• Revolutions took place in many areas of Europe such as Germany, Italian states, Ottoman Empire, Ireland and Poland.
• These Revolutions were led by educated middle class elite (school teachers, professors, clerks)
• July 1830, the first upheaval took place in France and Louis Philippe became head.
• The July Revolution sparked an uprising in Brussels that led to Belgium breaking away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
• The Greek war was another event that mobilized nationalist feelings and led to Greece being recognized as an independent nation in 1832.
• After 1821, Nationalists in Greece got support that sparked revolutionary nationalism after the Ottoman Empire had been in Greece since the 15th century.
• The English poet Lord Byron organized funds and later went to fight in the war, where he died of fever in 1824.

The Romantic Imagination and National Feeling

• Nationalism came about by culture, arts, poetry, stories and music.
• Romanticism, was a cultural movement that sought develop a particular form of nationalist sentiment that criticized reason and science.
• Romantics focused on emotions, intuition and mystical feelings
• Their effort was to create a sense of a shared heritage or a common cultural past,
• Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among common people, through volksgeist, folk songs, folk poetry, and folk dances.
• Collecting and recording folk culture was essential to building a nation.
• Vernacular language and the collection of local folklore was used to carry the nationalist message to audiences who were mostly illiterate
• Despite not being an independent territory, Poland was able to keep national feelings alive through music and language.
• Karol Kurpinski celebrated the national struggle through operas and turning folk dances into nationalist symbols.
• In order to prevent the Russian language from forcing its way into schools following the Russian occupation, Polish was used for religious gatherings. Consequently, many priests were punished as a result.

Hunger, Hardship, Popular Revolt

• The 1830s were years of great economic hardship.
• Europe experienced an enormous increase in population seeking for jobs.
• People migrated from rural areas to overcrowded slums, where they faced competition from cheap machine goods.
• Aristocracies still enjoyed power that peasants struggled under due to the rise of food process,
• The population of Paris went out on the roads due to year 1848 having high unemployment rates.
• The National Assembly that was proclaimed after Louis Philippe was forced to flee, granted suffrage to adult males over 21.
• Weavers in Silesia led a revolt against contractors who supplied them raw material but reduced payments in 1845.

1848: The Revolution of the Liberals

• In 1848 revolutions led by the educated middle classes began for the poor, unemployed, and starving peasants.
• Monarchy was abdicated and a republic was proclaimed in France, also based on universal male suffrage
• Where nation-states did not exist, such as Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, men and women of middle classes combined their demands and took advantage of the unrest.
• In the German regions political associations came together in Frankfurt and voted for German National Assembly.
• The Frankfurt parliament convened in the Church of St Paul.
• Then King Friedrich rejected it and opposed for the elected parliament so the social basis of parliament eroded, and troops caused the assembly to disband.
• The issue for women was controversial within the movement and were denied suffrage rights.

The Making of Germany and Italy

• After 1848, nationalism was mobilized by conservatives to promote power.
• Germany and Italy were unified as nation-states
• Nationalist feelings were widespread among middle-class Germans, who tried to unite the German confederation in 1848 that was controlled by the combined forces of the military.
• Prussia took on unification that was led by Chief Minister Otto von Bismarck
• Victory came and Prussian King William I proclaimed German Emperor in 1871.
• The nation of Germany demonstrated dominance by modernizing currency, banking and judicial systems.

Italy Unified

• Italy, similar to Germany, had a long history of political fragmentation and Italians were scattered over several dynastic states and during the middle of the nineteenth century, its was divided into seven states.
• Sardinia-Piedmont was the only territory ruled by an Italian house, with the north being controlled by Austrian, the center ruled by the Pope, and the southern regions dominated by Spanish kings.
• Giuseppe Mazzini put a program to disseminate his goals and King Victor Emmanuel.
• Giuseppe Garibaldi led troops to win the local peasant support and successfully drive out the Spanish rulers of 1860.
• The Italian population wanted liberal ideas to unify Italy.

The Strange Case of Britain

• Some view Great Britain to be the model for state nations and the primary identities of Britishers were ethnic.
• England steadily grew in wealth, importance and power, and Britain came to be forged after they seized it.
• The Act of Union (1707) made it so that England was able to impose on the rest of Scotland and the British.
• Scotland's political institutions were suppressed and Highlanders were forbidden to speak the Gaelic language.
• British nation was spread through the British flag, national anthem, English language.

Visualising the Nation

• Artists personified a nation in replace of a statue and portraits.
• Nations were portrayed instead of female figures.
• The female figure did not stand for any particular women, and sought to give the abstract idea of a concreate form, by giving it an allegory of the nation.
• During the French Revolution, the allegory symbolized the Republic.
• Germany was portrayed by the name of Germania and she wears a crown of oak leaves which symbolizes heroism.

Meanings of the Symbols

• Broken chains signify being freed.
• A breastplate with an eagle symbolizes the German empire
• A crown of oak leaves stands for heroism.
• A sword shows readiness to fight
• A branching olive shows willingness to make peace
• Black, red and gold tricolor flag was used by liberal nationalists during the 1848;
• The rising sun symbolizes the beginning of a new era.

Nationalism and Imperialism

• Nationalism no longer retained sentiments in the nineteenth century, but became a more limited form of patriotism that resulted in more wars due to less tolerance.
• Europe was manipulated to align to imperial ambitions and there was serious tension in the Balkans which comprised of Romania to Montenegro.
• The Ottoman empires made it very explosive, but the modernization failed and European nationalities declared independence.
• The anti-imperialism movements struggle to have a collective national unity in which societies were organized in nations.

Explores the economic integration through the Zollverein and its impact on German national identity. It also highlights the role of language and culture in Polish resistance against Russian dominance. The Grimm brothers' contribution to German identity through folklore is discussed.