Chapter 1: The Rise of Nationalism in Europe PDF

Chapter I The Rise of Nationalism in Europe...

Chapter I The Rise of Nationalism in Europe T h e NRa t i oinsa l ies m inoEfu r o p eN a t i o n a l i s m i n E u r o p e Fig. 1 — The Dream of Worldwide Democratic and Social Republics – The Pact Between Nations, a print prepared by Frédéric Sorrieu, 1848. In 1848, Frédéric Sorrieu, a French artist, prepared a series of four New words prints visualising his dream of a world made up of ‘democratic and social Republics’, as he called them. The first print (Fig. 1) of the Absolutist – Literally, a government or series, shows the peoples of Europe and America – men and women system of rule that has no restraints on of all ages and social classes – marching in a long train, and offering the power exercised. In history, the term homage to the statue of Liberty as they pass by it. As you would refers to a for m of monarchical recall, artists of the time of the French Revolution personified Liberty government that was centralised, as a female figure – here you can recognise the torch of Enlightenment militarised and repressive she bears in one hand and the Charter of the Rights of Man in the Utopian – A vision of a society that is so other. On the earth in the foreground of the image lie the shattered ideal that it is unlikely to actually exist remains of the symbols of absolutist institutions. In Sorrieu’s utopian vision, the peoples of the world are grouped as distinct Activity nations, identified through their flags and national costume. Leading In what way do you think this print (Fig. 1) the procession, way past the statue of Liberty, are the United States depicts a utopian vision? and Switzerland, which by this time were already nation-states. France, 3  identifiable by the revolutionary tricolour, has just reached the statue. Source A She is followed by the peoples of Germany, bearing the black, red Ernst Renan, ‘What is a Nation?’ and gold flag. Interestingly, at the time when Sorrieu created this In a lecture delivered at the University of image, the German peoples did not yet exist as a united nation – the Sorbonne in 1882, the French philosopher Ernst flag they carry is an expression of liberal hopes in 1848 to unify the Renan (1823-92) outlined his understanding of numerous German-speaking principalities into a nation-state under what makes a nation. The lecture was subsequently published as a famous essay entitled a democratic constitution. Following the German peoples are the ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?’ (‘What is a Nation?’). peoples of Austria, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Lombardy, In this essay Renan criticises the notion suggested Poland, England, Ireland, Hungary and Russia. From the heavens by others that a nation is formed by a common language, race, religion, or territory: above, Christ, saints and angels gaze upon the scene. They have ‘A nation is the culmination of a long past of been used by the artist to symbolise fraternity among the nations of endeavours, sacrifice and devotion. A heroic past, the world. great men, glory, that is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea. To have This chapter will deal with many of the issues visualised by Sorrieu common glories in the past, to have a common in Fig. 1. During the nineteenth century, nationalism emerged as a will in the present, to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more, these force which brought about sweeping changes in the political and are the essential conditions of being a people. A mental world of Europe. The end result of these changes was the nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity … Its emergence of the nation-state in place of the multi-national dynastic existence is a daily plebiscite … A province is its inhabitants; if anyone has the right to be empires of Europe. The concept and practices of a modern state, in consulted, it is the inhabitant. A nation never which a centralised power exercised sovereign control over a clearly has any real interest in annexing or holding on to defined territory, had been developing over a long period of time a country against its will. The existence of nations is a good thing, a necessity even. Their existence in Europe. But a nation-state was one in which the majority of its is a guarantee of liberty, which would be lost if citizens, and not only its rulers, came to develop a sense of common the world had only one law and only one master.’ identity and shared history or descent. This commonness did not exist from time immemorial; it was forged through struggles, through Source the actions of leaders and the common people. This chapter will look at the diverse processes through which nation-states and New words nationalism came into being in nineteenth-century Europe. Plebiscite – A direct vote by which all the people of a region are asked to accept or reject India and the Contemporary World a proposal Discuss Summarise the attributes of a nation, as Renan understands them. Why, in his view, are nations important? 4  1 The French Revolution and the Idea of the Nation The first clear expression of nationalism came with the French Revolution in 1789. France, as you would remember, was a full-fledged territorial state in 1789 under the rule of an absolute monarch. The political and constitutional changes that came in the wake of the French Revolution led to the transfer of sovereignty from the monarchy to a body of French citizens. The revolution proclaimed that it was the people who would henceforth constitute the nation and shape its destiny. From the very beginning, the French revolutionaries introduced various measures and practices that could create a sense of collective identity amongst the French people. The ideas of la patrie (the fatherland) and le citoyen (the citizen) emphasised the notion of a united community enjoying equal rights under a Fig. 2 — The cover of a German almanac designed by the journalist Andreas Rebmann in constitution. A new French flag, the tricolour, was chosen to replace 1798. the former royal standard. The Estates General was elected by the The image of the French Bastille being stormed by the revolutionary crowd has been placed body of active citizens and renamed the National Assembly. New next to a similar fortress meant to represent the hymns were composed, oaths taken and martyrs commemorated, bastion of despotic rule in the German province of Kassel. Accompanying the illustration is the all in the name of the nation. A centralised administrative system slogan: ‘The people must seize their own was put in place and it formulated uniform laws for all citizens freedom!’ Rebmann lived in the city of Mainz and was a member of a German Jacobin group. within its territory. Internal customs duties and dues were abolished and a uniform system of weights and measures was adopted. Regional dialects were discouraged and French, as it was spoken and written in Paris, became the common language of the nation. The revolutionaries further declared that it was the mission and the destiny of the French nation to liberate the peoples of Europe Europe from despotism, in other words to help other peoples of Europe to become nations. N a t i o n a l i s m in 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. 5  ICELAND (DENMARK) ATLANTIC SEA NORWAY (SWEDEN) SWEDEN SCOTLAND IRELAND GREAT BRITAIN DENMARK RUSSIAN EMPIRE WALES HABOVER ENGLAND (G.B.) PRUSSIA NETHERLANDS POLAND GALICIA BAVARIA AUSTRIAN EMPIRE FRANCE SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA HUNGARY SMALL ROMANIA AL STATES SERBIA GEORGIA TUG SPAIN CORSICA BULGARIA POR ARMENIA OTTOMAN EMPIRE PER KINGDOM SARDINIA OF THE SIA TWO SICILIES GREECE MESOPOTAMIA TUNIS ALGERIA CRETE SYRIA MOROCCO CYPRUS MEDITERRANEAN SEA PALESTINE EGYPT Fig. 3 — Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815. Within the wide swathe of territory that came under his control, Napoleon set about introducing many of the reforms that he had already introduced in France. Through a return to monarchy India and the Contemporary World Napoleon had, no doubt, destroyed democracy in France, but in the administrative field he had incorporated revolutionary principles in order to make the whole system more rational and efficient. 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. This Code was exported to the regions under French control. In the Dutch Republic, in Switzerland, in Italy and Germany, Napoleon simplified administrative divisions, abolished the feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues. In the towns too, guild restrictions were removed. Transport and communication systems were improved. Peasants, artisans, workers and new businessmen 6  Fig. 4 — The Planting of Tree of Liberty in Zweibrücken, Germany. The subject of this colour print by the German painter Karl Kaspar Fritz is the occupation of the town of Zweibrücken by the French armies. French soldiers, recognisable by their blue, white and red uniforms, have been portrayed as oppressors as they seize a peasant’s cart (left), harass some young women (centre foreground) and force a peasant down to his knees. The plaque being affixed to the Tree of Liberty carries a German inscription which in translation reads: ‘Take freedom and equality from us, the model of humanity.’ This is a sarcastic reference to the claim of the French as being liberators who opposed monarchy in the territories they entered. enjoyed a new-found freedom. Businessmen 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. However, in the areas conquered, the reactions of the local Europe populations to French rule were mixed. Initially, in many places such as Holland and Switzerland, as well as in certain cities like Brussels, Mainz, Milan and Warsaw, the French armies were welcomed as N a t i o n a l i s m in harbingers of liberty. 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 Fig. 5 — The courier of Rhineland loses all that conquer the rest of Europe, all seemed to outweigh the advantages he has on his way home from Leipzig. of the administrative changes. Napoleon here is represented as a postman on his way back to France after he lost the battle of Leipzig in 1813. Each letter dropping out of his bag bears the names of the territories he lost. 7  2 The Making of Nationalism in Europe If you look at the map of mid-eighteenth-century Europe you will find that there were no ‘nation-states’ as we know them today. Some important dates What we know today as Germany, Italy and Switzerland were 1797 Napoleon invades Italy; Napoleonic wars divided into kingdoms, duchies and cantons whose rulers had their begin. autonomous territories. Eastern and Central Europe were under 1814-1815 autocratic monarchies within the territories of which lived diverse Fall of Napoleon; the Vienna Peace peoples. They did not see themselves as sharing a collective identity Settlement. or a common culture. Often, they even spoke different languages 1821 and belonged to different ethnic groups. The Habsburg Empire Greek struggle for independence begins. that ruled over Austria-Hungary, for example, was a patchwork of 1848 many different regions and peoples. It included the Alpine regions Revolutions in Europe; artisans, industrial workers and peasants revolt against – the Tyrol, Austria and the Sudetenland – as well as Bohemia, economic hardships; middle classes where the aristocracy was predominantly German-speaking. It also demand constitutions and representative governments; Italians, Germans, Magyars, included the Italian-speaking provinces of Lombardy and Venetia. Poles, Czechs, etc. demand nation-states. In Hungary, half of the population spoke Magyar while the other 1859-1870 half spoke a variety of dialects. In Galicia, the aristocracy spoke Unification of Italy. Polish. Besides these three dominant groups, there also lived within 1866-1871 the boundaries of the empire, a mass of subject peasant peoples – Unification of Germany. Bohemians and Slovaks to the north, Slovenes in Carniola, Croats 1905 to the south, and Roumans to the east in Transylvania. Such Slav nationalism gathers force in the differences did not easily promote a sense of political unity. The Habsburg and Ottoman Empires. only tie binding these diverse groups together was a common allegiance to the emperor. How did nationalism and the idea of the nation-state emerge? 2.1 The Aristocracy and the New Middle Class India and the Contemporary World Socially and politically, a landed aristocracy was the dominant class on the continent. The members of this class were united by a common way of life that cut across regional divisions. They owned estates in the countryside and also town-houses. They spoke French for purposes of diplomacy and in high society. Their families were often connected by ties of marriage. This powerful aristocracy was, however, numerically a small group. The majority of the population was made up of the peasantry. To the west, the bulk of the land was farmed by tenants and small owners, while in Eastern and Central Europe the pattern of landholding was characterised by vast estates which were cultivated by serfs. 8 In Western and parts of Central Europe the growth of industrial production and trade meant the growth of towns and the emergence of commercial classes whose existence was based on production for the market. Industrialisation began in England in the second half of the eighteenth century, but in France and parts of the German states it occurred only during the nineteenth century. In its wake, new social groups came into being: a working-class population, and middle classes made up of industrialists, businessmen, professionals. In Central and Eastern Europe these groups were smaller in number till late nineteenth century. It was among the educated, liberal middle classes that ideas of national unity following the abolition of aristocratic privileges gained popularity. 2.2 What did Liberal Nationalism Stand for? Ideas of national unity in early-nineteenth-century Europe were closely allied to the ideology of liberalism. The term ‘liberalism’ derives 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. Politically, it emphasised the concept of government by consent. Since the French Revolution, liberalism had stood for the end of autocracy and clerical privileges, a constitution and representative government through parliament. Nineteenth-century liberals also stressed the inviolability of private property. Yet, equality before the law did not necessarily stand for universal New words suffrage. You will recall that in revolutionary France, which marked the first political experiment in liberal democracy, the right to vote Suffrage – The right to vote and to 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. However, the Napoleonic Code went back to limited Europe suffrage and reduced women to the status of a minor, subject to the authority of fathers and husbands. Throughout the nineteenth N a t i o n a l i s m in and early twentieth centuries women and non-propertied men organised opposition movements demanding equal political rights. 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. During the nineteenth century this was a strong demand of the emerging middle classes. Let us take the example of the German-speaking regions in the first half of the nineteenth century. Napoleon’s administrative measures had created out of 9  countless small principalities a confederation of 39 states. Each of Source B these possessed its own currency, and weights and measures. A Economists began to think in terms of the national merchant travelling in 1833 from Hamburg to Nuremberg to sell economy. They talked of how the nation could his goods would have had to pass through 11 customs barriers and develop and what economic measures could help pay a customs duty of about 5 per cent at each one of them. Duties forge this nation together. were often levied according to the weight or measurement of the Friedrich List, Professor of Economics at the University of Tübingen in Germany, wrote in 1834: goods. As each region had its own system of weights and measures, ‘The aim of the zollverein is to bind the Germans this involved time-consuming calculation. The measure of cloth, economically into a nation. It will strengthen the for example, was the elle which in each region stood for a different nation materially as much by protecting its length. An elle of textile material bought in Frankfurt would get you interests externally as by stimulating its internal productivity. It ought to awaken and raise 54.7 cm of cloth, in Mainz 55.1 cm, in Nuremberg 65.6 cm, in national sentiment through a fusion of individual Freiburg 53.5 cm. and provincial interests. The German people have realised that a free economic system is the only Such conditions were viewed as obstacles to economic exchange means to engender national feeling.’ and growth by the new commercial classes, who argued for the creation of a unified economic territory allowing the unhindered Source movement of goods, people and capital. In 1834, a customs union or zollverein was formed at the initiative of Prussia and joined by Discuss most of the German states. The union abolished tariff barriers and Describe the political ends that List hopes to reduced the number of currencies from over thirty to two. The achieve through economic measures. creation of a network of railways further stimulated mobility, harnessing economic interests to national unification. A wave of economic nationalism strengthened the wider nationalist sentiments growing at the time. 2.3 A New Conservatism after 1815 New words Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, European governments Conservatism – A political philosophy that were driven by a spirit of conservatism. Conservatives believed stressed the importance of tradition, established that established, traditional institutions of state and society – like the institutions and customs, and preferred gradual monarchy, the Church, social hierarchies, property and the family – development to quick change India and the Contemporary World should be preserved. Most conservatives, however, did not propose a return to the society of pre-revolutionary days. Rather, they realised, from the changes initiated by Napoleon, that modernisation could in fact strengthen traditional institutions like the monarchy. It could make state power more effective and strong. A modern army, an efficient bureaucracy, a dynamic economy, the abolition of feudalism and serfdom could strengthen the autocratic monarchies of Europe. 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. The Congress was hosted by the Austrian Chancellor Duke Metternich. The delegates 10 drew up the Treaty of Vienna of 1815 with the object of undoing most of the changes that had come about in Europe during the Napoleonic wars. The Bourbon dynasty, which had been deposed during the French Revolution, was restored to power, and 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 in future. Thus the kingdom of the Netherlands, which included Belgium, was set up in the north and Genoa was added to Piedmont in the south. Prussia was given important new territories on its western frontiers, while Austria was given control of northern Italy. But the Activity German confederation of 39 states that had been set up by Napoleon Plot on a map of Europe the changes drawn was left untouched. In the east, Russia was given part of Poland up by the Vienna Congress. while Prussia was given a portion of Saxony. 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. They did not tolerate criticism and dissent, and sought to curb activities that questioned the legitimacy of autocratic governments. Most of them Discuss imposed censorship laws to control what was said in newspapers, What is the caricaturist trying to depict? books, plays and songs and reflected the ideas of liberty and freedom Europe N a t i o n a l i s m in Fig. 6 — The Club of Thinkers, anonymous caricature dating to c. 1820. The plaque on the left bears the inscription: ‘The most important question of today’s meeting: How long will thinking be allowed to us?’ The board on the right lists the rules of the Club which include the following: ‘1. Silence is the first commandment of this learned society. 2. To avoid the eventuality whereby a member of this club may succumb to the temptation of speech, muzzles will be distributed to members upon entering.’ 11  associated with the French Revolution. The memory of the French Revolution nonetheless continued to inspire liberals. One of the major issues taken up by the liberal-nationalists, who criticised the new conservative order, was freedom of the press. 2.4 The Revolutionaries During the years following 1815, the fear of repression drove many liberal-nationalists underground. Secret societies sprang up in many European states to train revolutionaries and spread their ideas. To be revolutionary at this time meant a commitment to oppose monarchical forms that had been established after the Vienna Congress, and to fight for liberty and freedom. Most of these revolutionaries also saw the creation of nation-states as a necessary part of this struggle for freedom. One such individual was the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini. Born in Genoa in 1807, he became a member of the secret society of the Carbonari. As a young man of 24, he was sent into exile in 1831 for attempting a revolution in Liguria. He subsequently founded two more underground societies, first, Young Italy in Marseilles, and then, Young Europe in Berne, whose members were like-minded young men from Poland, France, Italy and the German states. Mazzini believed that God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind. So Italy could not continue to be a patchwork of small states and kingdoms. It had to be forged into a single unified republic within a wider alliance of nations. This unification alone could be the basis of Italian liberty. Following his model, secret societies were set up in Germany, France, Switzerland and Poland. Mazzini’s relentless opposition to monarchy and his vision of Fig. 7 — Giuseppe Mazzini and the founding of democratic republics frightened the conservatives. Metternich India and the Contemporary World Young Europe in Berne 1833. described him as ‘the most dangerous enemy of our social order’. Print by Giacomo Mantegazza. 12  3 The Age of Revolutions: 1830-1848 As conservative regimes tried to consolidate their power, liberalism and nationalism came to be increasingly associated with revolution in many regions of Europe such as the Italian and German states, the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Ireland and Poland. These revolutions were led by the liberal-nationalists belonging to the educated middle-class elite, among whom were professors, school- teachers, clerks and members of the commercial middle classes. The first upheaval took place in France in July 1830. The Bourbon kings who had been restored to power during the conservative reaction after 1815, were now overthrown by liberal revolutionaries who installed a constitutional monarchy with Louis Philippe at its head. ‘When France sneezes,’ Metternich once remarked, ‘the rest of Europe catches cold.’ The July Revolution sparked an uprising in Brussels which led to Belgium breaking away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. 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 fifteenth 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. 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. Finally, the Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 Europe recognised Greece as an independent nation. 3.1 The Romantic Imagination and National Feeling N a t i o n a l i s m in The development of nationalism did not come about only through wars and territorial expansion. Culture played an important role in creating the idea of the nation: art and poetry, stories and music helped express and shape nationalist feelings. Let us look at Romanticism, a cultural movement which sought to develop a particular form of nationalist sentiment. Romantic artists and poets generally criticised the glorification of reason and science 13  Fig. 8 — The Massacre at Chios, Eugene Delacroix, 1824. The French painter Delacroix was one of the most important French Romantic painters. This huge painting (4.19m x 3.54m) depicts an incident in which 20,000 Greeks were said to have been killed by Turks on the island of Chios. By dramatising the incident, focusing on the suffering of women and children, and India and the Contemporary World using vivid colours, Delacroix sought to appeal to the emotions of the spectators, and create sympathy for the Greeks. and focused instead on emotions, intuition and mystical feelings. Their effort was to create a sense of a shared collective heritage, a common cultural past, as the basis of a nation. Other Romantics such as the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people – das volk. It was through folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation (volksgeist) was popularised. So collecting and recording these forms of folk culture was essential to the project of nation-building. 14 The emphasis on vernacular language and the collection of local Box 1 folklore was not just to recover an ancient national spirit, but also to carry the modern nationalist message to large audiences who were The Grimm Brothers: Folktales and Nation-building mostly illiterate. This was especially so in the case of Poland, which Grimms’ Fairy Tales is a familiar name. The brothers had been partitioned at the end of the eighteenth century by the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in the Great Powers – Russia, Prussia and Austria. Even though Poland no German city of Hanau in 1785 and 1786 longer existed as an independent territory, national feelings were kept respectively. While both of them studied law, they soon developed an interest in collecting old alive through music and language. Karol Kurpinski, for example, folktales. They spent six years travelling from celebrated the national struggle through his operas and music, turning village to village, talking to people and writing folk dances like the polonaise and mazurka into nationalist symbols. down fairy tales, which were handed down through the generations. These were popular Language too played an important role in developing nationalist both among children and adults. In 1812, they published their first collection of tales. sentiments. After Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced Subsequently, both the brothers became active out of schools and the Russian language was imposed everywhere. in liberal politics, especially the movement In 1831, an armed rebellion against Russian rule took place which for freedom of the press. In the meantime they also published a 33-volume dictionary of the was ultimately crushed. Following this, many members of the clergy German language. in Poland began to use language as a weapon of national resistance. The Grimm brothers also saw French domination Polish was used for Church gatherings and all religious instruction. as a threat to German culture, and believed that As a result, a large number of priests and bishops were put in jail or the folktales they had collected were expressions of a pure and authentic German spirit. They sent to Siberia by the Russian authorities as punishment for their considered their projects of collecting folktales refusal to preach in Russian. The use of Polish came to be seen as a and developing the German language as part of symbol of the struggle against Russian dominance. the wider effort to oppose French domination and create a German national identity. 3.2 Hunger, Hardship and Popular Revolt The 1830s were years of great economic hardship in Europe. The first half of the nineteenth century saw an enormous increase in Discuss population all over Europe. In most countries there were more Discuss the importance of language and seekers of jobs than employment. Population from rural areas popular traditions in the creation of national migrated to the cities to live in overcrowded slums. Small producers identity. in towns were often faced with stiff competition from imports of cheap machine-made goods from England, where industrialisation Europe was more advanced than on the continent. This was especially so in textile production, which was carried out mainly in homes or small N a t i o n a l i s m in workshops and was only partly mechanised. In those regions of Europe where the aristocracy still enjoyed power, peasants struggled under the burden of feudal dues and obligations. The rise of food prices or a year of bad harvest led to widespread pauperism in town and country. The year 1848 was one such year. Food shortages and widespread unemployment brought the population of Paris out on the roads. Barricades were erected and Louis Philippe was forced to flee. A 15  Fig. 9 — Peasants’ uprising, 1848. National Assembly proclaimed a Republic, granted suffrage to all adult males above 21, and guaranteed the right to work. National workshops to provide employment were set up. Earlier, in 1845, weavers in Silesia had led a revolt against contractors who supplied them raw material and gave them orders for finished textiles but drastically reduced their payments. The journalist Wilhelm Wolff described the events in a Silesian village as follows: In these villages (with 18,000 inhabitants) cotton weaving is the most widespread occupation … The misery of the workers is extreme. The desperate need for jobs has been taken advantage of by the contractors to reduce the prices of the goods they order … India and the Contemporary World On 4 June at 2 p.m. a large crowd of weavers emerged from their homes and marched in pairs up to the mansion of their contractor demanding higher wages. They were treated with Discuss scorn and threats alternately. Following this, a group of them Describe the cause of the Silesian weavers’ forced their way into the house, smashed its elegant window- uprising. Comment on the viewpoint of the panes, furniture, porcelain … another group broke into the journalist. storehouse and plundered it of supplies of cloth which they tore to shreds … The contractor fled with his family to a Activity neighbouring village which, however, refused to shelter such a Imagine you are a weaver who saw the events person. He returned 24 hours later having requisitioned the army. as they unfolded. Write a report on what you saw. In the exchange that followed, eleven weavers were shot. 16 3.3 1848: The Revolution of the Liberals Parallel to the revolts of the poor, unemployed and starving peasants Source C and workers in many European countries in the year 1848, a revolution How were liberty and equality for women led by the educated middle classes was under way. Events of February to be defined? 1848 in France had brought about the abdication of the monarch The liberal politician Carl Welcker, an elected and a republic based on universal male suffrage had been proclaimed. member of the Frankfurt Parliament, expressed In other parts of Europe where independent nation-states did not the following views: yet exist – such as Germany, Italy, Poland, the Austro-Hungarian ‘Nature has created men and women to carry out different functions … Man, the stronger, the Empire – men and women of the liberal middle classes combined bolder and freer of the two, has been designated their demands for constitutionalism with national unification. They as protector of the family, its provider, meant for took advantage of the growing popular unrest to push their public tasks in the domain of law, production, defence. Woman, the weaker, dependent and demands for the creation of a nation-state on parliamentary timid, requires the protection of man. Her sphere principles – a constitution, freedom of the press and freedom is the home, the care of the children, the of association. nurturing of the family … Do we require any further proof that given such differences, equality In the German regions a large number of political associations whose between the sexes would only endanger harmony and destroy the dignity of the family?’ members were middle-class professionals, businessmen and Louise Otto-Peters (1819-95) was a political prosperous artisans came together in the city of Frankfurt and decided activist who founded a women’s journal and to vote for an all-German National Assembly. On 18 May 1848, subsequently a feminist political association. The 831 elected representatives marched in a festive procession to take first issue of her newspaper (21 April 1849) carried the following editorial: their places in the Frankfurt parliament convened in the Church of ‘Let us ask how many men, possessed by St Paul. They drafted a constitution for a German nation to be thoughts of living and dying for the sake of Liberty, headed by a monarchy subject to a parliament. When the deputies would be prepared to fight for the freedom of offered the crown on these terms to Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of the entire people, of all human beings? When asked this question, they would all too easily Prussia, he rejected it and joined other monarchs to oppose the respond with a “Yes!”, though their untiring elected assembly. While the opposition of the aristocracy and military efforts are intended for the benefit of only one became stronger, the social basis of parliament eroded. The half of humanity – men. But Liberty is indivisible! Free men therefore must not tolerate to be parliament was dominated by the middle classes who resisted the surrounded by the unfree …’ demands of workers and artisans and consequently lost their support. An anonymous reader of the same newspaper In the end troops were called in and the assembly was forced sent the following letter to the editor on 25 June to disband. 1850: Europe ‘It is indeed ridiculous and unreasonable to deny The issue of extending political rights to women was a controversial women political rights even though they enjoy one within the liberal movement, in which large numbers of women the right to property which they make use N a t i o n a l i s m in of. They perform functions and assume had participated actively over the years. Women had formed their responsibilities without however getting the own political associations, founded newspapers and taken part in benefits that accrue to men for the same … Why political meetings and demonstrations. Despite this they were denied this injustice? Is it not a disgrace that even the stupidest cattle-herder possesses the right to vote, simply because he is a man, whereas New words highly talented women owning considerable property are excluded from this right, even Feminist – Awareness of women’s rights and interests based on though they contribute so much to the the belief of the social, economic and political equality of the genders maintenance of the state?’ Source 17  Fig. 10 — The Frankfurt parliament in the Church of St Paul. Contemporary colour print. Notice the women in the upper left gallery. suffrage rights during the election of the Assembly. When the Frankfurt parliament convened in the Church of St Paul, women Discuss were admitted only as observers to stand in the visitors’ gallery. Compare the positions on the question of India and the Contemporary World women’s rights voiced by the three writers cited Though conservative forces were able to suppress liberal movements above. What do they reveal about liberal in 1848, they could not restore the old order. Monarchs were ideology? beginning to realise that the cycles of revolution and repression could only be ended by granting concessions to the liberal-nationalist revolutionaries. Hence, in the years after 1848, the autocratic New words monarchies of Central and Eastern Europe began to introduce the Ideology – System of ideas reflecting a changes that had already taken place in Western Europe before 1815. particular social and political vision Thus 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. 18  4 The Making of Germany and Italy 4.1 Germany – Can the Army be the Architect of a Nation? After 1848, nationalism in Europe moved away from its association with democracy and revolution. Nationalist sentiments were often mobilised by conservatives for promoting state power and achieving political domination over Europe. This can be observed in the process by which Germany and Italy came to be unified as nation-states. As you have seen, nationalist feelings were widespread among middle-class Germans, who 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, however, repressed by the combined forces of the monarchy and the military, supported by the large landowners (called Junkers) of Prussia. From then on, Prussia took on the leadership of the movement for national unification. Its chief minister, 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 the process of unification. In January 1871, the Prussian king, William I, was proclaimed German Emperor in a ceremony held at Versailles. On the bitterly cold morning of 18 January 1871, an assembly comprising the princes of the German states, representatives of the army, important Prussian ministers including the chief minister Otto von Bismarck gathered in the Europe unheated Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles to proclaim the new German Empire headed N a t i o n a l i s m in by Kaiser William I of Prussia. The nation-building process in Germany had demonstrated the dominance of Prussian state power. The new state placed a strong emphasis Fig. 11 — The proclamation of the German empire in the Hall of on modernising the currency, banking, legal Mirrors at Versailles, Anton von Werner. At the centre stands the and judicial systems in Germany. Prussian Kaiser and the chief commander of the Prussian army, General von Roon. Near them is Bismarck. This monumental work (2.7m x measures and practices often became a model for 2.7m) was completed and presented by the artist to Bismarck on the rest of Germany. the latter’s 70th birthday in 1885. 19  BALTIC SEA NORTH SEA SCHLESWIG- HOLSTEIN EAST PRUSSIA MECKLENBURG- POMERANIA SCHWERIN WEST PRUSSIA HANOVER IA BRANDENBURG SS U BRUNSWICK PR POSEN WESTPHALIA RUSSIAN EMPIRE A SS RHINELAND NA EN THURINGIAN SILESIA SS STATES HE Prussia before 1866 RG BE AUSTRIAN Conquered by Prussia in Austro-Prussia EM EMPIRE War, 1866 TT UR Austrian territories excluded from German W Confederation 1867 N Joined with Prussia to form German DE Confederation, 1867 BA BAVARIA South German states joining with Prussia to form German Empire, 1871 Won by Prussia in Franco-Prussia War, 1871 Fig. 12 — Unification of Germany (1866-71). 4.2 Italy Unified Like Germany, Italy too had a long history of political fragmentation. Italians were scattered over several dynastic states as well as the multi-national Habsburg Empire. 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 was under Austrian Habsburgs, the centre was ruled by the Pope and the southern regions were under the domination of the Bourbon kings of Spain. Even the Italian language had India and the Contemporary World Fig. 13 — Caricature of Otto von Bismarck in not acquired one common form and still had many regional and the German reichstag (parliament), from Figaro, local variations. Vienna, 5 March 1870. During the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic. He had also Activity formed a secret society called Young Italy for the dissemination of Describe the caricature. How does it represent his goals. The failure of revolutionary uprisings both in 1831 and the relationship between Bismarck and the 1848 meant that the mantle now fell on Sardinia-Piedmont under elected deputies of Parliament? What its ruler King Victor Emmanuel II to unify the Italian states through interpretation of democratic processes is the war. In the eyes of the ruling elites of this region, a unified artist trying to convey? Italy offered them the possibility of economic development and political dominance. 20 Chief Minister Cavour who led the movement to unify the regions of Italy was neither a revolutionary nor a democrat. Like many Activity other wealthy and educated members of the Italian elite, he spoke Look at Fig. 14(a). Do you think that the people French much better than he did Italian. Through a tactful diplomatic living in any of these regions thought of alliance with France engineered by Cavour, Sardinia-Piedmont themselves as Italians? succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859. Apart from regular Examine Fig. 14(b). Which was the first region troops, a large number of armed volunteers under the leadership of to become a part of unified Italy? Which was the Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray. In 1860, they marched into South last region to join? In which year did the largest Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and succeeded in winning number of states join? 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. However, much of the Italian population, among whom rates of illiteracy were very high, remained blissfully unaware of liberal- nationalist ideology. 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! SWITZERLAND SWITZERLAND LOMBARDY VENETIA SAVOY 1866 SARDINIA PARMA AUSTRIA MODENA 1858 SAN MARINO MONACO 1858-60 TUSCANY PAPAL STATE 1870 1860 KINGDOM OF BOTH 1858 SICILIES Europe TUNIS N a t i o n a l i s m in Fig. 14(b) — Italy after unification. TUNIS The map shows the year in which different regions (seen in Fig 14(a) become part of a Fig. 14(a) — Italian states before unification, 1858. unified Italy. 4.3 The Strange Case of Britain The model of the nation or the nation-state, some scholars have argued, is Great Britain. In Britain the formation of the nation-state 21  was not the result of a sudden upheaval or revolution. It was the Box 2 result of a long-drawn-out process. There was no British nation prior to the eighteenth century. The primary identities of the people Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-82) is perhaps the most celebrated of Italian freedom fighters. He who inhabited the British Isles were ethnic ones – such as English, came from a family engaged in coastal trade and Welsh, Scot or Irish. All of these ethnic groups had their own cultural was a sailor in the merchant navy. In 1833 he and political traditions. But as the English nation steadily grew in met Mazzini, joined the Young Italy movement and participated in a republican uprising in wealth, importance and power, it was able to extend its influence Piedmont in 1834. The uprising was suppressed over the other nations of the islands. The English parliament, which and Garibaldi had to flee to South America, where had seized power from the monarchy in 1688 at the end of a he lived in exile till 1848. In 1854, he supported Victor Emmanuel II in his efforts to unify the protracted conflict, was the instrument through which a nation-state, Italian states. In 1860, Garibaldi led the famous with England at its centre, came to be forged. The Act of Union Expedition of the Thousand to South Italy. Fresh (1707) between England and Scotland that resulted in the formation volunteers kept joining through the course of the campaign, till their numbers grew to about of the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’ meant, in effect, that 30,000. They were popularly known as Red England was able to impose its influence on Scotland. The British Shirts. parliament was henceforth dominated by its English members. The In 1867, Garibaldi led an army of volunteers to growth of a British identity meant that Scotland’s distinctive culture Rome to fight the last obstacle to the unification of Italy, the Papal States where a French garrison and political institutions were systematically suppressed. The Catholic was stationed. The Red Shirts proved to be no clans that inhabited the Scottish Highlands suffered terrible repression match for the combined French and Papal troops. whenever they attempted to assert their independence. The Scottish It was only in 1870 when, during the war with Prussia, France withdrew its troops from Rome Highlanders were forbidden to speak their Gaelic language or that the Papal States were finally joined wear their national dress, and large numbers were forcibly driven to Italy. out of their homeland. Ireland suffered a similar fate. It was a country deeply divided between Catholics and Protestants. The English helped the Protestants of Ireland to establish their dominance over a largely Catholic country. Catholic revolts against British dominance 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. A new ‘British nation’ was forged through the propagation of a India and the Contemporary World dominant English culture. 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 older nations survived only as subordinate partners in this union. Fig. 15 – Garibaldi helping King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont to pull on the boot named ‘Italy’. English caricature of 1859. Activity The artist has portrayed Garibaldi as holding on to the base of New words the boot, so that the King of Sardinia-Piedmont can enter it from the top. Look at the map of Italy once more. What statement is Ethnic – Relates to a common racial, tribal, or this caricature making? cultural origin or background that a community identifies with or claims 22 5 Visualising the Nation While it is easy enough to represent a ruler through a portrait or a statue, how does one go about giving a face to a nation? Artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found a way out by personifying a nation. In other words they represented a country as if it were a person. Nations were then portrayed as female figures. The female form that was chosen to personify the nation did not stand for any particular woman in real life; rather it sought to give the abstract idea of the nation a concrete form. That is, the female figure became an allegory of the nation. You will recall that during the French Revolution artists used the female allegory to portray ideas such as Liberty, Justice and the Fig. 16 — Postage stamps of 1850 with the figure of Marianne representing the Republic of Republic. These ideals were represented through specific objects or France. symbols. As you would remember, the attributes of Liberty are the red cap, or the broken chain, while Justice is generally a blindfolded woman carrying a pair of weighing scales. Similar 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. Similarly, 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. Europe New words Allegory – When an abstract idea (for instance, greed, envy, N a t i o n a l i s m in freedom, liberty) is expressed through a person or a thing. An allegorical story has two meanings, one literal and one symbolic Fig. 17 — Germania, Philip Veit, 1848. The artist prepared this painting of Germania on a cotton banner, as it was meant to hang from the ceiling of the Church of St Paul where the Frankfurt parliament was convened in March 1848. 23  Box 3 Meanings of the symbols Attribute Significance 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 Activity With the help of the chart in Box 3, identify the attributes of Veit’s Germania and interpret the symbolic meaning of the painting. In an earlier allegorical rendering of 1836, Veit had portrayed the Kaiser’s crown at the place where he has now located the broken chain. Explain the significance of this change. India and the Contemporary World Fig. 18 — The fallen Germania, Julius Hübner, 1850. Activity Describe what you see in Fig. 17. What historical events could Hübner be referring to in this allegorical vision of the nation? 24 Fig. 19 — Germania guarding the Rhine. In 1860, the artist Lorenz Clasen was commissioned to paint this image. The inscription on Germania’s sword reads: ‘The German sword protects the German Rhine.’ Activity Europe Look once more at Fig. 10. Imagine you were a citizen of Frankfurt in March 1848 and were present during the proceedings of the parliament. How would you (a) as a man seated in the hall of deputies, and (b) as a woman N a t i o n a l i s m in observing from the galleries, relate to the banner of Germania hanging from the ceiling? 25  6 Nationalism and Imperialism By the last quarter of the nineteenth century nationalism no longer retained its idealistic liberal-democratic sentiment of the first half of the century, but became a narrow creed with limited ends. During this period nationalist groups became increasingly intolerant of each other and ever ready to go to war. The major European powers, in turn, manipulated the nationalist aspirations of the subject peoples in Europe to further their own imperialist aims. The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871 was the area called the Balkans. The Balkans 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 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. All through the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire had sought to strengthen itself through modernisation and internal reforms but with very little success. One by one, its European subject nationalities broke away from its control and declared independence. The Balkan peoples 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. Hence the rebellious nationalities in the Balkans thought of their struggles as attempts to win back their long-lost independence. As the different Slavic nationalities struggled to define their identity India and the Contemporary World 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. Matters were further complicated because the Balkans also became the scene of big power rivalry. During this period, there was intense rivalry among the European powers over trade and colonies as well as naval and military might. These rivalries were very evident in the way the Balkan problem unfolded. 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. 26  Fig. 20 — A map celebrating the British Empire. At the top, angels are shown carrying the banner of freedom. In the foreground, Britannia — the symbol of the British nation — is triumphantly sitting over the globe. The colonies are represented through images of tigers, elephants, forests and primitive people. The domination of the world is shown as the basis of Britain’s national pride. Nationalism, aligned with imperialism, led Europe to disaster in 1914. But meanwhile, many countries in the world which had been colonised by the European powers in the nineteenth century began Europe to oppose imperial domination. The anti-imperial movements that developed everywhere were nationalist, in the sense that they all N a t i o n a l i s m in struggled to form independent nation-states, and were inspired by a sense of collective national unity, forged in confrontation with imperialism. European ideas of nationalism were nowhere replicated, for people everywhere developed their own specific variety of nationalism. But the idea that societies should be organised into ‘nation-states’ came to be accepted as natural and universal. 27  Write in brief 1. Write a note on: a) Guiseppe Mazzini b) Count Camillo de Cavour c) The Greek war of independence Write in brief d) Frankfurt parliament e) The role of women in nationalist struggles 2. What steps did the French revolutionaries take to create a sense of collective identity among the French people? 3. Who were Marianne and Germania? What was the importance of the way in which they were portrayed? 4. Briefly trace the process of German unification. 5. What changes did Napoleon introduce to make the administrative system more efficient in the territories ruled by him? Discuss 1. Explain what is meant by the 1848 revolution of the liberals. What were the political, social and economic ideas supported by the liberals? 2. Choose three examples to show the contribution of culture to the growth of nationalism in Europe. 3. Through a focus on any two countries, explain how nations developed over the nineteenth century. Discuss India and the Contemporary World 4. How was the history of nationalism in Britain unlike the rest of Europe? 5. Why did nationalist tensions emerge in the Balkans? Project Project Find out more about nationalist symbols in countries outside Europe. For one or two countries, collect examples of pictures, posters or music that are symbols of nationalism. How are these different from European examples? 28