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Nationalism In Europe Essay, Research Paper

Nationalism: A General SurveyIn order to understand the present we must know its past such is the task of history. The crisis in the republics of former Yugoslavia, for example, is a bloody proof for the validity of this statement: a region infested with century old tensions that periodically re-erupts in civil wars. Only with a detailed knowledge of the country s tumultuous past can we fully understand the causes and intensity of the crisis. Symmetrically, when we look at a political map of Europe today, we inevitably look into its past and we must ask ourselves: how did this patchwork of irregular shapes and sizes come into being and, perhaps more importantly, why? What were the driving forces that lead people to form nations?The answer is quite simple: nationalism. Nationalism is the underlying essence of every European society since the French Revolution and invariably has contributed to excesses of militarism and imperialism, as in Europe under Napoleon I or under German Nazism, thus making it an underlying cause for conflicts. Nevertheless, it would not be correct to say that the nationalism at work in the different parts of Europe was one and the same. It too, like so many other ideologies, found diverse realisations in the different countries and consequently had different effects. Growing out of the French Revolution and being brutally suppressed around Europe during the Napoleonic Age and following reaction, it returned with a vengeance and culminated diversely all over Europe in the period from 1848-1870.Nationalism is the political philosophy holding that the welfare of the nation-state is the most important aspect of social life, an attitude often strengthened when people share a common history, religion, language, or ethnic background. When it is applied to the people they enter a state of mind in which patriotism, or loyalty to one’s country, is regarded as an individual’s principal duty. The crude ideas for nationalism were first mentioned by the French Revolutionaries during the French Revolution. Their enlightened vision of liberty, equality and fraternity became the basic principle for people to see their significance in a unit, or nation. However, not being able to organise themselves well and actually bringing about more disunity than unity in the country, the French Revolutionaries were forced to hand over power to Napoleon and the military in a desperate attempt to prevent France from being invaded by counter-revolutionary foreign powers. Thus, Napoleon proceeded immediately to what he did best; namely fighting wars, conquering countries, and creating his Grand Empire , comprising practically all of Europe for 10 uninterrupted years. His success did not last very long however, losing a crucial battle in Russia in 1812 and finally having to surrender to the combined international armies in 1814.Despite the brevity of Napoleon s conquests, they and the consequent peace agreements in Vienna were very important factors for the future of nationalism. Under Napoleon, territorial units, such as the ca.300 German states, were reorganized into a mere twenty and the numerous Italian city-states were merged into the Kingdom of Italy. Legal codes and administrative apparatus in the fashion of the enlightened Napoleon, such as civil equality, uniform measures and weights and national armies (allied to Napoleon, naturally) were introduced and spread all over the Grand Empire . Ironically, it was exactly this spread of revolutionary ideas that was one of the causes for the fall of Napoleon: people started interpreting nation not merely in a revolutionary sense, but also saw national identity as meaning a sense of difference from other nations, stressing the importance for historic differences such as culture, language, folkways and local customs which the Napoleonic system attempted to override. The ensuing Congress of Vienna, in striving to reach an agreement to ensure the freedom of European states from domination by a single power, made crucial decisions against which the liberal and nationalist movements of the nineteenth century were soon to rebel. This is due to the conservative nature of the agreements reached the peacemakers were hostile both to nationalism and democracy, the potent forces of the coming age; they regarded them, with reason, as leading to revolution and war and subsequently created the Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria and Prussia) specifically in order to combat the forces of nationalism. The representative ministers in Vienna wanted to restore the political situation as it had been before 1792, and to create a balance of power between the five Great Powers , (Prussia, Russia, Great Britain, Austria and France) Thus, southern Germany remained loosely organized, Prussia obtained the land on both sides of the Rhine, Austria remained a large mix of nationalities and Italy was internally separated once more.In the following years, nationalism started ripening and found public support. From cultural nationalism, in the form as mentioned above, the belief in political nationalism followed almost immediately. This meant that in order to preserve this national culture and propagate the individual liberty of its members, each nation should create for itself a sovereign state. Consequently nationalism had a revolutionary implication in the context of the newly established order, which had completely disregarded nationalistic characteristics. Especially in Germany, frustrated by its continued division and its weakness with respect to Napoleon, nationalism found very fruitful ground on which to flourish. Hegel, one of the most outstanding 19th century thinkers, revealed this German preoccupation with nationhood. It was evident to Hegel that for a people to enjoy freedom, order and dignity it must possess a potent and independent state. The state, for him, became the institutional embodiment of reason and

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