Study sheet: Nationalism in Europe

📋 Course Outline

1. Nation and National Identity
2. French Revolution and Nationalism
3. Napoleonic Reforms and Resistance
4. Social Foundations of Nationalism
5. Liberal Nationalism and Economic Unity
6. Conservatism after 1815
7. Revolutionaries and Mazzini
8. Culture and Popular Nationalism
9. The Liberal Revolution of 1848
10. German and Italian Unification
11. Britain and the Nation-State
12. National Symbols and Allegories
13. Nationalism and Imperialism

📅 Key Dates

1. 1707The Act of Union joined England and Scotland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain under an English-dominated Parliament
2. 1789The French Revolution transferred sovereignty from the monarchy to the people of France
3. 1815The Congress of Vienna established a conservative settlement that restored monarchies, redrew boundaries around France, and sought to undo most Napoleonic changes
4. 1821The Greek struggle for independence began
5. 1830The July Revolution in France overthrew the restored Bourbon kings and established a constitutional monarchy under Louis Philippe
6. 1848The French revolution overthrew Louis Philippe, proclaimed a republic, granted universal male suffrage to adult men above 21, and guaranteed the right to work
7. 1914Nationalism aligned with imperialism contributed to the outbreak of the First World War

📖 1. Nation and National Identity

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Nation-state : A state in which most citizens develop a common identity and shared history or descent, while a centralised power exercises sovereign control over a defined territory.
• Ernst Renan’s Nation : For Ernst Renan in ‘What is a Nation?’ (1882), a nation is a large-scale solidarity based on common past glories, a common will in the present, shared great deeds, and the desire to achieve more together.

💡 Memory Hook

A nation is shared solidarity, not merely shared language, race, religion, or territory.

📖 2. French Revolution and Nationalism

📝 Essential Points

• The French revolutionaries created collective identity through:
  • the ideas of la patrie and le citoyen
  • the tricolour flag
  • the National Assembly
  • national hymns and oaths
  • commemorations
  • uniform laws
  • abolished internal customs duties
  • common weights and measures
  • the promotion of French as a common language

💡 Memory Hook

Popular sovereignty → collective identity → the nation-state.

📖 3. Napoleonic Reforms and Resistance

★ Must-know

📌 The Civil Code of 1804 abolished privileges based on birth, established equality before the law, and secured the right to property in territories under French control.

Further detail

• Napoleon simplified administrative divisions, abolished feudalism, freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues, removed guild restrictions, and improved transport and communication in territories under French control.

💡 Memory Hook

Administrative liberty attracted populations, while taxation, censorship, and conscription alienated them.

📖 4. Social Foundations of Nationalism

📝 Essential Points

• The Habsburg Empire included:

  • German-speaking aristocrats
  • Italian-speaking Lombardy and Venetia
  • Magyar-speaking Hungarians
  • dialect-speaking Hungarians
  • Polish-speaking Galician aristocrats
  • Bohemians
  • Slovaks
  • Slovenes
  • Croats
  • Roumans

• The educated liberal middle classes increasingly supported national unity after industrialisation created industrialists, businessmen, professionals, and a working-class population.

💡 Memory Hook

A small aristocracy dominated society, while emerging middle classes promoted national unity.

📖 5. Liberal Nationalism and Economic Unity

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Liberalism : For nineteenth-century middle classes, liberalism meant individual freedom, equality before the law, government by consent, constitutional and representative government, private property, and freedom of markets.

📝 Essential Points

• The German customs union formed in 1834 at Prussia’s initiative abolished tariff barriers, reduced the number of currencies from over thirty to two, and promoted economic and national unity.

💡 Memory Hook

Individual freedom → legal equality → representative government → economic integration.

📖 6. Conservatism after 1815

📝 Essential Points

• After 1815, conservatism defended monarchy, the Church, social hierarchies, property, and the family while accepting that limited modernisation could strengthen traditional institutions.

💡 Memory Hook

Napoleon’s defeat → Vienna settlement → restored monarchies and repression.

📖 7. Revolutionaries and Mazzini

📝 Essential Points

• Giuseppe Mazzini founded Young Italy and Young Europe and argued that Italy should become a unified democratic republic because nations were the natural units of mankind.

📖 8. Culture and Popular Nationalism

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Romanticism : A cultural movement that rejected the exclusive glorification of reason and science and emphasised emotions, intuition, mystical feelings, and shared cultural heritage.

📝 Essential Points

• Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected German folktales and published their first collection in 1812, treating folklore and the German language as instruments of national identity and resistance to French domination. — Grimms’ Fairy Tales

• In partitioned Poland, the Polish language, Church instruction, folk dances, music, and operas preserved national feeling and became symbols of resistance to Russian rule.

💡 Memory Hook

Folklore, language, music, and art → shared cultural identity.

📖 9. The Liberal Revolution of 1848

📝 Essential Points

• On 18 May 1848, 831 elected representatives met in Frankfurt to draft a constitution for a united German nation headed by a monarchy subject to parliament, but Friedrich Wilhelm IV rejected the crown and the assembly was dissolved.

📌 Women participated in political associations, newspapers, meetings, and demonstrations during the liberal-nationalist movements, but they were denied suffrage and admitted to the Frankfurt Parliament only as observers.

💡 Memory Hook

Liberal demands for constitutions and nations expanded, while women remained politically excluded.

📖 10. German and Italian Unification

📝 Essential Points

• 🔄 German unification was achieved through (Otto von Bismarck): Prussian leadership, war against Denmark, war against Austria, war against France, the proclamation of William I as German Emperor at Versailles

• 🔄 Italian unification proceeded through:

  1. Cavour’s alliance with France and victory over Austria
  2. Garibaldi’s conquest of South Italy and the Two Sicilies
  3. Victor Emmanuel II’s proclamation as king
  4. the annexation of Rome

💡 Memory Hook

Prussia and Bismarck: Denmark → Austria → France; Sardinia-Piedmont, Cavour, and Garibaldi: north → south → Rome.

📖 11. Britain and the Nation-State

📝 Essential Points

• A British identity was promoted through the Union Jack, the national anthem, and the English language, while Scottish culture and institutions and Irish Catholic resistance were suppressed.

💡 Memory Hook

English political dominance → suppression of Scottish, Irish, and other identities → British nation.

📖 12. National Symbols and Allegories

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Marianne and Germania : Marianne personified the French nation through the red cap, tricolour, and cockade, while Germania personified the German nation through oak leaves, a sword, and other symbols of heroism, strength, liberty, and peace.

📝 Essential Points

• Germania’s symbols represented: broken chains as freedom, the oak-leaf crown as heroism, the sword as readiness to fight, the olive branch as willingness to make peace, the black-red-gold flag as liberal nationalism, the rising sun as a new era

💡 Memory Hook

Marianne wears the red cap and tricolour; Germania stands with oak leaves, sword, and broken chains.

📖 13. Nationalism and Imperialism

📝 Essential Points

• After 1871, the Balkans became Europe’s main nationalist flashpoint because Ottoman decline, competing Slavic nationalities, rival territorial claims, and rivalry among Russia, Germany, England, and Austro-Hungary intensified conflict.

💡 Memory Hook

Narrow nationalism and imperial rivalry → Balkan conflict → First World War.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Liberalism and Conservatism

Dimension	Liberalism	Conservatism
Political order	Constitutional and representative government	Monarchy and established institutions
Society	Equality before the law and individual freedom	Social hierarchies and tradition
Economy	Free markets and movement of goods and capital	Modernisation accepted when it strengthened traditional authority

German and Italian Unification

Dimension	Germany	Italy
Leading power	Prussia	Sardinia-Piedmont
Main leaders	Otto von Bismarck and William I	Cavour, Garibaldi, and Victor Emmanuel II
Method	Wars against Denmark, Austria, and France	Diplomacy, war against Austria, and Garibaldi’s southern campaign
Completion	German Empire proclaimed in 1871	Italy unified through Rome’s annexation in 1870