Nationalism in the 1800s

Nationalism in the 1800s

The People!

Complicated

Some people who shared the same language and culture were spread out in many different countries.

Towards the end of the 18th century things changed. New ideas were spreading across Europe, and more people learned to read and write. The Church lost its grip of the population, and there were public debates on important matters.

Before Nationalism

Reactions

Others had been forced together in big multinational empires.

Austria, for example, consisted of a variety of people: Germans, Polish, Romanians, Serbs and Italians.

The PEOPLE became increasingly important.

The European rulers were worried at first, since the growing nationalism was a threat to the current order.

Europe has always consisted of different kinds of people, with different languages and culture. For a long time this did not matter. These people did not care about what country they belonged to.

But who were the PEOPLE?

So, on the one hand, people in the muticultural empires tried to break free and form their own nations, and on the other hand, people in different countries wanted to unite.

Nationalists were liberals, and they agreed on the need of a new political order where the will of the people was the main thing.

The kings and the nobility focused on controlling their subordinates. What language they spoke was not important.

The original idea was that the PEOPLE were those living in the same country under the reign of the same king.

But eventually the right wing politicians also started to practise nationalism. "We" against "them" was an efficient way to win public opinion.

Some people also wanted bigger cultural unities: Pan-slavism in the east and Scandinavism in the north.

In schools, children were taught they were Swedish, Danish or French and that they should be proud of it.

What unified people was the Church, and whether you were a catholic or a protestant mattered more than if you were Swedish or Finnish.

Treditional folklore and national heroes became important (Gustav Vasa)

A New Nationalism

and WW1

A New Europe

A New Perspective

At the beginning of the 19th centrury a new idea was introduced.

The European map changed. Greece, Romania and Serbia broke free from Turkey and formed their own states. In the 1860s Italy became a country with the support of the nationalist leader Garibaldi. Austria was divided in 1868 into an Austrian and a Hungarian half, although they shared the same emperor.

Instead of focusing on the old borders between the various kingdoms, things like common language, history and culture became increasingly important as unifying factors.

Along with the united Germany came a more aggressive form of nationalism; a strong, powerful form, which would lead to devastating consequences in Europe.

The German speaking population was at the beginning of the 19th century scattered in many small states and in two great powers: Austria and Preussia. Liberals wanted to create a united Germany with a common constitution. After a series of wars (one of which was against France), a unified Germany was created in 1871

According to this new perspective, people who felt they belonged together because they had the same origin and spoke the same language should form a nation, or a nation state.

It was from the very beginning the most powerful state in Europe. It was unified through wars and a strong military force.

Some historians say that nationalism was the number one trigger for WW1, when the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip shot the Austrian prince in Sarajevo.