Industrialization 1851-1914

UNIT 9 NATIONALISM AND THE NATION-

STATE*

Structure
9.0 Objectives
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The Meaning of Nationalism
9.3 Idea of Nationalism and Nation-State
9.4 Stages in the Development of Nationalism
9.4.1 Nationalism before 1789: Proto-nationalism
9.4.2 Modern Nationalism: the Nineteenth Century
9.5 How Nationalism and the Modern State Create the Nation-State
9.5.1 Absolutism and Modern State
9.5.2 Modern State and System of States
9.5.3 Nations and Nation-States
9.6 Relation between Democratic and Nationalist Mobilizations
9.6.1 Liberal Democracies and Nationalism
9.6.2 Factors Affecting National Mobilization and Democratization
9.6.3 Ethnic-Linguistic Basis of Nationalism in the Late Nineteenth Century
9.6.4 Nationalist Movements and Democracy
9.7 Nationalism and Social Class: Germany and Britain
9.8 Italian Nationalism and Popular Mobilization
9.9 Phases of National Identity Development: Eastern Europe
9.9.1 Cultural Nationalism: Phase A and B
9.9.2 Spread of National Idea and Nationalism
9.10 Let Us Sum Up
9.11 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

9.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this Unit, you shall be able to learn about:
how the ideas of nationalism evolved in Europe;
the role of nationalism and modern state in creating the nation-state;
the role of language and democratic politics in mobilizing people and
fostering the growth of nationalism and nation-state; and
phases in development of national identities in some Eastern European
countries.

9.1 INTRODUCTION
Nationalism is a modern phenomenon. Even though its idea is often traced back
in time, nationalism in the modern sense emerged only during the eighteenth
century in Western Europe. During the 19th and 20th centuries it spread throughout
*Dr. Rohit Wanchoo, Dept. of History, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University 123
Some Aspects of European the world. Nationalism aligned with the modern state in giving rise to nation-
History
state. In certain cases, the modern state fostered a spirit of nationalism to provide
the people inhabiting its boundaries with a viable nationalist ideology. Both
together led to popular mobilizations which further strengthened the state and
helped the formation of nation-states.

9.2 THE MEANING OF NATIONALISM

In March 1882, during a lecture at the Sorbonne, the French orientalist and
historian Ernest Renan argued that the nation was a spiritual community which
wished to uphold its sense of unity through a day to day vote of confidence. In a
tract entitled Marxism and the National Question, Joseph Stalin argued that “A
nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the
basis of common language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up
manifested in a common culture”. Renan offered an ‘idealist’ definition of the
nation as against the ‘materialist’ analysis of Stalin, it is interesting that both
authors believed that there was nothing eternal or everlasting about nations. Both
believed that nations were historical constructs that had a beginning and would
also have an end.

Hans Kohn, regarded as a founder of the academic study of nationalism, argues

that “nationalities are products of the living forces of history, and therefore always
fluctuating never rigid.” Nationalities are not identical with clans, tribes or folk-
groups nor are they the simple outcome of common descent or common habitat.
Kohn argues: “Ethnographic groups like these existed throughout history, from
earliest times on, yet they do not form nationalities; they are nothing but
‘ethnographic material’, out of which under certain circumstances a nationality
might arise. Even if a nationality arises, it may disappear again, absorbed into a
larger or new nationality”.

Kohn argued that “both the idea and the form of nationalism were developed
before the age of nationalism”. The idea of nationals was traceable to the ancient
Hebrews and Greeks. The idea of the chosen people, the consciousness of national
history and national Messianism were three traits of nationalism which emerged
with the ancient Jews. But he acknowledges that despite their “fierce nationalist
ideology”, the Greeks lacked “political nationalism” and there was only a brief
period of patriotism during the Persian Wars.

Although it is possible to trace the idea of the nation to the earliest times and
certainly to the 16th century – as in the case of the German word Volk for people—
there is considerable unanimity among historians that nationalism is a modern
concept. Despite other disagreements, scholars like Benedict Anderson, Ernest
Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm agree that nationalism is a phenomenon which
emerged in the 18th century in Western Europe and then spread during the 19th
and 20th centuries to other parts of the world. It is the considered view of
historians that nationalism in the modern sense emerged with the growth of
industrial capitalism or print capitalism and was then sustained by a variety
of factors — by notions of community based on language, ethnicity or religion
or by the rivalry and competition among states and imagined communities.

124
Within the Marxist tradition, the definition of the nation has evolved from the Nationalism and the Nation=
State
writings of Marx and Engels, through Lenin and Stalin, to those of Hobsbawm.
Broadly speaking, within this tradition nation is regarded as a historically evolved
phenomenon which emerges only with decline of feudalism and the rise of
capitalism. Tribes, clans and peoples existed prior to the emergence of capitalism
but it was because of new economic relations produced by the emergence of the
capitalist mode of production that nations were created. Nationalism was regarded
as an ideological construct which enabled the bourgeoisie to identify its interests
as a class with the interests of society.

Hobsbawm also emphasises that nations and nationalist aspirations have to be

examined in “the context of a particular stage of technological and economic
development.” Though essentially constructed from above, nationalism cannot
be understood unless it is also analysed from below “in terms of assumptions,
hopes, needs, longings and interests of ordinary people which are not necessarily
national and still less nationalist”.

9.3 IDEA OF NATIONALISM AND NATION-STATE

The modern concept of the nation emerged during the Age of Revolution, the
American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789. In America
political discourse did not emphasize the unitary aspect of nationalism -the
Americans were concerned with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness, with the proper relation between the American union and
the states and with development of a liberal capitalist society. By contrast in
France the nation was conceived as “one and indivisible”. The idea of the nation
was inextricably linked up with mass participation, citizenship and collective
sovereignty of the people or of a given nationality. Hobsbawm draws a distinction
between the revolutionary democratic and the nationalist conception of the nation.
In the revolutionary democratic view of the nation the sovereign citizen people
within a state constituted a nation in relation to others whereas in the nationalist
view the “prior existence” of some distinguishing features of a community, setting
it apart from others, was necessary to constitute a nation. The French insistence
on linguistic uniformity after the Revolution was quite strong but the revolution
itself recorded how few people actually spoke it. In the revolutionary French
concept of the nation, the willingness to speak French – by non-French speakers
in France — was one of the conditions for full French citizenship.

In the case of Italy the only basis for unification and nationalism was the Italian
language. In 1860 when Italian unification was achieved only two and a half
percent of the population used the language for everyday purposes. The prophet
of Italian nationalism, the leader of Young Italy, Mazzini, believed that the popular
sovereignty of the nation must be indivisible and that various proposals for a
federal Italy were mere mechanism for ensuring the longevity of local ruling
classes. Mazzini also believed that the Italian people had to be ‘formed’ so as to
overcome the division of Italy, although he had a mystical faith in the sanctity
and unity of the popular will. G. Mazzini argued that writers must “explore the
needs of the peoples” so that Italian literature could inspire and revive the nation.
Literature could precede and help to shape political development.

125
Some Aspects of European
History 9.4 STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF
NATIONALISM
The growth of nationalism can be broadly divided into two phases. The first
phase occurs before the late 18th century when certain preliminary notions of
national unity can be said to have existed. Its chronology varies from one country
to another, but these ideas of geographical or cultural unity are only a precursor
to modern nationalism. The latter phase takes shape only in the wake of French
Revolution, except perhaps in the cases of Britain and France where the nation-
building exercise started in 16th century and 17th century respectively.

9.4.1 Nationalism Before 1789: Proto-nationalism

In historical literature, the emergence of modern nation and nationalism is in the
late 18th Century. Nationalism acquires a more democratic character in the period
of mass politics in the late 19th century. But it may be useful to look at the earleir
epoch to understand the significance of the emergence of nationalism.

Several 19th century observers believe that elements of nationalism, a sense of

ethnic or linguistic or national identity, emerged in the medieval period. This
may be called patriotism or proto-nationalism. The 19th century French historian
and politician Guizot believed that the Hundred Years War between England
and France (1397-1453) - provoked by the claim of the king of England to the
throne of France – brought together the nobility, burghers and peasantry in a
common desire to defeat the foreigner who had attacked and plundered France.
Though modern historians regard this as a period of crises marked by war, plague
and famine, it did create a sense of patriotism. In a later period the growth of
monarchy brought about the creation of a unified French state. Though some
historians have emphasized that France was a geographical reality which did not
depend on the role of the centralizing monarchy this geographical determinism
is not very convincing. Geographically speaking there was no Gallo-Roman
predestination of France and there were no real natural frontiers of France. The
state of France was the accidental creation of history and there could well have
been a southern Mediterranean France, a Franco-English empire or even a
Burundian France.

The struggle of free peasants living in the rural communities and of the large
towns against feudal tutelage from the 13thcentury onwards helped in the
emergence of a Swiss national consciousness. The four different nationalities
which created a modern state in 1648 managed to create a distinct Swiss national
consciousness only by 1848 after the victory of the liberals and the drafting of
a new federal constitution.

9.4.2 Modern Nationalism: The 19th Century

The 19thcentury is regarded as a century of nationalism — a period in which the
idea of the nation and nation state based on Britain and France was generalized
and perceived as the universal principle for modern societies. Friedrich List in
The National System of Political Economy,(London 1885) stated that, “a large
population and an extensive territory endowed with manifold resources, are
essential requirements of the normal nationality ….A nation restricted in the
number of its population and in territory, especially if it has a separate language,
126
can only possess a crippled literature, crippled institutions for promoting art Nationalism and the Nation=
State
and science. A small sate can never bring to complete perfection within its territory
the various branches of production”. In practice, the principle of nationality
applied only to nationalities of a certain size in the liberal period of nationalism
because of this faith in the benefits of large scale states. It is this tacit liberal
assumption of a certain size of states which Hobsbawm calls the “threshold
principle” of nationality which the liberal bourgeoisie broadly endorsed from
about 1830 to 1880. It is this threshold principle of nationality which is shared
by figures as far apart as John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Engelsand Giuseppe Mazzini.
It is this principle which explains why Mazzini, the apostle of nationalism, did
not support the cause of Irish independence. The principle of national self-
determination in the period of Mill and Mazzini was therefore substantially
different from that in the period of the American President, Woodrow Wilson.
Mazzini’s map of Europe drawn up in 1857 based on nations included only a
dozen states and federations. By contrast the Europe refashioned after World
War II on the basis of the right to national self-determination had 26 nation states.
In the post World War II period 42 regionalist movements are identified in Western
Europe alone.

The big change in attitude towards nationality and nationalism came about in the
late 19th century with the growth of mass political movements in the era of
democratic politics. After 1880 the debate about the national question became
important with the need to mobilize voters for different political parties and to
gain adherents for new ideologies whether among socialist or minor linguistic
and national groupings. In the later stage of mass politics and national movements,
the state played an active role. Colonel Pilsudski, the liberator of Poland, in fact
observed, “It is the state which makes the nation and not the nation the state”.
Whatever view one takes of the relation between nation and state, it was electoral
democracy which undermined the liberal theory of the nation.

9.5 HOW NATIONALISM AND THE MODERN

STATE CREATE THE NATION-STATE
Nationalism as an ideal began in the 19th century based on the ideas of the French
revolution and the consequences of Napoleonic military victories and the political
realignments which these victories produced. The simplification of the political
map of Europe by the reduction in the number of states within the German
Empire; the quickening of the pulse of Spanish nationalism during the military
campaigns of the Peninsular War; and the rise of Italian and German nationalism
based on the inspiration of the French armies, the Napoleonic role in nation-
state building and the contagion of revolutionary and democratic ideas helped
to spread the gospel of nationalism in Europe. It appealed to the intelligentsia
and the bourgeoisie which spearheaded the movement for Italian and German
unification. Mass politics in the late 19th century was to give an additional fillip
to nationalism specially in Eastern Europe, a region which was relatively
backward compared to the more industrialized parts of Western Europe.

9.5.1 Absolutism and Modern State

The absolutist states, particularly in Western Europe played an important role in
the gradual transition from feudalism to capitalism. The dynastic rulers of Europe
in the 16th and 17th centuries were responsible for the creation of centralized 127
Some Aspects of European states with substantial standing armies. The absolutist states claimed rights to
History
taxation and a monopoly over the legitimate use of force within the boundaries
of the state. The emergence of strong centralized states was the product of wars
among the absolutist rulers; the growth of state taxation was linked to the costs
of waging such wars; and the prime objective of the mercantilist policies of
absolutist rulers was to enhance the economic power and thereby the military
power of their states vis-a-vis other states. The wars of the 16th and 17th centuries
accelerated “all the fundamental state-marking processes”. In the economic and
military competition of this period, a large number of the 500 or so political
entities or states perished but the political unification of Italy and Germany was
possible only with the emergence of nationalist ideology in the 19th century.
Charles Tilly observes, “the European state-making process minimized the cultural
variation within states and maximised the variation among states”. The
minimization of internal cultural variation within states was accomplished by
the centralization of state power as well as the development of a concept of
sovereignty which was absolute and indivisible. The centralizing monarchs tried
to overcome obstacles in the way of exercising sovereign rights by local and
regional assemblies or by the aristocracy, clergy or bourgeoisie. Ultimately it
was the ‘revolutions from below’ in Holland, England and France which removed
the barriers in the way of the modern state. Some scholars argue that it was the
‘bourgeois revolutions’ — in the Age of Revolutions — which finally led to rise
of the modern capitalist state.

9.5.2 Modern States and System of States

One can approach the study of a system of states which emerged from the period
of the 16th and 17th century onwards in terms of the development of the economy
— in terms of capitalist development and its uneven spread across Europe
during the 19th century.

The industrialization of Britain during the late 18th century and gradual expansion
of industries in Europe over the course of the 19th century was uneven process
and countries industrialising later had certain disadvantages in terms of
competition with those who were ahead in industrial production. Alexander
Gerschenkron argues in Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective that
countries like Germany and Russia which began to industrialize— after Britain,
the first industrial nation—the role of the state was more significant. To
compensate for a late start the state played an active role in creating appropriate
conditions for industrialization by creating a system of tariff protection even
abetting the process of cartelization. The degree of concentration of capital in
Germany indicates a much stronger nexus between banks and industrial firms
than obtained in Britain. The doctrine of free trade, laissez faire as propounded
by Britain, was challenged by the German economist Friedrich List to enable
the German economy develop behind protectionist walls to enable it to catch
up.The economic challenge presented by England had an enduring impact on
German nationalism. The perception of the German bourgeoisie was that the
formation of a national sate was an essential precondition for German economic
development. The German nation was created by official policy and strategy,
subsequent to successful wars in 1864-1866 and 1870-71, with Austria and France.
German businessmen and industrialists clearly favoured political unification
because it would facilitate the creation of a national market.

128
In Italy the idea of nationalism was associated with literary Italian of Dante, and Nationalism and the Nation=
State
the youthful idealism of Mazzini’s Young Italy before it was linked to the
economic ideology of the bourgeoisie. During the 1840s a programme for
economic unification was propagated by journalists and intellectuals. This new
ideology was linked to the interests of the nascent Italian bourgeoisie influenced
by the growing success of German customs union, the Zollverein. The Austrian
opposition to the integration of the Italian railway – the linking of Piedmonts
and Lombard railway systems fuelled the growth of economic nationalism. Italian
industrialists, however, did not have an agenda which championed railway
building, customs union, common currency and the creation of a national market.
The Piedmontese were perceived as rivals by Milanese industrialists and the
latter infact favoured integration with the larger German market. Industrialists
were too weak to profit from the widening of markets and often had genuine
reasons to fear the growth of competition. Even commercial interests were not
always in favour of the economic unification of Italy. On the other hand, landlords
and farmers engaged in production for the market favoured unification
consistently. Cavour, Minghetti in Bologna and Rissole in Tuscany, all improving
landlords and moderate liberals, played a leading role in Italian national
unification. In Italy the weakness of the bourgeoisie gave greater salience to the
role of landlords and urban professionals in the movement towards economic
unification.

9.5.3 Nations and Nation-States

Modern states, nations and nationalism are all territorial in the sense that their
claims are based on specific geographical areas. In the 19th century, the idea
spread that the state and nation should “coincide geographically in the nation
state”. The modern state is often called the “territorial state” since it has a clearly
demarcated territory in which it claims sovereign rights over all its citizens.
Nationalism is a territorial ideology which is internally unifying and externally
divisive. As an ideology nationalism discourages conflicts based on social class
or status within a nation but enhances the differences between different peoples
and nations.

Authorities as different as Max Weber and V.I.Lenin have argued that nations
and nationalism have to be seen “primarily in political terms in relation to
statehood”. Nationalism is an ideology which links culturally and historically
defined territorial communities called nations, to political statehood. Nationalism
as an ideology may produce a demand for an independent state, transformation
of a pre-existing state, or merely anattempt to seek political legitimacy for state
policy in the higher interests of the nation, i.e. national interest.

Three ways in which nationalism has shaped the modern state have been identified.
Firstly, in the early phase, in states like England and France, the rise of nationalism
was linked to the development of democratic relationships between state and
civil society. Secondly, nationalism fostered the internal unification of culturally
and economically diverse regions into a more homogenous cultural identity.
Finally, nationalism divided one political community or nation from another and
even determined the geographical boundaries of the nation.

Nationalism can support both movements of unification and separation. In Italy

and Germany, nationalism with the support of one dominant state (Prussia in the
case of Germany and Piedmont in the case of Italy) created a new nation -state. 129
Some Aspects of European In Scandinavia, nationalism produced the separation of Norway from Sweden.
History
In the case of Poland, there was both separation and unification which created
the Polish nation state. In the late 19th century the doctrine of national self-
determination was the basis for creating new nation-states based on language,
on an invented tradition, ethnicity or common culture. In Greece, Czechoslovakia
and Ireland nationalism necessitated the carving out of nation states from larger
territorial units.These new nation states were carved out of the Ottoman Empire,
Austria-Hungary and Britain respectively. As the idea of nationalism spread to
Central and Eastern Europe-in regions with little industrialization and weak
bourgeois cultures the role of middle class and peasantry in the shaping of
nationalism increased. By the late nineteenth and early decades of twentieth
century rise of working class socialist organisations, the Bolshevik Revolution,
inter-imperialist rivalries, nationalism lost its radical force and became associated
with conservative and right wing ideologies.

Check Your Progress 1

1) Answer the following in ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
a) Nationalism existed since time immemorial.
b) The French Revolution had no role to play in spreading the idea of
nationalism.
c) Britain and France were the first nation-states.
d) Language played an important role in the growth of nationalism.
2) When did the idea of nationalism develop? Answer in 100 words with
examples.
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
3) Discuss in 100 words the role of nationalism and modern states in the
development of nation-states.
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................

9.6 RELATION BETWEEN DEMOCRATIC AND

NATIONALIST MOBILIZATIONS
In this section we will discuss the relationship between popular mobilization
and the rise of nationalism.
130
9.6.1 Liberal Democracies and Nationalism Nationalism and the Nation=
State

The French Revolution with its ideals of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and the
Rights of Man served as a source of inspiration for all subsequent democratic
and popular movements. The Jacobins inspired the radical ideology in the 19th
century throughout Europe. In fact, the ideal-type of bourgeois revolution was
derived from experience of the French Revolution. Although recently, revisionist
historians question the significance of the concept of bourgeois revolution, even
they concede that it gave a tremendous impetus to democratic movements and
radical ideas. Although the democratization of France took place gradually, and
the French Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and the Paris Commune of 1871 are
part of the gradual process of democratization of French politics and society, the
significance of the radicalism of the years 1792-95 cannot be denied.

The radicalization of French politics during the years 1792-95 was spearheaded
by the sans-culottes (shopkeepers, artisans, wage-earners and unemployed) who
were adversely effected by war, poor harvests, food shortages, price rise and
collapse of the currency. The sans-culottes were a politically active group in
urban area who were adversely effected by war and economic crises. Those
designated sans-culottes not only favoured price-control and rationing but also
believed in the sovereignty of people and subscribed to the principle of direct
democracy.

After the invasion of France in August 1792 and the execution of the King a new
constitutional convention was elected by universal adult male suffrage.The
Jacobin order established not only a republican government but also initiated a
phase of direct democracy dominated by ideas about egalitarian distribution of
property, revolutionary justice and right to subsistence. Once the tide of war
against France abated by mid-1794 Jacobin societies and militia were brought
under control alongwith local government assemblies. Owing to failure of liberal
democratic state during 1795-1799, France was eventually taken over by army
headed by Napoleon. The division among the electorate and lack of agreement
about what constituted the public good, juxtaposed with the successful military
exploits of French republican armies helped achieve political ascendancy for
the French military. Napoleon subsequently became Emperor of France and
produced an Imperial Constitution in 1804. Although the Napoleonic dictatorship
was a retreat from the ideals of Revolution it is equally true that his military
exploits and conquests simplified the political map of Europe and spread the
ideas of nationalism and democracy among conquered people. The Congress of
Vienna not only wished to contain France but through the Metternich system the
conservative European Powers — represented by Prussia, Austria and Russia-
actively tried to suppress all liberal and national movements in Europe which
threatened the dominant position of autocratic governments. There were
revolutions in Spain, Greece and Italy in 1820. A far more serious outbreak of
revolutions affected France, Germany, Belgium and Poland in 1830. Middle class
radicals and peasants and workers produced a revolution which won independence
for Belgium. Despite the systematic efforts to suppress democracy in Europe the
spread of liberal ideas could not be held back indefinitely.

The revolutions of 1848 which engulfed most of Europe led to an accelerated

movement towards democracy and nationalism. It brought Napoleon III to power
in France, hastened the unification of Germany and Italy and stirred national
131
Some Aspects of European sentiments in the multi-national Austrian empire. The process of democratization
History
in the first half of the 19th century was accelerated not only by revolutions but by
a gradual process of socio-economic change that is the growth of industries and
new social classes of the bourgeoisie and workers. There was also the growth of
the modern state and bureaucracy which led to the development of official
languages and the growth of public education. There was the growth of press
and print which fostered both democratic and nationalist ideas in Europe as the
number of publication and the size of the reading public grew steadily.

The policies of governments became matters of public concern as public

instruction and public employment increased the size of the middle class and as
political movements of different strata began to confront the state. 19th century
Britain, inspired by the French revolution witnessed the growth of the Chartist
movement and the widening of franchise by the Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867.
In Britain not only did the Industrial Revolution lead to the development of
capitalism largely on the basis of private capitalist accumulation but it also gave
civil society a decisive advantage in its relationship with the British state.
Nevertheless, the British ruling class and the state represented a compromise
between the rising bourgeoisie and the older aristocracy. The capacity of Britain’s
political elite to adapt to the changing nature of civil society or the balance of
social classes has been observed by both liberal and Marxist scholars. Some
have seen it as the creation of class alliances essential to perpetuate the dominance
of successful commercial landowners, the rising industrialist and finally the
finance capitalist based on the export of capital and invisibles . P.J. Cain and
A.G. Hopkins developed the concept of ‘gentlemanly capitalism’, a combination
of landed and commercial wealth with a range of service and professional interests,
which dominated Britain from 1688 onwards right until the mid 20thcentury.

While P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins regard Britain’s economic performance as
satisfactory given its size and resources others argue that Britain failed in the
late Victorian period and did not respond satisfactorily to the second industrial
revolution of the late 19th century.They add that the marginalisation of the
manufacturing sector in policy matters led to the retardation of the British
economy. Perry Anderson developed this point in his analysis of the late 20th
century crisis of the British economy in terms of the antiquity of the British state
and need for major political reform. Whatever the skilful management of social
and class conflict might have meant for Britain’s economic growth it enabled the
successful development of British democracy based on a progressive extension
of the franchise. It also enabled a successful integration of the working class and
ordinary citizen in British society. Even the labour movement accepted the ideals
of the British nation, the value of preserving the monarchy and British Empire.

9.6.2 Factors Affecting National Mobilization and

Democratization
As the 19th century advanced, the idea of democracy, despite the reactionary role
of the Concert of Europe and the Holy Alliance, grew in popularity. This was
associated with the growth of liberalism in Britain and France. It is customary to
contrast the experience of the first wave of capitalism of Britain and France with
that of Germany and Italy which were part of the second wave. Before going
into this issue let us observe the general consequence of economic development,
modernization and democratization.
132
As the economy developed new social classes emerged; the working class in Nationalism and the Nation=
State
particular posed new problems for the 19th century states and the bourgeoisie. In
Britain, after the 1832 Reform Act the liberal middle class parted company with
the working class. The inclusion of the propertied middle classes within the
framework of electoral democracy was achieved in several European states by
mid 19th century. The emergence of labour and socialist movement in late 19th
century affected the balance of social forces. The rise of the Social Democratic
Party in Germany during the late 19thcentury affected the politics of the bourgeoisie
and the conservatives. Mass participation — even the participation of a broad
based socialist party — did not necessarily democratize German society, though
the extent of pre-World War I German conservation has often been exaggerated.

Nationality and Language

The modernization of states was accompanied by the development of a centralized
administration and a large bureaucracy based on rational-legal principles. This
process was accompanied by the development of a national language, of a
language of administration and not merely local communication. The choice of a
dialect or language as the medium of official communication led to public or
state support for its propagation, specially through the school system. The growth
of a professional middle class and of modern state bureaucracies was based on
the growth of modern schools, universities, law and journalism. The expansion
of the secondary school system and the state choice of the official language of
education became a source of great conflict among rival ethnic linguistic groups
within multi-ethnic states like Austria-Hungary and in Eastern Europe in general.
In earlier periods language was less divisive because literacy levels were low,
the elite mass relationship was not based on regular interaction, and the state did
not seek legitimation on the basis of some form of representative government.
The controversies about language in the 19thcentury were about “school and
office”, and linguistic nationalism was linked to the growth of modern bureaucracy
and the aspiration of a rising class of intelligentsia seeking jobs and cultural
influence.

Language became an issue in international politics with the dispute between the
Danes and the Germans over Schleswig-Holstein and of the Germans and French
over the Rhine frontier during the 1840s. Even more significant was the increasing
importance of language as a factor in the emergence of national conflicts in the
late 19th century. The modern state and its administrative innovations sharpened
a sense of linguistic identity among the general population. From the 1860s,
census enumeration collected detailed information on languageuse. This fostered
a linguistic identity, a particularly complex one for the Austrian Empire. Language
itself was undergoing change and the choice of a language of public use depended
on several criteria e.g. the language of state and school, the mother tongue, the
‘family tongue’or language usually spoken at home. As E.J. Hobsbawm observes,
“In truth, by asking the language question censuses for the first time forced
everyone to choose not only a nationality, but a linguistic nationality”.

Nationalism, State and Class

In older states like Britain and France a state-based patriotism itself encouraged
a sense of nationalism during the course of the 19th century. The processes which
turned subjects into citizens helped to encourage a sense of nationalism in several
states. Popular perceptions of natural-cultural difference or distinctions, political
and national characteristics contributed to both nationalism and national 133
Some Aspects of European chauvinism in the late 19th century in countries regardless of whether they were
History
liberal capitalist states like Britain or second wave late industrializing states
like Germany. The patriotism of the working classes in Europe did not deny the
chasm between classes but affirmed its loyalty to the nation state. The most
significant illustration of this is the manner in which the working class and socialist
parties of the Second International which had repeatedly passed political
resolutions condemning the idea of an imperialist war and emphasizing the
international character of the struggle of the socialist parties very quickly identified
with their nations and their national interest once the First World War broke out.
Despite being opposed to the ruling classes and imperialist cliques of their
respective societies the workers and socialist parties patriotically marched into
the Great War of 1914-18. V.I. Lenin was surprised to find that the German
Social Democrats- the largest socialist party in Europe which controlled about
one-third of vote in Germany – had voted for war no sooner than the war was
declared. Later day observers have acknowledged that the Socialist and Marxists
underestimated the power of nationalism of the working classes and of those
groups who professed socialism and identified with Social Democratic parties.

Nationalism, Empire and Imperial Rivalry

The gradual extension of franchise and efforts of liberal states like Britain,
modernizing states like Germany, or survival strategies of autocracies like Tsarist
Russia to gain legitimacy and popular support, produced a form of patriotism.
National pride and national identification was also encouraged by overseas
expansion, by the material and psychological rewards which imperial possessions
brought to countries like Britain, France, Holland and Spain. In Britain a sense
of national identification was encouraged not only because of the “peculiarities”
of the English and the glorious tradition of free born Englishmen, but also because
of pride in a world wide empire. Britain’s pride in its industrial achievements
was celebrated during the Industrial Exhibition of 1851 and its sense of imperial
greatness by colourful pageants like the Coronation of Queen Victoria and the
Imperial Durbar in India in 1877. Although there was a sense of Scottish
nationalism which developed in the 18th and 19th centuries after the Union of
1707, economic development deepened the diversity of regions and social classes
within Scotland. Scottish workers, Highland crofters, and hard pressed tenants
were at loggerheads with Scottish landlords, and Scottish nationalism was weak
and ineffective. The Scots played a major role in both the acquisition and
management of the Empire that “their self-esteem and sense of identity may
have been fortified rather than weakened by the imperial adventure, even though
the bulk of its profits ended in London.” However, as Victor Kiernan argues, the
Welsh unlike the Scots, “showed no love of army or empire”.

The policies of the state designed to achieve greater legitimacy and support for
state policies, the spontaneous and state-sponsored support for imperial exploits
and colonial profits encouraged a sense of national pride. Some of this form of
patriotism was reflected in jingoistic responses in Britain to the Boer War fought
against settlers in South Africaat the end of the 19th century, in 1898-1902. In the
late 19th century, as imperialist rivalries among the European powers increased,
it was possible to use imperial interests to deflect attention from domestic
economic difficulties or class conflicts. Though the partition of Africa was
accomplished without any war between European powers, the struggle for
overseas markets, raw materials, and opportunities for investments, together with
territorial expansion, encouraged identification with the nation state among a
134
broad section of the population. A military adventure of successful commercial Nationalism and the Nation=
State
achievements overseas always helped to rally support for 19th century states
whether among countries with a large overseas empire like Britain or with very
limited overseas influence like Germany. Part of the nationalism of the 19th century
was linked to the economic and military rivalry of Britain and Germany, the
naval building competition between these two Powers and the general desire of
the more right wing governments in Germany and Italy to catch up with British
and French who had industrialized early and thus acquired vast colonial
possessions. The aggressive nationalism of the conservative regimes in the late
industrializing countries like Germany helped to rally support for the regime and
to encourage nationalist sentiment throughout Europe. The speech by the German
Emperor, Wilhelm II, at Tangiers in Morocco in 1905, induced widespread fear
in France, encouraged particularly by its publication in a large number of French
newspapers. French anxiety about Germany’s hostility and memories of the
defeat of France at Sedan in the Franco-German War in 1870 helped create a
sense of national unity which was able to transcend domestic conflicts in
times of acute crisis. Although France was divided into two antagonistic blocs
and although ideological and political differences did not vanish with the outbreak
of World War I, the French nation was united in the war against Germany. The
nationalists were looking for an opportunity to regain French greatness, the
Catholics to prove their patriotic credentials, the socialists to defend principles
of the French Revolution. The period from 1890 to 1914 is often called the period
of armed peace based on creation of rival military and diplomatic alliances,
between contenders for industrial and military supremacy, for colonial possessions
and profits. The memorialization of major events in national calendars by school
texts and nationalist newspapers, the reactions of press and public to diplomatic
military rivalry encouraged both the spontaneous and state sponsored support
for the nation-state in 19th century Europe.

9.6.3 Ethnic/Linguistic Basis of Nationalism in the Late 19th

Century
By the late 19th century processes of modernization and homogenization produced
a sense of nationalism in the older states and those large states which had achieved
unification by then. The idea of unitary nationalism often produced a counter-
nationalism among groups — ethnic or linguistic — which felt either oppressed
or excluded by a process of nationalist homogenization. Nationalism in the period
1880-1914 was no longer constrained by the ‘threshold principle’ which had
limited the demands for nation states earlier. Any body of people claiming to be
a nation could claim the right to national self-determination. In these “non-state”
nationalisms the ethnic linguistic criterion for defining nationalism became a
decisive, probably sole, consideration. In E.J.Hobsbawm’s view the late
emergence of the ethnic-linguistic criterion in defining nations is insufficiently
acknowledged in the literature on nationalism. Although linguistic and cultural
movements grew in Europe between the 1780s and 1840s it was a body of agitators
and mobilisers who spreadthe idea of nation in the second phase of the national
movement. Only in the third stage, according to Miroslav Hroch did mass support
for nationalism emerge in late 19th century European nationalist movements.

The reasons for the increasing readiness of imagined communities to make claims
of nationhood and national self-determination was because of the pace of change,
economic distress and large scale migrations of peoples in this period. Traditional
135
Some Aspects of European groups felt threatened by the pace of modernization. Educated middle strata with
History
modest incomes-journalists, school teachers and petty officials were the
torchbearers of linguistic nationalism. Migration produced friction and conflicts
between groups unused to coexistence with different groups. It was the nationalist,
petty bourgeoisie which played a major role in the emergence of new ethnic
linguistic nationalism as well as the chauvinist and right wing movements within
the older nation states. Contrary to conventional views Hobsbawm argues that
in practice it was hard to separate the support which the masses gave to
socialism, nationalism or religion since they had “several attachments and
loyalties simultaneously, including nationality”. Mass movement could
simultaneously express aspirations conventionally regarded as incompatible. The
oppressed nationalities of Eastern Europe did become independent states based
on Wilson’s support for the principle of national self-determination but it is hardly
possible to assert that significant numbers had dreamed of both social revolution
and national independence. The collapse of the belligerent states first led to
isolated and short-lived revolutionary upsurges and then to fascist and right wing
movement. Nevertheless the relation between revolutionary movements and the
desire for social transformation requires a more elaborate analysis.

9.6.4 Nationalist Movements and Democracy

Nation and nationalism as an idea has been identified with people, popular
sovereignty and democratic rights. J.J. Rousseau’s concept of General Will, of
the Rights of Man, of the right to elect governments on the basis of universal
adult male franchise constituted some of the democratic ideas which animated
politics in the 19th century. Although the French Revolution was an important
influence on national movements in the 19th century, towards the late 19thcentury
there was an illiberal or right wing shift in the nature of nationalist politics. This
rightward shift within nationalist politics took place even while the level of mass
participation based on regular elections increased. In fact the reason for this
growth in right-wing orientation of nationalism was the fear of popular
participation in politics, specially of the working class and left – wing socialist
parties. The liberal intelligentsia and middle class which had championed a
republican or liberal nationalism in the first half of the 19th century favoured
conservative politics and supported dynastic states after the revolutions of 1848.
Since national unification was the primary objective, other ideologies of political
rights and economic equality were subordinated to the idea of nationhood.
Ideologies of race and empire buttressed this conservative version of nationalism.
Although less strident in their support for social imperialism and social Darwinism
the working class and even socialist supporters were not immune to such
influences.

The relation between democratic and popular movements and nationalism and
national movements was always complex. In the late 18th century Britain, Linda
Colley has shown that while the common people were in favour of a national
mobilization of resources and manpower in the struggle against revolutionary
and Napoleonic France, the ruling class of British state were reluctant to unleash
popular energies which might endanger their local dominance. On the other hand,
the resistance to the French Revolution in the Vendee-as well as in Brittany –
was a rejection of orders from Paris and of military conscription. It was not only
fomented by the local aristocracy and priesthood but had deep-rooted support
within the French countryside. The ideals of the French revolution did not
136
command universal respect and the armies of revolutionary France, specially Nationalism and the Nation=
State
Napoleonic armies, were plagued by desertions. Although Mazzini espoused
democratic ideals and proposed a people’s war of national liberation, the Italian
liberals were unable to enthuse the masses and were primarily confined to towns.
Though Mazzini derived his notion of people’s war from the Spanish war of
1808-13 he failed to learn from this war the major role played by the clergy in
winning over the peasants to the cause of Spanish nationalism. Carlo Pisacane, a
Neapolitan who played a major role in defence of the Roman Republic and who
believed that Italian leadership lagged behind popular initiative and that G.
Garibaldi failed to produce a true revolutionary army, was himself slaughtered
by local peasants at Sapri in 1857 together with his own small revolutionary
force. In Italy the relation between national movement for political unification
and popular participation was so weak that Massimo d’ Azeglio observed: “We
have made Italy, now we have to make Italians”.

9.7 NATIONALISM AND SOCIAL CLASS:

GERMANY AND BRITAIN
The revolutions of 1848 revealed the weakness of the liberal bourgeoisie in
Europe. It compelled the liberals in Germany to accept support for nationalism
from the most powerful state Prussia and similarly also led to the ascendancy of
Piedmont-Sardinia in Italy. In Europe the revolutions of 1848 revealed the
emergence of nationalist sentiment within the Habsburg Empire and Eastern
Europe, the emergence of working class and socialist ideology throughout Europe,
and the differences within the liberal democratic movement which separated the
middle classes from the workers, peasants, and urban poor. During the 1848
revolutions in Europe the struggles of the poor and of the middle classes had
distinct features and objectives which were apparent. The middle classes were
willing to side with conservative Prussia or the Emperor of the French, Napoleon
III, rather than accept a greater pace of change.

In Germany, liberal nationalism which had an anti-feudal orientation acquired

anti-clerical and anti-socialist overtones during the Kulturkampf (1871-1887).
While anti-clericalism was partly progressive in its support for enlightenment
rationalism, it also was regressive in so far as it criticized the “block horde of
Romans without a fatherland”. During the years 1870-1878 the anti-clerical
element in bourgeois nationalism prepared the basis for conflict with the Social
Democratic Party and movement after 1878. The new right-wing nationalism
which emerged in the late 1870s was hostile to left-wing liberals as well as Social
Democrats. In this new phase of right-wing nationalism Prussian large land
owners and small manufacturers weighed down by economic competition actively
began to collaborate with industrialists favouring protectionist economic policies.
In the economic crisis of the 1870s marked by slower growth and international
price deflation, social tension multiplied and validated Marxist theories about
capitalism and class struggle. The middle classes both old and new, the latter
consisting of white collar employers and officials, became anxious to preserve
their economic and social standing as well as to distance themselves from Marxist
internationalism. H.A.Winkler states, “In the late 1870s to be a nationalist no
longer meant being anti-feudal but instead anti-internationalist, and very
frequently, anti-Semitic”.

137
Some Aspects of European In Germany liberalism was not very strong, and though there was indeed a silent
History
bourgeois revolution in Germany in the 19th century, the traditions of political
democracy were weaker than in Britain and France. The weakness of liberal
democratic movement in 19th century Germany probably led to the growth of
right wing nationalism and the containment of Socialist Democracy. It is
significant that even the liberal sociologist Max Weber thought that the only way
to reduce power of Junkers and authoritarian state was to adopt a prestigious
German world policy.

Successful overseas expansion was supported by right wing to secure economic

benefits which would not only benefit businessmen, middle class colonial
officials, but also the industrial working class, at least in the export industries.
Whether or not a labour aristocracy arose in countries with substantial overseas
trade and investments or not, it is true that economic prosperity and cheap colonial
and overseas produce improved the lot of the industrial workers and the common
people in metropolitan countries like Britain, France and Germany. Though
experts like L.E.Davis and R.A.Huttenback argue that return on overseas and
specifically colonial investments was not very high in the case of British
investments, cheap food and raw materials from overseas did have some beneficial
consequences. The popular support for oversees expansion and investments was
not only about chauvinism and ideology, but also about economic rewards.
Although writers like Patrick O’Brien have returned to free trade arguments about
economic irrelevance of empire to Britain there is still much merit in a social
class analysis of the motivations for imperial expansion and an assessment of
the economic benefits of empire. In any case improvement in living standards of
workers and urban consumers in industrial nations like Britain and Germany did
help in co-opting the labour movements in these countries. Reformist trade
unionism in Britain and the combination of repression with co-optation in
Bismarckian Germany diluted the challenge of labour and left wing opposition
to ideologies of race, empire and right wing nationalism. In Britain the franchise
was extended in 1867 and 1884 to incorporate most adult males into a reformist
parliamentary democracy. Repressive laws in Germany against trade unions
and socialist political parties between 1878-1890 were combined with
progressive welfare legislation, the Hohenzollern emperor’s ‘social message’
of 1881 and a system of social insurance for the workers. Though the SDP
(Social Democratic Party of Germany) grew under a repressive and right wing
regime its weakness cannot be attributed to such restrictive conditions alone.
Critics of the SDP have argued that though the party vote grew from 5, 5,000 in
1884 to 2 million in 1898 to nearly 4 million by 1913 it was a party which was
weakened by social limitations and ideological beliefs. According to some
scholars, the party was weakened by its excessive commitment to parliamentary
democracy and the fact that a large number of its members supported revisionism.
Given this context, the enthusiastic participation of the SDP and its supports in
the Kaiser’s war in 1914 is not a matter of surprise. Furthermore an analysis of
the failings of the SDP suggests that this was one of the ideological and political
factors which allowed German right-wing nationalism to acquire political
ascendancy despite powerful counter vailing forces. The German right-wing was
able to forge an alliance of land owners, industrialist and middle class to hold in
check the growth of the liberal middle class, workers and socialism but this
cannot be regarded as an inevitable outcome of Germany’s authoritarian
modernization and political unification.

138
 Nationalism and the Nation=
9.8 ITALIAN NATIONALISM AND POPULAR State

MOBILIZATION
In Italy the participation of the masses and the peasantry was limited because of
the conservatism of the rulers of states, the reluctance of the landlords to grant
concessions to the peasants to draw them into the national movement, the inability
of the intelligentsia and the revolutionaries to bridge the gap between town and
country and the fear of radical change which affected the elite which dominated
Italy in the 19th century.

It has been argued by F.J. Coppa that the 1848 war was an “ideological war” on
the Italian side. In the War against Austria, Garibaldi’s volunteers and Milanese
revolutionaries fought with troops from Piedmont, the Papal States, Tuscany
and Naples.

Yet the participation of rulers was born out of fear of revolution or force of
public opinion. The failure of the Republic in Venice and Rome is also the
failure of Mazzinian ideals of people’s war. In 1859-61 the motives of Count
Cavour were “patriotic rather than nationalist” since his objective was to secure
a dominant position for Piedmont more than an ideological commitment to Italian
unification. The successful ‘southern initiative’ of Garibaldi produced a revolution
in Sicily and after his victory in Naples he seemed to have willingly accepted an
auxiliary role in the process of Italian unification which Cavour assigned to him.
Garibaldi accepted the need to work with the monarchy long before he launched
his movement. It was thus possible to unify Italy both by force and popular
consent as manifested in the plebiscites. The centralized form of government of
the new Italian state alienated a section of public opinion in both Naples and
Sicily. A war with brigands in the Neapolitan provinces between 1861 and 1865
represented the sense of alienation felt in the Italian south from the new centralized
Italian nation state. The fact that only a tiny minority of 2.5% spoke Italian at the
time of unification, that over 100,000 troops had to be deployed to establish
control over the turbulent south soon after unification, the fact that Cavour had
to instruct his agents in Central Italy to conduct plebiscites to demonstrate that
the people endorsed the decisions of their assemblies to enter into a union with
Piedmont, the fact that Napoleon III of France and Cavour of Piedmont conspired
to ensure that the plebiscite in the Romagna and the Duchies went in favour of
Piedmont, and in Nice and Savoy in favour of the French, revealed the
insufficiency of mass participation in the process of Italian unification.

In Italy the divisions between a more industrialized north, a less developed central
region and the neglected and backward south actually intensified after Italian
unification. The Italian south remained an alienated, almost colonized, region.
The Italian unification, due more to military success and international diplomacy
rather than people’s war or mass struggles, was based on the low levels of
mobilization. Even after the creation of the Kingdom of Italy politics of the nation
was dominated by political parties with narrow social bases and limited contact
with Italian people. The extension of the franchise, the spread of public education,
the growth of industries and towns in Italy was slower than in France and Germany.
For these reasons the politics of Italy was regarded as a form of ‘trasformismo’
in which despite frequent political realignments and change there was little
substantial change. In Antonio Gramsci’s words, the process of Italian unification
was a‘passive revolution’ in which the Italian elite mobilized the Italian masses 139
Some Aspects of European only to the extent necessary to achieve national unification and independence
History
from Austria. The democratic mobilization of the people was slow and the absence
of organic intellectuals in Italy impeded the development of more radical
movements. With the growth of industries, workers organisations and socialism,
the conservative politicians of Italy and land owners and lower middle class in
particular, felt endangered. In fact the economic development of Italy and growth
of civil society and democratic values was so slow and inadequate that the crisis
after World War I created conditions for the growth of fascism and Mussolini’s
victory. The post-war crisis led to a fascist victory despite the fact that Italy had
played a less significant role in the war and joined late. Italian democracy
developed slowly even after unification and Italian nationalism did not succeed
in winning over Italians in the south.

9.9 PHASES OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

DEVELOPMENT: EASTERN EUROPE
The study of nationalism in the small states of Eastern Europe by Miroslav Hroch
yielded the notion of three phases in the development of national movements. In
the first stage or phase A there was primarily an emphasis on culture, literature
and folklore; in phase B pioneers of national ideas and its publicists occupied
centre-stage. It was only in the third stage — phase C — that the national
movements acquired mass support on any significant scale. There may be problem
with this schema but it is suitable for the study of nationalism in Eastern Europe.
It may be more useful to club phase A and B together for our purposes.

9.9.1 Cultural Nationalism: Phase A and B

The developments of an European romantic perception of natural and untainted
peasantry with a serious study of folklore by the late 18th century provided a
basis for many a national movement in Eastern Europe by the late 19th century.
The cultural and linguistic movements in Europe between the 1780s and 1840s
were the handiwork of scholars and ruling elites anxious to preserve and develop
national traditions of forgotten peoples or peasants and were sometimes even the
product of foreign scholars and elites. However, language based cultural revival
of this early phase has been regarded as a conscious act of constructing a ‘national’
language rather than rescuing an ancient tongue and culture. Cultural nationalists
chose one among the many dialects to produce a national language,
standardization of grammar and additions to vocabulary being matters of some
importance. Literary Bulgarian was based on the West Bulgarian idiom; literary
Ukrainian on its south eastern dialects; Lithuanian was based on one of two
dialects and Latvian on one of three. While many of the East European languages
developed or constructed their literary culture somewhere between the late 18th
and 19th centuries, literary Hungarian emerged in the 16th century.

Although the Croats spoke three dialects, the Croat proponent of Illyrianism,
Ljudevic Gaj (1809-72) switched to Slovakianin 1838 since this was also the
major dialect of Serbs. This was a conscious effort to unite the southern Slavs.
Although Serb-Croat developed as one literary language, the Catholic Croats
used Roman characters while the Orthodox Serbs used Cyrillic ones. In the case
of Slovak, the choice of one dialect chosen about 1790 was abandoned in favour
of another a few decades later as the basis of literary Slovak. In eastern Europe—
specially south eastern Europe – the ethnic and linguistic diversity was greater
140
than in the rest of Europe, specially western Europe, and awareness of distinct Nationalism and the Nation=
State
linguistic cultural identity emerged late. The Magyars, however, probably had a
distinct sense of themselves as an ethnic group with a language of their own
even in the 13th century. In fact not only the Magyars, but the Czechs and the
Poles too had developed a distinct identity based on ethnicity or language but
their concept of nation did not include the peasants and the common people.

Czech Nationalism
The emergence of a common Czech national feeling is attributable to the fear of
competition for senior posts from immigrant German clerics felt by the native
clergy. The influx of German colonists into Bohemia in the 12th century where
they were successfully engaged in mining and handicraft production, led to
emphasis on their own language by Czechs in order to draw a distinction between
themselves and German migrants. The existence of a reasonably strong state and
attachment to their language gave the Czechs a sense of common identity even
in the Middle Ages. During the Hussite era language, origin and faith bound the
Czech nation.

The Czechs did not have their own independent state during the 18th and 19th
centuries. As a consequence, the nobility spoke German, Spanish or French, the
townsmen German, leaving only the peasantry and the urban poor to speak the
Czech language. The development of capitalism and the migration of Czech
workers into towns created the basis for modern Czech nationalism. The revival
of Czech language and literature was taken up by the intelligentsia in the late
18th century, by the sons of clerks, handicraftsmen and servants who had received
university education. In the 1780s Czech language and theatre was patronized
even by craftsmen and workers. The objective of a growing Czech intelligentsia
was to “acquire equal rights for the modern Czech nation with that of the German
nation in Czech Lands”. Over the first half of the 19th century, the Czech
intelligentsia, drawn mainly from small town craftsmen’s families, promoted
Czech as a language of instruction in schools. By using newspapers, theatres and
pubic discussion, the Czech cause was promoted and linked with Slav solidarity.
The Czechs who constituted about 70 per cent of the population in Bohemia and
Moravia in the mid 19th century had almost no political rights while the Germans
had full political rights. Discussions in public houses and debates over internal
conditions in Russia and Germany led the intelligentsia to opt for equality with
Germans in Czech lands within the Austrian framework. In Austria it was possible
to live with other Slavs – Poles, Slovaks, Croats – affording both safety in
numbers and a better chance for Czechs to achieve their rights than under more
authoritarian Tsarist autocracy or more homogenizing German Empire. The
Germanization of the Elbe Slavs was a factor influencing Czech thinking in their
attitude towards political union with Germany. The doctrine wanted to transform
the Austrian absolutist state into “a federal state of nations enjoying equal rights”.

Hungarian Nationalism
In the case of Hungary national awakening among Hungarians took place at
about the same time as among other ethnic groups in the late 18th century. E.
Niederhauser distinguishes between two phases in the national movement, cultural
and political. During cultural nationalist phase, a national language is created
from among numerous dialects and a historical consciousness emerges. In the
political phase demands for local autonomy and use of national language in
administration eventually creates a nation state. In Hungary, diverse ethnic groups 141
Some Aspects of European existed – conquering Hungarian tribes settled amongst Slavonic tribes, German
History
settlers, and Turkish ethnic groups; Vlachs in Transylvania added to Hungary’s
ethnic mix. Ottoman occupation from 1541 until the end of the 17thcentury of
the central part of Hungary affected the ethnic balance just as subsequent Habsburg
policy of introducing German settlers in Southern Hungary altered demographic
equations. Only the Magyars and the Croats produced a significant feudal elite
in Hungary with a legal political life in the Diets, though Transylvania had its
own Diet.

9.9.2 Spread of National Idea and Nationalism

E.J. Hobsbawm shows that autonomous popular movements of national defence
against foreign invaders had ideologies which were “social and religious” rather
than national. In 15th and 16th century European peasants who felt betrayed by
their nobles decided to take up cudgels on behalf of their faith against invading
Turks. A popular national patriotism arose in Hussite Bohemia or on the military
frontiers of Christian states among armed peasant groups, given sufficient freedom
to enable them to combat invaders. The Cossacks are an example. Proto-national
feeling existed among the Serbs because they kept alive the memory of the old
Serb kingdom destroyed by the Turks. Some form of patriotism was also kept
alive by the Serbian Church which canonized Serb kings. Although the Cossacks
were not drawn from any one ethnic group, they were united by belief. In 17th
century Russia, pressures from both Catholic Poland and Muslim Turks made
religion and holy icons an important element in popular consciousness. It was
only after the growth of a sense of cultural nationalism based on a sense of
language, culture and history that nationalism as an idea influenced the smaller
nationalities of Eastern Europe.

Czechoslovakia
The Czech politicians of the late 19th century produced no grand political schemes
and settled for small concessions. Economic and cultural advances in Czech
Lands by German capital meant that there was little support on economic grounds
for Czech nationalism. It was World War I which triggered nationalism in the
Czech Lands as elsewhere in Europe. Wartime difficulties produced unrest in
towns, desertions on the battle field from 1915 onwards and eventually Czech
writers in 1917 published a manifesto supporting a future democratic Europe of
free nations. Tomas Masaryk pleaded for the independence of small nations in
Europe in October 1915 and rapid political changes duringWorld War I led to the
realization of such dreams. In 1915 the demand for an independent Czechoslovak
state was made. Czech and Slovak military units joined the enemies of Austria-
Hungary during World War I and thus established their claims to recognition by
the victorious Entente powers. After a thousand years the Czech Lands were
reunited with Slovakia-the result of Czech nationalism, the effects of World War
I on large dynastic states, and President Wilson’s support for national self-
determination.

Hungary
In Hungary the creation of the Dual Monarchy appeased the Hungarians but
aroused national sentiment among other nationalities. According to the official
census between 1850 and 1910, conducted by the Hapsburgs, the Hungarians
constituted an absolute majority only from 1890 onwards. Even including Croatia
142 in 1910, the Hungarians constituted only 51.5 per cent of the whole population.
Under the Nationality Act of 1868, the state gave non-Magyars the rights to Nationalism and the Nation=
State
schools in their mother tongue and rights to form banks and economic associations
but the idea of the nation-state demanded that the Hungarian nation and its claims
be paramount. In 1883 the government which made Hungarian compulsory in
secondary schools, though it was not compulsory in elementary schools until
1907. Hungarian statesmen tried to assimilate the non-Magyar population by
means of state language Hungarian. According to Peter Hanak, between 1890-
1914, as a result of modernization and industrialization more than a million people
were successfully assimilated by the Magyars. Budapest, which in the mid-19th
century had a German speaking and non-Magyar population, became a Hungarian
speaking city by the early 20th century. In fact Magyarisation was in fact
encouraged by the government to reduce the non-Magyar population.
Approximately three million people migrated to the USA, mainly Slovaks and
Serbs.

The government could not however influence the economic performance of

various nationalities. It could not thwart the rise of Romanian-owned
savingsbanks. The Churches supported secondary schools where students were
taught in their mother tongue. Since the Church prelates had representation in
the Upper House, they could represent their nationalities there. All the Churches
were considered ‘national’ Churches with the exception of those of Slovaks and
Germans since these nationalities were divided between Catholicism and
Lutheranism. The Orthodox Church took up the cause of Serbs and majority of
Romanians, and the Uniate Church for the Ruthenes and minority of Romanians.
The high electoral census was intended not merely to keep out the non-Magyars
from the political system but also Magyar parties hostile to the regime. By the
early 20th century a new more active political elite emerged among the Romanians
and Slovak.

The break-up of the Hapsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary led to the creation of

new nation states of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. Owing to
problems involved in demarcating precise national frontiers-which plagued the
post-war settlement-over three million Magyars became a minority in the newly
independent neighbouring states of a truncated Hungary. It was a “great reversal
of roles” which made the dominant Magyars a minority in new states, since the
Treaty of Trianon in 1920 forced one in three Magyars to live outside the country.
Hungarian ruling elites lost big estates, banks and factories, and therefore they
used discounted produce by the reduction of Hungary to one-third of its former
size to mobilize opposition to the unjust Treaty of Trianon. The conservative
elites, utilizing this Treaty to deflect popular discontent into nationalist channels,
eventually carried Hungary into the camp of fascist Germany and Italy during
World War II.

Poland
In Poland the nobility by the 18th century developed a sense of Polish identity
based on the acceptance of Polish language and culture. The Polish nobility,
constituting 8 per cent of the country’s population was large by European
standards. The peasants and even burghers were not included in the political
nation at the end of the 18th century.

As for the peasantry, they spoke Polish dialects in the western provinces,
Ruthenian dialects in the east, and Lithuanian in the north-east. Language was
143
Some Aspects of European not yet in the 18th century a basis for national consciousness. The religious
History
differences of the Polish population played a significant role in this period.
Peasants did not have a developed national consciousness but they participated
in the battle for Polish independence in late 18thcentury. It was during the 19th
century that abolition of serfdom and enfranchisement-the ending of villeinage-
took place at different points in time under the auspices of three Great Powers-
Prussia, Austria and Russia, which partitioned Poland among themselves in the
18th century. National consciousness was speeded up by granting civil and
democratic rights to burghers and later Jews; by movements and parties
demanding agricultural reform; and by the gradual elimination of legal inequalities
between classes.

The second half of the 19th century saw the emergence of a Belorussian and
Ukrainian national consciousness based on language and literature which resisted
domination by Polish language and literature. Polish writers from Belorussian
lands also wrote in Belorussian and helped to create a national literary tradition.
These differences of language were linked to social differences. Polish was linked
to nobility and intelligentsia while Belorussian and Ukrainian consciousness
emerged from within a plebeian tradition opposed to the Polish state. In so far as
Polish was a language of upper classes or those seeking upward mobility it was
considered a natural step for the peasant to accept Polish as granting higher
status because of cultural language. Therefore Belorussian, Ukrainian and
Lithuanian, regarded as peasant languages, were considered inferior. While
Polishnational consciousness developed as a response to oppressive German
nationalism after creation of an independent Poland in 1918 the nationalism of
the Poles too, became oppressive towards minority groups

The Polish Republic which came into being in 1920 was a product of
revolutionary changes which swept the whole of central and eastern Europe
stirring national consciousness of several groups. In the new Polish state over
one-third of the population was non Polish: the Ukrainians constituting 16 per
cent, the Jews 10% and the Belorussian 6 per cent of the population in 1931. It
was during the inter-war years that national consciousness developed among
Ukrainians and Belorussian although simultaneously processes of assimilation
were also at work and many people “belonged to groups of intermediate or
incipient national consciousness”.

The growth of fascism intensified national antagonisms throughout Europe in

the 1930s and thus helped to undermine the settlement at Versailles based on the
principle of national self-determination at the end of World War I. The
development of national movements and nationalism in Eastern Europe during
the inter-war period, the course of World War II, and the final post-war settlement
devised at Tehran, Potsdam and Yalta by the Victorious Allies, shaped the post
World War II map of nation states in Eastern Europe and the political map of all
Europe.

Check Your Progress 2

1) How did liberal democratic ideas foster the growth of nationalism in Europe?
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................

144 .......................................................................................................................
2) What was the role of language in the development of nation-states? Nationalism and the Nation=
State
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
3) Discuss the emergence of nationalism in Eastern Europe in about 150 words.
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................

9.10 LET US SUM UP

In the preceding discussion about nationalism and nation-state you have seen
that in most cases nationalist idea preceded the growth of nation-state. The
democratization of polity in Europe helped popular mobilizations around issues
like language and empire-building which strengthened the feeling of nationalism
among people. The modern states also played a crucial role in giving shape to
nationalist feelings and forging nation-states. We have also discussed that in
Eastern Europe, excepting Russia, cultural issues proved to be more important
than economic ones in giving rise to nationalist sentiment.

9.11 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

EXERCISES
Check Your Progress 1
1) (a) no; (b) no; (c) yes; (d) yes
2) See the Sections 9.2 and 9.3
3) See Section 9.5
Check Your Progress 2
1) See Sub-section 9.6.1
2) See Sub-sections 9.6.2 and 9.6.3
3) See Section 9.9

145