CHAPTER: 1- NATIONALISM IN EUROPE( HISTORY)

1. ‘‘The first clear expression of nationalism came with the ‘French Revolution’ in 1789.’’
Examine the statement.

Ans: “The first clear expression of Nationalism came with the ‘French Revolution’ in 1789”:

 French revolution led to the transfer of sovereignty from the monarchy to a body of French
citizens.
 The idea of La Patrie (the fatherland) and Le Citoyen (the citizen) emphasised .
 The Estate General was elected by the body of active citizens and renamed as National Assembly.
 Hymns were composed and oaths were taken and martyrs commemorated in the name of nation
 Centralised and uniform laws were introduced.
 Internal customs duties and dues were abolished and a uniform system of weights and measure
were adopted.
 French became the common language of the nation.
 With the outbreak of the revolutionary wars, the French armies began to carry the idea of
nationalism abroad.

2. Explain the provisions of Napoleonic Code.

Ans: The provisions of Napoleonic Code are:-

 Established equality before law.
 Abolished all privileges based on birth.
 Simplified administrative divisions.
 Granted the right to property to French citizens.
 Abolished feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues.
 Eliminated restrictions on guilds in town.
 Made efforts to improve transport and communication.

3. Ideas of national unity in the early nineteenth century Europe were closely allied to the
ideology of liberalism’. Support the statement with arguments.

Ans: The ideology of liberalism allied with nationalism in the following ways:-

 Liberalism stood for freedom for all and equality for all before the law
 It emphasised the concept of government by consent
 It stood for the end of autocracy and clerical privileges
 It believed in a constitution and representative government through parliament.
 It stressed on economically, inviolability of private property.
 Liberalism stood for the freedom of markets and abolition of state imposed restrictions on the
movement of goods and capital

4. What do you mean by conservatism? Highlight the main features of the beliefs.

Ans: Conservatism was a political philosophy that stressed the importance of the tradition and
preferred gradual development to quick change.
 Features of the believers of conservatism are:
 They believed in established, traditional institutions of state and society.
 They believed in a monarchy, the Church, social hierarchies, etc.
 They did not propose a return to the society of pre-revolutionary days. Rather, they realised that
modernisation could in fact, strengthen the traditional institutions like the monarchy.

5. Who hosted ‘Vienna Congress’ in 1815? Analyse the main changes brought by the ‘Vienna
Treaty.’

Ans: Vienna Congress was hosted by the Austrian Chancellor “Duke Metternich”.

The main clauses of the Treaty of Vienna signed in 1815 were:

 The Bourbon dynasty which had been deposed during the French Revolution was restored to power.
 France lost the territories it had annexed under Napoleon.
 A series of states were setup on the boundaries of France to prevent French extension in future.
 Kingdom of the Netherlands, included Belgium was setup at north and Genoa was added to
Piedmont in the south
 Prussia was given important new territories on its western frontiers.
 Austria was given control of northern Italy.
 Russia was given part of Poland and Prussia was given part of Saxony

6. Culture had played an important role in the development of nationalism in Europe during
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” Support the statement with examples.

Ans: Culture played an important role in creating the idea of a nation because of the following reasons :

 Art and poetry, stories, music helped in shaping nationalist feelings in Europe.
 Romanticism was a cultural movement which played a role in this context. Romantic poets and
artists were critical of reason and science.
 A sense of shared collective heritage was developed.
 Folk dance, Folk poetry, Folk songs were considered the true expression of the spirit of the
nation.
 Speaking in the vernacular language was another expression of nationalism.

7. The decade of 1830 had brought great economic hardship in Europe”. Support the statement
with arguments.

Ans: The main reason for the great economic hardship in Europe during 1830 s were:-
 There was enormous increase in population all over Europe. In most countries there were
more seekers of jobs than employment.
 Population from rural areas migrated to the cities to live in overcrowded slums.
 Small producers in towns were often faced with stiff competition from imports of cheap
machine-made goods from England.
 In those regions of Europe where the aristocracy still enjoyed power, peasants struggled
under the burden of feudal dues and obligations.
 The rise of food prices or a year of bad harvest led to widespread pauperism in town and
country
8. Vernacular language and local folklores carried modern nationalist message to large
audiences, who were mostly illiterate.” Justify with suitable examples.

● Vernacular languages and local folklores played an important role in creating the idea of nation in
Europe.
● This was especially so in the case of Poland which had been partitioned by the great powers —
Russia, Prussia & Austria.
● Karol Kurpinski of Poland celebrated the national struggle through his operas and music, turning
folk dances like the Polonaise, Mazurka into nationalist symbols.
● After Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced out of schools and the Russian language
was imposed everywhere.
● Many members of the clergy in Poland began to use language as a weapon of national resistance.
● Polish was used for church gatherings and all religious instructions.
● As a result a large number of priests and bishops were put in jail or sent to Siberia by the Russian
authorities.
● The use of Polish came to be seen as a symbol of struggle against Russian dominance.

9. “Nationalism no longer retained its idealistic liberal democratic sentiment by the last quarter
of the nineteenth century in Europe.” Analyse the statement with examples.

Ans: A Nationalism in the first half of the 19th century was not retained its liberal democratic
sentiments because of the following reason:
 Nationalist groups became increasingly intolerant, which leads to war.
 Major European Powers manipulated the nationalist aspirations to further their own imperialist
aims.
 Source of nationalist tension in Europe was the area called Balkans.
 Idea of romantic nationalism in the Balkan together with a disintegration of the Ottoman Empire
made this region very explosive.
 One by one, European nationalities broke away from its control and declared independence.
 Balkan People based their claims for independence or political rights on nationality to prove that
they were once interdependent but were subjugated by foreign Power.
 As the different, Slavic nationalities struggled to define their identity and independence, the Balkan
area became an area of intense conflict.
 Russia, Germany, England, Austria-hungry were keen on countering the hold of other powers over
the Balkans.
 This led to a series of wars in the region and finally the First World War.

10. Explain the nation building process of Germany.

Ans: German Unification

 After 1848, nationalism in Europe moved away from its association with democracy and revolution.
 Nationalist sentiments were often mobilized by conservatives for promoting state power and
achieving political domination over Europe.
 Nationalist feelings were widespread among middle-class Germans in 19 century.
 In 1848 they tried to unite the different regions of the German confederation into a nation state
governed by an elected parliament.
 This liberal initiative to nation-building was repressed by the combined forces of the monarchy and
the military, supported by the large landowners (called Junkers) of Prussia.
 Prussia took on the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, who became the architect of this process.
 Three wars over seven years – with Austria, Denmark and France – ended in Prussian victory and
completed the process of unification.
 In January 1871, the Prussian king, William I, was proclaimed German Emperor.

11. Describe the conditions that led to the formation of the United Kingdom.

Ans: The conditions that led to the formation of the United Kingdom were:

 The primary identities of the people who inhabited the British Isles were ethnic ones – such as
English, Welsh, Scot or Irish.
 All of these ethnic groups had their own cultural and political traditions.
 But as the English nation steadily grew in wealth, importance and power, it was able to extend its
influence over the other nations of the islands.
 The English parliament, which had seized power from the monarchy in 1688 at the end of a
protracted conflict, was the instrument through which a nation-state, with England at its centre,
came to be forged.
 The Act of Union (1707) between England and Scotland that resulted in the formation of the ‘United
Kingdom of Great Britain’ meant, in effect, that England was able to impose its influence on Scotland.

12. What do you understand by the term ‘allegory’? How did a female figure become an allegory
of a nation explain with examples?

Ans: When an abstract idea is expressed through a person or a thing, it is called an allegory.

 Artists found a way out to represent a country in the form of a person.

 The female figure was chosen to personify the nation. It did not stand for any particular woman in
real life.
 It gave the abstract idea of the nation a concrete form.
 Thus, the female figure became an allegory of the nation.
 During the French Revolution, artists used the female allegory to portray idea such as Liberty,
Justice and the Republic.

Examples of allegory
To represent a nation, female allegories were invented by the artists of the nineteenth century.

 Germania became an allegory of the German nation. As German oak stands for heroism, Germania
wears a crown of oak leaves.
 Marianne, a popular Christian name became an allegory in France. Marianne images were marked on
coins and stamps. Statues of Marianne were erected in public squares to remind people of the
national symbol of unity.

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