Why did nationalism in all of Europe surge in the 19th century?
Upvote:2
It was in large part due to the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.
First, France had a revolution that led to the composition of the national anthem, La Marseillaise, that started French national feeling.
Napoleon's invasion of Germany, and the creation of the Conferation of the Rhine consolidated a bunch of "church" holdings into far fewer "states" that later formed the basis of German nationalism.
The creation of the Duchy of Warsaw led to a (temporary) resurgence of Polish nationalism.
The invasion of Russia and ultimate defeat of Napoleon stirred up Russian national feeling, as outlined in "War and Peace. To perhaps a lesser extent, this was true in Austria and Prussia as well.
Napoleon's invasion of Italy supported the continued consolidation of much of that country into a few power blocs (e.g. the Papal States, Naples-Sicily, etc.), mostly united against the "outsider."
Although he crowned himself Emperor, Napoleon had piggybacked on the French Revolution, and he was basically a "revolutionary" in the sense that he was a "leader" with non-royal blood. That paved the way for "similar" leaders like Greece's Rigas Feraios or Hungary's Lajos Kossuth.
Admittedly, these examples were from western Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century, but they set examples for eastern Europe, and in the second half of the century.
Upvote:20
Who protects your daily security? Who does your loyalty belong to?
Initially (in the middle ages), the answer was your local nobleman, and, through him, via the duke and/or kind, to the Holy Roman Emperor.
Someone had to provide peace, and the choice was limited: whoever has won military control over your area most recently. As long as they did not interfere with your religious life and did not assess too much taxes, it was okay.
One's ethnicity was a private matter - like religion today.
The French revolution offered a practical implementation of what was spelled out by the thinkers of the Enlightenment - that "someone" is not really necessary, We The People can handle our peace ourselves.
This meant that you don't have to chose your suzerain from the existing list, you join forces with your neighbors and create a better country.
Napoleon's military successes illustrated that idea: you do not have to be lead by blue blood.
Why change?
Trade was growing in importance (industrial revolution &c), and, thus, infrastructure (roads &c) became critical.
Thus replacing one's loyalty to some remote potentate who didn't even speak your language with a someone local makes a lot of sense.
Why nationalism?
Printing press made books cheap, so literacy started to make sense even for lower classes. Printing in vernacular languages was a response to that. Thus the European society transformed itself from "educated people communicate in Latin, especially long distance" to "people read and write in a local language". This lead to an intellectual fragmentation of Europe:
Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto-nationalism, accelerated by the flowering of the European vernacular languages to the detriment of Latin's status as lingua franca.
More post
- 📝 Were bookshops 'common' in the late 19th century, and how did they differ from modern ones?
- 📝 Why did Virginia let Kentucky become a separate state?
- 📝 How accurate is Karl Heinz Frieser when he said that the blitzkrieg was a myth?
- 📝 Sources for historical information about the life and career of Basil Zaharoff?
- 📝 Can anyone identify this warship?
- 📝 Which army uniform is this (2nd Boer British or WWI US)?
- 📝 Was Constantinople in Europe or Asia during the Eastern Roman Empire Period?
- 📝 Sino-Taiwanese air clashes
- 📝 Where Can I Find Historical Candidate Photos of U.S. Elections (both winners and losers)?
- 📝 Were there historical examples of "citizen's arrest" concept in history independent of British common law?
- 📝 Is the killing between communists and Muslims in Indonesia during 1965 mutual?
- 📝 Jerusalem 1187: How did ethnicity impact Saladin's army?
- 📝 Why weren’t the Dutch and Belgian borders fortified with wire, trenches, mines, etc., as it became clear Germany would invade during WW2?
- 📝 What impact did the migration of Germanic tribes have on languages in the rest of Europe?
- 📝 Responsibilities of a naval chaplain in the Spanish empire
- 📝 Did Joseph Goebbels really say this about German opposition in 1933?
- 📝 Were there any ancient cultures that accepted h*m*sexuality?
- 📝 What is the earliest historical record of Hungarian words?
- 📝 Are today's Palestinians immigrants from many nations?
- 📝 M-1 rifle ammo and grenade invasion ration
- 📝 How aware was Europe nobility of the danger of consanguinity?
- 📝 WW2 - Translate German text
- 📝 Looking for a documentary on history of communication
- 📝 Are submarine launched ballistic missiles still inaccurate?
- 📝 How did the Scottish lowlands get their Gaelic name?
- 📝 Just how fanciful is Egyptology?
- 📝 What did the Russian ambassador to Japan do during his trip to London?
- 📝 Is Snyder's claim about Soviet-German friendship propaganda posters (1939‒41) supportable?
- 📝 Why did the USSR annex Tannu Tuva?
- 📝 After the 1947 India Partition, why did Sikhs & Hindus fleeing Pakistan travel to Delhi rather than stay in Amritsar?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why did nationalism in all of Europe surge in the 19th century?
- 📝 Why did quill pens persist until the early 19th century despite the capacity to make metal dip pens?
- 📝 In what ways did the rise of a true middle class in Europe during the late 19th century become apparent?
- 📝 Why did Europe not see Roman-era numbers of men participating in battles until the 17th century?
- 📝 Why did families in 6th century Mecca send their babies to be raised in the desert?
- 📝 Why were bloody religious wars so incredibly frequent in Europe in the century following the Reformation?
- 📝 Why was there little nonwhite migration to Europe in the 19th century?
- 📝 How did they measure speed in the 19th century so they could issue the first speeding ticket?
- 📝 Where and how did scientists of the 18th and 19th century learn foreign languages?
- 📝 Why are the buildings built in classical style in the first half of the 19th century in Russia so frequently yellow-and-white - coloured?
- 📝 Why did the British Empire manage to conquer huge swaths of land abroad but couldn't supress nationalism within the British Isles?
- 📝 Why did the French "surrender" all of its troops during the armistice in World War II?
- 📝 19th century cabins: why were beds off the ground? Or weren't they?
- 📝 Why did the United States want to "make Europe prosperous once more" with the Marshall Plan?
- 📝 How did 19th century European nations arbitrate the process of colonization among themselves?
- 📝 Did the "loss" of the American territories in the first third of the 19th century have any impact on Spanish intellectual discourse?
- 📝 Why did the French return all the Dutch Colonies to the Netherlands in Paris Treaty?
- 📝 Why has the 18th and not the 19th century come to be called „the age of reason“?
- 📝 Why did the U.S. place an arms embargo on all belligerents in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war?
- 📝 Why did Europeans call Native Americans Indians in the 18th Century AD, After they had found out they were in the wrong continent?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 When did people decide that all caps means the writer is shouting?
- 📝 Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
- 📝 Why did the Confederacy think they could win the American Civil War?
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 Why did the British scuttle the u-boats surrendered after WWII?
- 📝 Why did Canada not join the American Revolution?
- 📝 Why did Churchill order the destruction of the bombes?
- 📝 Why did the USSR give Crimea to Ukraine?
- 📝 Why did the Western Roman Empire collapse but not the Eastern Roman Empire?