A200 Block 5 Unit 20 Flashcards
Nation constructs old and new, subjects and citizens, sovereignty, Azeglio
End of 18th century people still ‘subjects’ under aristocracies, mid to end 19th - citizens of nation states
1789 - sovereignty lies fundamentally with ‘the nation and people’ not a body or individual
1861 Massimo D’Azeglio, ‘we have made Italy, now we have to make Italians’ - Italy still in civil war, Rome still The Papal State
The Rise of Nation States - Mazzini (bastard), nation
“Without a country you have no name, no identity, no voice, no rights, no membership in the brotherhood of nations – you remain just the bastards of humanity.” - Giuseppe Mazzini
Greece 1830, Belgium 1830, Italy 1861, Germany 1871, decline of Ottoman Empire, consolidation of England and France
I
France and Nationhood, Renan’s soul, but dialects?
France, theologian Ernest Renan’s ‘What is a nation’ - romantic view, a soul, a spiritual principle’ 5 factors = race, language, religion, community of interests, geography, Renan dismisses as insufficient not spiritual enough!
However French govt. concerned on unity because - regional dialects, forced national language, also Bretons and The Vandee in the Revolution, some provinces less than enthusiastic about non association with German invaders
France and Nationhood Haussmann’s one and Gambetta’s stutter
Haussmann - ‘our country’, the most ‘one’ in the world
Conversely
Gambetta - vast distances and vast gulf between ‘those who speak our language and those many of our compatriots, cruel as it is to say so, can no more than stammer in it’
State terminology A state? A nation?
State - the apparatus of government pertaining to a particular geographical area, primarily an administrative and political entity
Nation- named human population, usually sharing a given territory, usually having a shared cultural history, often (but not always) speaking the same language and normally conscious of the fact that they constitute a nation - these people recognise each other as belonging to the same nation, the same ‘national identity’ - Ernest Gellner (1983)
State terminology II Nation States? Nation State Principal, Social Change
Nation States - one nation equals one state
The idea that every nation should govern itself is referred to as ‘The Nation State Principal’
Social change driven by industrialisation and rapid urbanisation
Unifications and nation state creations Germany, Metternich and Italy
Germany in 18th Century is 300 states of varying sizes, still part of The Holy Roman Empire abolished in 1806
‘Deutsche Bund’ (German Cinfederation) 1815 39 states under Austrian chairmanship and Prince Metternich uses the Diet at Frankfurt to thwart liberal aspirations
Cause of two states Germany and Italy emerging - philosophical and political treatises (writings) poetry and cultural manifestations celebrating ‘the nation’, Romanticism
Romanticism German Style Fichte, Frederich, mythical manifestations
Gottlieb Fichte’s ‘Address to the German Nation’ - ‘It is essential that the higher love of Fatherland…reign supreme’
Casper Friedrich German Romantic artist 1829 ‘The Oak Tree in the Snow’ dead branches of the lost past new life springs at the roots hinting at regeneration
New ideas that hark back to a mythical period of unity e.g. The Germans against Rome celebrating national solidarity that did not yet exist
Luther’s bible gave the German’s one language
Practical German Unity currency and tolls
1834 customs union The Zollverin
1838 a single currency
Other methods of unification in states education and composition, Acton’s dream
France - educational programmes, Joan of Arc, national histories, the common education system in a common language gives individuals a feeling of community that they do not share with those abroad
England Lord Acton - advocated the presence of different nationalities within a single state, claiming that it was a necessary condition of civilised life - far sighted outlook
The Modernity of Nation States, historian’s think glory and the Whig’s think morality
Historians acquiesce to nationalists views on nation states e.g. Long-past glory, flowering of national unity etc.
Macaulay’s ‘Whig interpretation’ of English History - the Victorians saw themselves as the heirs to the Romans, but with one important difference: instead of an autocratic emperor, the British had a limited, parliamentary monarchy which, they believed, placed Britain on a higher moral plane;
Historians now think that …modernity played the main part, Glenner agrees
Nations and nationalism as phenomena connected with the ruse of the modern industrial societies that characterise Europe today, rather than something intrinsic or naturally present in human nature as previously proffered
Gellner argues that nation states are a modern phenomenon caused by the rise of industrial societies, feudal cultures ‘horizontal’ ruling classes languages and cultures quite separate from those they ruled Normans and English, Russian Court uses French language
Historians’ views, Gellner and Breuilly
Gellner 1983, - nationalism ‘invents’ nations where they do not exist
Breuilly, 1993, - Nationalism…an especially appropriate form of political behaviour of the modern state, nationalists - political commitment of individuals who take advantage of the situation to bid for power - SNP
Historians’ views Hobsbawm and Anderson
Hobsbawm 1990 - nationalism analysed on the basis of the hopes, needs, longings and interests of ordinary people, the cultural and social aspects, reinforcing a state which is essence an ‘imagined community’ making people concentrate on themselves I.e. The state e.g. Commemorative holidays like Bastille Day a multifaceted construction
Anderson 1991 - Three historical forces 1 Orinting, 2 Capitalism, 3 Diversity of Human Language simmered down to one e.g, Luther’s Bible creates German a language from several standard dialects e.g. saxony that can be understood by all
When is a nation? ‘Classical modernism’ or ‘ethnic roots’
Some historians think that Nationalism and nation states are modern, linked to the rise of industrial societies 18th C onwards aka ‘classical modernism’ (Lawrence)
Others say they can identify ‘recognisable national sentiment’ long before the onset of industrialisation and modernisation, Anthony Smith states that ethnic roots have to be considered with respect to the form and significance of a modern nation states creation
