The Rise of Nationalism in Europe 2

 13. Culture also played an important role in creating the idea of the nation. Art and poetry, stories and music

helped express and shape nationalist feelings. Language too contributed a lot in the development of nationalist

sentiments.

14. With an enormous increase in population in the nineteenth century Europe led to widespread poverty in town

and country. In 1848, the poor people of Paris came out on the roads forcing Louis Philippe to flee. A National

Assembly proclaimed a republic, granted suffrage to all adult males above 21, and guaranteed the right to work.

National workshops to provide employment were set up.

15. Revolutions were also started by the educated middle classes belonging to Germany, Italy, Poland and the

Austro-Hungarian Empire. They took advantage of the growing popular unrest to push their demands for the

creation of a nation-state on parliamentary principles. Monarchs now began to realize that cycles of revolution

and repression could only be ended by granting concessions to the liberal-nationalist revolutionaries.

16. As nationalist feelings were widespread among middle-class Germans, in 1848 they tried to unite the different

regions of the German confederation into a nation-state governed by an elected parliament. Prussia took on the

leadership of the movement for national unification. Its Chief Minister, Otto von Bismarck played an important

role in this process. After the completion of the unification, the Prussian King, William I was proclaimed German

Emperor in January 1871.

17. Like Germany, Italy too had a long history of political fragmentation During the middle of the nineteenth

century, Italy was divided into seven states, of which only one, Sardinia-Piedmont was ruled by an Italian princely

house. Even the Italian language had not acquired one common form.

18. Chief minister of Sardinia-Piedmont named Cavour led the movement to unify the regions of Italy.

19. Through a tactful diplomatic alliance with France engineered by him, Sardinia-Piedmont succeeded; in

defeating the Austrian forces in 1859. Apart from regular troops, a large number of armed volunteers under the

leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray. In 1860, they marched into South Italy and the Kingdom of the

Two Sicilies and succeeded in driving out the Spanish rulers. In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of United Italy.

20. In Britain, the formation of the nation-state was not the result of a sudden upheaval or revolution.

21. It was the result of a long-drawn-out process. The new British nation was forged through the j propagation of

a dominant English culture. The symbols of the New Britain – the British flag, the j national anthem, the English

language etc. were actively promoted.

22. Artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries began to represent a country as if it were a person.

23. Nations were then portrayed as female figures. The female form that was chosen to personify the nation did

not stand for any particular woman in real life; rather it sought to give the abstract idea of the nation as a concrete

form. Thus, the female figure became an allegory of the nation. In France, she was christened Marianne which

underlined the idea of a people’s nation. Similarly, Germania; became the allegory of the German nation.

24. By the last quarter of the nineteenth-century nationalism no longer retained its idealistic liberal-democratic

sentiment of the first half of the century, but became a narrow creed with limited ends. During this period,

nationalist groups became increasingly intolerant of each other and ever ready to go to war.

25. It was this sentiment that led Europe to disaster in 1914 when the First World War broke out. However, the

19th century also witnessed the growth of anti-imperial movements in different parts of the world.