Revolutions in Europe and North America - Nationalism

REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA HIST 1301 | History Nationalism People's ideas of national identity began to take shape as the upheaval of the revolutionary era subsided and a feeling of common objectives and ideals developed. The revolutionary notion of a country started to provide people a sense of solidarity and belonging as a result of the French Revolution and the revolutionaries' following battles against neighbouring monarchs that they perceived as unfriendly to their new republic. It took the role of the more antiquated concepts of dynasty and citystate and began to dominate peoples' political loyalty. French revolutionaries had inspired allegiance to the state, which also represented the people, by exploiting fear of foreign assaults as a method of mobilising support for the government and raising an army that served the interests of the people rather than the king. In several instances, such as Great Britain, the country coexisted with a monarchy that followed tradition. In other places, such as Haiti, France, and the US, the previous order was totally overthrown, and a whole new political structure and cultural milieu developed in its place. Nationalism is a radical political philosophy that prioritises national interests over those of other countries. It supports the right to political autonomy and self-determination as well as the distinctiveness and inherent superiority of each individual's own nation. This ideology can create hatred against foreigners and marginalise minority populations, but it can also provide internal stability by inspiring togetherness and loyalty among its own people. Despite being a strong force in Europe throughout the nineteenth century, nationalism was by no means exclusive to the continent and eventually became important to the modern development of nations like Egypt and Japan. When the first countries emerged in the nineteenth century, many of them built their national identities on a basis of language, race, religion, or a feeling of common origin, or any mix of these. A group of individuals who identify as belonging to the same national identity due to factors like race, language, or religion frequently dwell in the same state, which is a political body that has its own borders, enacts laws for its citizens, and is self-governing. This is what nationalists aimed to achieve. However, there are occasions when individuals with a common national identity (or "nationality") may be dispersed among several states. German-speaking people, for instance, were distributed among several kingdoms, principalities, and other political entities throughout nineteenth-century Europe. In this situation, nationalists aim to unite all people who have the same national identity in a single state, under the same government that is controlled by members of that nationality, and within the same borders. In other cases, individuals with a common national identification could reside in a state run by a different nationality. Jews, for instance, have a common Jewish identity, although they live in nations where people of different nationalities predominate, with the exception of those who reside in Israel, a state that was just established in 1948. In these situations, nationalists can suggest that people of the minority nationality create a new state so they can live and rule themselves free from the meddling of other, occasionally antagonistic, groups. A Jewish movement known as Zionism emerged in the nineteenth century to support the creation of an independent Jewish state. Italy and Germany were among the countries that had adopted these strategies of preserving political sovereignty and enhancing opposition to the threat of tyranny the most by the end of the nineteenth century. The military, the administration, and schools all promoted stories of the nation's holiness and supremacy. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the nationalism that finally resulted in the unification of Germany and Italy was sparked by this common feeling of identity and ancestry. Italy was a loose alliance of nations ruled by the Catholic Church and the Austrian Empire in the early part of the nineteenth century. The growing influence of nationalism and a desire for more freedom and relief from authoritarian rule led to numerous uprisings and rebellions against traditional monarchies and foreign powers throughout the Italian peninsula, despite the fact that the states all had different cultural traditions, political systems, and dialects. In the nineteenth century, as European values of equality and patriotism proliferated, a strong feeling of shared objectives and ambitions emerged among the Italian republics. Giuseppe Mazzini started advocating for a common Italian identity and urged his followers to devote their lives to their country after establishing Young Italy in 1831. Mazzini thought that the pope's power and the oppression of foreign kings would be overthrown by a new republic. But because nationalist ideology was viewed as so extreme at the time, he was ultimately detained and banished for subverting the governmental system. Giuseppe Garibaldi, a soldier and patriot, kept up the impetus for an Italian state unification after Mazzini was arrested. But he left the nation after taking part in an abortive uprising in Piedmont. During his self-imposed exile in Latin America, Garibaldi gained guerilla warfare training and military expertise that helped him lead his soldiers to victory in revolutionary operations between 1848 and 1849. The unification movement was started by these Italian nationalists who wanted to end Austrian rule. King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia and his prime minister, Count Camillo di Cavour, provided significant support for the cause. In 1861, Garibaldi proclaimed Victor Emmanuel II the king of the united kingdom of Italy, marking the culmination of revolutionary conflicts. Consequently, a monarchical form of government oversaw the unification, also called the Risorgimento. When Rome was taken in 1870, it was finished. In 1815, the Holy Roman Empire gave way to the Germanic Confederation, a coalition of thirty-nine independent nations in primarily German-speaking regions. The Germanic Confederation had no centralised authority or executive power as each of the member states continued to have their own political liberty. However, the Confederation's primary objective was to forge a united defence against France and Russia rather than to usurp the legislative authority of its constituent nations. The Confederation established the foundation for the nationalism that led to German unification in 1871 and the establishment of the contemporary nation-state of Germany, despite its final fall to the Austrian Empire in 1866. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Germany began to work towards political unification. It aimed to strengthen the cultural and linguistic unity that had given rise to the Germanic Confederation and to eliminate foreign political influence. The first democratically elected German parliament, the Frankfurt Assembly, made an effort in 1848 to write a constitution that would unify Germany under a single, centralised emperor. But the attempt was thwarted when Frederick William IV of Prussia, the military, and the nobility refused to acknowledge that an elected assembly could bestow divine authority onto a king. Following the collapse of the Frankfurt Assembly, Prussia's 1834 creation of the Zollverein, a customs union, provided increasing impetus for the unification of Germany. Almost all of the German states had joined the union by 1854, and it has since helped to increase the wealth and prosperity of its members. But when William I of Prussia, the new monarch, attempted to quadruple the size of his army and middle-class liberals objected to mandatory military duty, the process of unification came to a standstill. William, fed up with this impasse, named Count Otto von Bismarck as his fiercely conservative prime minister in 1862. While Bismarck's goals were largely centred on bolstering the power and interests of Protestant Prussia, Mazzini's original movement in Italy had placed an emphasis on national unification as a method of achieving popular sovereignty. In the face of resistance from Parliament and middle-class liberals, Bismarck put military spending first and concentrated on creating a strong state. He barred Catholic Austria from German politics, took the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark, and conquered the German-speaking regions of Alsace and Lorraine from France, all after starting a string of decisive wars with Austria, Denmark, and France in an attempt to increase German dominance. The rise of militarism and authoritarianism brought new life to the unification cause through this string of successes. After a united Germany was established as a result of Bismarck's efforts, he was named Imperial Chancellor of the German Empire on January 18, 1871. Patriotism grew in popularity throughout the European continent in the nineteenth century as nationalism as an idea started to gain traction. Despite many similarities, the two reflect different ideological stances. Patriotism, which has its roots in ideas of civic spirit from ancient Greece and Rome, refers to a sense of allegiance to a city or community. It ultimately developed into the concept of love for the country during the Enlightenment, particularly in the writings of the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Patriotism does not declare one nation's supremacy over another, unlike nationalism.