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It's interesting how recent the concepts of the nations of "Germany" and "Italy" are. Though as another commenter mentioned, the concept of a "nation" (at leas

by thearn4 13y ago

It's interesting how recent the concepts of the nations of "Germany" and "Italy" are. Though as another commenter mentioned, the concept of a "nation" (at least the way that we understand it today) is also a fairly recent one.

arethuza 13y ago
I guess it depends how strictly you define the concepts - couldn't you argue that Germania extends back to Roman times? Or for that matter consider the UK - how old is the UK? In it's current form you could say less than a century, or perhaps back to the Union of 1707, or James VI/I.... with parts (say the Kingdom of Scots and Dál Riata) going back 1500 years or more...
- arrrg 13y ago
  For most of the history Germans were people who were speaking the same language, nothing more. Even the word Germans is misleading, since it’s only the name of the people the Romans first dealt with. It’s as though you were to call all US Americans New Yorkers because you flew in at JFK. Nationalists were always were good at inventing myths about the history of their particular nation but in reality there just isn’t that much there, at least not before the 19th century. (But the same is true for practically all other nations.)
arrrg 13y ago
Nationalism in general is a very young ideology. A good starting point to consider the trajectory and influence of that ideology would probably be the French Revolution (1789), at least in Europe. Nationalism was a major driving force in the German unification (1871) and the end of the multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious states (the Austro-Hungarian Empire was already quite an anachronism by the start of the First World War). During much of that time nationalism was tightly connected with liberalism (democracy, civil rights, …), especially during the failed 1848/1849 revolution in Germany. Practically all of the nationalist goals of that revolution were achieved in the 1871 unification of Germany (which was top-down and happened without any revolution), but hardly any of the liberal goals. Those were implemented only after the First World War (through a revolution), but by that time German society was already hopelessly fractured and hardly anyone was interested in actually supporting the democratic German state and working within that framework. Maybe if the revolution in 1848/1849 had worked out better … In the 1871 unification of Germany (which was preceded by a couple of wars and lots of diplomacy to insure no one else in Europe would intervene) Bismarck played those in the National-Liberal movement who were more interested in a German nation state against those who were more interested in liberalism. That got him popular support and weakened his opposition. As far his own motives, those are hard to determine. Did nationalism play any role for him? Nationalism was certainly not the only reason to want (from, say, a Prussian perspective) a unified Germany. There were very good economic reasons – especially at the height of the industrial revolution in Europe – to not, say, want to pay customs a few dozens times when shipping a product through Germany and to have this big market to sell products to. How the nationalist ideology influenced especially German history is very interesting.

by thearn4 13y ago

arethuza 13y ago

I guess it depends how strictly you define the concepts - couldn't you argue that Germania extends back to Roman times? Or for that matter consider the UK - how old is the UK? In it's current form you could say less than a century, or perhaps back to the Union of 1707, or James VI/I.... with parts (say the Kingdom of Scots and Dál Riata) going back 1500 years or more...

arrrg 13y ago
For most of the history Germans were people who were speaking the same language, nothing more. Even the word Germans is misleading, since it’s only the name of the people the Romans first dealt with. It’s as though you were to call all US Americans New Yorkers because you flew in at JFK. Nationalists were always were good at inventing myths about the history of their particular nation but in reality there just isn’t that much there, at least not before the 19th century. (But the same is true for practically all other nations.)

arrrg 13y ago

Nationalism in general is a very young ideology. A good starting point to consider the trajectory and influence of that ideology would probably be the French Revolution (1789), at least in Europe. Nationalism was a major driving force in the German unification (1871) and the end of the multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious states (the Austro-Hungarian Empire was already quite an anachronism by the start of the First World War). During much of that time nationalism was tightly connected with liberalism (democracy, civil rights, …), especially during the failed 1848/1849 revolution in Germany. Practically all of the nationalist goals of that revolution were achieved in the 1871 unification of Germany (which was top-down and happened without any revolution), but hardly any of the liberal goals. Those were implemented only after the First World War (through a revolution), but by that time German society was already hopelessly fractured and hardly anyone was interested in actually supporting the democratic German state and working within that framework. Maybe if the revolution in 1848/1849 had worked out better … In the 1871 unification of Germany (which was preceded by a couple of wars and lots of diplomacy to insure no one else in Europe would intervene) Bismarck played those in the National-Liberal movement who were more interested in a German nation state against those who were more interested in liberalism. That got him popular support and weakened his opposition. As far his own motives, those are hard to determine. Did nationalism play any role for him? Nationalism was certainly not the only reason to want (from, say, a Prussian perspective) a unified Germany. There were very good economic reasons – especially at the height of the industrial revolution in Europe – to not, say, want to pay customs a few dozens times when shipping a product through Germany and to have this big market to sell products to. How the nationalist ideology influenced especially German history is very interesting.