(Redirected from National Romanticism)
'Romantic nationalism' (also 'National Romanticism', 'organic nationalism', 'identity nationalism') is the form of
nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes, depending on the particular manner of practice, the
language,
race,
culture,
religion and
customs of the "
nation" in its primal sense of those who were "born" within its culture. This form of nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial
hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the "top down", emanating from a monarch or other authority, which justified its existence. Such downward-radiating power might ultimately derive from a god or gods
(see the
divine right of kings and the
Mandate of Heaven).
Among the key themes of
Romanticism, and its most enduring legacy, the cultural assertions of romantic nationalism have also been central in post-Enlightenment art and political philosophy. From its earliest stirrings, with their focus on the development of national languages and
folklore, and the spiritual value of local customs and traditions, to the movements that would redraw the map of Europe and lead to calls for "
self-determination" of nationalities, nationalism was one of the key issues in Romanticism, determining its roles, expressions and meanings.
Brief history
Early Romantic nationalism in Europe was strongly inspired by
Rousseau, and by the ideas of
Johann Gottfried von Herder, who in 1784 argued that geography formed the natural economy of a people, and that their customs and society would develop along the lines that their basic environment favored.
From its beginnings in the late 18th century, romantic nationalism has relied upon the existence of a historical ethnic culture which meets the romantic ideal;
folklore developed as a romantic nationalist concept. The
Brothers Grimm were inspired by Herder's writings to create an idealized collection of tales, which they labeled as authentically German. The concept of an inherited cultural patrimony from a common origin rapidly became central to a divisive question within romantic nationalism: specifically, is a nation unified because it comes from the same genetic source, that is because of race, or is the participation in the organic nature of the "folk" culture self-fulfilling? This issue lies at the heart of disagreements which rage to this day.
Romantic nationalism formed a key strand in the philosophy of
Hegel, who argued that there was a "spirit of the age" or ''
zeitgeist'' that inhabited a particular people at a particular time, and that, when that people became the active determiner of history, it was simply because their cultural and political moment had come. Hegel, being German, argued that his historical moment had seen the ''Zeitgeist'' settle on the German-speaking peoples.
In continental Europe, Romantics had embraced the
French Revolution in its beginnings, then found themselves fighting the counter-Revolution in the trans-national Imperial system of
Napoleon. The sense of self-determination and national consciousness that had enabled Revolutionary forces to defeat aristocratic regimes in battle became rallying points for resistance against the
French Empire. In
Prussia, the development of spiritual renewal as a means to engage in the struggle against Napoleon was argued by, among others,
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a disciple of
Kant. The word ''Volkstum'', or nationhood as "people-hood", was coined in Germany as part of this resistance to French
hegemony.
Fichte expressed the unity of language and nation in his thirteenth address "To the German Nation" in 1806:
:''The first, original, and truly natural boundaries of states are beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole.'' (Kelly, 1968, pp. 190-Â91)
:''Only when each people, left to itself, develops and forms itself in accordance with its own peculiar quality, and only when in every people each individual develops himself in accordance with that common quality, as well as in accordance with his own peculiar quality-then, and then only, does the manifestation of divinity appear in its true mirror as it ought to be; and only a man who either entirely lacks the notion of the rule of law and divine order, or else is an obdurate enemy thereto, could take upon himself to want to interfere with that law, which is the highest law in the spiritual world!'' (Kelly, 1968, pp. 197-Â98)
Nationalism and revolution
In Greece, Romantic views of a connection with classical Greece
[1] infused the
Greek War of Independence in which
Lord Byron was mortally wounded.
Rossini's opera ''
William Tell'' (1829) marked the onset of the
Romantic Opera, using the central national myth unifying Switzerland, and in Brussels, a riot after an opera that set a doomed romance against a background of foreign oppression (
Auber's ''
La Muette de Portici'') sparked the
Belgian Revolution, the first successful revolution in the model of Romantic nationalism.
Verdi's opera choruses of an oppressed people inspired two generations of patriots in Italy, especially with "Va pensiero" (''
Nabucco'', 1842). Under the influence of romantic nationalism, among economic and political forces, both Germany and Italy found political unity, and movements to create nations similarly based upon ethnic groups would flower in the Balkans (see for example, the
Carinthian Plebiscite, 1920), along the Baltic Sea, and in the interior of Central Europe, where in the eventual outcome, the
Habsburgs succumbed to the surge of Romantic nationalism. Earlier, there was a strong romantic nationalist element mixed with
Enlightenment rationalism in the rhetoric used in
British North America, in the colonists'
Declaration of Independence and the
United States Constitution of
1787, as well as the rhetoric in the wave of revolts, inspired by new senses of localized identities, which swept the American colonies of Spain, one after the other, from 1811.
Folk culture and language
Romantic nationalism inspired the processes whereby folk epics, retold
legends and even
fairy tales, published in existing dialects, were combined with a modern syntax to create a "revived" version of a language. Patriots would then learn that language and raise their children speaking that language, as part of a general program to establish a unique identity. "
Landsmål", which is the foundation of modern Norwegian, is the first language to follow this program, and it was joined by modern Czech, Slovak, Finnish and later by Hebrew as nationalizing languages. The early 19th century creation of ''
Katharevousa,'' a refined artificial Greek dialect consciously drew on archaising terms from
Ancient Greek, the unifying cultural root, to unify a new nation of Hellenes; just as consciously ''Katharevousa'' excluded "non-Greek" vocabulary drawn from Italian and Turkish. Romantic nationalism is inherently exclusionary, and that, in the 20th century, proved to be a tragic flaw.
The linguistic processes of romantic nationalism demanded linguistic culture models. Romantic historiography was centered on biographies and produced
culture heroes. The modern Italian of ''
Risorgimento'' patriots like
Alessandro Manzoni was based on the Tuscan dialects sanctified by
Dante and
Petrarch. In English,
Shakespeare became an iconic figure, though not a modern linguistic model: an Englishman who formed a complete, artistically unassailable whole of surpassing excellence.
Romantic nationalism inspired the collection of
folklore by such people as the
Brothers Grimm. The view that fairy tales, unless contaminated from outside literary sources, were preserved in the same form over thousands of years, was not exclusive to Romantic Nationalists, but fit in well with their views that such tales expressed the primordial nature of a people. For instance, the Brothers Grimms were criticized because their first edition was insufficiently German, and they followed the advice. They rejected many tales they collected because of their similarity to tales by
Charles Perrault, which they thought proved they were not truly German tales; ''
Sleeping Beauty'' survived in their collection because the tale of
Brynhildr convinced them that the figure of the sleeping princess was authentically German. They also altered the language used, changing each "Fee" (fairy) to an enchantress or wise woman, every prince to a king's son, every princess to a king's daughter.
[2] The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were the Russian
Alexander Afanasyev, the Norwegians
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and
Jørgen Moe, and the Englishman
Joseph Jacobs.
[3] (Later folklore studies have not borne out this belief in the preservation of folktales from time immemorial.)
National epics
"The Bard" by
John Martin: a romantic vision of a single Welsh bard escaping a massacre ordered by
Edward I of England, intended to destroy Welsh culture
.
The concept of a "
national epic," an extensively mythologized legendary work of poetry of defining importance to a certain nation, is another product of Romantic nationalism. The "discovery" of ''
Beowulf'' in a single manuscript, first transcribed in 1818, came under the impetus of Romantic nationalism, after the manuscript had lain as an ignored curiosity in scholars' collections for two centuries. ''Beowulf'' was felt to provide the English people with their missing "national epic", just when the need for it was first being felt: the fact that Beowulf himself was a
Geat was easily overlooked. The pseudo-Gaelic literary forgeries of "
Ossian" had failed, finally, to fill the need for the first Romantic generation.
The unseen and unheard ''
Song of Roland'' had become a dim memory, until the antiquary
Francisque Michel transcribed a worn copy in the
Bodleian Library and put it into print in 1837; it was timely: French interest in the national epic revived among the Romantic generation. In Greece, the ''
Iliad'' and ''
Odyssey'' took on new urgency during the
Greek War of Independence.
Many other "national epics,"
epic poetry considered to reflect the national spirit, were produced or revived under the influence of Romantic nationalism: particularly in the
Russian Empire, national minorities seeking to assert their own identities in the face of
Russification produced new national poetry - either out of whole cloth, or from cobbling together folk poetry, or by resurrecting older narrative poetry. Examples include the
Estonian ''
Kalevipoeg'',
Finnish ''
Kalevala'',
Polish ''
Pan Tadeusz'',
Latvian
LÄÄplÄ“sis and
Armenian ''Sasuntzi Davit'' by
Hovhannes Tumanyan.
The epic poetry of Hungarian
János Arany presents the legendary past of his nation. The Death of King Buda (1864), the first part of a projected
Hun trilogy one of the best narrative poem in Hungarian literature. The other parts of the trilogy (Ildiko, and Prince Csaba) are unfinished.
Other examples of epics that have been enlisted since as "national" include
Popol Vuh (
Mayans),
Mahabharata (
India), and the
Journey to the West (
China).
Claims of primacy or superiority
At the same time, linguistic and cultural nationality, colored with pre-genetic concepts of race, were employed for two rhetorical claims consistently associated with romantic nationalism to this day: claims of primacy and claims of superiority. Primacy is the ''urrecht'' of a culturally and racially defined people to a geographical terrain, a ''"heartland"'' (a vivid expression) or
homeland. The polemics of
racial superiority became inexorably intertwined with romantic nationalism.
Richard Wagner notoriously argued that those who were ethnically different could not comprehend the artistic and cultural meaning inherent in national culture. Identifying "Jewishness" even in musical style,
[4] he specifically attacked the Jews as being unwilling to assimilate into German culture, and thus unable to truly comprehend the mysteries of its music and language. Sometimes "national epics" such as the
Nibelunglied have had a galvanizing effect on social politics.
Arts
:''Main articles:
Musical nationalism and
National Romantic style (architecture)''.
After the 1870s '"national romanticism"', as it is more usually called, became a familiar movement in the arts. Romantic
musical nationalism is exemplified by the work of
Bedřich Smetana, especially the
symphonic poem "
Vltava". In Scandinavia and the Slavic parts of Europe especially, "national romanticism" provided a series of answers to the 19th-century search for styles that would be culturally meaningful and evocative, yet not merely historicist. When a church was built over the spot in St Petersburg where Tsar
Alexander II of Russia had been assassinated, the "
Church of the Savior on Blood," the natural style to use was one that best evoked traditional Russian features (''illustration, left''). In Finland, the reassembly of the national epic, the ''
Kalevala,'' inspired paintings and murals in the
National Romantic style that substituted there for the international
Art Nouveau styles. The foremost proponent in Finland was
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (''illustration, below right'').
By the turn of the century, ethnic
self-determination had become an assumption held as being progressive and liberal. There were romantic nationalist movements for separation in
Finland, the
Kingdom of Bavaria held apart from a united Germany, and Czech and Serb nationalism continued to trouble Imperial politics. The flowering of arts which drew inspiration from national epics and song continued unabated. The
Zionist movement revived Hebrew, and began immigration to
Eretz Yisrael, and
Welsh and
Irish tongues also experienced a poetic revival.
Twentieth century political developments
In the first two decades of the
20th century, romantic nationalism as an idea was to have crucial influence on political events. The belief among European powers was that nation-states forming around unities of language, culture and ethnicity were "natural" in some sense. For this reason President
Woodrow Wilson would argue for the creation of self-determining states in the wake of the
"Great War". However, the belief in romantic nationalism would be honored in the breach. In redrawing the map of Europe, Yugoslavia was created as an intentional coalition state among competing, and often mutually hostile, southern Slavic peoples, and the
League of Nations' mandates were often drawn, not to unify ethnic groups, but to divide them. To take one example, the nation now known as
Iraq intentionally joined together three Ottoman
vilayets, uniting
Kurds in the north,
Sunni Arabs in the center, and
Shia Arabs in the south, in an effort to present a strong national buffer state between
Turkey and
Persia: over these was placed a foreign king from the
Hashemite dynasty native to the
Hijaz.
After the First World War, a darker version of romantic nationalism was taking hold in Germany, to some extent modelling itself on British Imperialism and "the
White Man's Burden". The idea was that Germans should "naturally" rule over the lesser peoples. Romantic nationalism, which had begun as a revolt against "foreign" kings and overlords, had come full circle, and was being used to make the case for a "Greater Germany" which would rule over Europe.
Because of the broad range of expressions of romantic nationalism, it is listed as a contributing factor from everything from the creation of independent states in Europe, to the rise of
Nazi Germany. As an idea, if not a specific movement, it is present as an assumption in debates over nationality and nationhood even today, and many of the world's nations were created from principles drawn from romantic nationalism as their source of legitimacy.
Modern romantic nationalism in the United States, characterized by the myth of the
frontier, the assertion of natural dominance over North and South America (
Monroe Doctrine), and the belief that U.S.-style democracy should prevail over other cultures (e.g.
Project for the New American Century), has strongly influenced American foreign policy and is influencing global conflicts, and religious, ethnic and nationalist alignments.
Sources
1. See Philhellenism.
2. Maria Tatar, ''The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales'', p31, ISBN 0-691-06722-8
3. Jack Zipes, ''The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm'', p 846, ISBN 0-393-97636-X
4. Wagner, ''Das Judenthum in der Musik'' 1850.
★ Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Thirteenth Address, Addresses to the Gerrnan Nation, ed. George A. Kelly (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1968).
External links
★ Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1806).
"Reden an die deutsche Nation". Projekt-Gutenberg. Retrieved
May 20,
2006.
See also
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