"It is nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way round"

Résumé du document

"Where does the German begin? Where does it end? May a German smoke? The majority says no. May a German wear gloves? Yes, but only of buffalo hide... but a German may drink beer, indeed as a true son of Germania he should drink beer..." wrote in 1840 Heinrich Heine, who was quite critical of German nationalists' motivation to find specific characteristics in order to affirm Germans' singularity. The affirmation of the nation, regarded as a people who share ethnic, linguistic, historical and cultural features, was however a particularly strong phenomenon then in Europe. Ernest Gellner, in Nations and Nationalism , argues that "it is nationalism which engenders nations, and not the other way round". Such a statement can seem contradictory at a time when the word 'nationalism' is more generally seen as a feeling of pride in one's country and as a belief that the latter is superior to other countries. However, it is relevant to wonder to what extent it can be argued that, in nineteenth-century Europe, it was nationalisms that produced nations (as a feeling and a political reality). We will mainly focus on the nineteenth century because it marked the emergence of the modern concept of nation, namely the convergence of will and culture with a political entity .

Extraits

[...] On the other hand, leftist unificatory nationalism remains, as in Northern Ireland or in the Basque Country. Bibliography -Anderson Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso - Ascoli A. R. and Von Henneberg K. (eds.), Making and Remaking Italy, Oxford - Bell David A., The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism 1680-1800, Harvard University Press - Brubaker Rogers, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, Harvard University Press - Gellner Ernest, Nations and Nationalism, Blackwell Publishing - Hobsbawm E. [...]

[...] Indeed, unificatory nationalism did not engendered deep national consciousness among the masses. According to Hobsbawm, the creation of the nation was achieved in the late nineteenth century, when state nationalism started to inculcate the feeling of national good to the whole people. Only a long- term educational program could provide the population with national sentiment. Nationalists who participated to the creation of the nation- state acknowledged this: have made Italy, now we have to make the Italians”, said Massimo d'Azeglio at the first meeting of the united Italian Parliament; is the state which makes the nation and not the nation the state”, conceded the Polish liberator Pilsudski[47]. [...]

[...] Italian nationalism perfectly embodied the idea of nationalism engendering a nation. Nationalists acted on behalf of the regeneration of the nation[37] ‘Risorgimento'- but in reality they invented it. In order to highlight historical and cultural features that Italians ‘shared', they first imitated German romantics by a rejection of classicism. Italy lacked a tradition of political unity, such as a sacred Empire for instance, since the Roman Empire period was too universal to be an efficient proof of the existence of an Italian nation. [...]

[...] ( ) Politics could indeed be exciting, as exciting as the wonderful speculations of Schelling and Fichte”. Hobsbawm, ibid. p Gellner, ibid., p Ascoli and Von Henneberg (eds.), Making and Remaking Italy, Oxford p James Sheehan, ‘What is German History? Reflections on the role of the Nation in German History and Historiography', The Journal of Modern History, vol March 1981, p. 5-7. Brubaker, ibid. p W. G. Shreeves, Nation-making in Nineteenth-Century Europe: the National Unification of Italy and Germany, 1815- p Ibid. p. 146: “What is the fatherland of the German? [...]

[...] A nation- state was needed to protect growing ‘national' industries on the international market. This liberal concept of national economy, exposed by Frederick List in 1885, implied that the nation-state, in order to be viable, must have a sufficiently large territory and population[19]. It is what Hobsbawm called the ‘threshold principle' of the liberal ideology. Nationalism therefore emerged in Europe in order to convince people that they were sharing cultural features and that they should gather in a nation- state. [...]