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| Non-fiction and essays |
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| University essays |
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| History First Year |
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| Introduction 116 |
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| The strongest force in 19th Century Europe was not class conflict but nationalism.’ Discuss. (HIST 116, Autumn 2001) The Nineteenth Century was a turbulent time for Europeans. New ideas were abound that threatened the large dynasties that held sway over the majority of mainland Europe. The Hapsburg, Ottoman and Russian empires would all feel the influence of such movements. Rising to prominence amongst these ideas was nationalism, from its ‘dynastic origins to national unity’.# Nationalism developed in areas already possessing a ‘developed and separate national culture’# and in its variety of guises would help lead to the formation of a very different Europe. There were nationalist movements that would lead to the unification of Italy and Germany and grant political independence for several Eastern European countries.# The ultimate evolution of nationalism during this period would be to integral nationalism, where the nation is ‘placed upon the highest pedestal’.# This would lead to conflicts between nations, which was no different from the old dynastic order.# However, many parts of Europe were undergoing periods of industrialisation that would help to create a ‘working class’, which would lead to class conflicts within nations, both fledgling and already established. Working class movements developed ‘within existing nation states in which they occupied a subordinate position’#; a feeling of oppression was often evident. One of the strongest exponents of this ideology was Karl Marx, author of ‘The Communist Manifesto’. A new, unprecedented force had begun to emerge: this was the proletariat…a class so alienated from existing society that it could lead mankind back to its true nature.# There is a question as to the extent to which these differing factors affected Europe, was one a stronger force, and if so, which one? After the Revolutions in America and France at the end of the previous century, nationalistic feelings were able to take hold among other peoples across Europe. The Empires that controlled vast portions of the landmass were composed of diverse ethnic groups, and therefore the first stirrings of nationalism were concerned with the establishment of separate nation states. The nationalisms were ‘complementary, not competitive’.# This was ‘Risorgimento nationalism’, and involved the unification of a people that were not represented in the current state. This could be, for example, where they made up a minority of an empire, and the goal was to create a new nation from this minority. In this climate, nationalism seemed to be a mutual goal, that all peoples should have a nation of their own, and not be subjects of some great, decadent empire. It allowed co-operation between groups pushing for their own nation, where nationalism the movement was ‘replacing ranks, orders and degrees’.# Organisations such as the Young Italy movement, started by Giuseppe Mazzini were soon able to spread throughout Europe. By 1831, it was said to have some 60,000 members.# In summing up this first stage of nationalism, it was Seen as a force that would enable the people of the continent to cast off the fetters of their political and social bondage.# However, after the middle of the century, this open minded and supportive attitude to others’ nationalism would be replaced by the more suspicious attitudes of integral nationalism. Germany followed this inward looking path to unification, as it followed the pan-European revolutions of 1848, which turned nations against each other. It was described as ‘an age of independent and democratic nations’ #, and the people sought to wrest freedom from those ruling them. The people did not want to give up German territory to Italy, although they did support the Italian national state. A unified Germany would represent a considerable threat to the other major European powers. In the end proposals for a large German state were abandoned in favour of a smaller state. The majority of the population were unwilling to achieve this by a revolution against the various monarchies in control at that time. It was not the nationalists that worked together, but the great powers.# The German state was not as willing to grant the Poles their own nation, when national solidarity defeated support for Polish nationalism when fighting broke out in Posen.# Europe was gradually beginning to see the more sinister side of nationalism, no longer the democratic nationalism of the French revolution, instead a movement that ‘leads to jealousy, expansionism, oppression, strife and eventually war’.# There developed a more racist attitude among those that had previously advocated the right of all peoples to have a nation to represent them. The liberal nationalism of the Risorgimento period had been replaced by a theory that The nation that proves itself as the strongest and fittest in a hostile and competing world shall gain the upper hand and eventually survive.# The industrialisation of Europe, as well as playing a large role in developments of class conflict, also influenced the effects of nationalism. The process was occurring at different rates in different places, which bred nationalistic differences. Not all people were in the same stage of economic development, and yet all were ‘infected with nationalism’#, giving some suggestion that this was indeed a powerful force. However, industrialisation had a more significant impact on the class system in Europe, and would change it forever. The emergence of the working classes would provide the driving forces behind many of the revolutions that swept through Europe throughout the century.#During the Italian Wars of Independence, Mazzini failed to offer the poor peasantry a programme of economic and land reforms that may have led to them acting. As a result he never came to power.# Russia also experienced troubles between classes, where there was tension between the elite and the peasants. The power remained predominantly with the nobility, with a widening gulf between them and the middle class ‘bourgeoisie’. However, there were also differences between the small town bourgeoisie and the industrial city-dwellers, a result of the geographically uneven modernisation experienced in Russia. The labour force was localised in industrial regions, but rural workers outnumbered them. Industrialisation was not needed for the bourgeoisie to assert claims against the aristocracy or for the emergence of socialist ideas. Workhouses were introduced to deal with the poor, which resulted in Chartist protests, a large-scale working class movement. They wanted annual elections for all men, with no property qualifications.# It appeared the poor workers were not prepared to sit by and do nothing. The revolutions of 1848 brought about the collapse of the social and political order, especially in France, resulting in ‘unparalleled freedom’. The poor workers started disturbances in Paris, and were put down by the bourgeoisie National Guard. The lessons learned from 1848 involved a better understanding of the dynamics of social class, the interplay of nationalisms and the role of force in politics.# It seemed as though the nationalistic differences could be distinguished when class differences were removed. This process would ‘give rise to co-operation and co-existence’.# The differences in social class were varied as to their effects on conflicts. The elite often used a separate language for official business or public purposes, which was not used by the common members of society. However, for the illiterate among these people, their communication was entirely oral, so an official language was of no concern to them.# It now seemed as though the real class differences were between the city dwellers and the peasants. The townspeople considered themselves ‘morally superior’ and the peasants ‘essentially uncivilised’.# There were also notions of a separate moral and spiritual identity of the classes. The workers’ movement of the early nineteenth century persisted with the notions of the trade as an ordered moral and spiritual community.# These notions were on the way out, and by the 1870s, they were being broken down by the acceptance of urban tastes by the rural communities. It seemed that nationalism was not the only ‘identity’, class- consciousness has similar features.# This raises a question of how much nationalism was linked to class conflicts. It appears on careful reflection that the two movements were considerably dependent on each other. For instance, the attitudes to nationalism tended to vary, according to the class of people. It seemed that those with most to lose from a change in the status quo, the elites, tended to be opposed to nationalist ideals. They had prospered under the large Empires, and when these large multi-national states were going to be broken down, they feared they would lose their wealth and status.# It was those people who stood to become the new ruling class, the new capitalist classes that would be seen on the forefront of nationalist movements. In the ‘liberal form’ of nationalism, they would be ensured of playing a leading role in the liberal constitutional state.# Also in favour of nationalistic movements were small groups of educated men, such as Mazzini in Italy, a great theorist but unable to sustain his ideas in practice. It seemed that ‘national self-consciousness was the often the property only of a certain stratum of society’.# As the poorest members of society seemed to be unaffected by changes in national identity, they remained poor. It was left to the middle class bourgeoisie to take centre stage in nationalist movements. In returning to the original statement, it indeed appears that both nationalism and class conflicts were strong forces, independently and taken together. Nationalism was a seemingly unstoppable push to split apart empires, to unify scattered people and to produce nations where the people could be represented. Mazzini was particularly enthusiastic in his support for the idea of the nation: ‘the nation is the God-appointed instrument for the welfare of the human race.’# After the revolutions of the mid-century, the character of nationalism may have changed, but the force remained undiluted. One’s own nation became the ultimate goal, above all others, and survival of the fittest became the order of the day. This change resulted in more hostile relations, racist attitudes and strife between nations. Class conflict was evident, in varying forms throughout the century. Beginning with the struggles of the peasantry under their dynastic aristocracies, they continued with the emergence of a working class and their financially superior bourgeoisie. Industrialising nations had created this new class difference, and they would only be exaggerated by the nationalistic feelings. The social structure was to change so much that there needed to be A move to abandon relatively fixed and stable notions of class and social structure in favour of mobile, fractural and contradicting identities.# In essence therefore, it appears that neither force was stronger. They were both causes and effects of the other, and so intertwined that it would be difficult to promote one above the other. In conjunction with the effects of industrialisation, which contributed in many ways to both movements, they formed the basis of nineteenth century society in Europe. Therefore it is my opinion that the forces were equally strong, even if at some points one was stronger than the other was. Bibliography E. Acton, Russia, the Tsarist and Soviet Legacy, (1995). P. Alter, Nationalism, (1989). B. Anderson, Imagined Communities, (1983). M.S. Anderson, The Ascendancy of Europe, 1815-1914, (1985). T.C.W. Blanning (ed.), The Nineteenth Century, (2000). J. Breuilly, Nationalism and the state, (new ed. 1994). A. Briggs & P. Clavin, Modern Europe, 1789-1989, (1997). F.J. Coppa, The Origins of the Italian Wars of Unification, (1992). R. Gildea, Barricades and Borders, Europe 1800-1914, (1996). C.J.H. Hayes, The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism, (1931). E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, (1990). J.F. Hutchinson, Late Imperial Russia 1890-1917, (1999). D. Langewiesche ‘Germany and the National Question in 1848’ in J. Breuilly (ed.) The State of Germany. The national idea in the making, unmaking and remaking of a modern nation-state, (1992). S. Pollard, The Peaceful Conquest: The Industrialisation of Europe, 1760-1970, (1981). M. Pugh (ed.), A Companion to Modern History, 1871-1945, (1997). H. Rogger, Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution, 1881-1917, (1983). C. Tilly (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe, (1975). P. Waldron, The End of Imperial Russia, 1855-1917, (1997). |
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