The Making Of Nationalism In Europe

The Making Of Nationalism In Europe

In the mid-eighteenth century Germany, Italy and Switzerland were divided into kingdoms, duchies and cantons whose rulers had their autonomous territories of diverse peoples. They did not see themselves as sharing common identity. They spoke different languages and belonged to different ethnic groups. Such differences did not easily promote a sense of political unity. The only tie binding these diverse groups together was a common allegiance to the emperor.

THE ARISTOCRACY AND THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS:

The Aristocracy Socially and politically, a landed aristocracy was the dominant class on the continent. The members of this class were united by a common way of life that cut across regional divisions. They owned estates in the countryside and also town-houses. They spoke French for purposes of diplomacy and in high society. Their families were often connected by ties of marriage. This powerful aristocracy was, however, numerically a small group. The majority of the population was made up of the peasantry. To the west, the bulk of the land was farmed by tenants and small owners, while in Eastern and Central Europe the pattern of landholding was characterised by vast estates which were cultivated by serfs.

NEW MIDDLE CLASS:

In Western and parts of Central Europe the growth of industrial production and trade meant the growth of towns and the emergence of commercial classes whose existence was based on production for the market. Industrialisation began in England in the second half of the eighteenth century, but in France and parts of the German states it occurred only during the nineteenth century. In its wake, new social groups came into being: a working-class population, and middle classes made up of industrialists, businessmen, professionals.

In Central and Eastern Europe these groups were smaller in number till late nineteenth century. It was among the educated, liberal middle classes that ideas of national unity following the abolition of aristocratic privileges gained popularity.

VIEWS OF LIBERALS:

• The term ‘liberalism’ derives from the Latin root ‘liber’, meaning free. For the new middle classes liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law.
• Since the French Revolution, liberalism had stood for the end of autocracy and clerical privileges, a constitution and representative government through parliament. Nineteenth-century liberals also stressed the inviolability of private property.
• Equality before the law did not necessarily stand for universal suffrage. The right to vote and to get elected was granted exclusively to property-owning men. Men without property and all women were excluded from political rights. Only for a brief period under the Jacobins did all adult males enjoy suffrage.
• Napoleonic code went back to limited suffrage and reduced women to the status of a minor, subject to the authority of fathers and husbands.
• Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries women and non-propertied men organised opposition movements demanding equal political rights.
• In the economic sphere, liberalism stood for the freedom of markets and the abolition of state-imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and capital. During the nineteenth century this was a strong demand of the emerging middle classes.