The Age of National Awakening
The mid-19th century marked a seismic shift in global politics as the “principle of nationality” emerged as a defining force. From the ashes of the failed 1848 revolutions—dubbed the “Springtime of Nations”—rose an unrelenting drive for self-determination. Germans, Italians, Hungarians, and Poles demanded unified states, while Czechs, Croats, and Danes fought to preserve their identities against larger nationalist ambitions. Though revolutionary fervor faded, the subsequent quarter-century saw these aspirations realized through diplomacy and war: Italy unified under Savoy, Germany under Prussia, and Hungary gained autonomy through the 1867 Compromise. Only Poland remained divided, its 1863 uprising crushed.
This phenomenon extended beyond Europe’s heartland. Ireland’s Fenian Brotherhood waged a transatlantic struggle against British rule, while the Ottoman Empire’s Christian subjects in the Balkans—Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians—sought independence. Even the United States and Japan joined this global trend, the former preserving its union through civil war, the latter modernizing under the Meiji Restoration. As journalist Walter Bagehot observed, nations were being “manufactured” with astonishing speed, though few could articulate precisely what constituted a nation.
The Contradictions of Nation-Building
The process revealed fundamental paradoxes. Historical nations like France or England possessed clear cultural and institutional continuity, but newer claimants faced existential questions. Was a nation defined by language? The Czech revival flourished despite German being the elite tongue. By ethnicity? Ireland’s movement united Gaelic and English speakers. Giuseppe Mazzini’s visionary 1857 map of a “Europe of nationalities” proposed just eleven federations, oblivious to how Wilson’s 1919 Versailles settlement would require 27 sovereign states to accommodate competing claims.
Smaller groups posed particular challenges. Bretons, Basques, and Catalans were absorbed into France with minimal resistance, while Alsace became a Franco-German battleground. Some intellectuals welcomed assimilation—19th-century Welsh elites often saw English as a vehicle for progress. But when suppressed peoples like the Czechs or Croats demanded recognition, empires responded with denial, coercion, or reluctant accommodation. The Habsburgs epitomized this struggle, their polyglot domains straining under Magyarization and Germanization policies.
Grassroots Nationalism and Its Discontents
Beyond intellectual salons, nationalism took radical forms. In Ireland, the Fenians—drawing support from famine-scarred peasants and immigrant laborers—pioneered revolutionary republicanism, though their 1867 uprising failed spectacularly. Czech activists organized mass “tabor” rallies, borrowing tactics from Irish agitators, while Balkan peasants mobilized around Orthodox Christianity against Ottoman rule. These movements often lacked clear socioeconomic programs; their power lay in emotional appeals to ancient grievances and cultural distinctiveness.
Even workers’ movements grappled with national identity. Marx’s proclamation that “workers have no country” proved idealistic as socialist leaders like Germany’s Liebknecht balanced internationalism with patriotic sentiment. The Paris Commune’s rebels waved Jacobin tricolors alongside red flags, revealing how deeply nationalism permeated even revolutionary circles.
Forging National Identity
States aggressively cultivated belonging through new institutions. Prussia’s education system swelled to 250,000 secondary students by the 1880s, while Italy’s elementary schools expanded 460% post-unification. Language standardization became paramount—when Italy unified in 1860, only 2.5% spoke standardized Italian, prompting statesman Massimo d’Azeglio’s famous lament: “We have made Italy; now we must make Italians.”
These tools proved double-edged. While America successfully assimilated immigrants through public schools, Austria-Hungary’s multilingual policies inflamed tensions. Minority elites increasingly demanded cultural autonomy, particularly in education and civil service. What liberals had envisioned as a harmonious “family of nations” instead bred resentment, as state-sponsored nation-building inevitably marginalized some groups while privileging others.
The Unfinished Legacy
The late 19th century bequeathed an unresolved tension. Nationalism had toppled empires and created vibrant new states, but its internal contradictions—between historical claims and democratic ideals, between assimilation and diversity—foreshadowed 20th-century conflicts. As Ernest Renan presciently noted in 1882, a nation’s essence lies not in objective criteria but in a collective will to live together. This fragile consensus would face severe tests in the coming century, proving that the age of nationalism had only just begun.