Question

"Culture played an important role in creating the idea of the nation in 19^ th century Europe." Evaluate the statement in the context of romanticism.…

Accepted Answer

(i) Art and poetry, stories and music helped express and shape nationalist feelings. (ii) Romanticism, a cultural movement which sought to develop a particular form of nationalist sentiment. (iii) Romantic artists and poets generally criticised the glorification of reason and science and focused instead on emotions, intuition and mystical feelings. (iv) Their effort was to create a sense of a shared collective heritage, a common cultural past, as the basis of a nation. (v) Romantics such as the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people – das volk. (vi) It was through folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation was popularized. (vii) So collecting and recording these forms of folk culture was essential to the project of nation-building. The Grimm brothers saw French domination as a threat to German culture and believed that the folktales they had collected were expressions of a pure and authentic German spirit. (viii) Language played an important role in developing nationalist sentiments. Polish was used for Church gatherings and all religious instruction as weapon of resistance against Russian domination. (ix) Karol Kurpinski celebrated the national struggle through his operas and music, turning folk dances like the polonaise and mazurka into nationalist symbols. (x) (b) “The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871 was the area called the Balkans.” Evaluate the statement in the context of Slavic Movement. (i) The Balkans was a region of geographical and ethnic variation comprising modern-day Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro whose inhabitants were broadly known as the Slavs. (ii) A large part of the Balkans was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. (iii) The spread of the ideas of romantic nationalism in the Balkans together with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire made this region very explosive. (iv) One by one Ottoman Empire’s European subject nationalities broke away from its control and declared independence. (v) The Balkan peoples based their claims for independence or political rights on nationality and used history to prove that they had once been independent but had subsequently been subjugated by foreign powers. (vi) The rebellious nationalities in the Balkans thought of their struggles as attempts to win back their long-lost independence (vii).As the different Slavic nationalities struggled to define their identity and independence, the Balkan area became an area of intense conflict. (viii) The Balkan states were fiercely jealous of each other and each hoped to gain more territory at the expense of the others. (ix)

"Culture played an important role in creating the idea of the nation in $\displaystyle 19{ }^{\text {th }}$ century Europe." Evaluate the statement in the context of romanticism.

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