Nationalism in Europe

Dharav High School, Jaipur
Class X
Chapter 1 -Nationalism in Europe
Important Questions
1. Describe the steps taken by the French revolutionaries to create a sense of collective identity
amongst the French people.
Ans. The first clear-cut expression of nationalism came with the French Revolution in 1789.
The French revolutionaries used the following methods to create a sense of collective identity among the
people.
1. The ideas of the fatherland (la patrie) and the citizen (le citoyen) were introduced.
2. A new French flag, the tricolour, was chosen to replace the earlier royal standard.
3. The Estates General was renamed as National Assembly.
4. New hymns were composed, oaths were taken and martyrs commemorated, all in the name of the
nation.
5. A centralised administrative system was established.
6. Uniform laws for all citizens were formulated.
7. Internal custom duties and dues were abolished.
8. A uniform system of weights and measures was adopted.
9. French, as it was written and spoken in Paris, became the common language of the nation. Regional
dialects were discouraged.
10. It was decided that the French nation would liberate the peoples of Europe from despotism, and
help other peoples to become nations.
2. “Napoleon had, no doubt, destroyed democracy in France, but in the administrative field he had
incorporated revolutionary principles in order to make the whole system more rational and
efficient.” Support the statement.
OR
Explain any five social and administrative reforms introduced by Napoleon in regions under his
control.
Ans. Napoleon had brought revolutionary changes in the administrative field in order to make the
whole system rational and efficient. The Civil Code of 1804 is usually known as the Napoleonic Code.
1. The first major change was doing away with all privileges based on birth, establishing equality before
law and securing the right to property.
2. Administrative divisions were simplified.
3. Feudal system was abolished and peasants were freed from serfdom and manorial dues (abuse of
manorial lords).
4. In towns, guild restrictions were removed.
5. Transport and communication systems were improved.
6. Peasants, artisans, workers and new businessmen enjoyed a new found freedom.
7. Businessmen and small-scale producers of goods in particular began to realize that uniform laws,
standardised weights and measures and a common national currency would facilitate the movement and
exchange of goods and capital from one region to another.
3. What did Liberal Nationalism stand for? Explain any four ideas of Liberal Nationalists in the
economic sphere.
Ans. Liberalism or Liberal Nationalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before
the law. Four ideas of Liberal Nationalists in the economic sphere are:
1. Liberalism stood for freedom of markets and abolition of state imposed restriction. For example,
Napoleon’s administration was a confederation of 29 states, each of these possessed its own currencies,
weight and measures. Such conditions were viewed as obstacles to economic exchange.
2. Liberal Nationalists argued for the creation of a unified economic territory allowing the unhindered
movement of goods, people and capital.
3. In 1834, a customs union or ” zollverein” was formed. The union abolished tariff barriers and reduced
the number of currencies from 30 to 2.
4. The creation of a network of railways further stimulated mobility, harnessing economic interest to
national unification.
4. Describe any three economic hardships faced by Europe in the 1830s.

Ans. Following are the causes of economic hardships in Europe during 1830s:
1. Europe had come under the grip of large scale unemployment. In most of the countries there were more
seekers of jobs than employment.
2. Cities had become overcrowded and slums had emerged as population from the rural areas migrated to
the cities.
3. Small producers in towns were often faced with stiff competition from imports of cheap machine- made
goods from England where industrialization was more advanced specially in the field of textile production.
4. In those regions of Europe, where aristocracy still enjoyed power, peasants struggled under the burden of
feudal dues and obligations.
5. The rise of food prices and bad harvests added to the hardships of the peasants.
5. Describe the process of unification of Germany.

Ans. Unification of Germany:
In the 18th century, Germany was divided into a number of states. Some of these states ceased to exist
during the Napoleonic wars. At the end of the war, there were still 39 independent states in Germany.
Prussia was most powerful, dominated by big landlords known as Junkers.
1. Nationalist feelings were widespread among middle class Germans who had tried to unite the different
regions of the German federation into a nation-state governed by an elected Parliament.
2. In May 1848, a large number of political associations came together to vote for an All German National
Assembly. Their representatives met at Frankfurt and the Frankfurt Assembly proposed the unification of
Germany as a constitutional monarchy under the King of Prussia as emperor.
3. The King of Prussia rejected the offer and the liberal initiative of nation building was repressed by
combined forces of the monarchy, the military and the ‘Junkers’.
4. Then on, Prussia under its Chief Minister Otto von Bismarck led the movement for unification of
Germany. Bismarck carried out this process with the help of the Prussian army and the bureaucracy. He
fought three wars over seven years with Denmark, Austria and France.
5. Prussia was victorious in all these wars and the process of unification was completed as a result of
Prussia’s victory over France.
6. Consequently, on 18th January 1871, an assembly comprising of princes of German states,
representatives of the army, important Prussian ministers and Bismarck gathered in the Palace of Versailles
and proclaimed the Prussian King, Kaiser William, the new German Emperor.
6. Explain the process of unification of Italy.

Ans.
1. Italy too had a long history of political fragmentation.
2. Italy was divided into seven states, of which only one, Sardinia-Piedmont, was ruled by an Italian
princely house. The north was under Austrian Habsburgs, the center was ruled by the Pope and the
southern regions were under the domination of the Bourbon kings of Spain. Italian language did not have
one common form.
3. Guiseppe Mazzini had played an important role in the unification of Italy. He formed a secret society
called ‘Young Italy’ in Marseilles, to spread his goals.
4. He believed Italy could not continue to be a patchwork of small states and had to be forged into a single
unified republic.
5. During 1830s, Mazzini sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic.
6. As uprisings in 1831 and 1848 had failed, the mantle now fell on Sardinia-Piedmont under its ruler
Emmanuel II to unify Italy.
7. Under Chief Minister Cavour, Sardinia-Piedmont succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859. He
was the chief minister, who led the movement to unify Italy.
8. Giuseppe Garibaldi and his volunteers in 1860, marched into South Italy and the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies and succeeded in winning the support of the local peasants in order to drive out the Spanish rulers.
9. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy.
7. How was the history of nationalism in Britain unlike the rest of Europe?
A17. The formation of Nation state in Britain was not the result of a sudden upheaval or revolution. It was
the result of a long-drawn-out process of Legislation.
1. Prior to the eighteenth century. The primary identities of the people who inhabited the British Isles were
ones – such as English, ethnic Welsh, Scot or Irish occupied the British Isles .
2. The English nation steadily grew in wealth, importance and power, it was able to extend its influence
over the other nations of the islands.
3. The English parliament, which had seized power from the monarchy in 1688 at the end of a protracted
conflict, was the instrument through which a nation-state, with England at its center, came to be forged.
4. The Act of Union (1707) between England and Scotland that resulted in the formation of the ‘United
Kingdom of Great Britain’ meant, in effect, that England was able to impose its influence on Scotland.
5. The English helped the Protestants of Ireland to establish their dominance over a largely Catholic
country.
In 1801Ireland was forcibly incorporated into the United Kingdom. The new ‘British nation’ was forged
through the propagation of a dominant English culture.
8. How did nationalism develop through culture in Europe? Explain.

OR
Describe the role of culture in shaping the feelings of nationalism in Europe from 1830 to the End of
19th century.
Ans. Culture, music, dance and religion played an important role in the growth of nationalism.
(i) Culture- Role of culture was important in creating the idea of the nation. Art, poetry, music etc. helped
in developing and expressing nationalist feelings. Romanticism was a cultural movement that led to the
development of nationalist sentiment. Romantic artists and poets criticized the glorification of reason and
science and instead focused on emotions and intuition.
(ii) Language- Language too played an important role in developing nationalist sentiments. After
Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced out of schools and Russian language was imposed
everywhere. In 1831, an armed rebellion against Russian rule took place which was ultimately crushed.
Following this, many members of the clergy in Poland began to use language as a weapon of national
resistance.
(iii) Music and Dance- Romantics such as the German philosopher Herder claimed that true German
culture was to be discovered among the common people —das volk. It was through folk songs, folk poetry
and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation was popularized.
(iv) Allegory- Artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries portrayed nations as female figures. The
female form, that was chosen to personify the nation, did not stand for any particular woman in real life.
rather it sought to give the abstract idea of the nation in concrete form. That is, the female figure became
the allegory of the nation. In France, she was named Marianne—a popular Christian name and in Germany,
Germania.
(v) Romantic Philosophers- German philosophers like Herder claimed that true German culture was to
be discovered among the common people – das volk. It was through folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances
that the true spirit of the nation was popularized.
9. Why did nationalist tensions emerge in the Balkans?

Ans.1. The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871 was the area called the
Balkans. 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.
2. A large part of the Balkans was under the control of the Ottoman Empire.
3. The spread of the ideas of romantic nationalism in the Balkans together with the disintegration of the
Ottoman Empire made this region very explosive.
4. All through the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire had sought to strengthen itself through
modernisation and internal reforms but with very little success. One by one, its European subject
nationalities broke away from its control and declared independence.
5. 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.
Hence the rebellious nationalities in the Balkans thought of their struggles as attempts to win
back their long-lost independence.

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Dharav High School, Jaipur

4. Describe any three economic hardships faced by Europe in the 1830s.

5. Describe the process of unification of Germany.

6. Explain the process of unification of Italy.

8. How did nationalism develop through culture in Europe? Explain.

9. Why did nationalist tensions emerge in the Balkans?

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