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Varieties of Nationalism in Europe and Africa: Nationalism in Europe, 1848–1871

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Otto Pflanze
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Extract

NINETEENTH-CENTURY Europe produced two major concepts for the reorganization of society: those of Marxian socialism and liberal nationalism. Each was regarded by its exponents as a liberating force. Marxian socialists wished to free mankind from the economic exploitation of the capitalistic system, while liberal nationalists wished to free the peoples of Europe from the oppression of authoritarian empires. Both had a strong admixture of utopianism. The socialists envisioned a classless society in which men would work in equality and harmony for the common good, while liberal nationalists envisioned a world composed of nation-states based on democratic constitutions. Both sought to banish war. To the socialists war was a function of capitalism and would disappear with its abolition. To the liberal nationalists war was the product of autocratic monarchical governments, whose liquidation would introduce a new era of international peace.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 1966 , pp. 129 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1966

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References

1 See the author's Bismarck and the Development of Germany, The Period of Unification, 1815–1871 (Princeton, 1963)Google Scholar.

2 See the recent work by Thayer, John A., Italy and the Great War, Politics and Culture, 1870–1915 (Madison, 1964)Google Scholar.

3 Florinsky, Michael T., Russia, A History and an Interpretation (New York, 1958), II, 872Google Scholar.

4 See the unpublished dissertation of Stevens, John K., Franco-Russian Relations, 1856–1863 (University of Illinois, 1962), pp. 169 ff.Google Scholar and a forthcoming article by the same author in the Historian.

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6 Weill, Georges, L'Europe du XIXe siècle et l'idée de nationalité (Paris, 1938), p. 200Google Scholar.

7 According to Bismarck, they had no other choice. In 1869 he remarked to the Reichstag: “It is impossible in Europe's present situation, in the present state of civilization to undertake great political and perhaps even warlike actions from motives of cabinet diplomacy which are secret and left to the conjecture of history. One can only carry on war from national motives, from motives which are national to the degree that their pressing nature is recognized by the majority of the population.” Die gesammelten Werke (Berlin, 1923–1933), XI, 50Google Scholar.

8 See particularly Namier, Lewis, “1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals,” Proceedings of the British Academy, XXX (London, 1946), 66ff.Google Scholar

9 Wigard, Franz, ed., Stenographischer Bericht über die Verhandlungen des deutschen konstituirenden Nationalversammlung zu Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt, 1848), I, 666–667 (07 3, 1848)Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., II, 1550–1551 (August 14, 1848).

11 Preussische Jahrbücher, XXVI (1870), 371Google Scholar.

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13 The following analysis is adapted from Meinecke, Friedrich, Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat, Werke, Vol. V (Munich, 1962), 9ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Droz, Jacques, “Concept français et concept allemand de l'idée de nationalité,” in Europa und der Nationalismus, Bericht über das III. Internationale Historiker-Treffen in Speyer—17 bis 20. Oktober 1949 (Baden-Baden, 1950), pp. 111–133Google Scholar and Rothfels, Hans, “Grundsätzliches zum Problem der Nationalität,” Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 174 (1952), 339–358CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Lipgens, Walter, “Bismarck, die öffentliche Meinung und die Annexion von Elsass und Lothringen 1870,” Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 199 (1964), 31–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Gangulee, N., ed., Giuseppe Mazzini: Selected Writings (London, 1945), p. 149Google Scholar.