Nationalism was an important factor in the development of Europe. In the 19th century, a wave of romantic nationalism swept the European continent, transforming its countries. Some newly formed countries, such as Germany, Italy and Romania were formed by uniting various regional states with a common "national identity". Others, such as Greece, Poland and Bulgaria, were formed by winning their independence. More concisely, nationalism better defined these countries.[1]
The French Revolution paved the way for the modern nation-state and also played a key role in the birth of nationalism. Across Europe radical intellectuals, influenced by Napoleon and the Napoleonic Code the instrument for the political transformation of Europe. Revolutionary armies carried the slogan of "liberty, equality and brotherhood" and ideas of liberalism and national self-determinism. National awakening also grew out of an intellectual reaction to the Enlightenment that emphasized national identity and developed a romantic view of cultural self-expression through nationhood. The key exponent of the modern idea of the nation-state was the German G. W. Friedrich Hegel. He argued that a sense of nationality was the cement that held modern societies together in the age when dynastic and religious allegiance was in decline. In 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic wars, the major powers of Europe tried to restore the old dynastic system as far as possible, ignoring the principle of nationality in favour of "legitimism", the assertion of traditional claims to royal authority. With most of Europe's peoples still loyal to their local province or city, nationalism was confined to small groups of intellectuals and political radicals. Furthermore, political repression, symbolized by the Carlsbad Decrees published in Austria in 1819, pushed nationalist agitation underground.
As we have seen, the French Revolution and Napoleon spread the ideas of liberalism and nationalism across Europe. These ideas took root and gave rise to several outbreaks of revolution in the 1820's, 1830's, and 1840's, the most severe being the revolutions of 1848. Although most of these revolutions failed, they continued the spread of liberal & nationalist ideas and also gave reformers a more realistic appreciation of what it would take to achieve their goals. The revolutions of 1848 especially influenced the peoples of Eastern Europe under Hapsburg and Ottoman rule as well as the peoples of Italy and Germany in Central Europe.
Eastern Europe, especially the Balkans in the southeast, saw national independence from foreign rule, rather than national unity, as the critical issue. The spread of nationalist ideas among the various Slavic peoples there after the revolutions of 1848 combined with the steady decay of the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires to create a particularly volatile situation. These generated growing nationalist movements that destabilized the already crumbling Hapsburg and Ottoman empires. To complicate matters even further, Russia became increasingly involved in Balkan politics, posing as the champion of Slavic liberties and nationalism against the Slavs' Turkish and Austrian masters. This heightened tensions between Austria, Turkey, and Russia and would provide the spark to set off World War I.
Central Europe, Germany and Italy in particular, had been broken into numerous states, a situation which had invited centuries of foreign intervention, conquests, and wars in both countries. Here also, the revolutions of 1848 combined with German and Italian frustration over this situation to generate strong sentiments for national unification in both countries. The middle classes in Italy and Germany especially supported national unification by strong governments that could end internal tolls, build national railroads, and support new industries.
Both Italy and Germany were lucky to have brilliant prime ministers to lead them through unification: Camillo Cavour for the Italian state of Sardinia and Otto von Bismarck for the German state of Prussia. Both men skillfully combined strong internal developments of their respective states with opportunistic diplomacy and warfare to unify Italy and Germany by 1871. Both nations would also strive to industrialize in the latter 1800's. Germany proved especially successful in this endeavor. However, the presence of two unified nations in place of a multitude of little states, especially that of a strongly industrialized Germany, seriously upset the balance of power in Europe, which would also lead to World War I.
Modern 19th century European and American nationalism was the precursor for modern nationalism in the 20th century. Nationalism was based in race and racism. Nazi racism was a direct but extreme outgrowth of modern European nationalism. Nazi racism was a direct outgrowth of the broader trajectory of European nationalism but represented an extreme and even atavistic embodiment of it. Nazi racism was unique in its extreme or exclusive and all-encompassing focus on race or ethnicity as defining a nation. The Nazi ideology of what constituted a nation was not a radical departure from the trajectory of European nationalism. What was radical about the Nazi conception of nationalism in Nazi Germany was the sole and overriding emphasis on race. Nazi racialism was not, however, an inevitable or natural progression of modern European nationalism. The Nazi regime only selected certain strands and features of modern European nationalism and gave them an extremist application and interpretation. Moreover, the Social Darwinist conception of European nationalism that the Nazi regime selected was by the 1930s already outdated and atavistic and an anachronism. The model of European nationalism the Nazis chose was the dominant view of nationalism in Europe during the “new imperialism” period that climaxed by 1900. Nazi racism was not a distinct or separate phenomena or sui generis. The Nazi regime did not derive new and original racial concepts, but adapted and applied racial concepts that were the dominant features of 19th century European nationalism.
The invention of a symbolic national identity became the concern of racial, ethnic or linguistic groups throughout Europe as they struggled to come to terms with the rise of mass politics, the decline of the traditional social elites, popular discrimination and xenophobia. Within the Habsburg empire the different peoples developed a more mass-based, violent and exclusive form of nationalism. This developed even among the Germans and Magyars, who actually benefited from the power-structure of the empire. On the European periphery, especially in Ireland and Norway, campaigns for national independence became more strident. In 1905 Norway won independence from Sweden, but attempts to grant Ireland the kind of autonomy enjoyed by Hungary foundered on the national divisions on the island between the Catholic and Protestant populations. The Polish attempts to win independence from Russia had previously proved to be unsuccessful, with Poland being the only country in Europe whose autonomy was gradually limited rather than expanded throughout the 19th century, as a punishment for the failed uprisings; in 1831 Poland lost its status as a formally independent state and was merged into Russia as a real union country and in 1867 she became nothing more than just another Russian province. Faced with internal and external resistance to assimilation, as well as increased xenophobic anti-Semitism, radical demands began to develop among the stateless Jewish population of eastern and central Europe for their own national home and refuge. In 1897, inspired by the Hungarian-born Jewish nationalist Theodor Herzl, the First Zionist Congress was held in Basle, and declared their national 'home' should be in Palestine. By the end of the period, the ideals of European nationalism had been exported worldwide and were now beginning to develop, and both compete and threaten the empires ruled by colonial European nation-states.