Nationalism in Europe

Nationalism in Europe
Frédéric Sorrieu · Public domain · source
Name	Nationalism in Europe
Region	Europe
Period	18th–21st centuries
Notable people	Giuseppe Mazzini, Johann Gottfried Herder, Ernest Renan, Otto von Bismarck, Vladimir Lenin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Charles de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher, Lech Wałęsa, Václav Havel, Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen
Key events	French Revolution, Congress of Vienna, Revolutions of 1848, Unification of Germany, Unification of Italy, First World War, Treaty of Versailles, Russian Revolution of 1917, World War II, Collapse of the Soviet Union, European Union enlargement
Influences	Romanticism, Enlightenment, Napoleonic Wars, Industrial Revolution

Nationalism in Europe Nationalism in Europe developed as a set of political ideologies, cultural movements, and mobilizing practices that linked identity, sovereignty, and territorial claims across the continent. Emerging in the late 18th century and transforming through the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, European nationalism shaped state formation, imperial competition, mass politics, and contemporary debates about integration and identity. Its trajectories intersected with revolutions, wars, decolonization, and supranational projects that continue to influence Council of Europe, European Commission, and European Council dynamics.

Origins and intellectual foundations

Intellectual origins trace to thinkers and texts associated with the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the upheavals of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, including contributions from Johann Gottfried Herder, Giambattista Vico, Edmund Burke, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ernest Renan, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Cultural nationalism drew on philologists and historians such as Jacob Grimm, Theodor Mommsen, Hector Berlioz, and Alexander Herzen while political nationalists found models in revolutionary actors like Maximilien Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte, Klemens von Metternich opponents, and republican organizers like Giuseppe Mazzini and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour. Debates among theorists—reflected in works by Wilhelm von Humboldt, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx—shaped civic versus ethnic conceptions later mobilized by movements linked to Pan-Slavism, Pan-Germanism, and Pan-Slavic Congresses.

19th-century rise and nation-state formation

The 19th century witnessed nationalist revolutions and consolidation: the Revolutions of 1848 involved figures like Lajos Kossuth, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Adam Mickiewicz while state-builders such as Otto von Bismarck and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour engineered the Unification of Germany and Unification of Italy. The Congress of Vienna settlement provoked cultural and political opposition from movements in Ireland led by Daniel O'Connell, in the Balkans under leaders like Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, and in the Habsburg Monarchy contested by nationalities including Czechs, Poles, Magyars, and Ukrainians. Nationalist press, societies, and secret organizations such as Young Italy, Young Poland, and Young Bosnia promoted revolutionary agendas that intersected with uprisings like the January Uprising and the Illyrian movement.

Nationalism and imperialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Competitive nationalism underwrote imperial expansion and colonial rivalry involving states like United Kingdom, France, Germany, Belgium, and Russia. National prestige and strategic imperatives informed crises such as the Fashoda Incident, the Moroccan Crises, and the naval races culminating in events like the First World War and treaties such as the Treaty of Versailles. Nationalist ideologies also animated liberation and irredentist struggles across the Balkans—including the Balkan Wars—and anti-imperial movements in Ireland with the Easter Rising and in Poland during uprisings against Tsarist Russia. Intellectuals and activists exchanged ideas across transnational networks involving societies in Vienna, Paris, Rome, and Saint Petersburg.

Interwar, fascist movements, and World War II

The interwar period saw radicalized nationalist movements: authoritarian regimes and fascist parties such as National Fascist Party (Italy), Nazi Party (Germany), Falange Española, and various Iron Guard variants combined ethno-nationalist rhetoric with expansionist agendas leading to conflicts including the Spanish Civil War and ultimately World War II. Nationalist collaboration and resistance involved actors like Vichy France, Free French Forces under Charles de Gaulle, Polish Underground State, Soviet partisans, and nationalist liberation or extermination policies implemented by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan allies. The war's outcomes—Nuremberg Trials, population transfers, and border changes affirmed by conferences such as Yalta Conference and Potsdam Conference—reconfigured national maps and memory politics across Central Europe and Eastern Europe.

Post‑war reconstruction, decolonization, and migration

Post‑1945 reconstruction linked nationalist recovery with new supranational projects like the European Coal and Steel Community that evolved into the European Economic Community and the European Union, while anti-colonial nationalisms propelled decolonization in Algeria, India (impacting diasporas in Britain), and French and British empires. Cold War divisions—between North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and Warsaw Pact states—shaped nationalist resistance in movements such as Solidarity led by Lech Wałęsa and dissident circles around Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia. Postwar migrations from former colonies to metropoles transformed urban demography in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin, provoking new debates involving parties like National Front (France), UK Independence Party, and later formations in Italy and Germany.

Contemporary European nationalism and populism

Since the late 20th century, nationalist and populist parties—Front National, Alternative for Germany, Fidesz, Law and Justice (Poland), Jobbik, Vox (Spain), Freedom Party of Austria, Sweden Democrats—have influenced elections, referendums such as the Brexit referendum, and policy debates on Schengen Area rules, Eurozone governance, and migration crises involving crossings in the Mediterranean Sea and the Balkan route. Post‑Soviet national projects in Ukraine, Baltic states, and the Caucasus have entailed state-building, minority issues with references to Crimea crisis and conflicts like the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, while European institutions including the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe mediate disputes over citizenship, language laws, and territorial claims.

Cultural expressions, symbols, and memory debates

Nationalism pervades cultural production: composers such as Bedřich Smetana and Jean Sibelius, writers like Adam Mickiewicz, Józef Piłsudski's commemorations, painters associated with movements in Romanticism and Symbolism, and monuments erected after wars provoke controversies over memory—seen in debates about Yugoslav Partisans memorials, Soviet war memorials in Warsaw and Berlin, and repatriation of artifacts between Greece and United Kingdom. Museums, school curricula, and public holidays (e.g., Bastille Day, St. George's Day) serve as arenas for contestation involving historians from institutions such as University of Oxford, Sorbonne University, and Charles University and international bodies like UNESCO.

Category:History of Europe