The Ferment of Ideologies

Although reform organizations grew rapidly in the 1830s and 1840s, many Europeans found them insufficient to solve the problems created by industrialization and urbanization. They turned to movements inspired by political ideologies that had taken shape in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Liberals sough constitutional guarantees of rights and economic growth through free trade. Socialists developed new organizations to speak for the working classes and demand changes in the nature of work itself. But the most potent ideology – nationalism – looked past social problems to concentrate on achieving political autonomy [independence; the right to self-govern] and self-determination for groups identified by common languages and cultures rather than class.

The Spell of Nationalism

Nationalists sought political autonomy for their ethnic group – a people linked by language and shared traditions. Although nationalism was still nascent [new] in the first half of the nineteenth century among the peasants and workers of most countries, ethnic heritage was increasingly a major determinant of personal and political identity. Poles, Italians, Germans, Irish, and Russians all pursued nationalist goals.

Polish nationalism became more self-conscious after the collapse of the revolt in 1830 against Russian domination. Ten thousand Poles, mostly noble army officers and intellectuals, fled Poland in 1830 and 1831. Most of them took up residence in western European capitals, especially Paris, where they mounted a successful public relations campaign for worldwide support. Their intellectual hero was the poet Adam Mickiewicz, whose mystical writings portrayed the Polish exiles as martyrs of a crucified nation wit an international Christian mission…

Mickiewicz formed a Polish legion to fight for national restoration, but rivalries and divisions among the Polish nationalists prevented united action until 1846, when Polish exiles in Paris tried launch a coordinated insurrection [revolt] for Polish independence. Poles in Krakow responded, and in a manifesto the rebels proclaimed, “All free nations of the world are calling on us not to let the great principle of nationality fail.” Plans for an uprising in the Polish province of Galicia in the Austrian Empire collapsed, however, when peasants instead revolted against their noble Polish masters. Slaughtering two thousand [nobles], a desperate rural population served the Austrian government’s [goal] by defusing the nationalist challenge. Class interests and national identity were not always the same.

One of those most touched by Mickiewicz’s vision was Giuseppe Mazzini, a fiery Italian nationalist and republican journalist. Exiled in 1831 for his opposition to Austrian rule in northern Italy, Mazzini founded Young Italy, a secret society that attracted thousands with its message that Italy would touch off a European-wide revolutionary movement. The conservative order throughout Europe felt threatened by Mazzini’s charismatic leadership and conspiratorial scheming, but he lacked both European allies against Austria and widespread support among the Italian masses.

Nationalism was an especially volatile issue in the Austrian Empire because Austria ruled over so many different nationalities. The 1830s and 1840s saw the spread of nationalism among Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, and Romanians, in addition to Poles and Italians, all ethnic groups within the empire. Each of these peoples produced leaders who called for a cultural revival in language, literature, and education, as well as political rights. Scholars compiled dictionaries and created standard literary languages to replace peasant dialects; writers used the rediscovered vernacular instead of Latin or German; and historians glorified the national past. During the revolutions of 1848, however, it would become evident that these different ethnic groups disliked each other as much as they disliked their Austrian masters.

In the German states, teachers of German language, literature, law, and history embraced nationalism. German economic unification took a step forward with the foundation in 1834, under Prussian leadership, of the Zollverein, or “customs union,” of most of the German states. Economist[s] argued for external tariffs [taxes on imported goods] that would promote industrialization and cooperation across the boundaries of the German states so that an economically united Germany might compete with the rest of Europe. German nationalists sought a new government uniting German-speaking peoples, but they could not agree on its boundaries. Austria was not part of the Customs Union: would the unified state include both Prussia and the Austrian Empire? And could the powerful and conservative kingdom of Prussia coexist in a unified German state with other, more liberal but smaller states? These questions would vex [trouble] German history for decades to come.

In Russia, nationalism took the form of opposition to western ideas. Russian nationalists, or “Slavophiles” (lovers of the Slavs), opposed the “Westernizers,” who wanted Russia to follow western models of industrial development and constitutional government. The Slavophiles favored maintaining rural traditions infused by the values of the Russian Orthodox Church. Only a return to Russia’s basic historical principles, they argued, could protect the country against the [threats of Enlightenment ideas or socialist ideas]… The conflict between Slavophiles and Westernizers continues to shape Russian cultural and intellectual life to the present day.

Although nationalism was a more potent force in eastern Europe, nationalist movements arose in western Europe as well. The most significant of these was in Ireland. The Irish had struggled for centuries against English occupation, but Irish nationalists developed strong organizations only in the 1840s. In 1842, a group of writers founded the Young Ireland movement that aimed to recover Irish history and preserve the Gaelic language (spoken by at least one-third of the peasantry). Daniel O’Connell, a Catholic lawyer and landowner who sat in the British House of Commons, hoped to force the British Parliament to repeal the Act of Union of 1801, which had made Ireland part of Great Britain. In 1843, London newspapers reported “monster meetings” that drew crowds of as many as 300,000 people in support of repeal of the union. In response, the British government arrested O’Connell and convicted him of conspiracy. Although his sentence was overturned, O’Connell withdrew from politics… More radical leaders, who preached insurrection against the English, replaced him.

READING QUESTIONS:

  1. In the time after the French Revolution, what did liberals and socialists each want?
  2. Define the following terms: nationalism, autonomy.
  3. Under whose rule were many Poles living in the early 1800s?
  4. Explain the following sentence: “Class interests and national identity were not always the same.”
  5. Why did many conservatives feel threatened by nationalist ideas and movements?
  6. Why do you think many ethnic groups living in the Austrian Empire “disliked each other as much as they disliked their Austrian masters”?
  7. Who were the “Slavophiles” and what did they want for Russia?
  8. What was the Act of Union, and what evidence is there to suggest how the Irish felt about this law?

Lynn Hunt et al., The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures (Volume C: Since 1789), (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007), 824-827 [with some editing by Mr. Terry]