Nationalism, Romanticism, Liberalism, and Conservatism The Birth and Growth of Ideologies in Europe

Ideologies in Europe Ideologies developed out of a variety of new ideas and circumstances in European history, such as the Enlightenment and the French Revolution Political, social, and economic upheavals were the driving factors behind the birth and growth of ideologies

Ideologies in Europe Nationalism, liberalism, and conservatism would be the three main ideologies to emerge in this tie period Later in the 1800s, ideologies would include communism, socialism and fascism Romanticism influenced all of these but it was more of a mood than a movement or ideology

Nationalism Nationalism is the belief that people derive their identity from their nation and owe their nations their primary loyalty Some criteria for nationalism include: – A common language, religion, political authority, traditions, and shared historic experiences

Nationalism As traditional religious values became undermined, nationalism offered a new focus of faith and became an ideal espoused as strongly as a religion The Italian, Guiseppe Mazzini ( ), declared that nationalism was “a faith and mission” ordained by God, which helps to explain why so many people were drawn to it.

Nationalism Nationalism’s earliest manifestation, cultural nationalism, had its roots in Rousseau’s ideas of the organic nature of people Johann Gottfried Herder ( ), Rousseau’s German disciple, declared that every people have a “national spirit” Intellectuals all over Europe began collecting folk poems, songs and tales to find out more about this spirit.

Nationalism Political nationalism developed in the 1770s among the French nobility and then during the French revolution when neighbouring countries attacked France, prompting the Legislative Assembly to call on the French people to save the nation In response to the threat posed by France, German and Italian intellectuals embraced nationalism

Nationalism The German philosopher, Johann Gottliev Fichte, in his Addresses to the German Nation, issued following the Prussian defeat at Jena, called on all Germans to rise up against France Fichte argued that Germans were endowed with a special genius that had to be safeguarded for the benefit of all mankind

Nationalism The Italian writer, Vittorio Alfieri, argued that it was not the French, but the Italians, as the heirs and descendants of ancient Rome, who had all the right to lead the peoples of Europe Greek nationalist intellectuals promoted their ancient culture by reissuing the classics of ancient Greek literature, and by ‘purifying’ the Greek language, ridding it of developments in popular speech

Nationalism Herder and Mazzini believed it was the destiny of Europe’s peoples to achieve nationhood and that then European nations would live side by side in peace.

Romanticism The notion of a new style, opposed to the rationalism of and classicism of the Enlightenment, emerged toward the end of the 18 th century Although by 1800 German critics had made a distinction between ‘classical’ and ‘romantic’ the term romantic had nonetheless escaped definition Romanticism was more a a mood than a movement The essence of romanticism was a rejection of established rules and conventions

Romanticism The romantics were quite diverse in their politics and aesthetics, but they tended to share four things: First, they rejected the 18 th century’s limitations on form and structure in art

In music, romantics such as Ludwig van Beethoven, the unparalleled master of the symphony, and Richard Wagner, the dogmatic theorist and practitioner of ‘total opera,’ gleefully disregarded inherited conventions of form, and of orchestra size and composition.

Poets suchas William Wordsworth deliberately chose a poetic vocabulary closer to spoken English than to the measured couplets of predecessors such as Alexander Pope Continental drama abandoned for good the restrictions on subject, time and place that Aristotle’s aesthetic theories had imposed

Romanticism Secondly, the romantics prized emotion, and the stronger the better The line between emotion and morbid self- preoccupation was narrow, but the romantic emphasis on the creative power of the individual’s imagination was a liberating force

Romanticism Thirdly, the romantics tended to celebrate nature Their nature was not that of the manicured 18 th century ornamental garden, but nature in its raw form

Rousseau showed the way with his mystical Reveries of a Solitary Wanderer. This celebration of nature applied to such things as the poetry of Wordsworth and the philosophy of Spinoza

Romanticism Finally (Fourthly?), the romantics both celebrated and embodied the cult of a solitary, youthful, misunderstood genius The genius defied convention and perhaps suffered persecution for political radicalism The cult of the artist as misfit was in part an extension of romantic emphasis on imagination, on the creative power of the individual

Romanticism The collapse of aristocratic art patronage after 1789 may also have contributed, for the middle classes were not yet rich enough to step in Romanticism did not outlast mid-century, but it broke Enlightenment formalism for good Art was henceforth, what the artist, the individual as a towering genius, decreed it to be.