I.

Introduction

Nationalism, in modern history, movement in which the nation-state is regarded as paramount for the realization of social, economic, and cultural aspirations of a people. Nationalism is characterized principally by a feeling of community among a people, based on common descent, language, and religion. Before the 18th century, when nationalism emerged as a distinctive movement, states usually were based on religious or dynastic ties; citizens owed loyalty to their church or ruling family. Concerned with clan, tribe, village, or province, people rarely extended their interests nationwide.

Historically, the tendency toward nationalism was fostered by various technological, cultural, political, and economic advances. Improvement in communications extended the knowledge of people beyond their village or province. The spread of education in vernacular tongues to the lower-income groups gave them the feeling of participation in a common cultural heritage. Through education, people learned of their common background and tradition and began to identify themselves with the historical continuity of the nation. The introduction of national constitutions and the struggle for political rights gave peoples the sense of helping to determine their fate as a nation and of sharing responsibility for the future well-being of that nation. At the same time the growth of trade and industry laid the basis for economic units larger than the traditional cities or provinces.

Most modern nations have developed gradually on the basis of common ties of descent, religion, and language. Many exceptions exist, among them Switzerland, the United States, Israel, and India. Switzerland is a nation in which no common religion or language was ever established. The Swiss include many adherents to both the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions; they have no linguistic unity, for German, French, and Italian are spoken in distinct regions of the country. Swiss nationalism was fostered primarily by isolation in a mountain region, the determination to maintain political independence, and rivalry among imperial powers, which kept each from aggression against Switzerland.

The United States was formed largely by British immigrants with disparate religious ties and was developed to a great extent by other immigrants having little in common except a yearning for religious, economic, and political freedom. American nationalism was based primarily on a dedication to the concept of individual liberty and representative government derived from British traditions. What was considered in Great Britain the birthright of Britons became in the U.S., under the influence of 18th-century Enlightenment, the natural right of every person. The Declaration of Independence marked the consummation of this libertarian ethos.

Israel was formed almost entirely from the immigration of diverse national groups of Jews who shared a common ideal based on religious nationalism. The traditional aspirations of Jews for a national revival in Palestine had remained unfulfilled for almost 2000 years. As a result of genocide perpetrated by the National Socialist rulers of Germany before and during World War II, Jewish national aspirations suddenly achieved dynamic force. More than a million refugees from many different countries immigrated to Palestine. They learned Hebrew, the re-created national language, and established a new state with Judaism as the state religion. Among world Jewry, however, the Jews of Israel are a minority; most Jews continue to live as minority religious groups in their native countries.

India is a nation in which the Hindu religion served as the cohesive traditional element in uniting peoples of various races, religions, and languages. India achieved national unity through the influence of Western ideas, notably those of British origin, and in struggle against British rule.

II.

Origins

The beginnings of modern nationalism may be traced back to the disintegration, at the end of the Middle Ages, of the social order in Europe and of the cultural unity of the various European states. The cultural life of Europe was based on a common inheritance of ideas and attitudes transmitted in the West through Latin, the language of the educated classes. All Western Europeans adhered to a common religion, Catholic Christianity. The breakup of feudalism, the prevailing social and economic system, was accompanied by the development of larger communities, wider social interrelations, and dynasties that fostered feelings of nationality in order to win support for their rule. National feeling was strengthened in various countries during the Reformation, when the adoption of either Catholicism or Protestantism as a national religion became an added force for national cohesion.

III.

The French Revolution

The great turning point in the history of nationalism in Europe was the French Revolution. National feeling in France until then had centered in the king. As a result of the revolution, loyalty to the king was replaced by loyalty to the patrie (“fatherland”). Thus “La Marseillaise,” the anthem of the French Revolution that later became the national anthem, begins with the words Allons enfants de la patrie (“March on, children of the fatherland”). When in 1789 the medieval French Estates-General, consisting of separate bodies representing the clergy, the aristocracy, and the common people, was transformed into a National Assembly, France achieved a truly representative system of government. Regional divisions, with their separate traditions and rights, were abolished, and France became a uniform and united national territory, with common laws and institutions. French armies spread the new spirit of nationalism in other lands.

The rise of nationalism coincided generally with the spread of the Industrial Revolution, which promoted national economic development, the growth of a middle class, and popular demand for representative government. National literatures arose to express common traditions and the common spirit of each people. New emphasis was given to nationalist symbols of all kinds; for example, new holidays were introduced to commemorate various events in national history.

IV.

Revolution of 1848

The Revolution of 1848 in Central Europe marked the awakening of various peoples to national consciousness. In that year both the Germans and the Italians originated their movements for unification and for the creation of nation-states. Although the attempts at revolution failed in 1848, the movements gathered strength in subsequent years. After much political agitation and several wars, an Italian kingdom was created in 1861 and a German empire in 1871. Other central European peoples who agitated for national independence in 1848 include the Poles, whose territory was divided among Russia, Germany, and Austria; the Czechs and the Hungarians, subjects of the Austrian monarchy; and the Christian peoples living in the Balkan Peninsula under the rule of the Ottoman sultan. The events in Europe between 1878 and 1918 were shaped largely by the nationalist aspirations of these peoples and their desire to form nation-states independent of the empires of which they had been part.

V.

World War I

The war fulfilled the national aspirations of the Central European peoples. When the U.S. entered the war, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the principle of national self-determination as one of the major issues of the conflict. As a result of the war, the rule of the dynasties in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire was ended, and in central and eastern Europe a number of new nation-states arose, notably Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia). Others such as Romania were greatly enlarged. Nevertheless, nationalist problems continued to disturb central and eastern Europe. Many of the new nation-states contained national minorities who demanded independence or changes in frontiers. The conflicting claims of German and Polish nationalism became the immediate cause of the outbreak of World War II. The inflammation of nationalist passions during and after World War I led also to the rise of fascism and National Socialism. Fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany adopted the totalitarian system introduced earlier in the Soviet Union with communism. This system served as a means of destroying opposition and of integrating all the resources of the nation for the realization of a program of national aggrandizement. Because such a program conflicted with the vital interests and even the survival of other nations, a general war in Europe became inevitable. The Soviet Union, although it had been established by means of a movement proclaiming international ideals, resorted to national aggrandizement in the 1940s. The anthem of international communism, “The Internationale,” was replaced by a new Soviet national anthem, and the USSR sought to make the Communist parties of all nations serve the Soviet national interests.

Another far-reaching effect of World War I was the rise of nationalism in Asia and Africa under the impact of Western ideas and industrialism. Asian nationalism was also inspired by the example of Japan, the first East Asian country to assume on its own initiative the form of a modern nation and to win, in 1905, a war against a Western power, the Russo-Japanese War. After World War I the Turks, under the national leader Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk), defeated (1922-1923) the Western allies and modernized their state in the spirit of nationalism after the European model. During the same period the leader of the Indian National Congress, Mohandas Gandhi, deeply stirred the aspirations of the Indian masses for national independence. In China the leader of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist People's Party, Sun Yat-sen, inspired a successful national revolution. Because all these movements were directed against the Western European powers, they were supported by Soviet communism.

VI.

World War II and Beyond

The penetration of nationalism into colonial countries was hastened by World War II. The British, French, and Dutch empires in eastern Asia were overrun by the Japanese, who widely disseminated the nationalistic slogan “Asia for the Asians.” The colonial powers were weakened further by the military and economic consequences of the war and by the expansion of Soviet power. In its propaganda, the Soviet Union emphasized mainly the right of the colonial countries to national self-determination and independence. Britain, influenced by the liberal tradition in politics, willingly granted independence to India, Pakistan, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Burma (now known as Myanmar), Malaya (now part of Malaysia), and the Gold Coast (now Ghana). Similarly, the U.S. granted independence to the Philippines. The Netherlands relinquished control of the Netherlands Indies, which became the Republic of Indonesia. France lost possession of its colonial empire in Indochina. By 1957 nationalism had asserted itself throughout Asia, and the colonial empires there, with the exception of that of the Soviet Union, ceased to exist.

In the postwar period nationalist movements developed and won many successes, particularly in Africa and in the Middle East. By 1958 newly established nation-states in those regions included Israel, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, the Sudan, Ghana, the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria), and Iraq. In the 1960s and '70s the Algerians, Libyans, and many formerly British, French, or Belgian colonies in black Africa became independent. As the 1990s began, nationalism remained a potent force in world affairs. Competing Jewish, Arab, and Palestinian nationalist aspirations continued to generate political instability in the Middle East. In Eastern Europe, where nationalist passions had largely been held in check since World War II, the decline of Communist rule unleashed separatist forces that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia and threatened the integrity of other countries.