The nationalism in India ,The Rise of Nationalism in Europe

 In 1848, Frédéric Sorrieu, a French artist, prepared a series of four

prints visualising his dream of a world made up of ‘democratic

and social Republics’, as he called them. The first print (Fig. 1) of the

series, shows the peoples of Europe and America – men and women

of all ages and social classes – marching in a long train, and offering

homage to the statue of Liberty as they pass by it. As you would

recall, artists of the time of the French Revolution personified Liberty

as a female figure – here you can recognise the torch of Enlightenment

she bears in one hand and the Charter of the Rights of Man in the

other. On the earth in the foreground of the image lie the shattered

remains of the symbols of absolutist institutions. In Sorrieu’s

utopian vision, the peoples of the world are grouped as distinct

nations, identified through their flags and national costume. Leading

the procession, way past the statue of Liberty, are the United States

and Switzerland, which by this time were already nation-states. France,  identifiable by the revolutionary tricolour, has just reached the statue.

She is followed by the peoples of Germany, bearing the black, red

and gold flag. Interestingly, at the time when Sorrieu created this

image, the German peoples did not yet exist as a united nation – the

flag they carry is an expression of liberal hopes in 1848 to unify the

numerous German-speaking principalities into a nation-state under

a democratic constitution. Following the German peoples are the

peoples of Austria, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Lombardy,

Poland, England, Ireland, Hungary and Russia. From the heavens

above, Christ, saints and angels gaze upon the scene. They have

been used by the artist to symbolise fraternity among the nations of

the world.

This chapter will deal with many of the issues visualised by Sorrieu

in Fig. 1. During the nineteenth century, nationalism emerged as a

force which brought about sweeping changes in the political and

mental world of Europe. The end result of these changes was the

emergence of the nation-state in place of the multi-national dynastic

empires of Europe. The concept and practices of a modern state, in

which a centralised power exercised sovereign control over a clearly

defined territory, had been developing over a long period of time

in Europe. But a nation-state was one in which the majority of its

citizens, and not only its rulers, came to develop a sense of common

identity and shared history or descent. This commonness did not

exist from time immemorial; it was forged through struggles, through

the actions of leaders and the common people. This chapter will

look at the diverse processes through which nation-states and

nationalism came into being in nineteenth-century Europe.