Nationalism

NATIONALISM, ONE OF THE modern ideologies, expresses the state of being national, national affection, and nationality. This definition explains nationalism as a set of ideas that members of a particular state, nation, society, or region may collectively feel. Nationalists who advocate national unity and independence try to form or build a nation on the basis of different notions of political legitimacy and sovereignty. One can talk about various forms of nationalism because it is a multifaceted political, social, and cultural phenomenon that can be found to some extent in all types of ideologies, from extreme right to extreme left. Thus, there have been several forms and versions of nationalism. Its main characteristic is that it provides a legitimizing ethos for a group of elites by implying that groups of similar people should have their own government or autonomy.

Nationalism has constituted one of the main ideological bases for all modern political and social movements for more than 200 years. It is commonly agreed that nationalism as a political, social, and ideological school of thought came to the fore by the French Revolution. The anti-Jacobin French priest Augustin Barruel first used the term nationalism in print in 1789. The Jacobins effectively put into practice nationalist projects. When the French Revolution made the idea of the rule of the people popular, they sought to define the people as the “French nation.” The Jacobins put a strong emphasis on the creeds of French nationalism'French language and race, national festivals and ceremonies, emotions toward the flag and homeland, and popular self-government'to achieve political and social unity.

The idea of nationalism began to spread after the revolution throughout much of continental Europe. Especially during the Napoleonic wars (1792–1815), nationalist feelings and ideas began to dominate intellectual activities. France's invasions in Italy and Germany caused resentment and a desire for independence particularly among elite groups. It was the idea of achieving national unity imitated from France. During the early 19th century, nationalism also spread to South and Central America when, under the leadership of Simon Bolivar and Jose Martin, the colonies of Spain and Portugal declared their independence.

Nationalist movements in 19th-century Europe became the sole political movement. During that century, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine had set up the foundations for American nationalism, and Jeremy Bentham and William Gladstone for British nationalism. [Page 791]Italian and German cases in Europe signify two nation-building efforts in the 19th century: Italy became a united state in 1861 and Germany in 1871. To attain national unity via self-determination, German nationalists and others strove to mobilize the people by stressing cultural values more than political ones. Nationalism gradually spread as an intellectual movement and school in the whole of central and Western Europe, when European multinational empires, namely Ottoman-Turkish, Austria-Hungarian, and Russian-Tzarist, started to disintegrate in the face of nationalist and separatist forces. As a result, new nation-states began to appear in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Greece and Serbia in the first half of the 19th century and Romania and Bulgaria in the second half of the 19th century achieved independence from Ottoman Turkey. Nationalist uprisings occurred among the Czechs and the Hungarians against the Austrian Empire.

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