A Storm before the Great Storm: New Faces of a Distinctly Twentieth-Century Nationalism

Abstract

A new and aggressive nationalism, different from its predecessors in its thought, appeal and goals, emerged in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. Earlier, nationalism seemed to stem from two related motivations. One was a sense of communal destiny, a conviction that atomized states that shared a common language and culture belonged together, represented a higher moral and political unity: a nation. German unification, the pulling together of dozens of political entities under the leadership of Prussia, is illustrative of this national destiny impulse. On the Italian peninsula, this sense of national destiny was accompanied by the second motivation: to be rid of foreign domination — rule by those not of the nation. This motivation, similar to what would come to animate movements of national liberation in the second half of the twentieth century, had had an earlier and revolutionary expression in the Greek War of Independence.