Nationalism in Europe 6 Flashcards
what happned in the last quarter of the 19th c
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century nationalism no longer
retained its idealistic liberal-democratic sentiment of the first half
of the century, but became a narrow creed with limited ends. During
this period nationalist groups became increasingly intolerant of each
other and ever ready to go to war. The major European powers, in
turn, manipulated the nationalist aspirations of the subject peoples
in Europe to further their own imperialist aims.
give a brief intro te balkan region
The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871
was the area called the Balkans. The Balkans was a region of
geographical and ethnic variation comprising modern-day Romania,
Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro whose inhabitants were broadly
known as the Slavs. A large part of the Balkans was under the control
of the Ottoman Empire.
why was the balkan region very explosive
The spread of the ideas of romantic
nationalism in the Balkans together with the disintegration of the
Ottoman Empire made this region very explosive
how did the balkans start breaking away from eahc other
All through the
nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire had sought to strengthen
itself through modernisation and internal reforms but with very
little success. One by one, its European subject nationalities broke
away from its control and declared independence. The Balkan
peoples based their claims for independence or political rights on
nationality and used history to prove that they had once been
independent but had subsequently been subjugated by foreign
powers. Hence the rebellious nationalities in the Balkans thought of
their struggles as attempts to win back their long-lost independence
explain the leading of the WWI
As the different Slavic nationalities struggled to define their identity
and independence, the Balkan area became an area of intense conflict.
The Balkan states were fiercely jealous of each other and each hoped
to gain more territory at the expense of the others. Matters were
further complicated because the Balkans also became the scene of
big power rivalry. During this period, there was intense rivalry among
the European powers over trade and colonies as well as naval and
military might. These rivalries were very evident in the way the Balkan
problem unfolded. Each power – Russia, Germany, England,
Austro-Hungary – was keen on countering the hold of other powers
over the Balkans, and extending its own control over the area. This
led to a series of wars in the region and finally the First World War.
anti-imperlaisma
Nationalism, aligned with imperialism, led Europe to disaster in 1914.
But meanwhile, many countries in the world which had been
colonised by the European powers in the nineteenth century began
to oppose imperial domination. The anti-imperial movements that
developed everywhere were nationalist, in the sense that they all
struggled to form independent nation-states, and were inspired by
a sense of collective national unity, forged in confrontation with
imperialism. European ideas of nationalism were nowhere
replicated, for people everywhere developed their own specific variety
of nationalism. But the idea that societies should be organised into
‘nation-states’ came to be accepted as natural and universal.
