AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Understand how **Romanticism** helped nationalism become emotional and popular rather than only political
- Explain the meaning of **Volksgeist** and why language, folklore, and memory mattered to national identity
- Identify key examples of Romantic nationalism, including the **Brothers Grimm**, **Delacroix**, **Chopin**, and **Mazzini**
- Distinguish between **cultural nationalism** and **political nationalism**
- Analyse how the **Revolutions of 1848** revealed early mass politics across Europe
- Compare France in 1848 with the German states, Italy, and the Habsburg lands
- Use this topic in SAQ, DBQ, and LEQ answers through causation, comparison, and continuity/change reasoning

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how Romanticism shaped nationalism and how mass politics made national feeling visible, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that **Romanticism** emerged in reaction against Enlightenment rationalism and stressed emotion, imagination, nature, and the past
- Identify **nationalism** as loyalty to a people defined by shared language, culture, history, or ethnicity
- Explain **emotional nationalism** as nationalism rooted in shared feeling, memory, folklore, and cultural attachment
- Understand **Volksgeist** as the “spirit of the people” expressed through language and tradition
- Identify examples of cultural nationalism such as the **Brothers Grimm** and **Chopin**
- Explain how figures such as **Giuseppe Mazzini** turned cultural nationalism into political action
- Understand why the **Revolutions of 1848** revealed the growth of mass politics, especially in the German states, Italy, Hungary, and the Habsburg Empire
- Distinguish between the role of nationalism in **France in 1848** and its stronger role in central and eastern Europe

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. How did Romanticism help nationalism become more powerful in the 19th century?
2. What does **Volksgeist** mean, and why was it important to Romantic nationalism?
3. Name two examples of cultural nationalism and explain what made them nationalist.
4. Why were the **Revolutions of 1848** an example of mass politics?
5. How was nationalism in **France in 1848** different from nationalism in Germany, Italy, or Hungary?

## Introduction

Romanticism mattered politically because it changed how people imagined the nation. Enlightenment thinkers often described politics in terms of reason, rights, constitutions, and universal principles. Romantic thinkers did not reject politics, but they shifted attention toward **emotion**, **memory**, **heroism**, **nature**, and the unique character of particular peoples. That shift helped nationalism move beyond elite debate and become something ordinary people could feel.

This is why the idea that “mass politics revealed emotional nationalism” is so useful for AP European History. Romanticism did not by itself cause revolution. Economic distress, censorship, weak governments, and demands for reform all mattered. But Romanticism gave nationalism a language of feeling. By **1848**, crowds, barricades, songs, flags, and public demonstrations showed that national identity was no longer only an idea discussed by writers. It had become a force visible in the streets.

> **Key Term: Romanticism**
> An intellectual and artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that stressed emotion, imagination, nature, individuality, and the past, often in reaction against Enlightenment rationalism.

### From Romanticism to emotional nationalism

Romanticism helped nationalism because it taught Europeans to value what made a people distinct. Enlightenment thought often looked for universal truths. Romantic thought looked for uniqueness. If each individual had an inner emotional life, then each people might also have its own collective character.

> **Key Term: nationalism**
> The belief that people with a shared language, culture, history, or ethnicity form a distinct political community and often should govern themselves.

This is where the idea of cultural identity became politically powerful. Instead of saying only, “people deserve rights,” nationalists increasingly argued, “our people are a real community with a shared soul, language, and past.” That argument was stronger emotionally because it appealed to belonging, not just to theory.

Johann Gottfried Herder is central here. He argued that each people possessed a distinct cultural spirit shown in its language, songs, customs, and traditions. This helped shift nationalism away from dynasties and toward culture.

> **Key Term: Volksgeist**
> The “spirit of the people”; the idea that a nation has a distinctive cultural character expressed through language, folklore, and tradition.

Herder’s importance is that he gave nationalism a cultural foundation. A nation was not just a state with borders. It was a living community. That made nationalism easier to spread among people who had never voted and might never read a constitution. A peasant tale, a folk song, or a shared language could carry national meaning more effectively than an abstract political essay.

This is why Romantic nationalism is often called **emotional nationalism**. It relied on attachment, memory, sacrifice, and shared feeling. That emotional element could unite people across class lines. A lawyer, student, artisan, and peasant might disagree about many things, but they could all be told they belonged to the same nation.

> **Test Tip:** In an LEQ or SAQ, do not define nationalism only as loyalty to a state. For Romantic nationalism, stress shared culture, language, folklore, and memory.

### Cultural nationalism: folklore, art, and music

Romantic nationalism first became powerful in culture before it fully reshaped politics. This is one of the most tested distinctions in the topic.

> **Key Term: cultural nationalism**
> Nationalism expressed through language, folklore, music, literature, and historical memory rather than direct political action alone.

The **Brothers Grimm** are a classic example. Their collection of German folktales did more than preserve stories. It suggested that people across the German states shared a common inheritance. In a politically divided region, folklore helped create the idea of a deeper German unity. The tales mattered not because they proposed a constitution, but because they implied a common German past.

The same pattern appears in music. **Frédéric Chopin** used Polish forms such as the **mazurka** and **polonaise**. This was politically significant because Poland did not exist as an independent state after partition. Music helped preserve Polish identity when political independence was absent. In exam terms, this is a strong example of how culture can sustain nationalism without immediate statehood.

Art also mattered. **Eugène Delacroix’s** _Liberty Leading the People_ (1830) is not simply a painting of an uprising. It presents politics as drama, sacrifice, and collective struggle. Liberty is shown as an inspiring figure leading ordinary people forward. The image turns political conflict into emotional experience. Romantic art did not just record events; it intensified them.

Students often miss the mechanism here. Art, music, and folklore did not automatically create states. What they did create was **shared identity**. That identity then made later political mobilization easier. If people already believed they belonged together culturally, they were more likely to demand political unity or independence.

A further example is the attraction of the medieval past. Romantic writers admired earlier eras, legends, and heroic struggle. This gave nationalists a usable past. A people with heroes, memories, and legends could claim historical dignity. Nationalism then became not just a political demand but a moral claim.

> **Key Term: emotional nationalism**
> Nationalism rooted in shared feeling, memory, language, folklore, and cultural loyalty rather than only legal or constitutional ideas.

### From cultural feeling to political action

Romantic nationalism became more dangerous to the old order when it moved from culture into mass politics. This shift can be seen in the career of **Giuseppe Mazzini**.

Mazzini did not stop at saying Italians shared language and culture. He argued that Italians formed a nation entitled to self-rule. In **1831**, he founded **Young Italy**, which linked nationalism to republicanism and popular sovereignty. That is the bridge from cultural nationalism to political nationalism.

> **Key Term: national self-determination**
> The principle that a people with a shared national identity should govern itself rather than be ruled by outsiders.

Mazzini’s significance lies in method as well as ideology. He appealed to youth, activism, and sacrifice. He treated the nation as a moral mission. That language was deeply Romantic: heroic, emotional, future-oriented, and willing to call for struggle. Nationalism was no longer only the work of scholars and collectors. It became something to fight for.

> **Key Term: mass politics**
> Political participation by large numbers of ordinary people through rallies, crowds, demonstrations, agitation, print culture, and public action.

Mass politics in the first half of the 19th century was still limited compared with later democracy. Voting rights remained narrow in many states. But mass politics does not require universal suffrage. It means that large numbers of ordinary people become active in public political life through meetings, petitions, barricades, symbols, and crowds.

France offers one form of this. The **Banquet Campaign** of **1847–1848** used reform banquets as political gatherings to demand wider suffrage and challenge the July Monarchy. That was mass politics because public opinion, crowds, and organized agitation mattered.

> **Key Term: Banquet Campaign**
> The French reform movement of 1847–1848 that used political banquets to demand wider suffrage and reform; its suppression helped trigger the 1848 revolution.

But France also shows an important limit. In France, 1848 was driven mainly by liberal reform, suffrage expansion, and opposition to Louis-Philippe. Nationalism was less central there than in divided or multinational regions. Students often overgeneralise 1848 as equally nationalist everywhere. That is inaccurate.

### 1848: how mass politics revealed emotional nationalism

The **Revolutions of 1848** are the clearest proof that emotional nationalism had become a public force.

In the **German states**, crowds, students, and liberals pushed for unity and constitutional government. National symbols such as the **black-red-gold flag** became widely visible. This matters because symbols let people “see” the nation. The nation was not yet politically united, but it could be performed publicly through flags, assemblies, and revolutionary action.

The **Frankfurt Assembly** showed both the power and the weakness of this movement. It tried to create a unified Germany under a constitution, which reveals how liberalism and nationalism still worked together. Yet its failure also shows the limits of emotional nationalism when not backed by military power and political agreement.

> **Key Term: Frankfurt Assembly**
> The 1848 gathering of German liberals and nationalists that tried to create a unified German state under a constitution.

In **Italy**, national feeling also became visible through revolt and activism. Mazzini’s ideas, the appeal of Young Italy, and uprisings against Austrian influence all show how cultural nationalism had entered politics. The important point is that Italians were not just arguing over better government in separate states. Many were demanding an Italian nation.

In the **Habsburg Empire**, nationalism was especially explosive because the empire ruled many peoples. **Magyars**, **Czechs**, **Italians**, and others demanded autonomy or national recognition. Emotional nationalism was strong here because language, culture, and memory were central to resisting imperial rule. When a state contains many nationalities, Romantic nationalism becomes directly political very quickly.

This is why 1848 “revealed” emotional nationalism. The feelings had been developing for decades through literature, folklore, and music. In 1848, they became unmistakable through mass action. Crowds fought on barricades. Public meetings spread demands. National symbols circulated. Governments learned that people were willing to act not only for bread and rights, but for nationhood.

Still, AP answers need balance. Romanticism did not cause 1848 by itself. The **hungry forties**, unemployment, poor harvests, censorship, and resentment of conservative rule were also major causes. A strong answer explains interaction: economic distress created anger, liberalism gave reform language, and Romantic nationalism gave emotional force and shared identity.

> **Test Tip:** For causation essays, avoid single-cause claims. Say that Romanticism strengthened nationalism, but 1848 also depended on economic crisis and opposition to conservative governments.

The short-term outcome of 1848 was failure in many places. Revolts were suppressed. Empires survived. Liberal constitutions were limited or reversed. But the long-term significance was major. Governments now knew that nationalism was not just an elite pastime. It had become a force of mass mobilisation. That helps explain later unification in Italy and Germany, and later nationalist tensions in multinational empires.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Romanticism stressed emotion, imagination, nature, and the historical past in reaction against Enlightenment rationalism
- Romantic nationalism defined nations through shared language, folklore, history, and culture
- **Volksgeist** meant the unique “spirit of the people” expressed through tradition and language
- The **Brothers Grimm** are a major example of cultural nationalism in the German states
- **Chopin** expressed Polish national identity through musical forms such as the mazurka and polonaise
- **Delacroix’s** _Liberty Leading the People_ showed how Romantic art turned politics into emotional public drama
- **Mazzini** and **Young Italy** linked cultural nationalism to political action and self-rule
- **Mass politics** means the growing participation of ordinary people through crowds, petitions, demonstrations, and public agitation
- The **Banquet Campaign** in France showed mass politics, but French 1848 focused more on suffrage reform than national unification
- In Germany, Italy, and the Habsburg lands, 1848 more clearly fused liberalism with nationalism
- The **Frankfurt Assembly** showed the effort to turn German national feeling into a unified constitutional state
- The Revolutions of 1848 mostly failed in the short term, but they revealed the long-term power of emotional nationalism

## Key Terms and Concepts

- Romanticism
- nationalism
- Volksgeist
- cultural nationalism
- emotional nationalism
- national self-determination
- mass politics
- Banquet Campaign
- Frankfurt Assembly


Romanticism - Mass politics revealed emotional nationalism