Overview of Nationalism 

Homework Assignment # 1 - How Nationalism Reshaped Europe

Reading on How Nationalism Reshaped Europe - Click Here

Printable Copy of Homework Questions - click here

Class Discussion - Visualizations of Nationalism

Source # 4 - Political and Linquistic Maps for 19th Century Europe

Class Discussion - Quotes about Nationalism

Primary Source Readings

Primary Source # 1 - In 1806, when Berlin was under French occupation, German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte said, 

“The first, original, and truly natural boundaries of states are beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole." 

Primary Source # 2 - Johann von Herder said both, "spew out the ugly slime of the Seine [River in Paris].  Speak German, O You German" and “What a treasure language is when kinship groups grow into tribes and nations. Even the smallest of nations…cherishes in and through its language the history, the poetry and songs about the great deeds of its forefathers. The language is its collective treasure.” 

Primary Source # 3 - Preface to the Second Edition of the Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm (1819) 

    After a storm has knocked an entire field of growing crops to the ground, it is possible that near some low hedges or bushes a small safe place can be found where a few growing spikes remain. If the sun shines again, they begin to grow, lonely and unnoticed. No harvests them for the great store houses. But in late summer, when they are ripe and full, poor hands come to search for them. Gleaned one by one, carefully bound together, and valued more than whole bales, they are carried home. They provide sustenance for the winter and are perhaps the only seeds for the future. 

    That is how it appeared to us when we saw how nothing more remained from earlier times. Even the memory of it all was almost completely lost among the people, but for a few songs, books, legends, and these innocent fairy tales. Gatherings around the oven, around the kitchen stove, on stair landings, holidays still celebrated, grazing pastures and forests in their silence, and above all the unspoiled imagination – these were the hedges that protected these seeds and passed them down from one age to another. 

    It was perhaps the right time to grab hold of these fairy tales, for those who preserved them were becoming ever rarer. Admittedly, those who still know them usually know quite a bit, because it is the people who die off, not the tales. But the custom itself is becoming less and less common… 

    … There, in the famous old regions of German freedom, legends and fairy tales have been preserved as a regular feature of holidays and the country is still rich in inherited customs and songs. There, partly because written language is not yet disturbed by the introduction of outside influences, especially among peoples whose literature is not very significant, oral traditions prove themselves to be stronger and more unsullied replacements... 

  Hesse [ a region in Germany], as a hilly land far away from the grand boulevards and mostly occupied with farming, has the advantage of being better able to preserve old tales and customs.  One perceives as well that regions which are rougher but also magnificent has a lifestyle of strictness and poverty. The Hessians must certainly be counted as those among our Fatherland's peoples who have held on most firmly through the changing times to the unique features of their essence as well as to their old dwelling places. 

Class Assignment # 1 - Seeing Conflicting Perspectives

Class Assignment # 1 - Writing with Reasoning & Evidence