Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- The Roots of Nationalism: Introduction
- Part One The Modernist Paradigm Contested
- Part Two The Genealogy of National Identity
- Part Three Negative Mirror Imaging
- Part Four Maps, Language and Canonisation
- Part Five Nation in the Age of Revolution
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Index
2 - Vanishing Primordialism: Literature, History and the Public
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- The Roots of Nationalism: Introduction
- Part One The Modernist Paradigm Contested
- Part Two The Genealogy of National Identity
- Part Three Negative Mirror Imaging
- Part Four Maps, Language and Canonisation
- Part Five Nation in the Age of Revolution
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Index
Summary
A Nation is moral – virtuous – vigorous – while it is engaged in realizing its grand objects, and defends its work against external violence during the process of giving to its purposes an objective existence. The contradiction between its potential, subjective being – its inner aim and life – and its actual being is removed; it has attained full reality, has itself objectively present to it. But this having been attained, the activity displayed by the Spirit of the people in question is no longer needed; is has its desire. The Nation can still accomplish much in war and peace at home and abroad; but the living substantial soul itself may be said to have ceased its activity. The essential, supreme interest has consequently vanished from its life, for interest is present only where there is opposition. The nation lives the same kind of life as the individual when passing from maturity to old age – in the enjoyment of itself – in the satisfaction of being exactly what it desired and was able to attain … In order that a truly universal interest may arise, the Spirit of a People must advance to the adoption of some new purpose; but whence can this new purpose originate? It would be a higher, more comprehensive conception of itself – a transcending of its principle – but this very act would involve a principle of a new order, a new National Spirit.
Nations are central to Hegel's understanding of history. For Hegel, writing in 1821-31, in the wake of the Napoleonic wars, nations are individual and distinct entities expressing the particular spirit of a particular people. This spirit needs to be realised so a people will struggle to activate their spirit and to manifest it in a concrete manner. For Hegel it is the process that matters: the nation is at its most vigorous and distinct when it is working to establish its true identity. Once the nation has come into existence it starts to grow, wane and even die. Of course, established nations still have much to offer and do not just disappear once they have appeared. They can, as Hegel's argument continues, still accomplish much in war and peace, conflict and resolution, through their interaction with other nations.
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- Information
- The Roots of NationalismNational Identity Formation in Early Modern Europe, 1600–1815, pp. 47 - 66Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2016