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II.—THE PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY.
6. National Sentiment and National Idea.
13a. The demand of the Allies for a proper consideration for the small nations as well as for the great, resulted from the recognition of the principle of nationality. In order to have a proper understanding of the war and to have a just basis for the conclusion of a lasting peace, it is very important that the principle of nationality should be made clear.
The principle of nationality has made itself felt in Europe with greater intensity since the 18th century, and not merely in the political and social sphere, but also in philosophy, art and life in general. Since the middle of the 18th century one may perceive in Italy and Germany a growing desire and endeavour for the unification of the nations, divided since the Middle Ages into numerous states. At the same time enslaved nations struggle for unification and liberation; in the Balkans the Serbians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians rise against Turkey; the same thing may be seen in Austria and Russia. Simultaneously with the French Revolution the historians record the national awakening and renaissance of the Czechs and Slovaks, Magyars, Jugoslavs, and in general of all nations in Austria, Russia, etc., and the same applies to the Germans and Italians. This process of national individualisation is so powerful that we find attempts to create a separate existence for the Slovak, Ukrainian and other dialects and languages that had not as yet literary cultivation. There arose the Flemish, Norwegian, and similar questions. From the philosophical standpoint the national sentiment and idea makes its influence felt in all literature; in the 18th century, for instance, there is the beginning of the study of folk song, and men like Herder and others strive to grasp in the folk-songs the nationality, the spirit of the nation, as it is usually called. At that period also there arose the intensified study of the languages and their comparison: we witness the foundation of the scientific study of the German, Slav and Romance languages. At the same time much attention is paid to history and all social sciences with the express purpose of grasping philosophically the substance of one’s own and foreign nations in all the manifestations of spiritual life and of understanding the development of the nations and of mankind (for instance, the so-called historical school of jurisprudence, Savigny—the national economists like List, etc.). All nations cultivate conscious national philosophy; Pangermanism, as has been shown, is the political organisation and philosophical synthesis of this movement in Germany. Alongside of it we find in Russia the Slavophils, in Bohemia and among the Jugoslavs the humanists, in Poland the Messianists; in France, Italy and Scandinavia—everywhere under varions forms we see the same movement. The fact that up to now history of philosophy has paid little attention to this phase merely proves how one-sided, narrow and unpolitical school philosophy is, a scholastic island in the stormy political and social ocean of modern life.
The principle of nationality is new, modern. In the Middle Ages Europe was organised by the church, the empire and the states; the organisation of society was theocratic and is still so to a large extent. In the ancient era the national principle was likewise non-existent; the various nations were opposed to each other, but simply as stranger against stranger; within the nations themselves, each part stood separate and antagonistic in its relation to the other. Only occasionally the consciousness of nationality came to the surface (as, for instance, with the Greeks in the time of Alexander), but there was no consciousness of a principle of nationality. Hence the political kaleidoscope of the map of Europe throughout the Middle Ages and down to the 18th century.
Reformation and renaissance mark the first stirring up of the consciousness of nationality. The national tongues begin to be used in church services, the translation of the Bible equally hallows the language of the people as against the aristocratic church-language of Latin, Greek, and so
