Editing Racism (section)

===Ethnic and racial nationalism===
{{Further|Ethnic nationalism|Racial nationalism|Romantic nationalism}}
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[[File:Keep Australia White.jpg|thumb|A 1917 anti-[[conscription]] propaganda leaflet imploring voters to "[[White Australia policy|keep Australia white]]". A horde of Asians bearing a dragon flag is shown to the north.]]

After the [[Napoleonic Wars]], Europe was confronted with the new "[[nationalities]] question", leading to reconfigurations of the European map, on which the frontiers between the states had been delineated during the 1648 [[Peace of Westphalia]]. [[Nationalism]] had made its first appearance with the invention of the ''[[levée en masse]]'' by the [[French Revolution]]aries, thus inventing mass [[conscription]] in order to be able to defend the newly founded [[French First Republic|Republic]] against the ''[[Ancien Régime]]'' order represented by the European monarchies. This led to the [[French Revolutionary Wars]] (1792–1802) and then to the conquests of [[Napoleon]], and to the subsequent European-wide debates on the concepts and realities of [[nation]]s, and in particular of [[nation-state]]s. The [[Westphalia Treaty]] had divided Europe into various empires and kingdoms (such as the [[Ottoman Empire]], the [[Holy Roman Empire]], the [[Swedish Empire]], the [[France|Kingdom of France]], etc.), and for centuries wars were waged between princes (''[[Kabinettskriege]]'' in German).

Modern [[nation-state]]s appeared in the wake of the French Revolution, with the formation of [[patriotism|patriotic]] sentiments for the first time in [[Enlightenment Spain|Spain]] during the [[Peninsula War]] (1808–1813, known in Spain as the Independence War). Despite the restoration of the previous order with the 1815 [[Congress of Vienna]], the "nationalities question" became the main problem of Europe during the [[Industrial Era]], leading in particular to the [[1848 Revolutions]], the [[Italian unification]] completed during the 1871 [[Franco-Prussian War]], which itself culminated in the proclamation of the [[German Empire]] in the Hall of Mirrors in the [[Palace of Versailles]], thus achieving the [[German unification]].

Meanwhile, the [[Ottoman Empire]], the "[[sick man of Europe]]", was confronted with endless nationalist movements, which, along with the dissolving of the [[Austrian-Hungarian Empire]], would lead to the creation, after [[World War I]], of the various nation-states of the [[Balkan]]s, with "national [[minorities]]" in their borders.<ref>On this "[[nationalities]] question" and the problem of nationalism, see the relevant articles for a non-exhaustive account of the state of contemporary historical researches; famous works include: [[Ernest Gellner]], ''Nations and Nationalism'' (1983); [[Eric Hobsbawm]],''The Age of Revolution : Europe 1789–1848'' (1962), ''Nations and Nationalism since 1780 : programme, myth, reality'' (1990); [[Benedict Anderson]], ''[[Imagined Communities]]'' (1991); [[Charles Tilly]], ''Coercion, Capital and European States AD 990–1992'' (1990); [[Anthony D. Smith]], ''Theories of Nationalism'' (1971), etc.</ref>

[[Ethnic nationalism]], which advocated the belief in a hereditary membership of the nation, made its appearance in the historical context surrounding the creation of the modern nation-states.

One of its main influences was the [[Romantic nationalist]] movement at the turn of the 19th century, represented by figures such as [[Johann Gottfried Herder|Johann Herder]] (1744–1803), [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte|Johan Fichte]] (1762–1814) in the ''Addresses to the German Nation'' (1808), [[Friedrich Hegel]] (1770–1831), or also, in France, [[Jules Michelet]] (1798–1874). It was opposed to [[liberal nationalism]], represented by authors such as [[Ernest Renan]] (1823–1892), who conceived of the nation as a community, which, instead of being based on the ''[[Volk]]'' ethnic group and on a specific, common language, was founded on the subjective will to live together ("the nation is a daily [[plebiscite]]", 1882) or also [[John Stuart Mill]] (1806–1873).<ref>[[John Stuart Mill]], ''Considerations on Representative Government'', 1861</ref>
Ethnic nationalism blended with scientific racist discourses, as well as with "continental [[imperialist]]" ([[Hannah Arendt]], 1951<ref name="Arendt">[[Hannah Arendt]], ''[[The Origins of Totalitarianism]]'' (1951)</ref>) discourses, for example in the [[pan-Germanism]] discourses, which postulated the racial superiority of the German ''[[Volk]]'' (people/folk). The [[Alldeutscher Verband|Pan-German League]] (''Alldeutscher Verband''), created in 1891, promoted [[German colonial empire|German imperialism]] and "[[racial hygiene]]", and was opposed to intermarriage with [[Jews]]. Another popular current, the ''[[Völkisch movement]]'', was also an important proponent of the [[German ethnic nationalist]] discourse, and it combined Pan-Germanism with modern [[racial antisemitism]]. Members of the Völkisch movement, in particular the [[Thule Society]], would participate in the founding of the [[German Workers' Party]] (DAP) in Munich in 1918, the predecessor of the [[Nazi Party]]. Pan-Germanism played a decisive role in the [[interwar period]] of the 1920s–1930s.<ref name=Arendt />

These currents began to associate the idea of the nation with the biological concept of a "[[master race]]" (often the "[[Aryan race]]" or the "[[Nordic race]]") issued from the scientific racist discourse. They conflated nationalities with ethnic groups, called "races", in a radical distinction from previous racial discourses that posited the existence of a "race struggle" inside the nation and the state itself. Furthermore, they believed that political boundaries should mirror these alleged racial and ethnic groups, thus justifying [[ethnic cleansing]], in order to achieve "racial purity" and also to achieve ethnic homogeneity in the nation-state.

Such racist discourses, combined with nationalism, were not, however, limited to pan-Germanism. In France, the transition from Republican liberal nationalism, to ethnic nationalism, which made nationalism a characteristic of [[History of far-right movements in France|far-right movements in France]], took place during the [[Dreyfus Affair]] at the end of the 19th century. During several years, a nationwide crisis affected French society, concerning the alleged treason of [[Alfred Dreyfus]], a French Jewish military officer. The country polarized itself into two opposite camps, one represented by [[Émile Zola]], who wrote ''[[J'Accuse…!]]'' in defense of Alfred Dreyfus, and the other represented by the nationalist poet, [[Maurice Barrès]] (1862–1923), one of the founders of the ethnic nationalist discourse in France.<ref>[[Maurice Barrès]], ''Le Roman de l'énergie nationale'' (The Novel of National Energy, a trilogy started in 1897)</ref> At the same time, [[Charles Maurras]] (1868–1952), founder of the monarchist ''[[Action française]]'' movement, theorized the "anti-France", composed of the "four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons and foreigners" (his actual word for the latter being the pejorative ''[[Metic|métèques]]''). Indeed, to him the first three were all "internal foreigners", who threatened the ethnic unity of the [[French people]].