Editing Romantic nationalism (section)

==Arts==
{{unreferenced section|date=September 2024}}
[[File:Собор Воскресения Христова 1.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|[[Church of the Savior on Blood]], [[St Petersburg]], 1883–1907]]

{{see also|Neo-romanticism|musical nationalism|National Romantic style}}

After the 1870s "national romanticism", as it is more usually called, became a familiar movement in the arts. Romantic [[musical nationalism]] is exemplified by the work of [[Bedřich Smetana]], especially the [[symphonic poem]] "[[Má vlast|Vltava]]". In Scandinavia and the Slavic parts of Europe especially, "national romanticism" provided a series of answers to the 19th-century search for styles that would be culturally meaningful and evocative, yet not merely historicist. When a church was built over the spot in St Petersburg where Tsar [[Alexander II of Russia]] had been assassinated, the "[[Church of the Savior on Blood]]", the natural style to use was one that best evoked traditional Russian features (''illustration, left''). In Finland, the reassembly of the national epic, the ''[[Kalevala]],'' inspired paintings and murals in the [[National Romantic style]] that substituted there for the international [[Art Nouveau]] styles. The foremost proponent in Finland was [[Akseli Gallen-Kallela]] (''illustration, below right'').
[[File:Sammon puolustus.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.15|''[[The Defense of the Sampo]],'' [[Akseli Gallen-Kallela]] ]]

By the turn of the century, ethnic [[self-determination]] had become an assumption held as being progressive and liberal. There were romantic nationalist movements for separation in [[Grand Duchy of Finland|Finland]], [[Estonia]], [[Latvia]] and [[Lithuania]], the [[Kingdom of Bavaria]] held apart from a united Germany, and Czech and Serb nationalism continued to trouble Imperial politics. The flowering of arts which drew inspiration from national epics and song continued unabated. The [[Zionist movement]] revived Hebrew, and began immigration to [[Land of Israel|Eretz Yisrael]], and [[Welsh language|Welsh]] and [[Irish language|Irish]] tongues also experienced a poetic revival.

===Claims of primacy or superiority===
At the same time, linguistic and cultural nationality, colored with pre-genetic concepts of race, bolstered two rhetorical claims used to this day: claims of primacy and claims of superiority. Primacy is the claimed [[Natural and legal rights|inalienable right]] of a culturally and racially defined people to a geographical terrain, a ''"heartland"'' (a vivid expression) or [[homeland]]. [[Richard Wagner]] notoriously argued that those who were ethnically different could not comprehend the artistic and cultural meaning inherent in national culture. Identifying "Jewishness" even in musical style,<ref>Wagner, ''[[Das Judenthum in der Musik]]'' 1850.</ref> he specifically attacked the Jews as being unwilling to assimilate into German culture, and thus unable to truly comprehend the mysteries of its music and language. Sometimes "national epics" such as the [[Nibelunglied]] have had a galvanizing effect on social politics.

===Twentieth-century political developments===
[[File:Vasnetsov Frog Princess.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|''Frog Tsarevna'', by [[Viktor Vasnetsov]], 1918]]In the first two decades of the 20th century, Romantic Nationalism as an idea was to have crucial influence on political events. Following the [[Panic of 1873]] that gave rise to a new wave of [[antisemitism]] and [[racism]] in the [[German Empire]] politically ruled by an authoritarian, militaristic conservatism under [[Otto von Bismarck]] and in parallel with the  ''[[Fin de siècle]]'' (which was also reflected to a degree in the contemporary art movements of [[Symbolism (arts)|symbolism]], the [[Decadent movement]], and ''[[Art Nouveau]]''), the racialist [[Völkisch movement|''völkisch'' movement]] which grew out of romantic nationalism in Germany in the late 19th century.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Poewe|first1=Karla|last2=Hexham|first2=Irving|date=2009|title=The Völkisch Modernist Beginnings of National Socialism: Its Intrusion into the Church and Its Antisemitic Consequence|journal=Religion Compass|language=en|volume=3|issue=4|pages=676–696|doi=10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00156.x|issn=1749-8171}}</ref>

The rising nationalistic and imperialistic tensions between the European nations throughout the ''Fin de siècle'' period eventually erupted in the [[World War I|First World War]]. After Germany had lost the war and undergone the tumultuous [[German Revolution of 1918–19|German Revolution]], the ''völkisch'' movement drastically radicalized itself in [[Weimar Republic|Weimar Germany]] under the harsh terms of the [[Treaty of Versailles]], and [[Adolf Hitler]] would go on to say that "the basic ideas of [[Nazism|National-Socialism]] are ''völkisch'', just as the ''völkisch'' ideas are National-Socialist".