The Concept of Europe in the 19th Century: A Historical Analysis

Extract

[...] In the case of the 19th century, the banality of the dates that define it does not contradict the purely formal nature of the procedure. Neither the year of the beginning nor the year of the end of the century stand out as eventful cessions. Discussions about 'long' and 'short' centuries are very popular. Many historians prefer the idea of a 'long 19th century' that would go from the start of the French Revolution in 1789 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. [...]

[...] Historians, particularly when they are French or German, often make the 19th century the era of nationalism and the nation-state. Empires are a phenomenon that has appeared very early in Eurasia, dating back to the third millennium before our era, which has allowed the concept to accumulate meanings in many different cultural contexts. The nation-state, on the other hand, is a latecomer on the Western European scene. The nation-state is a state in which the nation, as a totality of citizens of the state, constitutes. [...]

[...] The powers rivaled each other and showed little consideration for the small European states perceived as potential troublemakers. The idea of a plural concert of European states, regardless of their size, which already figured in the peace projects of the Enlightenment and which is at the foundation of European unification since 1957, was not thinkable at the end of the 19th century. In the so-called 'age of nation-states', the largest and most important actors in international politics were empires. It was not just British foreign policy that was subject to centrifugal forces in relation to Europe. [...]

[...] The question of the extent and temporal form of a century is therefore far from rhetorical. Van Besien makes the long 19th century, which began in the 1770s at the start of the 1920s, end at the time of the transition to a post-war global era, when new techniques and pre-1914 ideologies. The 19th century tended to stand out from the nomenclature of eras. Whatever boundaries are assigned to it, almost all historians consider it a distinct era, impossible to name. [...]

[...] Even the category 'Europe' did not have the clear contours in the 19th century that one might be tempted to attribute to it. Certainly, Europe was perceived as a historical unit with both a relative uniformity and internal differences. A general form of 'European consciousness' going beyond a Christian self-definition had more or less taken shape in certain elites during the Enlightenment and had generalized at the latest by the Napoleonic era. However, in the first half of the 19th century, one conceived of several Europes in a contradictory way according to the spatial vision of some and others: - The Europe of the Napoleonic imperialism, organized and thought from a central core, which went from Tours to Munich, from Amsterdam to Milan, the rest being the 'intermediate zones' or the outer ring of the empire. [...]