Nationalism and the cultivation of culture

Abstract

ABSTRACT. On the basis of an extensive sample of European source material, the article investigates the meaning and importance of ‘culture’ in cultural nationalism. The author argues that European cultural nationalism in the nineteenth century followed a separate dynamic and chronology from political nationalism. Cultural nationalism involved an intense cross‐border traffic of ideas and intellectual initiatives, and its participating actors often operated extraterritorially and in multi‐national intellectual networks. This means that cultural nationalism needs to be studied on a supranational comparative basis rather than country‐by‐country, concentrating on the exchange and transfer of ideas and activities. A working model is proposed which may serve to bring these ideas and activities into focus.