Friday, January 4, 2013

Compare Ernest Renan's What is a Nation to Giuseppe Mazzini's Duties of Man in regards to the subject of nationalism? How are they the same and how are they different?

In his 1862 lecture, Ernest Renan posed the question, "what is a nation?", to rekindle the spirit of the French Revolution. He believed in the collective identity that drew people together. He saw a nation as more than a set of ethnic, racial, religious, or linguistic groups, actually downplaying race. Shared history and the will to pass their stories on to future generations were the core soul and spirit that constitute a nation.


Giuseppe Mazzini, a prominent 19th-century Italian nationalist, was a founder of Young Italy and a proponent of the Risurgimento unity movement. His political activism, including revolutionary plots, led to periods of exile and leadership. Mazzini is credited with laying the groundwork for Garibaldi’s 1860 Sicily expedition that led to unifying the south.


Mazzini is also credited with applying culture as the defining trait of nationalism. He saw the central theme of nationalism as the sharing of language, customs, tradition, and history as well as geographic boundaries.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernest-Renan

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giuseppe-Mazzini

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