National Romanticism
Term that suggests the merging of national boundaries and the indigenous ‘ethnic essence’ of a nation rather than a particular school or style. National Romanticism was a mid- and late 19th-century coalescence of two potent ideologies and was linked to the struggle for political legitimacy for a circumscribed geographic region. Its tenet was that the indigenous arts, history, music and folk traditions of a nation contributed to the spiritual and political survival of its people.
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National Romanticism
Term that suggests the merging of national boundaries and the indigenous ‘ethnic essence’ of a nation rather than a particular school or style. National Romanticism was a mid- and late 19th-century coalescence of two potent ideologies and was linked to the struggle for political legitimacy for a circumscribed geographic region. Its tenet was that the indigenous arts, history, music and folk traditions of a nation contributed to the spiritual and political survival of its people. It was manifest in the arts of those countries or regions of northern and central Europe, such as Scandinavia and Germany, that were once subject to foreign domination or had experienced recent unification. Thus, National Romanticism arose in response to a sense of intrusive internationalism that was perceived to weaken a sense of unity within a single geographic group. With its sources in German Romantic philosophy, this theoretical movement was introduced in the mid-19th century to Denmark through the writings of Adam Oehlensläger (1779–1850), to Norway by Henrik Wergeland (1808–45), to Sweden by the German poet and philosopher Friedrich Leopold von Hardenberg (1772–1801) under his pseudonym Novalis and, somewhat later, to Iceland by SigurEur GuEmundsson (1833–74). The notions of Volksgeist propelling a nation’s culture expounded by JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER and Johann Gottfried Fichte (1762–1814), and the theories of HIPPOLYTE TAINE linking race and milieu, were important underpinnings for the affirmation of National Romanticism: a nation’s faith in a unified culture and in the uniqueness of its people.
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