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Internte Modern History Sourcebook
Giuseppe Mazzini:
On Nationality, 1852
Giuseppe Mazzini (18051872), the founder (1831) of Young
Italy, was perhaps the leading figure in liberal nationalism.
He saw the creation of a democratic Italian state as crucial
to Italy's development.
Europe no longer possesses unity of faith, of mission, or of aim.
Such unity is a necessity in the world. Here, then, is the secret
of the crisis. It is the duty of every one to examine and analyse
calmly and carefully the probable elements of this new unity.
But those who persist in perpetuating, by violence or by Jesuitical
compromise, the external observance of the old unity, only perpetuate
the crisis, and render its issue more violent.
There are in Europe two great questions; or, rather, the question
of the transformation of authority, that is to say, of the Revolution,
has assumed two forms; the question which all have agreed to call
social, and the question of nationalities. The first is more exclusively
agitated in France, the second in the heart of the other peoples
of Europe. I say, which all have agreed to call social, because, generally speaking, every great revolution is so
far social, that it cannot be accomplished either in the religious,
political, or any other sphere, without affecting social relations,
the sources and the distribution of wealth; but that which is
only a secondary consequence in political revolutions is now the
cause and the banner of the movement in France. The question there
is now, above all, to establish better relations between labour
and capital, between production and consumption, between the workman
and the employer.
It is probable that the European initiative, that which will give
a new impulse to intelligence and to events, will spring from
the question of nationalities. The social question may, in effect,
although with difficulty, be
partly resolved by a single people; it is an internal question
for each, and the French Republicans of 1848 so understood it,
when, determinately abandoning the European initiative, they placed
Lamartine's [Note: A French poet and politician] manifesto
by the side of their aspirations towards the organisation of labour.
The question of nationality can only be resolved by destroying
the treaties of 1815, and changing the map of Europe and its public
Law. The question of Nationalities, rightly understood,
is the Alliance of the Peoples; the balance of powers based upon
new foundations; the organisation of the work that Europe has
to accomplish.
. . .
It was not for a material interest that the people of Vienna fought
in 1848; in weakening the empire they could only lose power. It
was not for an increase of wealth that the people of Lombardy
fought in the same year; the Austrian Government had endeavoured
in the year preceding to excite the peasants against the landed
proprietors, as they had done in Gallicia; but everywhere they
had failed. They struggled, they still struggle, as do Poland,
Germany, and Hungary, for country and liberty; for a word inscribed
upon a banner, proclaiming to the world that they also live, think,
love, and labour for the benefit of all. They speak the same language,
they bear about them the impress of consanguinity, they kneel
beside the same tombs, they glory in the same tradition; and they
demand to associate freely, without obstacles, without foreign
domination, in order to elaborate and express their idea; to contribute
their stone also to the great pyramid of history. It is something
moral which they are seeking; and this moral something is in fact,
even politically speaking, the most important question in the
present state of things. It is the organisation of the European
task. It is no longer the savage, hostile, quarrelsome nationality
of two hundred years ago which is invoked by these peoples. The
nationality . . . founded upon the following principle:-Whichever
people, by its superiority of strength, and by its geographical
position, can do us an injury, is our natural enemy; whichever
cannot do us an injury, but can by the amount of its force and
by its position injure our enemy, is our natural ally, -is
the princely nationality of aristocracies or royal races. The
nationality of the peoples has not these dangers; it can only
be founded by a common effort and a common movement; sympathy
and alliance will be its result. In principle, as in the ideas
formerly laid down by the men influencing every national party,
nationality ought only to be to humanity that which the division
of labour is in a workshop-the recognised symbol of association;
the assertion of the individuality of a human group called by
its geographical position, its traditions, and its language, to
fulfil a special function in the European work of civilisation.
The map of Europe has to be remade. This is the key to the
present movement; herein lies the initiative. Before acting, the
instrument for action must be organised; before building, the
ground must be one's own. The social idea cannot be realised under
any form whatsoever before this reorganisation of Europe is effected;
before the peoples are free to interrogate themselves; to express
their vocation, and to assure its accomplishment by an alliance
capable of substituting itself for the absolutist league which
now reigns supreme.
Source:
Giuseppe Mazzini, "Europe: Its Condition and Prospects," Essays: Selected from the Writings, Literary, Political and
Religious of Joseph Mazzini, ed. William Clark (London: Walter
Scott, 1880), pp. 266, 27778, 29192.
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(c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997
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