Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Revisiting Prussia’s Wars against Napoleon
- Part One A History of Defeat, Crisis and Victory
- Part Two Discourses on the Nation, War and Gender
- 4 Mobilizing Public Opinion
- 5 Defining the Nation
- 6 Debating War
- 7 Regulating Participation
- Conclusion
- Part Three Collective Practices of De/Mobilization and Commemoration
- Part Four Literary Market, History and War Memories
- Part Five Novels, Memory and Politics
- Epilogue Historicizing War and Memory, 2013–1813–1913
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Plate section
- References
5 - Defining the Nation
Belonging and Exclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2015
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- List of Figures and Maps
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Revisiting Prussia’s Wars against Napoleon
- Part One A History of Defeat, Crisis and Victory
- Part Two Discourses on the Nation, War and Gender
- 4 Mobilizing Public Opinion
- 5 Defining the Nation
- 6 Debating War
- 7 Regulating Participation
- Conclusion
- Part Three Collective Practices of De/Mobilization and Commemoration
- Part Four Literary Market, History and War Memories
- Part Five Novels, Memory and Politics
- Epilogue Historicizing War and Memory, 2013–1813–1913
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
One of the few poems from the wars of 1813–15 still known today is Arndt’s “The German’s Fatherland,” which was written in early 1813 and became a kind of German national anthem. No poem was reprinted and recited more frequently during this era. Wherever people wished to demonstrate national belonging they chose this poem, which was soon also set to music. It begins with the rhetorical question “What is the German’s Fatherland?” For Arndt, the answer was obvious. The “German fatherland” should extend to everywhere that “the German tongue rings out.” There, the same virtues and customs would prevail:
There is the German’s fatherland!
Where oaths attest the grasped hand,
Where truth beams from the sparkling eyes,
And in the heart love warmly lies.
That is the land!
There, brother, is thy fatherland!
That is the German’s fatherland,
Where wrath pursues the foreign band,
Where every Frank is held a foe,
And Germans all as brothers glow.
That is the land!
All Germany’s thy fatherland!
In this song, Arndt defines the main objective of the patriots: to reestablish the external and internal unity of the German nation. In addition to military liberation from French domination, this primarily meant a return to the German language, culture and virtues as well as the Christian faith, which together formed German identity. The song’s popularity suggests that Arndt’s vision of the German fatherland struck a chord with many of his educated contemporaries.
In this chapter I explore in more detail how the nation and national identity were defined in the discourse of the era. Apart from the topical literature of the time, I survey encyclopedias, since they provide information on how terms and concepts commonly used at a time were defined and understood especially in middle- and upper-class circles, where most readers of lexica stemmed from. First, I explore the changing definitions of Nation, Volk (people) and Vaterland (fatherland) then I analyze the gendering of the national discourse and examine the contemporary debates over the national, ethnic and racial borders of the nation.
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- Revisiting Prussia's Wars against NapoleonHistory, Culture, and Memory, pp. 99 - 129Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015