Bilington again: The nationalist ideal spread throughout Europe through Napoleon, “the first ruler to base a political regime exclusively upon the nation . . . the most powerful purely national symbol that any nation has had.” Poles and Italians were inspired by the French example; Spaniards and Prussians cultivated their own nationalist movements in opposition to Napoleon. Billington comments, “By the end of his career Napoleon’s grande armee had in effect supplanted the revolutionary grande nation . That army was... Read more

Billington helpfully focuses on the issue of nationalism to describe the differences between French and American revolutionary movements. In France, nationalism was an inspiration for revolution from the beginning. La nation was “a new fraternity in which lesser loyalties as well as petty enmities were swept aside by the exultation of being born again as enfants de la patrie : children of a common fatherland. The nation was a militant ideal that was largely discovered on the jour de gloire... Read more

In his endlessly fascinating classic Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith , Librarian of Congress James Billington notes that, though ancient, the triangle of values in the slogan of the French Revolution took on “a new mystical aura” during the 18th and 19th century. He sums them up this way: Liberty was the political “ideal of security freedom through a constitutional republic.” Liberty was “defined in terms of constitutional rights and popular legislatures.” This ideal... Read more

Russia has two foundings – first, as an Orthodox Christian civilization in 988 under Prince Vladimir of Kiev; second, as a Westernizing and modernizing nation under Peter the Great in the 17th and 18th centuries. In his superb Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia , Orlando Figes describes the effect of each founding. Regarding the first: (more…) Read more