The age of revolution (1830- 1848)

The period between 1830 and 1848 was marked by a lot of tensions and turmoil in Europe. Europe had witnessed the dramatic rise of two philosophies, liberalism and conservatism. The liberal nationalists or the educated middle class planned ways to overthrow monarchy and bring in a government of the people. Europe hence saw a series of revolutions in Italy, Germany, Poland, Turkey and Ireland.

In 1821 in the Greek war of independence, the Greeks began a nationalist movement. Several poets (Lord Byron) and artists supported the Greek war against the Ottoman Empire. After the war, the Treaty of Constantinople was signed in 1832 and recognized Greece as an independent nation.

In 1830 the Bourbon dynasty, restored in 1815 during the conservatives’ reaction, was overthrown by liberal revolutionaries. The French revolution of 1830 is also known as the July Revolution.

In the 19th century, art, culture and literature helped in instilling the feeling of nationalism and also infusing the idea of a nation. After the French revolution, there was rise of a literary and cultural movement called romanticism, which sought to develop nationalist sentiment. This national sentiment was mobilised by artists by using the common language, or vernacular, and popular folk arts that people understood and identified with.

Writers, poets, painters and musicians of the romantic era stressed on individualism, nationalism, feeling, imagination and emotion as opposed to reason and science.