I edit for the second time the title to make it as broad as possible in content to discuss.


In a thread of Caro:
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1511-england-france-wars-and-why-did-they-not-change-the-status-quo 
we started to deviate from the subject: England-France to the seemingly impossible task to determine how the feelings of national identity were developped among the general population of a certain country and  recognized by that people as theirs (my interpretation up to now)

I edited today the title. while I saw thanks to nordmann, that it was nearly impossible to make comparisons between countries for similarities in the process of national identity forming. Each country seems to be nearly a unique case due to its history and as nordmann rightly mentioned also due to its geographie. I suppose due to other factors too. So it is not surprizing that the evolution and perhaps the result, is different in each country? And perhaps the best method is doing it with examples?

I repeat here first the two messages that nordmann and I echanged in that thread and which seem at least to me the latest in the stand of the discussion...

First: reply by PaulRyckier:

nordmann wrote:
Quote :There is no "one process fits all" description of how and when any country might be said to have acquired a "national identity".

nordmann, you will say you use another word to try to prove the same as with "process".
But I wanted to use the word "stramien" (grid?, framework?) instead of "process", because I am not sure it is completely the same.

I agree that there is no "one process fits all" description for acquiring a "national indentity", but aren't there some similarities and not superfluous ones, which have led mostly I suppose for the average population to a feeling of belonging to a state with territorial borders? And indeed this traject can be different in many ways for each specific country depending on their history, but aren't there "étapes" (steps?) in that traject that are similar in each "national" story and that at the end lead to a feeling of national identity?

I have some difficulties with the difference between the "national indentity" induced by the government of the new or old territorial countries on the population within their borders (a narration many times biased for the good of that country involved (the national novel, nearly myth) and the real feelings of the average population about the country they live in. And can in some occasions these two sides amplify each other and lead to a jingoist stance?
About the "national myth" I still remember that we in our childhood in Belgium learned that Clovis from Tournai was the man who started our national history and some fourty kilometer further my French schoolmates in France learned also that Clovis (Chlodovech (Lodewijk-Ludwig- Louis) was their man who started the history of France.

nordmann, as I understand it, you and I are, I hope, speaking about the same "national identity" namely the feelings of the average population towards the country they live in?

As about my "stramien" (framework, grid). Take now the examples of "Belgium" and the "United Kingdom and Ireland".

The former territory of Belgium was roughly spread over the county of Flanders, the duchy of Brabant, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the county of Luxemburg and the small marquisate of Namur. And as I understood it the only national identity the people used to was of belonging to the realm of their specific county, duchy or whatever?

But then came the Burgundians, who started in the County of Flanders, but then gradually obtained by marriage (and other tricks) the whole Low Countries, but the Duke of Burgundy had two suzerains the Emperor of the HRE and the French king.
The border divided vertically the nowadays Belgium. But from what I read the former duchies and counties were still a bit independent as the duke had to do the "joyous entry" to confirm that they had still the same privileges and there was already some body with which the Duke had to reckon with: the states-general (from the example of French kingdom).
But I think that the people of the Low Countries were aware and had a feeling to belonging to the Duchy of Burgund even with there respective local monarchs and local feelings. And that feeling was perhaps even more with Charles V. But with his departure to Spain and handing over the power to Philip II there seems to have been a rupture with the far away monarch in Spain and while the religious wars were raging a bit everywhere in Europe, there came a split by war between the Dutch Republik and the Southern Netherlands (rougly the area of the nowadays Belgium) and that split was confirmated with the treaty of Westfalen (1648). And by this war there came a bit of in my words an "early nationalism" of the Southern Netherlands against the Northern Dutch Republic (the South still in a system with monarchs)? And the same early nationalism in the Dutch Republic?

Now fast forward to what you called a cobbling together of Belgium. After all the monarchs passing in the Southern Netherlands, first Spanish, then Austrian there was in my opinion a trend rupture with the French revolution: the United States of Belgium. But by all that turmoil there was a kind of real feeling of a national identity around the former duchy of Brabant and a more republican approach apart from monarchies. But with Napoléon and the later French restauration and shortly afterward again an Empéreur Napoleon III, the reaction of the old fashioned kingdoms and empires was there again.

Therefore I agree that the Belgian National Congress asking a Frenchman as king was a step too far for the English, but in my opinion that cobbling together wouldn't have worked anymore in that time if the "big powers" would have obliged to join Prussia or France.I am even not sure if a split of Belgium (the former Southern Netherlands) between Great Britain and France would ever have worked due to the emerging national feelings of the Belgians.

I wanted to make the parallel between "Belgium" and the "United Kingdom and Ireland" from 1800 along the same framework.
But as I see it, if you compare the Flemish question and their national identity feelings emerging in the 19th century with the Irish question and their respectively national feelings, there is quite some difference as the Flemish movement started much later and the underlying difficulties were from another category than the revendications of the Flemish movement, which were more on a language base and on social discrimination by a French speaking elite.
But perhaps one common factor was the disdain of (in the Belgian case) the French speaking ruling elite for the plebs of dialect speaking Flemings lacking the French high cultural values?

Kind regards, Paul.

PS: I have edited the post to put apostrophes in the last paragraph around "Belgium" and the "United Kingdom and Ireland" as I did in the fifth paragraph, because it is important for the reasoning about that stage in the history of the "United Kingdom", especially as I see now that it would be the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland"?
Last edited by PaulRyckier on Tue 2 Jun 2020 - 23:24; edited 1 time in total



And then second: reply by nordmann:

So, having set out with the intention of using Belgium and Ireland to show how - as an argument against my previous point - their development as "nations" actually shared crucial common elements, and after having looked at the historical details in each case, you arrived at the conclusion that my previous post was in fact correct. Thank you.

I am fully aware of what you call the "national novel" being a common element in many countries' sense of national identity, and that it is as frequently moulded from errant history or even pure fantasy as it is applied retrospectively. However knowing that this is the case should in fact only motivate the citizen to discount these "novels" if they are serious about assessing their respective nation and, by extension, therefore what their nationality actually means as a descriptive term. And it is also worth considering that for all but the youngest child or the least cognitive adult "national myth" contributes nothing but picturesque backdrop to their sense of national status - real awareness of which is dictated, for better or worse, mostly through observation of the here and now. In some countries this process is neither hindered nor helped by knowledge of such myth, either because it so obviously deviates from history that it can be taken as little more than a fairy tale or because it so closely matches actual history that it adds nothing to the process of assessing one's nationality beyond that which one will learn anyway from standard history lessons in school.

But all this presupposes anyway that there is a strongly defined national identity to dissect and analyse in the first place. And for many states' citizens this is the very thing that is lacking. I cited England as a case in point - lately a country whose citizens are slowly becoming aware that they actually lack an identity as understood in places like France, Germany, or even Belgium for all its current problems on that front, or for that matter Scotland and Ireland - two other states politically subsumed in the past also within the "British" homogeneous identity but which appear to have retained a sense of distinct national identity that England somehow lost along the way. A few of the ex-Soviet states, even after political division from Russian hegemony in the 1990s, also now face a similar challenge. And of course genuinely "stateless" nations, from the Armenians to the Sioux, would recognise this struggle too. For all of these people, who certainly are not without considerably ornate and reasonably ancient "national novels" of their own, possession of and belief in such a myth is patently not enough. And for some, even possession of a territory with a designated border in addition to the myth is not enough either.

The issue of national identity obviously goes deeper than either superficial commonality can pretend to address. And in fact starting with such "commonality" when addressing the issue therefore doesn't seem all that sensible at all.

Which is a long-winded way of reiterating my previous point. If analysis even of current national identity cannot be served by shorthand presumptions then, at the very least, one must be very wary indeed when retrospectively assigning labels of national identity to people and events many centuries old.



And now a reply to the two previous posts:

Before we start with trying to determine what a "national identity" is, I wanted to ask if we can come to a consensus about the "trajectory", the "grid" that led in "étapes" (steps) to the still to determine "national identity"?
I said:
"And indeed this traject can be different in many ways for each specific country depending on their history, but aren't there "étapes" (steps?) in that traject that are similar in each "national" story and that at the end lead to a feeling of national identity?"

And I used as examples the history up to the nowadays "Belgium" of 1831 and the history up to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" of 1800. But in my opinion I could as good have taken as example a Japan.

I explain: With "étapes" I see a population first belonging to a local war chief, local small monarch and then these warring local monarchs come to a bigger entity with a more powerful monarch, where they gradually start to feel belonging to and not so much to the territorial country they live in?

To take the example of Europe.

The Republic of Venice and the Dutch Republic the first cracks in that system, where the population was more aware of their own specificity and independence of monarchs?
And already a recording of territorial borders and national competences in the Treaty of Westphalia in  1648? And with an impact on the respective populations?

Then the impact of the enlightenment, with the emerging awareness of the population that "they, the people" were those, who determined their future? The American, the French revolution, the United States of Belgium in 1790.
A new phase in the identifying from the population of themselves and the relation with their country they lived in?

Then the more "romantic" phase of the 19th century? 

Kind regards, Paul.

For part of the Spanish homework this week our teacher gave us the task of translating a poem which apparently has gone 'viral' about 'La historia de Iza' by Grace Ramsay supposedly from the 19th century.  Our teacher told us to google Kitty O'Meara to find what he thought was a more plausible origin for the poem.  It seems the mistake was a genuine one - the poem is a (hopeful) imagination, originally in English, of what life might be like after the Covid-19 emergency has subsided, by an American retired teacher and pastor, Kitty O'Meara, who also does some writing. It looks as though there has been some confusion as there was another Kitty O'Meara, (pen name Grace Ramsay), a Catholic Irish writer, from the 19th century who did indeed write a novel called 'Iza's Story' - and here is the connection with the idea of nationhood.  'Iza's Story' is about Polish patriots and their problems under Russian occupation and may have been written to mirror the situation in Ireland which at the time the novel was written was under British administration/jurisdiction.  Poland ceased to be as an independent nation at one time but it seems that the Poles, or some of them, still carried the notion of independence in their hearts.  Ireland doesn't seem to have to have ceased to exist as an entity but it lost its independence for a number of centuries prior to 1916.  I may have mused on this site earlier as to whether the island of Ireland was ever truly a united Ireland or Eire before 1916 or before occupation or was it more a loose federation of provinces?  (Don't jump on me too hard from a metaphoric height, nordmann, if I'm mistaken).

Edit: Had missed an - O' - out of the name of one Kitty.  I suppose I should have said 'Please don't jump....' - 'Don't jump' sounds as if I've gone into bossy mode.

LiR wrote:

I may have mused on this site earlier as to whether the island of Ireland was ever truly a united Ireland or Eire before 1916 or before occupation or was it more a loose federation of provinces?

The obvious and terse response is "define what you mean by united" - because without this definition then the even shorter answer is "yes and no".

If you use atlases and colour coding as a rough guide to which country is politically united or not then Ireland's only stint with one colour so far would, ironically enough, have been when it was officially subsumed into the British hegemony. Prior to this however the simplistic "one colour per political territory" method would have been severely challenged in Ireland's case anyway - what you see on the atlas page not being at all descriptive of the political reality on the ground.

If you took a snapshot of the island of Ireland in the 9th century (that is before even the Scandinavian involvement in Irish politics) then what you would see is a country united by a common culture, including its political culture, which retained as an essential ingredient a rather fierce resistance to one person or group assuming total control. Terms like "kingdom" and "high king" were retrospectively applied to describe its political make-up, but the reality was more akin to any country today in which political power is wielded by "warlords" or tribal leaders, who are defined as much by their opposition to competitors as their equally urgent need to compromise and cooperate. If you look at this system as a self-contained use of checks and balances that works, then one product of its success is a greater territory united in one very real sense but divided in another real sense - so take your pick.

This didn't change even after Viking intrusion, who simply ended up being just another tribal force within the system playing by the same rules. The Normans, who were the first real complication and threat to cultural hegemony, also in fact ended up more or less fitting into what passed as "politics" as dictated by Gaelic Irish rules. So even up to that point one could argue that the island still operated as a culturally united entity, one feature of which was extreme fluidity in extents of local tribal power and an aversion to general government. But once a deliberate policy of territorial expansion emanating from the English political hegemony across the water started in earnest then this semblance of unity became harder to defend in any political sense, or at least any sense according to the prevalent European model of ever-increasing monarchical centralisation of power over ever larger geopolitical territories.

Henry VIII in fact recognised this unity in a rather back-handed way when he openly described his own increase in these efforts regarding expansion of control over Ireland as "divide and conquer", his "surrender and regrant" tactic of buying fealty from 16th century Irish tribal leaders making no distinction at all between those who were pure Gaelic, proudly Norman-English, or any shade in between. Henry at least pragmatically saw the island as more unified than fractured in a political sense and purposefully set out to cause fractures where he could.

It was in Henry's reign (and then even more under Mary and Elizabeth) that the county and provincial definitions as they apply today were first imposed on the Irish map (Ireland lost the provinces of Breffni and Greater Meath in the process). So even though the counties etc are indeed based on old tribal divisions in name at least, it would be wrong to think of Ireland prior to English administration in those terms. This wasn't how local leaders necessarily defined their holdings in the Gaelic system, the provinces of Munster and Ulster being more descriptive of theatres of conflict and control than of "kingdoms" in any typical European sense of the period.

Having read Paul's confusingly assembled post above I think he's also struggling with the application of simplistic terminology to quite complex processes that don't actually lend themselves to discussions about "nation forming" or "unity" in any modern geopolitical sense. He's looking for points of common procedure in the formation of countries, whereas in fact the key to understanding the process - I reckon - is not to fall into the trap of looking for commonality but instead take each modern state and work backwards. For every point of commonality one thinks one finds doing this one will also find as many if not more points of uniqueness in each country's history, especially when one goes as far back in history as when use of even the country's name to denote a corresponding geopolitical entity in the same general area simply no longer makes sense. Ireland is a case in point, but then nearly every country is its own case in point when you think about it, and each for unique historical reasons.

In my original version of my above comment I had included a proviso that the idea of nationality (as nordmann had already mentioned above) was a difficult one to define but my machine threw a wobbly twice and on my third attempt at posting I just put the skeleton of my idea without elaborating.  I know - I should have typed my thoughts on a Wordpad (or some similar application) document and then copied it on to the Res Historica site so I didn't lose it.

nordmann, thank you very much for your indirect referring to my message and that you didn't jump, as LiR asked, from  a metaphoric height.
And I agree now (at least )  that there are perhaps more specificities in a country's way to national identity than similarities. And as such we have to try then to determine that national consciousness perhaps in each of the present "recognized" nation-states within their territorial borders for lack of a better solution? And let it to the readers to compare how they want it?
I for instance can give some inside information how the "Belgian" national identity is formed, although some say that there is no "Belgian" identity . But I will nevertheless give it a trial to identify what there exists  ...
Perhaps others can do it for a country that they know about...Nielsen's Denmark...? Dirk for what he still knows from the Netherlands...?

nordmann, as I for the  first time studied the history of Ireland (and you just added again a bit to LiR) i recognize now a lot of episodes that you told us here on this board.
As I came on a papal bull
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudabiliter
a kind of a crusade to replace that "special" Irish Church back in the harness of the Roman Church?
And it was a certain Mac Murrough, who brought the Normans there?
I recall that you alluded to some pagan intermix during the Irish Church? in a discussion with me about paganism. And then with the coming of the new evangelisation along the Roman Rite some troubles?? Or was that much earlier than the 12th century?

Kind regards, Paul.

We could discuss Irish history, but the particular random features of that history you mention are not at all germane to the the thread title you chose yourself.

In terms of forging a "national identity" Ireland's geography played as big a role (if not more) than its history. It wasn't so much that Ireland avoided invasion (it patently didn't) but over the millennia right up to the late middle ages that which distinguished Ireland from European counterparts was that its relative inaccessibility had a huge impact on the nature of each invasion and the propensity for assimilation of the invader on each occasion. This allowed preservation of ancient culture well beyond the point where other European territories, including Britain, had undergone radical cultural change, and often several such changes. It shares this feature with other relatively remote geographical areas, so in that sense was not unique, though of course the particular culture it preserved happened to be one that once had been relatively common across Western Europe but now had retreated into small pockets of which Ireland was the largest, and this certainly rendered it very unique indeed for a considerable length of time. Where the same "Celtic" culture had hung on elsewhere in Europe close proximity across land borders meant that those still immersed in that culture could not ignore their relative vulnerability and "minority" status, a factor that contributed to a particular sense of national identity in those quarters. The Irish however, in the absence for so long of this proximity-with-threat relationship with others of different cultures could regard their own as a hegemony in its own right, a feature that certainly contributed to quite a different sense of identity indeed in their case.

The Normans (whether "introduced" by McMurrough or not - that whole business was a little bit more complex than one man's actions) actually served to demonstrate just how resilient this hegemony had evolved to become by the 11th century. It was Normans who introduced what had been an alien and unwanted system of feudal society based on an infrastructure of huge amounts of land in private ownership, and did so backed up by a military machine far more effective and ruthless than anything the island had encountered before. This was what they did everywhere they went, and it was spectacularly successful a method of establishing rapid and unmoveable dominance. However within only a few generations the Norman sub-society (it had never acquired total dominance) had begun to be assimilated so much into the Gaelic culture that many of its more prominent members - when regarded by their English based counterparts - were deemed indistinguishable from their Gaelic neighbours. "More Irish than the Irish themselves" was a phrase we learnt in school to describe this phenomenon of the middle ages, but what we weren't taught in school was that the phrase was coined by a very frustrated Archbishop of Canterbury who had been dismayed to find that Norman Irish bishops attending a synod he was chairing turned up wearing mantles and speaking Gaelic (it was cold, and the lads obviously wanted to slag off their English colleagues without being understood).

Subsequent historical events that eventually dismantled this hegemony with ancient roots are well known, and not strictly relevant here. But suffice to say that it took considerable and sustained expense and effort to achieve it. However though the achievement at least delivered a territory and people as dominion to the English crown, what proved a harder nut to crack was dismantling of the "Irish identity" (this was openly an aim of many English regimes). Again the geography contributed to the equation, and apart from outright genocide could never have fully succeeded anyway. And if history tells us anything about such situations elsewhere, repeated attempts at eliminating a culture which all ultimately fail will also tend to promote rather than dilute the targeted community's sense of identity too. If that community also happens to occupy an entire island then whether it corresponds to national aspirations or not the resulting hardening of that identity will at least correspond to the geography. And it has.

nordmann, I changed the title, which I hope fits now these messages.

nordmann, thank you very much for this comment on Irish national identity.
When I have time I will try the same, as promised, for the Belgian national identity.

And yes you are right, when you said:
"And if history tells us anything about such situations elsewhere, repeated attempts at eliminating a culture which all ultimately fail will also tend to promote rather than dilute the targeted community's sense of identity too."

I saw it in the Belgian history too...

Kind regards, Paul.

Trial for identification of feelings of Belgian national identity among the average Belgian.

The first entity of a "Belgian" circumscription appeared as part of the Burgundian Circle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgundian_Circle



And there they were part of the Seventeen Provinces
"de landen van herwaarts over" (les pays de par deçà)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_Low_Countries



After the religious wars there emerged a split with a Dutch Republic of the Seven Provinces on one side and the rest of the Spanish Netherlands at the other side. A kind of a "rest-dependence from Spain " in 1648 under Philip IV.
But in the meantime during that 80 years war and the evolution of the war, in the South there was already grown a kind of feeling of being apart of the new Dutch Republic, by the religious war many Protestants; especially from Antwerp (and as in France it were many times the most productive and entrepreneur like people, who parted to the North.
Also under Albert and Isabella as by the three years siège of Ostend there was a lot of public relations for the sake of the Spanish rulers. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Ostend
And above that the Jesuites added a renewed apartness feeling from the North by their "counter-reformation"

After the War of Spanish Succession the rest Spanish Netherlands were given by the big powers of that time to Austria and in the meantime the Southern Netherlands were roughly reduced to the shape of the nowadays Belgium-Luxemburg, because the expansionist French Louis XIV had taken his part around Artois.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Austrian-Netherlands
The future Belgians were rather happy in the beginning with the Austrians, especially with Maria Theresia, who did a lot for the Southern Netherlands, especially economical. They later came in dispute with the enlightened Joseph II, who was too authoritarian for the freedom loving South, and still after all those years an assembly of "provinces" in which with the Brabant Revolution came I suppose for the first time more unity. 
And after a short Austrian restauration we are already with the French occupation from the French revolutionaries and later Napoléon Bonaparte.
As usual during such times you had a lot of "collaborateurs" with the regime for all kind of reasons going from conviction to truly opportunism.

Then after a short intermezzo, where the British in the Congress of Vienna after the fall of Napoléon in 1815 had given the Southern Netherlands for own opportunistic reasons to the new Dutch king (the first king of the Dutch Republic after the French usurpator) there was in 1830 the Belgian Revolution against the new Dutch king.
When there was a provisional government for the Southern Netherlands now called Belgium, the British acted again in correlation with the other big powers for their own interests and recognized the new provisional government. (I find it still surprizing that France was still allowed to play the role of big power then).


And now in that new Belgian Kingdom, what was the feeling of national identity?


From what I read there was in the beginning years under Léopold I (that guy that the British had in surplus after the death in childbirth of a British heir apparent) a kind of growing national feeling, especially on the background of anti-Dutch feelings.
But rapidly there came turmoil in a kind of Romantic upheaval from the Flemish dialect speaking common man against the French speaking upper society (French speaking upper society spread over the whole Belgium)

Thanks to Léopold I a young writer, who wanted to write in Dutch, was brought in the Belgian cultural world and a Léopold I, who wanted to soften perhaps the contradictions between the Flemish speaking population and the French speaking bourgeoisie ordered even that his first Dutch language work : "'t Wonderjaer" should be added to the libraries of every Belgian school.
But indirectly Léopold, perhaps without knowing it, added to the becoming of strenght of the Flemish movement.
A Flemish movement that, although social and language based, was also Romantic Nationalism as was the European trend.
And as such the same romantic nationalism as with which Belgium was born.
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_nationalism#:~:text=Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism,unity of those it governs.]Romantic Nationalism[/url]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Conscience
From the wiki:
"During the 19th century, many nationalist-minded writers, poets and artists in various European countries were turning characters from their countries' respective histories and myths into romantic icons of national pride. With The Lion of Flanders Conscience did this successfully with the character of Robert of Bethune, the eldest son of Guy de Dampierre, count of Flanders, crusader and, most importantly from Conscience's point of view, a prominent protagonist in a struggle to maintain the authonomy of Flanders against great odds."

This so called "Flemish emancipation struggle" has since the end of the 19th century coloured the Belgian history. And gradually the Flemish region has had its emancipation. And from that continuous struggle came, after a first French language Belgian reaction, a Walloon reaction with an in my opinion less vigorous Walloon nationalism, which is now recently seeking a band with the Brussels region to form a whole French language entity. And yes this reaction comes also while the roles of the two communities are reversed, due to the economical boom of the North of Belgium after WWII.  Now the Flemish nationalists are boasting: we are the ones, who support the poor Walloons. A bit the same haugthy attitude as from the French speaking bourgeoisie from before WWI.


At the end you will ask me: and what is now that feeling of Belgian national identity?

I suppose from all what I read and saw during my life that that feeling is not that great, perhaps a bit more among the French speaking Belgian population than among the population of the Flemish region? Certainly it is in my humble opinion not as in the other surrounding countries and perhaps rather pragmatic. As about the monarchy, I think that all Belgians are alike in that matter, no stuff as in the Netherlands and Britain... 
And I am glad that in very recent time there araise again voices from the "middle", who seek after all that "decentralisation", again for some more "recentralisation".
Perhaps at the end still a feeling of Belgian identity   ? ...


PS: This morning again upset as the partner was occasionally looking to an in my eyes stupid film about the British monarchy on a "the Sun" like TV channel...and I had already seen another time a glimpse of the film and knew how stupid it was...and I see now as I really from far thought that it was British... ...
and before I gave it as example I lucky checked   ...
No it couldn't be that the British were that stupid...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%26_Kate:_The_Movie
Was it this one where William protected Kate against the lion?
Yes, I wouldn't want to be part of the British royal family...I would understand if they find it a "rotjob" (I don't find any translation. "rotten job"?).

Kind regards, Paul.

The British royal family get quite a handsome sum from the Civil List to compensate them for the goldfish bowl existence.  That said, I don't know that I'd want all that attention.

In a gmail email account I have, I get recommendations from a site called Quora about articles detracting a certain Duchess.  I don't know why because it's (Quora) supposed - or at least WAS supposed - to be a site about sensible subjects. I think it started off as a site where people asked questions about serious subjects and if people could answer them they would do so without expecting financial reward but now the site has become 'monetised'.  I'm not sure how it works.  Still I don't have to click on anything if I don't want to.

Getting back to the essence of this thread, there are so many different countries/nationalities even in Europe that it is going to be impossible to cover every nationality - or ethnic group that feels itself to be a nationality.  I'm not knowledgeable at all about the different parts of China which is a vast country.  I don't know how much national feelings apply in diverse parts of China.

Some micro-states that existed not so very long ago have been absorbed into larger states.  I may have mentioned before that when I was working in the museum the places given as the location where some specimens were collected no longer exist as independent entities. Thuringia was one such though that might have been more than a micro-state.  I was told to retain the original place name when filling in the online form.  makes sense because it was supposed to be a transfer of the registers into online form and not an improvement.  I'm sure I read something about some countries having once had internal customs posts within their borders.  That might be on this site but my luck is still somewhat hit and miss when I carry out searches on this site - even with the google method.  Sometimes it works well but on other occasions I don't have any luck.

Thuringia is still very much in existence: along with Bavaria, Saxony, Hesse and others, it's a one of the sixteen semi-sovereign states (Länder) of the Federal Republic of Germany. Federalism is one of the entrenched constitutional principles of Germany and so while some topics, such as foreign affairs and defence, are the exclusive responsibility of the federation (ie administered at the federal level), the individual states retain legislative authority in many areas such as financial promotion of arts and sciences, education, job training and healthcare. For example the recent covid lockdown was administered at the state level, with the states imposing their own regulations (although broadly common across the country) but then easing the restrictions at different times on a state by state basis.

"It's nice to be a Preiss
But it's higher to be a Bayer ..."

One of the first things I learnt when living in Bavaria. It would be many years before I heard how it's completed further west;

"... and the uppermost rank
Is to be a Frank"

I've read a lot since then about the history and nature of German unification in the late 19th century but this little ditty, conveniently packaged in English to make sure foreigners also got the point, probably says all you really need to know about why a so-called "unified" Germany will always work best as a federation.

I've never heard that poem as a memory aid, nordmann.  I could have looked up Thuringia on Google, MM.  In my defence I'll reiterate that I've had some chill-like symptoms this week so not been bright-eyed and bushy tailed.  I looked up Saxe-Coburg-Gotha on the world wide web and see that it was a duchy in Bavaria.

This is an interesting display. https://bronglais.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-renewal-of-aberystwyths-small-nation.html

Memory aid? If it's a memory aid then it's one used by Bavarians to remind themselves that they're not to be confused with the other bloody shower.

Even Hitler hit a snag with Bavaria - he was very much a Bayer at heart and knew all too well that he was on to a loser if he appointed a "Preiss" (Austrian slang for Prussian) to any local high office there. With each successive clean-out of his "rank and file" over the years however he was losing a disproportionate amount of bolshy Bayers and ending up with a surplus of prissy Preiss in the top rungs of his crew. Prussians, he observed, were excellent at following orders whereas Bayrisch officers were much better equipped to follow trails to beer cellars. However it was as a bolshy Bayer on a beer cellar crawl that he also had begun his own illustrious career, and the more he froze them out (or just plain stiffed them) the more he knew that he was leaving himself open to be viewed as a bloody hypocrite by the good folk back in Bayern, the "salt of the earth" people he reckoned himself one of. This played on his conscience something rotten by all accounts - it's amazing how that man actually prioritised his worries.

Green George wrote:

This is an interesting display. https://bronglais.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-renewal-of-aberystwyths-small-nation.html

Interesting indeed. They seem to have simply side-stepped the Northern Ireland issue completely. Or maybe they'd had the flag there once but found they simply got fed up with supplying free firewood and linen for some lucky inhabitant with Celtic leanings.

nordmann wrote:

Memory aid? If it's a memory aid then it's one used by Bavarians to remind themselves that they're not to be confused with the other bloody shower.

Even Hitler hit a snag with Bavaria - he was very much a Bayer at heart and knew all too well that he was on to a loser if he appointed a "Preiss" (Austrian slang for Prussian) to any local high office there. With each successive clean-out of his "rank and file" over the years however he was losing a disproportionate amount of bolshy Bayers and ending up with a surplus of prissy Preiss in the top rungs of his crew. Prussians, he observed, were excellent at following orders whereas Bayrisch officers were much better equipped to follow trails to beer cellars. However it was as a bolshy Bayer on a beer cellar crawl that he also had begun his own illustrious career, and the more he froze them out (or just plain stiffed them) the more he knew that he was leaving himself open to be viewed as a bloody hypocrite by the good folk back in Bayern, the "salt of the earth" people he reckoned himself one of. This played on his conscience something rotten by all accounts - it's amazing how that man actually prioritised his worries.

 
Yes nordmann, we the Bavarians and the other Germans...
In fact in the future Germany there were but two big countries: Prussia and Bavaria?

Kind regards, Paul.

nordmann wrote:

Green George wrote:

This is an interesting display. https://bronglais.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-renewal-of-aberystwyths-small-nation.html

Interesting indeed. They seem to have simply side-stepped the Northern Ireland issue completely. Or maybe they'd had the flag there once but found they simply got fed up with supplying free firewood and linen for some lucky inhabitant with Celtic leanings.

 
As everybody knows here on the site, nordmann, I am not in favour of all these sub-nationalities and sub-sub-nationalities. I am for the status quo, even a stronger refederalisation or reregionalisation. As in Belgium it is then up to the federal government to seek for a further economic and social re-equilibration of its constituting regions on federal level.

Even as for Belgium the same for the three countries of the Benelux and further on to a kind of enlarged Euro region of the Benelux, France and Germany. It's a pity that the fourth component of it: Great Britain and Northern Ireland will not be part anymore of it. Now it will be only the Irish Republic instead of a greater Union of Britain and the whole Irish "isle"...How much better would it have been with Britain and Ireland included...
And then further enlarged to the whole European Union  ...
 
Kind regards, Paul.

I imagine nordmann saying 'A memory aid' in the same tone Lady Bracknell says 'A Handbag!' in The Importance of Being Ernest.


Paul, I remember now there was some mention of the Walon language when the romance language/Germanic language border(s) was (were) discussed and MM mentioned a film about someone from outside the region visiting the part of France that is considered the land of the "T'Chi" (not tai-chi and I'm not sure if I have the correct spelling).

I did a bit of reading (online) yesterday about this gentleman  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Coudenhove-Kalergi.

He seems to have been an interesting character and envisioned the possibility of something like the EU years before it came to fruition.  I don't know if he has been mentioned before but I'm a tad hesitant to discuss him because his work seems to have been seized on by tinfoil hatters which is a pity because as I say, from the (limited - very) articles I have read about him he appears to have had some intriguing ideas (not saying I'd agree with everything he said).  But I don't want to bring tinfoil hatters to the site.

Deleted.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Paul, I remember now there was some mention of the Walon language when the romance language/Germanic language border(s) was (were) discussed and MM mentioned a film about someone from outside the region visiting the part of France that is considered the land of the "T'Chi" (not tai-chi and I'm not sure if I have the correct spelling).

The film was 'Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis' which is translated into English as 'Welcome to the Sticks', although strictly it's welcome to the home of les Ch'tis, where les Ch'tis is the slang name for the French people from the North-West close to the Belgian frontier who habitually pronounce 's' as a soft French 'ch' (sounding like an English 'sh'), hence the confusion over 'c'était le sien' (it was his) sounding like 'c'était le chien' (it was the dog). NB the English subtitles do not exactly translate the French because they need to maintain the spirit of the wordplay, hence the lines become 'it was the office', 'it was the fish?, 'yeh, the offish'.

Thanks for the link, MM.  I could give the film a whirl if I can find it while I'm confined to base with the Covid-19 crisis.

By the way, when I say I imagine nordmann speaking like Lady Bracknell I should clarify I mean like a male equivalent of Lady Bracknell.  It's the tone of disapproval of Lady B as she intones 'a handbag!' that I was thinking of.

Deleted.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Thanks for the link, MM.  I could give the film a whirl if I can find it while I'm confined to base with the Covid-19 crisis.

By the way, when I say I imagine nordmann speaking like Lady Bracknell I should clarify I mean like a male equivalent of Lady Bracknell.  It's the tone of disapproval of Lady B as she intones 'a handbag!' that I was thinking of.

 
LiR,

I have somewhere the complete film with English subtitels overhere on the board. I will seek it this evening.
And thanks MM for mentioning it.

Kind regards to both from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Thanks for the link, MM.  I could give the film a whirl if I can find it while I'm confined to base with the Covid-19 crisis.

By the way, when I say I imagine nordmann speaking like Lady Bracknell I should clarify I mean like a male equivalent of Lady Bracknell.  It's the tone of disapproval of Lady B as she intones 'a handbag!' that I was thinking of.

 
LiR,

I have somewhere the complete film with English subtitels overhere on the board. I will seek it this evening.
And thanks MM for mentioning it.

Kind regards to both from Paul.

 
No, LiR, finished with looking for free...in the time you could look on dailymotion or youtube at least for a time from people who had downloaded the film. I think even that the Canadian TV gave it on youtube, but as I see that video is also erased from the net. 
Now you have to pay 3 Euro on youtube or on google play...and I can't even pay online...

KInd regards, Paul.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I did a bit of reading (online) yesterday about this gentleman  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_von_Coudenhove-Kalergi.

He seems to have been an interesting character and envisioned the possibility of something like the EU years before it came to fruition.  I don't know if he has been mentioned before but I'm a tad hesitant to discuss him because his work seems to have been seized on by tinfoil hatters which is a pity because as I say, from the (limited - very) articles I have read about him he appears to have had some intriguing ideas (not saying I'd agree with everything he said).  But I don't want to bring tinfoil hatters to the site.

LiR,

thank you very much for this link about a guy I had never heard from up to now. What one learns here every day on this board.

After reading the link, I have to agree that he really was a prominent figure, who has moved something in the European history.
That said I am always a bit reluctant for influencing people from the "royalty corner" as for instance an Otto von Habsburg...I have the impression that they, even the learned ones, think along a special way...
For instance from the wiki:
"He favored social democracy as an improvement on "the feudal aristocracy of the sword" but his ambition was to create a conservative society that superseded democracy with "the social aristocracy of the spirit."^[14] European freemason lodges supported his movement, including the lodge Humanitas.^[15] Pan-Europa was translated into the languages of European countries (excluding Italian, which edition was not published at that time) and a multitude of other languages, except for Russian.^[16]"

A democracy from above? "the social aristocracy of the spirit": the "messing around" (gerotzooi) of an elitary supremacy of "we", who think that "they only" have the wisdom in lease?

Kind regards from Paul.

I see what you mean Paul - I'm putting the quote from your words below because when I tried to put it at the front I couldn't make my wording distinct from the quote.  Yes, I can see what you mean about it being suspect.  I remember the idea of 'trickle down' in the days of Mrs M Thatcher as Prime Minister - if the people who were already well off were rewarded the rewards would trickle down to the poor folk underneath.  Not that that was how the people who promoted the idea would have said it worked (I'm dubious that it would work actually).  Reading now that the Count's ideas were favoured by one type of freemasons I can see why that might have rankled with some other folk.  Most of my education was at Catholic schools and we were taught to avoid freemasons like the plague.  I've also heard some people put forward a belief that freemasons worship the devil (mind you I've heard that said about Catholics in some quarters!!!!).  I know that most people visiting this site don't believe in an evil entity - I'm just saying what I've heard and read.  Then there are other people who say the freemasons are like a more modern version of a medieval guild - that they look after their members.

"A democracy from above? "the social aristocracy of the spirit": the "messing around" (gerotzooi) of an elitary supremacy of "we", who think that "they only" have the wisdom in lease?"

LadyinRetirement wrote:

 Reading now that the Count's ideas were favoured by one type of freemasons I can see why that might have rankled with some other folk.  Most of my education was at Catholic schools and we were taught to avoid freemasons like the plague.  I've also heard some people put forward a belief that freemasons worship the devil (mind you I've heard that said about Catholics in some quarters!!!!).  I know that most people visiting this site don't believe in an evil entity - I'm just saying what I've heard and read.  

 
LiR,

yes "freemasons". I think we had already this subject here on the boards. At least I did I think a lot of research for these boards about the Belgian Freemasons...Our Léopold I was one of them (that one that the British royalty had in "surplus" after the death in childbirth of Charlotte...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward,_Duke_of_Kent_and_Strathearn

Yes dear Lady in retirement, you and I had an education in Catholic schools...as I suppose also our "nordmann" (I don't know if they were there in Ireland worser than overhere, but at least I recognize all what you said about your Catholic school there in England)

You said:

Quote :

Then there are other people who say the freemasons are like a more modern version of a medieval guild - that they look after their members.

I think I can see why they say so:
Yes a medieval guild is also a kind of "corporation", a kind of a brotherhood (it were these corporations that the pope mentioned in his "Rerum novarum", later usurpated by the Italian Fascists...
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Fascist-Self-Political-Interwar/dp/0801484200
See page 60 (if you seek with the title on google books you come to it. I tried with the "insert a link", b ut it didn't work because it took my own long google search link, which don't work with the system)

You said:

Quote :

I've also heard some people put forward a belief that freemasons worship the devil (mind you I've heard that said about Catholics in some quarters!!!!).  I know that most people visiting this site don't believe in an evil entity - I'm just saying what I've heard and read.

LiR, yes those Catholic nuns and priests had brought that in "some quarters". Perhaps those quarters had it from some other sources. Conspiracy believers are a bit like all other believers...

No, just brotherhoods with some "rules" ...and you have everywhere "brotherhoods" as the ones around the nowadays Bresilian president...I suppose that even those around Trump are more democratic...The brotherhood around the Russian Putin? I read about the one, who did the special operations in Libya...Margaret Thatcher's family comes to mind...

And even in Putin's Russia or in nowadays China you can not see what the people think in the inner of themselves, even brainwashing of the American Pows couldn't bring them so far as stopping to think for their own...
Even now with all these antiracial turmoil, it is not sure that people start to think otherwise on their inner own. It can be that it even works contraproductive for a lot of people as in the US as for instance overhere in Belgium. Again some gains for the Far Right as here in Belgium and I suppose also in Trump's US?

Kind regards, Paul.

Ok, now I have lost all understanding based on your (already vague) re-edited thread title and whatever the hell you want to actually discuss based on your subsequent comments on your own thread. I'll leave you and LiR in happy conference about freemasons and politely back away.

Why am I running this site? (And yes, Temp, I spotted the remarks before they were deleted - ha ha, bouncy cat etc )

Bouncy cat? What bouncy cat?  Oh, that bouncy cat!

I'm sorry, nordmann - no lèse majesté intended, honest. It just made me laugh, the thought of how we all wilt (except Priscilla, of course) when we think we have said something you find a tad stupid.  

I was thinking of starting a thread about statues - what with all the brouhaha going on about such things. I've been reading today that there is a Latin expression for such erasing of history: damnatio memoriae. Also read that the Romans used to have statues made with detachable heads so that, in the fairly likely event of a famous person falling from favour, the head could be quickly and efficiently replaced with that of someone else. Can this be true?

But if I am in deep shit re you sounding on occasion like the redoubtable Lady B., I had better not. But no offence was intended - that's why I deleted it. Also my silliness interrupted the thread - just as I am doing now.

No doubt the thread will wilt in any case if an insufficient number of people find it of interest.  I've read the marks in witches' caves thread but not commented because I don't have knowledge or experience on that subject.  I do read some of the more serious threads without commenting.

Whatever theme Paul was pursuing I'm pretty sure even he would have found it difficult to predict that the above was to be the final comment. Hence mine ...

Paul, will you change the title yet again so we know what we're talking about? (Leave out witches' caves, just to be on the safe side)

I had something to contribute about how nationalism was defined in Germany in the 1860s, but I'm no longer sure this is the thread - I can't even begin to think of a link with freemasonry and witches).

nordmann, changing the title? Whatever you want, as long as we can deviate from the subject to Saxon-Coburg Gothas and freemasons (for instance: Leopold I of Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, first king of Belgium).

"Definition of nationalism in a country. Countries as example?"

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul, I think nordmann was being somewhat disapproving of the thread.  I mentioned another thread - I won't say which one as it was mentioned by me very recently - to try and illustrate that I don't just go for light-hearted banter on this site but clearly it didn't work.

I will have to try and find the poem about the Preiss and other Germans.  I'll have learned something from the thread that way