The dream of the nation: Sorrieu and Renan

Detail

Who was Sorrieu, and what did he draw

• Frédéric Sorrieu was a French artist. He was born 17 January 1807 in Paris and died 25 September 1887. He worked as a designer, engraver and lithographer (an artist who prints pictures from a flat stone). [2]
• In 1848 he made a series of four prints. They show his dream: a world made up of 'democratic and social Republics'.
• "Democratic and social Republic" was a real slogan of 1848, not just art. In France that year, people split into two camps — those who wanted only a democratic republic, and those who wanted a democratic and social republic (a republic that also fixed the poverty of workers). This second demand led to a workers' insurrection in Paris. [3]
• Note the word dream. In 1848 almost none of these republics existed. Sorrieu drew a hope, not a map.

What the first print shows

• The marchers: the peoples of Europe and America walk in a long line, one nation after another.
• How you spot each nation: by its flag and its national costume. There are no name labels. The flag is the name.
• The statue of Liberty: a woman stands at the centre-left of the picture. She holds two things —
• the torch of Enlightenment (the light of reason and new ideas), and

• the Charter of the Rights of Man (the French declaration of basic rights).

• The foreground (front of the picture): shattered remains of the symbols of absolutist institutions. Absolutism means rule by one king with no limits. The broken crowns and chains mean that kind of rule is dead in Sorrieu's dream.

• The sky: Christ, saints and angels look down. Sorrieu used them to stand for one idea — fraternity among the nations of the world (nations behaving like brothers, not enemies).

The order of the march — and why the order matters

• The United States and Switzerland go first. Reason: by 1848 they were already nation-states. Their dream had come true; the rest were still waiting.
• France comes next, marked by the tricolour, and its people are shown right at the statue of Liberty.
• Behind France come the peoples of Germany, carrying the black, red and gold flag.
• Why the German flag is the key detail: no united Germany existed in 1848. The flag was a liberal hope, not a state.
• In 1848 Germany was the German Confederation — 39 independent states, created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. [3]
• Liberals tried to fix this at the Frankfurt National Assembly, which met from May 1848 to June 1849 in the Church of St Paul (Paulskirche), first sitting 18 May 1848. It drew up a constitution on 28 March 1849 with universal suffrage and a hereditary emperor. Frederick William IV of Prussia refused the crown and the attempt collapsed. [3]

• So Sorrieu's flag stood for a nation that people wanted but did not yet have. The hope failed within a year of the print.

• Behind the Germans follow Austria, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Lombardy, Poland, England, Ireland, Hungary and Russia — many of them, again, peoples without their own states.

Modern state vs nation-state — the core concept

• The modern state came first, by a long way.
• A modern state = centralised power + sovereignty (supreme authority, no one above it) over a clearly defined territory.

• Such states developed in Europe over many decades, even centuries, before nationalism appeared.

• A nation-state is a different, later thing.

• In a nation-state, the majority of its citizens must share a common identity and a common history.
• This shared feeling did not exist "from time immemorial" (from forever ago).

• It was created — forged through struggles, through the actions of leaders and of ordinary people.

• Exam trap: every nation-state is a state, but not every state is a nation-state. The Habsburg Empire was a state; it was never a nation-state.

Ernst Renan and 'What is a Nation?'

• Ernest Renan (1823–1892) was a French philosopher and historian. [4]
• He gave a lecture at the University of Sorbonne, Paris, in 1882, titled 'Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?' ('What is a Nation?'). The lecture was delivered on 11 March 1882. [5]
• In it he called the nation a soul, and said plainly that a nation is a construction — something people build — not an organic whole (not a natural body you are simply born into). [5]
• Renan first says what a nation is NOT. He rejects, one by one:
• common language — no,
• common race — no,
• common religion — no,
• common territory — no.

• None of these, by itself, makes a nation.

• Then he says what a nation IS:

• a nation is 'a large-scale solidarity' — a big group of people who feel they belong together and are willing to sacrifice for each other;
• it rests on a shared past (common glory and common suffering) and a present will to live together;

• its existence is 'a daily plebiscite'. A plebiscite is a direct vote of the people. Renan means the nation must be re-chosen by its people every single day. If people stop choosing it, it ends.

• Renan's political point: nations are a guarantee of liberty. If the world became one single empire or law, that liberty would be lost.

• Link back to Sorrieu: Sorrieu drew the dream in 1848; Renan explained the theory in 1882. Both say the same thing in different forms — a nation is made by its people, not given by nature.

Note: Renan's lecture is dated 11 March 1882 by the external source [5]; the NCERT scaffold gives only the year, 1882. No conflict — the source only adds the exact day.

Prelims Hooks

• Frédéric Sorrieu — French artist; born 17 January 1807, Paris; died 25 September 1887; designer, engraver and lithographer. [2]
• Sorrieu made four prints in 1848, showing a world of 'democratic and social Republics'.
• In Sorrieu's first print, the statue of Liberty holds the torch of Enlightenment in one hand and the Charter of the Rights of Man in the other.
• The foreground of the print shows the shattered remains of the symbols of absolutist institutions.
• USA and Switzerland lead the procession — because they were already nation-states by 1848.
• The German peoples carry the black, red and gold flag — a liberal hope, as no united Germany existed in 1848.
• Christ, saints and angels in the sky symbolise fraternity among nations.
• Ernest Renan (1823–1892) delivered 'Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?' at the Sorbonne on 11 March 1882. [4][5]
• Renan's definition: a nation is 'a large-scale solidarity' and its existence is 'a daily plebiscite'; nations are a guarantee of liberty.
• German Confederation = 39 states, set up by the Congress of Vienna, 1815; the Frankfurt National Assembly met May 1848 – June 1849 at the Paulskirche. [3]

Mains Points

• Nations are made, not found. Sorrieu's 1848 print and Renan's 1882 lecture together attack the idea that nations are ancient and natural. Sorrieu's German flag stood for a state that did not exist; Renan's "daily plebiscite" says a nation survives only while its people keep choosing it. Useful opening for any GS-I question on the origins of nationalism.
• Modern state ≠ nation-state. Centralised sovereign power over fixed territory is old; the demand that the majority of citizens share one identity and history is a nineteenth-century novelty, forged through struggle. This distinction explains why multi-ethnic empires (Habsburg, Ottoman, Russian) broke under nationalist pressure while France and Britain absorbed it.
• Nationalism in 1848 was fused with liberalism and democracy. Sorrieu titles it democratic and social Republics, puts the Charter of the Rights of Man in Liberty's hand, and puts broken absolutist symbols on the ground. Nationalism then was a demand for rights and constitutions, not only for borders — a contrast with the aggressive, exclusive nationalism after 1871.
• Fraternity vs rivalry — the unresolved tension. Sorrieu imagined nations marching together under angels of fraternity; Renan argued nations protect liberty because they are plural. Yet the same movement produced the rivalries that ended in 1914. A strong concluding paragraph can weigh this promise against the outcome.