The age of revolutions: 1830, Greece and the Romantic imagination

Detail

The July Revolution of 1830 in France

• What happened: the Bourbon kings, put back on the throne in 1815 after Napoleon's fall, were overthrown in July 1830. Liberal revolutionaries put Louis Philippe on the throne as a constitutional monarch (a king whose powers are limited by a constitution).
• The trigger: King Charles X issued four ordinances on 26 July 1830. They dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, ended freedom of the press, changed the election law so about three-fourths of voters lost their vote, and called fresh elections. [3]
• The fighting lasted three days — 27 to 29 July 1830. Charles X then gave up the throne and fled to England. [3]
• The upper-middle class won the argument over what came next. Radicals wanted a republic; nobles stayed loyal to Charles. The middle class offered the crown to the Duke of Orléans, Louis Philippe, who had fought for the French Republic in 1792. He took the title "King of the French" — king of a people, not of a territory. [3]
• This period of his rule is called the July Monarchy. [3]

"When France sneezes, the rest of Europe catches cold"

• Metternich, the Austrian chancellor and chief enemy of nationalism, said this line. It means a revolution in Paris spreads shock waves across the whole continent.
• Belgium proved him right. The Brussels rising followed at once, and Belgium broke away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
• Timeline of the Belgian break:
• The revolt ran August–September 1830, directly in the tracks of the July Revolution in Paris. [2]
• Belgium was recognised as a separate nation in 1831. [2]

• An international conference in London in 1831 recognised Belgium as an independent, neutral state. [2]

• Louis Philippe did not grab Belgium. He refused to annex it or place one of his sons on its throne, and kept friendly relations with Britain. Useful point: revolution in one country did not automatically mean expansion by that country. [3]

The Greek War of Independence (from 1821)

• The struggle began in 1821 against Ottoman rule. Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth century.
• Who lit the fuse: the Philikí Etaireía (a secret patriotic society of Greeks). The revolt began in February 1821 and spread widely from 25 March 1821, now kept as Greek Independence Day. [2]
• Who helped from outside:
• Greeks living in exile in other parts of Europe.

• Philhellenes — west Europeans who loved Greek culture ("philhellene" = lover of Greece). They saw Greece as the cradle of European civilisation, the place where European art, thought and democracy started. Sympathy for a Christian people fighting a Muslim empire also mattered.

• Lord Byron, the English Romantic poet:

• In April 1823 he agreed to act as agent of the London Committee, formed to help the Greeks. [2]
• He left Genoa for Cephalonia in July 1823 and sent £4,000 of his own money to get the Greek fleet ready for sea. [2]
• He sailed for Missolonghi (Mesolóngion) on 29 December 1823 to join Prince Aléxandros Mavrokordátos, leader of the forces in western Greece. [2]

• He fell seriously ill in February 1824 and died of fever at Missolonghi on 19 April 1824. He never fought a battle, but his death made him a Greek national hero and a symbol of selfless patriotism. [2]

• The end of the war: by mid-1832 the new state's northern frontier ran on a line from south of Vólos to south of Árta; Prince Otto of Bavaria took the crown; and the Ottoman sultan recognised Greek independence in the Treaty of Constantinople, July 1832. [2]

• Exam point: a nation born in Europe, but the first king was a Bavarian prince chosen by the great powers — nationalism and great-power politics working together.

Romanticism — feeling against the cult of reason

• What Romanticism was: a cultural movement that attacked the cult of reason and science. Romantics put emotion, intuition and mystic feelings first.
• Their political point: a nation is not made by treaties or armies. It is made by a shared cultural past — common language, folk stories, songs and customs. This "collective heritage" became the base on which the nation was built.

Herder and das volk

• Johann Gottfried Herder (German philosopher) argued that true German culture was not found among the educated elite. It lay with the common people — das volk.
• The spirit of the nation (volksgeist) was carried in folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances.
• Why collecting folklore mattered:
• It recovered the national spirit that foreign rule and elite fashion had buried.

• It carried the national message to people who could not read — you can sing a song to an illiterate villager, you cannot hand them a pamphlet.

• External detail: Herder was apparently the first to use the word folk (Volk) in print, and he collected folk traditions — including folk dances — to stop them being lost and to build national pride. [4]

• He also used the idea of Volksseele ("ethnic soul") — every culture has its own identity and must be judged in its own terms, not by an outside standard. [4]

The Grimm brothers

• Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected German folktales, published in 1812, and compiled a 33-volume German dictionary.
• They saw French domination as a threat to German culture — under Napoleon's occupation, French ways and French language were spreading.
• External detail: their collection Children's and Household Tales (1812) aimed to present a pure German narrative tradition, untouched by foreign — especially French — influence. [4]
• Why folklore is political: the folklore of a group strengthens its sense of ethnic identity, so it appeared again and again in struggles for political independence and national unity. [4]
• Herder's ideas on folk poetry strongly shaped the Grimms. [4]

Art as propaganda — Delacroix's Massacre at Chios

• Eugène Delacroix painted The Massacre at Chios in 1824. It showed the killing of Greeks by Ottoman troops on the island of Chios, and it stirred deep sympathy for the Greek cause.
• External detail: Delacroix exhibited the large canvas at the Salon of 1824. The killing of tens of thousands of Greeks on Chios pushed the Greek war forward, and these events gripped the French public and shaped his idea for the painting. [5]
• The Met holds his preparatory drawing, "Head, Shoulder, and Foot, Studies for Scenes from the Chios Massacres". [5]
• Point to remember: the painter used feelings, not facts. Romantic art built public support for a foreign nationalist cause.

Partitioned Poland — language as a weapon

• Poland had been wiped off the map in the late eighteenth century, divided up by Russia, Prussia and Austria. So Polish nationalism could not use a state — it had to use culture.
• Music: Karol Kurpinski turned national struggle into operas and music. He made the polonaise and the mazurka — two Polish folk dances — into national symbols.
• The failed rebellion: an armed rebellion against Russian rule in 1831 was crushed.
• External detail: the rising is called the November Insurrection. When revolution broke out in Paris in July 1830 and Tsar Nicholas I planned to use the Polish Army to put it down, a secret society of infantry cadets rose in Warsaw on 29 November 1830. Fighting spread into Lithuania and lasted until September 1831. [5]

• Russian victory was followed by harsh punishment — confiscations of property, arrests and deportations. [5]

• The clergy step in: after the defeat, many members of the Polish clergy made language a weapon of national resistance.

• They used Polish for church gatherings and religious instruction.
• Large numbers of priests and bishops were put in jail or sent to Siberia by Russian officials for refusing to preach in Russian.
• Russian was forced as the official language. Using Polish became an act of protest.

Prelims Hooks

• July Revolution, 1830 — Bourbon monarch Charles X overthrown; Louis Philippe made constitutional monarch, titled "King of the French". [3]
• Charles X's four ordinances of 26 July 1830 ended press freedom and removed the vote from about three-fourths of the electorate; fighting lasted 27–29 July 1830. [3]
• Belgium broke from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands after the Brussels rising; recognised by the London conference of 1831 as an independent, neutral state. [2]
• Metternich (Austria): "When France sneezes, the rest of Europe catches cold."
• Greek war of independence began 1821 against the Ottoman Empire; 25 March 1821 is Greek Independence Day; society behind it was the Philikí Etaireía. [2]
• Byron died of fever at Missolonghi on 19 April 1824; he had sent £4,000 of his own money for the Greek fleet. [2]
• Treaty of Constantinople, July 1832 — Ottoman sultan recognised Greek independence; Otto of Bavaria became king. [2]
• Herder — true German culture lies with das volk; national spirit = volksgeist, carried in folk song, poetry, dance. He first used Volk in print and coined Volksseele. [4]
• Grimm brothers — folktale collection 1812 (Children's and Household Tales), 33-volume German dictionary; saw French rule as a threat to German culture. [4]
• Delacroix, The Massacre at Chios, 1824, shown at the Paris Salon; stirred sympathy for Greece. [5]
• Poland — Kurpinski made the polonaise and mazurka national symbols; the November Insurrection began in Warsaw on 29 November 1830 and was crushed by September 1831. [5]

Mains Points

• Culture did the work that politics could not. In Poland there was no state at all after the partitions, and in Germany no single nation-state. So language, folk tales, dance and music became the tools of nation-building — the Grimms' 1812 collection, Kurpinski's mazurkas, the Polish clergy's refusal to preach in Russian. Argue that cultural nationalism precedes and prepares political nationalism.
• Nationalism spread by example, not by conquest. The 1830 chain — Paris in July, Brussels in August–September, Warsaw in November — shows how one successful rising set off others across borders. This is exactly what Metternich's "sneeze" line predicted, and why the 1815 conservative order could not hold.
• Greece shows the limits of "pure" nationalism. The Greek cause won because of outside help — philhellenes, Byron's money and death, Delacroix's canvas, and finally great-power diplomacy. The final settlement was still a great-power deal: a Bavarian prince as king and a frontier drawn by others (Treaty of Constantinople, 1832). Useful for a question on the interplay of popular nationalism and great-power interests. [2]
• Romanticism reversed the Enlightenment's method but served the same goal. The Enlightenment used reason to attack old authority; Romantics used emotion and folk memory. Both produced the idea of a people with the right to rule itself — the second reached illiterate villagers that pamphlets never could.