“Nationalism has become general; it grows daily and it has already grown strong enough to keep all parts of Italy united despite the differences that distinguish them.”
-Count Cavour (Camillo Benso)
While this quote from Benso, who would become Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, applies to Italy it could be applied to many different countries in Europe at the time. Nationalism is no longer a fad at this time, it is assumed now. Unity is now a key word in the development of new countries. Giuseppe Mazzini wrote “unity is a necessity in the world.” As Count Cavour wrote unity has become strong in Italy but it is needed everywhere. Unity comes with nationalism and the two words are very important together. Count Cavour touches on it briefly and the important part of his quote is that nationalism is continuing to grow. It is growing on a daily basis, the people are becoming more unified. Mazzini also wrote “The question of Nationalities, rightly understood, is the Alliance of Peoples”. This quote is the basis for what Cavour is seeing put into action. Cavour says nationalism has become general but he is thinking too general. While he is looking just at Italy, many other places in Europe are becoming more unified. This is not a separated occurrence in Italy, many people are taking Mazzini’s words to heart. Count Cavour did not know it but his writing was a base point of what nationalism is. Italy is just one of the many in Europe who were “unified despite the differences that distinguish them.”
Unity and nationalism come hand in hand and are an important part in the defining characteristics of a country. Although there are different regions within a country that have different characteristics, it is crucial that at the end of the day they can come together and see themselves as a unified nation.
This is a solid post which summarizes the two authors ideas. Without a national identity to fall back on, it is much more difficult to unify people as a result of alienation. This becomes problematic when a national identity is forced upon a small collective of nation states which see themselves as being culturally different from each other.
This is a solid summary of the readings; forming a unified nationality and sense of nationalism is essential when uniting existing nations with established cultures into one state. Nationalism united different peoples in the name of one state, despite the differences that distinguished them.
I thought his notion that unity being necessary throughout the world to be quite intriguing, as he is trying to reach a much broader audience than just the Italian nations; I would not have expected Mazzini to attempt to reach as many people as he did.