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Politics and Culture in 19th Century Europe

Jiří Hanuš & Vít Hloušek

MASARYK UNIVErSITY

MONOGRAPHS

VOL.10

Politics and Culture in 19th Century Europe

Jiří Hanuš & Vít Hloušek

Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts & Metropolitan University Prague, Department of Political Science and Anglophone Studies

Masaryk University Press Brno 2026

This book will be made open access within three years of publication thanks to Path to Open, a program developed in partnership between JSTOR, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the University of Michigan Press, and the University of North Carolina Press to bring about equitable access and impact for the entire scholarly community, including authors, researchers, libraries, and university presses around the world. Learn more at https://about.jstor.org/path-to-open/

The book was supported by the “Scientia est potentia” Masaryk University fund.

ISBN 978-80-280-0606-8

ISBN 978-80-280-0842-0 (hardback)

https://doi.org/10.5817/CZ.MUNI.M280-0606-2026

I. Europe is not just the name of a continent

II. I know a lot, but I want to understand everything!

III. Religion: An open-ended story

IV. Unholy nations

V. Zionism: The secular journey of the Chosen People

VI. Ideologies: The wayward children of the French Revolution

VII. The state as will and idea

VIII. The state, constitution and suffrage

IX. The Concert of Great Powers and diplomats

X. Colonialism is not a black and white narrative

Introduction

The authors of this book recently carried out an interesting experiment whereby they decided to present different topics from the history of the 19th century in the form of a debate between two experts who, although coming from different areas of the social sciences and humanities, share an interest in the period when European modernity was emerging. The attempt to involve students of Masaryk University in these debates was only partially successful at the time, but a dialogue between historian Jiří Hanuš and political scientist Vít Hloušek was established.

This was also thanks to the fact that Jiří Hanuš is particularly interested in politics while Vít Hloušek occasionally finds himself in the position of historian. They decided that the outline of the individual debates could be developed into separate texts, several other topics were gradually added, articles appeared in the journal Kontexty1, and eventually this book began to take shape. All the texts represent the combined work of the two authors. Naturally, some topics were covered more by the historian, while the political scientist contributed more to others, but the final form is the product of ‘ping-pong diplomacy’, i.e. sending texts from one email to another—interventions, changes, and additions—before finally reaching a consensus.

This book does not aim to replace existing textbooks on 19th-century history as it is not a traditional events-based history, instead it focuses on selected key concepts associated with this period. Nor does it aspire to provide an interpretation of all the important concepts and issues of 19th-century history. If we look at the selection of concepts and processes under examination, we can see they have a great deal in common. In addition to their significance for the historical changes that Europe witnessed during the 19th century, these are concepts with a political dimension and also processes which have shaped the 20th century and, indeed, contemporary Europe. In this context, it is worth noting that in the last decade, publications have appeared in German and French that link the 19th and 20th centuries into a unified whole (Christoph Nonn, Serge Berstein, and Pierre Milza). This is not only due to the time lag

1 Kolonialismus není černobílé vyprávění (Colonialism is not a Black and White Narrative) was published in 2018 (no. 5, pp.33–40), Stát: od hesla L’état, c’est moi k demokracii in 2018 (no. 4, pp. 9–17), Sionismus: sekulární cesta vyvoleného národa (Zionism: The Secular Journey of the Chosen People) in 2018 (no. 22, pp.13–19) and Nesvaté národy (Unholy Nations) in 2018 (no. 1, pp.18–24). Two texts were published in 2017: Náboženství: příběh s otevřeným koncem (Religion: An Open-Ended Story) (no. 4, pp.32–38) and Ideologie: zlobivá dítka Francouzské revoluce (Ideologies: The Wilful Children of the French Revolution) i(no. 6, pp. 28–34).

in the observers’ perspective, but in some cases also to the fact that many authors have become aware of one aspect of historical discontinuity: for example, in the realm of ideas, history may advance in ‘leaps’: the 19th century can, in certain respects, be seen as a continuation of the 13th century, while at the same time, from the vantage point of the 2020s, the century before last can appear to us as strikingly close.

We decided to focus specifically on the following topics: aspects of cultural history closely related to political change, secularization, nationalism, Zionism, ideologies, political philosophy, democratization, diplomacy, and colonialism. The book opens with a chapter on Central Europe, reflecting our awareness that we are approaching these issues from this particular vantage point. Culturally, we are Central Europeans ‘by birth and by choice’, even as we affirm our country’s Western orientation. This is followed by a chapter entitled I know a lot, but I want to understand everything! which explores the role of Romanticism and the Enlightenment, transformations in education, and the place of intellectuals in Europe. Here we seek to grasp and articulate the ideas which have profoundly shaped the politics, society, and culture of the modern era. In the chapter Religion: An open-ended story, we address not only the process of secularization—i.e. the retreat of religion from the state and the public sphere—but also trace the evolving responses of Christian churches, especially Catholicism, to these new challenges. The chapter Unholy nations is devoted to the origins, theory, practice and, to some extent, the critique of modern nationalism. Here we most clearly demonstrate the links between various 19th-century concepts and movements and those of the present day. We also decided to devote particular attention to the process of Jewish emancipation. The chapter Zionism: The secular journey of the Chosen People complements and connects the themes of all three previous texts using a very singular example. Zionism, concerning a people traditionally defined as a religious community, emerged as a response to the challenges of modernity. Its realization vividly illustrated both the new opportunities and the new problems arising from the transformation of society and politics in 19thcentury Europe. The chapter Ideologies: The wayward children of the French Revolution traces the birth of three fundamental 19th-century ideologies in response to the revolution: liberalism, which aligned itself with the revolution; conservatism, which emerged in sharp opposition to it; and socialism, which radicalized its ideas. We then follow the trajectories of these ideologies through European political discourse and the perspectives of their leading proponents.

It is possible to say that the next four chapters are primarily political in nature. The chapter The state as will and idea is devoted to the development of political philosophy and thinking about the state, and reveals not only the plurality of opinions but also the continuity between the intellectual tradition of the 19th century and the political practice of the 20th century. In The state, constitution and suffrage, we focus on the profound changes in European politics from the French Revolution to the turn of the 20th century. In Western Europe (and to an extent in Central Europe), politics underwent a gradual process of constitutionalization, liberalization, and

later democratization, and it can still be argued that the roots of the current liberal democratic order lie squarely in this period. The chapter The Concert of Great Powers and diplomats looks at the development of diplomatic theory and especially practice during one of the golden ages of this craft. In the chapter Colonialism is not a black and white narrative, we venture outside of Europe to look at the actions of Europeans as colonizers. We do not hide our critical perspective on this aspect of Europe’s past, yet we resist viewing colonialism as an entirely negative process and provide a number of arguments to support this position.

If readers—in particular students—wish to supplement the information presented here with additional events, processes, and concepts from the ‘long’ 19th century, as Eric Hobsbawm termed it (symbolically beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 and ending with the outbreak of World War I in 1914), they may consult the following: Hobsbawm himself wrote three Marxist-oriented publications in which he attempted to synthesize 19th-century European history: The Age of Revolution: Europe 1798–1848, The Age of Capital 1848–1875, and The Age of Empire 1875–1914. We can also recommend more recent syntheses by other British authors, such as Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800–1914 by Robert Gildea, and The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815–1914 by Richard J. Evans. A concise but equally interesting account of the key events of 19th-century European history can be found in Norman Davies’s monumental tome Europe: A History Monographs devoted exclusively to the 19th century are also available and we can recommend Michael Rapport’s Europe in the 19th Century. The fin de siècle period, i.e., the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, has received considerable attention. Here we can recommend Felix Gilbert’s and David Clay Large’s The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present. For those interested in intellectual and cultural history, John Burrow’s The Crisis of Reason: European Thought 1848–1914 and Christophe Charle’s book on intellectuals in 19th-century Europe are indispensable. A somewhat dry but fairly comprehensive overview is European Culture Since 1848. From Modern to Postmodern and Beyond by James Winders, while Carl E. Schorske’s classic Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture, which we refer to in one of the chapters, is both highly readable and offers a profound exploration of the subject.

For a basic introduction to the political concepts and figures of the modern era, we recommend consulting the well-established reference works The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies or The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, or alternatively the ‘conservative classic’ The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Before delving into the individual chapters, there are two points worth noting. As has been emphasized, this book focuses on European history. It does not aspire to be a global overview of the 19th century, nor does it address the period from a panEuropean perspective. Even where we deal with issues that transcend the geographical, geopolitical and cultural boundaries of Europe (in the case of colonization and Zionism), we focus on the significance of these concepts and processes for European history, culture, politics, and society. This focus is neither a manifestation of Eurocentrism

nor a disregard for developments elsewhere. It reflects our own expertise, which is primarily centred on the ‘old’ continent. We also consider European history of this period to be sufficiently coherent to allow us to selectively highlight external influences and stimuli. Moreover, until World War I, Europe was both an expansive continent and an expanding culture, encompassing not only the political extension of its influence through colonization, but also the export of European technologies, scientific achievements, and artistic forms, trends, and influences. The history of the modern era can, of course, be viewed ‘globally’, and although experiments of this kind are important (Christopher Bayly), we have opted for a more traditional approach.

The second point concerns the book’s genre. Both authors have long served as university lecturers, teaching the 19th century, its history and European developments across a range of courses in history and the social sciences. Accordingly, they have written the individual chapters with the aim of making the book suitable for use as a textbook. As noted earlier, the book does not aim to replace existing compendiums of 19th-century history but to complement them. With its largely non-event-based approach, it is also well suited for students of political science, European studies and other social sciences—students who are seeking to understand the processes and phenomena which have shaped contemporary politics and society. We therefore believe the book can work well as teaching material.

At the same time, however, we did not want to limit our readership by writing a book that was overtly didactic. Consequently, you will not find typical instructional features such as review questions or practice topics. Instead, each chapter provides suggestions for further reading which informed our writing and which we consider highly stimulating for those seeking a deeper understanding of these concepts. The style we have chosen could be described as academic popularization and as a result the book does not contain a classic bibliography.

The authors would like to thank those who helped in the preparation of the book, especially the staff of the Brno publishing house Books & Pipes (Kateřina Hloušková, Jiří Mičkal, František Mikš, and Kateřina Mikšová). We are also grateful to Alena Mizerová from Munipress, who suggested having the book translated into English, and Graeme Dibble, who provided the translation.

The book was not easy to write. In today’s university climate, where academic output—with its emphasis on quantity and precisely measurable ‘performance’— often resembles an industrial operation rather than contemplative research, we had to carve out time for the texts collected here from various projects and other demands of contemporary academic life. Nevertheless, we can say that it was a pleasure finding that time, and we truly enjoyed working on the book. It is therefore perhaps our immodest hope that readers will enjoy it too.

Jiří

Hanuš & Vít Hloušek

Bibliography

C. A. Bayly: The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden and Oxford 2004.

Serge Berstein and Pierre Milza: Histoire de l’Europe - Du XIX e au début du XXIe siècle. Hatier, Paris 2014.

John Burrow: The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914. Yale University Press, New Haven 2000.

Christophe Charle: Les Intellectuels en Europe au XIX e siècle, Le Seuil, Paris 1996.

Norman Davies: Europe: A History. Harper Perennial, New York 1998.

Richard J. Evans: The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815–1914. Penguin, London 2017.

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