Food for Thought

Week 8: Thursday, March 17

Read Mazzini's "The Duties of Man" first. The sentiments expressed in this document are what motivated many of the nationalist revolutionaries in 1848, not only in Italy, but also in other parts of Europe.

Also, please take a look at the maps in today's web gallery. They will not only give you a sense of geography (neither Germany nor Italy existed as unified states), but may also help you understand the difficulties Austria experienced in this period.

1) Why do you think Mazzini entitled his work "The Duties of Man" instead of "The Rights of Man"? In relation to this question, what does he seem to think is the source of people's misery in his age?

2) What are man's duties, and why is the nation the natural community within which to work the solution to mankind's predicament?

3) According to Mazzini, what is a nation and what are the forces that create a nation? What kind of nationalist was he?

4) Frantisek Palacky was a prominent Bohemian (Czech) historian and nationalist who was asked by the Frankfurt Assembly in Germany if Bohemia wished to be annexed from the Austrian Empire. Why did he oppose the absorption of Bohemia into a united Germany? Why did he oppose the destruction of the Habsburg Empire? How did he wish to see the Habsburg Empire constituted?

5) Heinrich von Gagern was the President of the liberal Frankfurt Assembly that sought to unify Germany. The unification of Germany, however, presented a number of problems and paradoxes for the Frankfurt Assembly. Among other things:

• Should all Germans be unified within one state, including the Germans living in Austria (where they dominated a large multi-ethnic empire)?
• Would the German Austrians willingly give up their empire to join a unified Germany?
• If the German Austrians were not willing to give up their empire, should they be brought into a unifed Germany with all the other peoples of the Austrian Empire (Serbs, Croats, Italians, Bohemians, Hungarians, Ruthenes, Poles, Romanians, etc.)?

So the questions are:

• What did Gagern think a unified Germany's relationship should be with Austria?
• Did Gagern think the Austrian Germans ought to be admitted into a unified Germany?
• Did Gagern think the Austrian Empire needed to be preserved? Why?
• Why did Gagern support the independence of the Austrian Empire's Italian provinces (Venetia and Lombardy) when he opposed the independence of the Habsburg Empire's other provinces?

Other Questions

1) Hungary eventually declared independence from the Austrian (Habsburg) Empire in 1849. In what ways did the Hungarian declaration resemble the American Declaration of Independence? How were the principles it enunciated similar? At the same time, how did it differ? How did the differences indicate that the Hungarians' conception of their nation differed from that of the Americans' self-conception?

2) From what you have read among the primary source documents and the textbook, why do you think the nationalist revolutions of 1848 failed?