Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes such factors as language, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and customs of the nation in its primal sense of those who were born within its culture. It can be applied to ethnic nationalism as well as civic nationalism. Romantic nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the top down, emanating from a monarch or other authority, which justified its existence. Such downward-radiating power might ultimately derive from a god or gods
(see the divine right of kings and the Mandate of Heaven).
Liberty Leading the People, embodying the Romantic view of the French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution; its painter Eugène Delacroix also served as an elected deputy
The Dream of Worldwide Democratic and Social Republics – The Pact Between Nations, a print prepared by Frédéric Sorrieu, 1848
Brudeferd i Hardanger (Bridal procession in Hardanger), a monumental piece within Norwegian romantic nationalism. Painted by Hans Gude and Adolph Tidemand.
Romanticized painting of the Battle of Rancagua during the Chilean War of Independence by Pedro Subercaseaux
The revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the springtime of the peoples or the springtime of nations, were a series of revolutions throughout Europe over the course of more than one year, from 1848 to 1849. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history to date.
Barricade on the rue Soufflot, an 1848 painting by Horace Vernet. The Panthéon is shown in the background.
The June Uprising of 1848 in Prague injected a strong political element into Czech National Revival.
The revolutionary barricades in Vienna in May 1848
Episode from the Five Days of Milan, painting by Baldassare Verazzi
