When we talk about the creation, development or construction of the nation we have to take into consideration factors which are further away from the logical or concrete matters which build the nowadays legal & political bureaucratic-institutionalized structure that govern the contemporary societies.  There are other factors which bound us as a group. But the perspectives and postures over which factors are these are abundant and full of notorious differences, some of them may even appeal to which individuals are subject to be considered as “part of the nation” as they highlight the fact that it is not the same to inhabit a space and being a citizen or part of the collective. In this sense, there is one perspective over the people of the nation which may break the general perspective of nation and citizen, the Völkisch Ideology and its context of German unification.

It is argued by Elie Kadourie that the sense of nationalism was an invention which took place in Europe in the nineteenth century leading into a process of substituting core symbols such as God and King for nature and people. With this, according to Lawrence Birken (Birken,1994), the process of developing a new principle of unification of the people in the shape of a natural organization “from below” which would be based on a sense of common character rather than the former one dictated by the dynastic families and their interests which were then melted over the interests of the nation took place. Specifically talking about the German situation, these new ideologies which were present during the Enlightenment period led to German action of the fragmentation of the whole into what would be the common people. Following complications of the creation of the German nation taking place firstly during the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 & 1849. The beliefs on the achievement of fraternity through the extension of liberty and equality by the liberal middle-class representatives in the assembly clashed with the obstinate attitude of the aristocracy and the presence of two rival powers in Berlin (Protestant North) and in Vienna (the Catholic South)

Following then, this people which gets unified mean something, according to the context and surroundings, the Peuple, Narod and Volk have different nuances but talking specifically about Volk it has adopted various core principles. George Mosse pointed that for various Volkish theorists this core is “determined by the native landscape” but in the course of time exactly during the French Revolution, the term Volk had a meaning close to the one it is understood now as people but during XIX century the word acquired a biological association. And so, the völkisch ideology on nationalism emphasized the racial and biological union. It was more like Birken expressed as an “excess of nationalism” and as Hanna Arendt argued regarding specially on racism as “race-thinking invented to unite the people” (Birken, 1994). We could say then that the Völkisch movement came to help in a way to the creation of the German union through the strategy of directing racism against the outsiders so it could achieve what Birken mentioned as the failure of Frankfurt and Bismarck in the creation of a nation through the different plans or frameworks denominated as Kleindeutsch, Grossdeutsch and Mitteleuropa.

Germania by Lorenz Classen, taken as an inspiration

 from Bolinaga’s text where it was exposed as well

In this sense, the völkisch ideology was aiming for this unification of the “Germanic people” through what Iñigo Bolinaga mentioned as a strategy of vinculation of the people with the land, the blood ties and the assumption that the community or the ethnic group is indeed in a superior level than the individuals who conform it (Bolinaga, 2023). Following this threat of thinking, the people as a context starts to be embraced by a sense deeper than the superficial nationality and a document of residence and citizenship as Bolinaga mentioned that the traditions of the ancient Germanic communities transcended not only by cultural tradition but directly by blood and genetics.

In order for you to be considered as part of the community, of the volk, these requirements had to be fulfilled but as well in the other way an individual could not stop being part of the volk  as the volk was inherent in his blood. Bolinaga presented a quite humorous metaphor but nevertheless effective, he mentioned that even when an elephant would like to pretend to be a bird, he might believe in it, but he could never be objectively speaking a bird as biology dictates its origins. Same happens with us, in my perspective there is a lot of heritage with a lot of weight over our mere existence in this world. One can move form their homeland to another nation, the individual may learn the language and even the customs and traditions, but the feeling of deep-belonging, as the fish belongs to the water, will be always missing as it seems to be that the principle of heritage and bloodlines are stronger than a period spent in another nation, in someone else’s home.

The globalization has, in a way, tried to strengthen this feeling of community union with the opening of the global doors but in a dependent way this phenomenon brought as a consequence or as a response what it seemed to be as a natural reaction form the communities to protect themselves and in a very subtle way refuse and reject the external world in order to ensure the preservation of the original group and its valuable heritage. Of course, this reaction may not be as strict and defined for all the communities in the globe, yet the choice is present for the distinct communities regarding the exposure of their legacy, to open up and follow the exchange of globalization or exclude the outer world in aims of keeping a “clean and unaltered” line of generations with a clear and unique heritage.

Bibliography

–       Bolinaga, Iñigo, Esto no establishment en mi Libro de Historia del Facismo, Cordoba, Editorial Almuzara, 2023

–       Birken, L. (1994). Volkish Nationalism in Perspective. The History Teacher, 27(2), 133–143. https://doi.org/10.2307/494715