Culture played an important role in creating the idea of the “nation” in Europe in the following ways.
(i) Romanticism, a cultural movement, sought to develop a particular form of nationalist sentiment. Romantic artists criticised the glorification of reason and Science and focused instead.
on emotions, intuition and mystical feelings. Their effort was to create a sense of a shared collective heritage, a common cultural past, as the basis of a nation.
(ii) Collection and recording forms of folk culture was essential to the project of nation-building. Karol Kurpinski, for example, celebrated the national struggle through his operas and music, turning folk dances like the polonaise and mazurka into nationalist symbols.
(iii) Language too played an important role in developing nationalist sentiments. After Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced out of schools and the Russian language was imposed everywhere. The use of Polish came to be seen as a symbol of the struggle against Russian dominance.
