Conservatism: The Most Important Political Ideologies In The 19th Century

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During the 19th century, there were many important political ideologies all across the European continent. There was Conservatism, which favored the old or traditional political ideas. The extreme opposite of Conservatism was Liberalism. During this time period, Liberalism was considered any idea that went against the ideas of Conservatism. However, the ideas of Nationalism, possibly the most powerful political ideology of the time, did not fall under Conservatism or Liberalism. Nationalism was its own ideology that happened to be very compatible with Liberalism. Nationalism was the idea that nations should be comprised of people who share common roots and should be under one government; however, the Vienna Settlement directly opposed their ideas. The Austrians saw nationalism as a threat to them because they were comprised of many smaller nations while there were nationalist movements in …show more content…

The nationalists sought to form new countries or to restore a nation to the original people by forcing the controlling powers out. Nationalists also wanted a common language in each nation instead of many different languages and dialects. Nationalism was a threat to multi-national empires like the Austrian Empire as it contained many different ethnic groups. If those groups were to all breakaway, then there would be no more Austrian Empire. Nationalists movement happened all across Europe. The major movements took place in Ireland, Germany, Poland, and Italy. Nationalism was not an ideology that was confined to the 19th century, however. It was used to great success by the National Socialist Party in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s as they desired a unification of all the German-speaking people. All of this shows that nationalism was indeed one of the most important and power ideologies of the 19th and 20th

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