Grimms’Fairy Tales is a familiar name. The brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in the German city of Hanau in 1785 and 1786 respectively. While both of them studied law, they soon developed an interest in collecting old folktales. They spent six years travelling from village to village, talking to people and writing down fairy tales, which were handed down through the generations. These were popular both among children and adults. In 1812, they published their first collection of tales. Subsequently, both the brothers became active in liberal politics, especially the movement for freedom of the press. In the meantime they also published a 33-volume dictionary of the German language.
The Grimm brothers also saw French domination as a threat to German culture and believed that the folktales they had collected were expressions of a pure and authentic German spirit.
They considered their projects of collecting folktales and developing the German language as part of the wider effort to oppose French domination and create a German national identify.
Discuss the importance of language and popular traditions in the creatioA of national identity.
The development of nationalism does not come about only through wars and territorial expansion. Culture plays an important role in the creation of national identity. Culture of a country includes its language, art and poetry, stories and music popular tradition-everything. Philosophers think that to know folk culture, i.e. tradition of a country is an essential for a nation-building. These traditions of folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances of a country bind the people by the thread of togetherness and pride. They give the feeling of culturally one United Nation.
Languages too play an important role in developing nationalist sentiment.
After Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced out of schools in Poland and Russian language was imposed everywhere. Many members of the clergy in Poland began to use ‘Polish’ language.
The use of Polish came to be seen as a symbol of the struggle against Russian dominance. Thus, the language and popular traditions of a country help in the creation of national identity.