Resilient in Adversity: The Monarchical State in Prussia and Sardinia-Piedmont, 1847–51

Abstract

In nineteenth-century Europe, ideological paradigms, symbolic languages, and sentiments used to imagine and communicate political authority and cultural identity operated into increasingly complex and polyvalent frameworks, rearranging the interactions between dynastic rulership and nationhood. The clash or, alternatively, the convergence between the conservative and the liberal political narratives resulted from long-term transformations as well as from the resilience of the Old Regime, with a major transformative impetus provided by the shock of the ‘failed revolution’ in 1848. New argumentations patterns and models like the juste milieu, the roi bourgeois, the octroi constitution, as well as the democratic-populist legitimation of charismatic leaders circulated transnationally, engendering profound institutional and cultural transformations between 1847 and 1851. To study these transformations, this chapter analyses a wide variety of sources, from political texts to everyday objects and literature. The chapter demonstrates how these contributed towards renegotiating the relationships between dynastic rulership, constitutionalism, and nation-state, changing perceptions of Prussia and Sardinia-Piedmont in Italy and Germany. The monarchies were now framed as having a natural and teleological mission to lead the formation of nation-states.