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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: The name of the German nation
Message-ID: <1995Jan16.055318.4113@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System)
Reply-To: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
References: <9501423.14645@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <1995Jan15.020738.21297@midway.uchicago.edu> <3fcc8h$h5c@gordon.enea.se>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 05:53:18 GMT
Lines: 31

In article <3fcc8h$h5c@gordon.enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
>Daniel von Brighoff (deb5@midway.uchicago.edu) writes:
>>So "Deutsch," like so many other national self-designations, simply
>>means "of the people" and didn't gain currency in German-speaking
>>areas until well into the Middle Ages.  The multiplicity of names
>>for Germany is understandable when one considers a) that the German
>>nation took shape in the middle of Europe and b) it didn't become
>>a unified nation-state until 1871.
>
>Now, wait a minute here. We had something called the Holy German-
>Roman Empire. This construction eroded by time, and became a loose
>gathering of many small states, but it did exist initially. True,
>it wasn't a nation-state way back then in the 10th century, but 
>then no state was as the concept wasn't invented.

I've never heard it called that before.  The common English name is
the "Holy Roman Empire" (although everyone knows is was "neither holy,
nor Roman, nor and empire") and the German is "das Heilige Roemisches
Reich."  I've never heard anyone but irredentists call it "das erste
[deutsche] Reich."  In any case, it was *never* a nation state, having
ceased to exist by the time the concept was invented.  When that occurred,
though, most other Western European countries, which had been "proto-nation
states" (in the sense of being relatively politically and culturally
unitary states) throughout the Middle Ages wasted no time in becoming
them.  Germany is a conspicuous exception in this context.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
