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From: olivier@austin.ibm.com (Olivier Cremel)
Subject: Re: The name of the German nation
Originator: olivier@nice.austin.ibm.com
Sender: news@austin.ibm.com (News id)
Message-ID: <D2KF6p.3v66@austin.ibm.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 19:52:00 GMT
Reply-To: olivier@glasnost.austin.ibm.com
References: <9501423.14645@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <1995Jan15.020738.21297@midway.uchicago.edu> <3fcc8h$h5c@gordon.enea.se> <1995Jan16.055318.4113@midway.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Bull HN - Austin
Lines: 31


In article <1995Jan16.055318.4113@midway.uchicago.edu>, deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) writes:
> In article <3fcc8h$h5c@gordon.enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog)
> writes:
> >Now, wait a minute here. We had something called the Holy German-
> >Roman Empire.
> 
> 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."

Are you sure ? It was "Le Saint Empire Romain Germanique" in French.
Surprising it would be named otherwise in English.

> 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.

Are you sure ? Besides France which invented the concept and England to which
it geographically suited, most other European countries became nation-states
over the 1850-1918 period which ended with the great Nation War. And Germany
was certainly leading the pack.
-- 
Olivier.
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		"Tel se cuide chauffer qui s'art"
