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From: etev05@festival.ed.ac.uk (O Kraemer)
Subject: Re: The name of the German nation
References: <3fcc8h$h5c@gordon.enea.se>   <1995Jan16.055318.4113@midway.uchicago.edu> <D2KF6p.3v66@austin.ibm.com> <1995Jan18.150432.27596@midway.uchicago.edu>
Message-ID: <D2vD00.7CB@festival.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 17:38:22 GMT
Lines: 53

deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) writes:

>In article <D2KF6p.3v66@austin.ibm.com> olivier@glasnost.austin.ibm.com writes:
>>
>>In article <1995Jan16.055318.4113@midway.uchicago.edu>, deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) writes:

>>> 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.

>Absolutely.  Because German is not my native language, I confirmed that
>form in _The Oxford Duden German Dictionary_, 1990 ed.  I don't know
>why it should be so surprising that the English and German names differ.

You have to take into account the English attitude towards Germany. They
have here the very convenient historical view of Germany as a nation
which emerged 1871 (well, give some years, take some) and whose history
is a history of war and distruction. That was probably cooked up before
or during WW-one, but -being English- change comes slowly and until
today the idea of Germany as a nation roughly as old as "Great" Britain,
naah, pu-leazze. Not that the English are Germans anyway :-)
Hence no mentioning of a "Holy Germanic Roman Empire" (Heiliges
Roemisches Reich deutscher Nation, isn't that the correct German term?).
Flames please,
			Oliver
 
Below are further examples of this enlightened theory concerning
Germany's history:

>>> [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.

>_Prussia_ was leading the pack.  Austria was hampered by its cultural
>diversity.  "Germany" didn't even have the basic unity of the Zollverein
>("customs union") until early in the 19th

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