I just read it through again to be sure and everything is objectively true.
Germany as a country outdates america as a country (america is a bit complicated in this regard since it difficult to argue what manifestation of it is "the" country. Is it post or pre spanish-america integration for instance. Pre louisiana purchase you also have s massive stumbling block in that like a third of current america wouldn't be included in america the original country then, etc)
America (USA) as a state outdates germany as a state.
Although, funnily enough, italy was a state before america (the kingdom of italy) although obviously the state of italy isn't unbroken like america the state is.
When we started eating bread here in Denmark a guy wrote a poem about how bad bread was. That poem became part of some sagas that were written down in the 12th century, when we started writting down the sagas.
Anyway. That poem is pretty clear that bread is so bad for your health that only germans, as a people, would consider eating it.
Since the poem was written down a few hundred years before the 1850's and we did in fact start eating bread a thousand year or so before that, I will make a wild guess that some one had considered the Germans a single people before the 1850's.
Since the germans crowned the first king of the germans in the 11th century I kind of think that they were also themself thinking about the germans as a people a bit before the 1850's.
Not germanic people. Danes are also germanic people. So it is about german people and since it talks about german people, then it points toward people having an idea about the germans as a people around that time.
Okay so where are the countries of Palestine and Kurdistan then.
Where was Poland in 1905? What is the native land of the Vatican people? They certainly have a country, but if a country is the same as your native land then they must have one. Where are all the countries of the OG Americans within the borders of the currently recognized countries?
If a racist wrote a poem about how only Spanish speaking people would consider eating some awful food that wouldn’t be evidence that Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Chile, and Colombia are one country. It would just be an amorphous Other with no exact definition besides they are not us. Similarly, some guy in Denmark writing that the foreigners outside Denmark’s borders are gross bread eaters does not mean he thinks they’re one unified country
We are not talking about germany as an unified country. We are talking about the germans as a people.
the idea of "Germans" as a people, dates to the 1850's.
If some guy wrote a poem about spanish people, then it would prove that people had an idea about the spanish as a people.
So when a dane write a poem referes to the germans as a people, then it properly means that there was an idea about the germans as a people, which OP claims does not happen before 1850's.
I think spanish people are spanish people, so when people speak about spanish people, then it is a good indicator about them having an idea about the spanish as a people.
You think germans are just speaking the same language? I'd even fo as far as to say that they weren't even speaking the same German when that poem was written.
Not really. The idea had formed over quiet some time between 843, when the East Francian kingdom was formed, encompassing mainly Germanic speaking regions and the 1150s, when the influential chronist Otto von Freising attributed all East Francian kings and Holy Roman Emperors from Otto I. onwards as 'Rex Teutonicorum', king of the German people. German nationalists in the 19th century happily used this idea of a 'realm of the German speaking people', but the idea is much older than modern era nation states.
Eh, not quite. Francia was the realm of the Franks, a Germanic speaking people. France is what West Francia later evolved into, as the Franks in the west intermixed with the vulgar Latin-speaking locals.
Which is exacty what it was. Francia means realm of the Franks or Francs. Latin speaking West Francia kept its name, both in their own Latin derived language (France) and in the dialects of their Germanic speaking brethren in East Francia (Frankreich i.e. realm of the Franks).
East Francia changed its name over time, as most of its people where not necessary Franks but from a number of Germanic tribes and the realm developed into a confederation of semi-independent petty kingdoms, dutchies and counties. Thus a Holy Roman Empire under a King of the Germans (not King of Germany) somehow did fit better.
Magna Germania, the historic region of the German people, dates back 2000 years, and there are even records of Germanic tribes centuries before that. What you're taking about is when the German Confederation became the German Empire.
Modern day Germany, as in Federal Republic of Germany, didn't have a unification. It was founded on 23. Mai 1949 and was reunified on 3. Oktober 1990. The German unification was 1. January 1871.
In the pre-WWs and pre cold war form the German wars of unification culminated in the victory over the french in the Franco Prussian war of 1871 that led to the abdication of Napoleon III and the declaration of the German empire under Wilhelm I (whose title was btw not Emperor of Germany, but German emperor)
This is the direct predecessor of the Weimar Republic of 1918 (basically modern Germany)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I,_German_Emperor (although the German Version is a lot more extensive)
The second unification, which you probably know about was the unification of West and East in 1989 (Although Germany stayed the BRD, the name of the West)
You know what the actual name of west germany was? Bundesrepublik Deutschland. The very same name it has today. The BRD is the continuation of the Weimarer Republik.
The unification didn‘t fuse two countries into one. The BRD only got it‘s territories back in the unification.
There is a reason why the Holy Roman Emperor was also the King of Germany from the 12th century onwards. It was an incredibly decentralised realm, but it most certainly existed as a proper entity way before the US did.
The current iteration of Germany was founded either in 1871 (German Empire), 1918 (Weimar Republic), 1933 (Nazi Germany), 1949 (West Germany) or 1990 (German reunification) depending on who you ask.
There's a difference between a country and a nation, the German nation is much older than the current unified country, and much older than the United States.
The last unification wasn‘t the foundation of a new german country. The BRD (legal continuation of the Weimarer Republik) was reunified with it‘s eastern territories which they still claimed.
Just because the german people didn't have as unified a culture as other countries, doesn't mean it was 'born' with nationalism. The idea of a german people is as old as the idea of a germany itself. Not the state, the country and there was always the idea in the middle of europe there is germany.
Does everybody in Asia speak the same language to you? Do their people roughly descend from the same tribes? Did they live in a confederation together for millenium straight? Did they as their first unified act kick out outside invaders? Did they have the same gods and faith before slowly but collectivly convert to another religion? Asia is not a comparison.
The Holy Roman Emperor was quite emphatically the King of the Germans, and the concept of a Kingdom of Germany has existed since the Treaty of Verdun in 843.
It was an exceedingly decentralised entity but quite clearly existed.
Especially since the end of the 15th century, when the HRE was increasingly referred to as the HRRdN (Sacrum Imperium Romanum Nationis Germaniae/ Heiliges Römisches Reich deutscher Nation), literally HRE of German Nation. And yes it was a feudal state, but you could also argue, that the extent of the US has changed a lot since the declaration of Independence (e.g. Louisiana purchase, US-Mexico war to name just some). But in form or another there have been states claiming the title for Germany (Even only for subdivisions for a long time)
My friend do you think all the cultural differences went away, just because we unified? Bavarians call the northern germans prussians as an insult and there is a saying about how we prefer a black guy at our Stammtisch (table where the village comes together) rather than having a northener as a neighbor, Berlin turned in into a mixture of culture with added flavour of leftism and money sinkhole, we struggle to understand eachother when we speak dialect and nobody understands plattdeutsch, etc etc.
We always weren't very unified and those borders didn't go away just because they went away on the worldmap.
Eh, not quite. National identities are complicated (who would have guessed?) and the 1850s had a popular middle-class national formation movement - at a time where roughly comparable movements sprouted here and there.
However, the idea of a German people was older. At about 1000, there was already some idea that the tribes/confederations of the Saxons, Franks, Bavarians and Swabians plus the odd other tribe were somehow similar enough to be jointly called the Teutschen ("Teutones"). They had mutually understandable languages and for whatever reasons stuck together for a few centuries.
Notably, the Czechs, who were part of the empire for most of its existence - and the Bohemian king being the highest-rank noble after the emperor himself - were not considered "real" Germans.
By 1850, the question "who is German" was raised multiple times, with varying answers.
the BRD absorbed the DDR and didn‘t form a new country. The DDR territories were with the founding of the BRD claimed, as to give a legal precedence when a unification would be possible.
This is kind of the crux of it, what do you mean by "modern country"?
My point is that the german country is continuous since origination.
The german state (modern or not) is much newer. And toy can argue over the specific date here. Either the original german unification. Or the post ww2 german state formed from scratch, or the post DDR german state.
The german founding didn't predates the american founding. By the german country (and the german nation, tho it's difficult to talk about proto-nationalism so deterministically) predate the american country.
I'm not sure you're fully grokking that I'm speaking of two different things that is, annoyingly, conflated as the same thing in the english language. When you say "japan" (for instance) you can both be refering to the political state of japan, and the country (and tons of other stuff).
The current japanese state was founded (i mean One can argue about this but it's fairly well backed by historians) during the meiji restoration, so after america's independence.
Yet I doubt you would in all pride proclaim that "america is older than japan".
Depending on how you cut the "american country" you could fairly argue that america the country predates the actual independence of the american state by about a century or so.
Still younger than the german, and japanese, country but older than 1774.
I think it's a stretch to claim america the country came into existence the moment it was named after vespucci (at the very least you should have some group of people called or calling themselves "americans" permanently living within the territory, just as a bare minimum) but nevertheless I'm more than happy to grant you that point for the sake of argument, because it nevertheless cedes to what I'm saying regarding germany vs america.
There were people living in America before Europeans arrived. And they called themselves something. Not "American", obviously, but then Germans don't call themselves "German", either. I just wanna make sure all the facts are on the table.
Yes, agree other people lived within their own countries within the borders of modern america.
In fact that's a my whole point. The current territory of america had at the time plenty of countries within it, some of them older than germany. But america itself wasn't a country yet.
And yes, the germans did call themselves germans. Obviously in their own native german language (low, high, or yiddish), the fact that they had a unified german identity is quite idnsputable.
The point is that back then it wasn't in Germany, because there wasn't a Germany to speak of. It was in any of the smaller countries that at some point became Germany.
That may be the case, but back in the day there wasn't germany as we know it today. Instead europe consisted of many kingdoms. And your hometown was part of one of these.
Italy, as a single nation, was unified on 17 March 1861 and made a republic on 12 June 1946. Before that, the peninsula was home to various smaller states.
I am only speaking to the nation-state NAMED Italy. The nation NAMED Italy did not exist before the 19th century. There WERE states existing on the Italian Peninsula before the 19th century. Those states were NOT named Italy.
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u/Who_am_ey3 27d ago
funnily enough, the US has been a country way longer than Germany has been one