Paper Topic and Introduction

Topic:

Anderson suggests that a nation is an imagined community in which people with no real physical connection maintain a psychological bond--nationalist sentiment--based on their concept of shared nationality, which includes shared language, art, and values; the European anthem extends this claim by broadening the scope of this imagined community: for imagined communities based on the idea of shared culture applies not only to nations, but to regions as well.  Yet, though nationalism and regionalism are similar, they are not identical, a fact which the European anthem may help to illustrate.

Introduction:

Rather like its pre-modern predecessors, a nation is a politically unified group of people who feel a strong psychological bond with each other, not because of any actual acquaintance or genetic relationship, but because of members' belief in a shared history--including language and art--and shared set of values.  The vague yet remarkably strong bond of nationalism among diverse populations is complex and difficult to understand fully.  In Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict Anderson manages to distill the phenomenon into the concise term "imagined political community" (Anderson 6).  He also asserts that national anthems are a hallmark of nationalism, for singing one's national anthem with one's countrymen creates a physical manifestation of a nation's imagined unity (145).  Yet the European anthem, Ludwig van Beethoven's prelude to his setting of Friedrich Schiller's poem "An der Freude" ("Ode to Joy"), sheds light on an even broader imagined community: the region.  Like nationalism, regionalism is a feeling of belonging to a group of people tied by historical interaction, artistic common ground, and shared values.  Unlike nations, however, regions are not united by language--thus, regional ties are even less concrete than national bonds.  The European anthem illustrates both the similarities and the crucial difference between nationalism and regionalism by utilizing some basic elements of distinctly 'European' art and values, while simultaneously tearing down the language barriers among European nations.