DISCUSS THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE AND POPULAR TRADITIONS IN THE CREATION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY.
Answers
Language and the popular tradition is a key representation of a national identity. A person is known by these two features in a foreign land. Every nation has its own mode of communication, culture and traditions. And when a person go abroad then he represents his nation by these two characteristics. For example Chinese don't believe in learning new languages rather they are endeavoring to promote their own language. Often they take translators with them on visits to other countries. Then same is the case with tradition. Then in India they traditions are so fascinating that other countries imitate their traditions like Diwali etc.
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• Romantic artists and poets generally criticized the glorification of reason and science and focused instead on emotions, intuition and mystical feelings.
• Their effort was to create a sense of a shared collective heritage, a common cultural past, as the basis of a nation.
• The German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people “Das Volk.”
• It was through folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation (Volksgeist) was popularized.
• So, collecting and recording these forms of folk culture was essential to the project of nation building.
Language:
• Language too played an important role in developing nationalist sentiments.
• After Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced out of schools and the Russian language was imposed everywhere.
• The Polish rebellion against Russians rule, which was ultimately crushed.
• Following this, many members of the clergy in Poland began to use language as a weapon of national resistance.
• Polish was used for Church gatherings and all religious instruction.
• As a result, many priests and bishops were put in jail or sent to Siberia by the Russian authorities as punishment for their refusal to preach in Russian.
• The use of Polish came to be seen as a symbol of the struggle against Russian dominance.