The Language of Freedom

Abstract

This chapter draws on the work of Hans Kohn and Anthony D. Smith in order to re‐examine two important, related, but relatively neglected aspects of modern nationalism: (i) the ancient Greek and Hebrew sources of modern conceptions of liberty and nationality, and (ii) the complex relationship between particularism and universalism, nationality and humanity, in the making of modern national identities and solidarities. After considering theoretically and historically these two aspects of modern nationalism, the chapter looks at their empirical manifestations in the parliament buildings of modern Europe. This it does by means of a small survey of the architectural style and artistic decorations of European parliament buildings, constructed between the late eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. In this survey, I examine, first, the visual vocabulary and symbols of democracy, as the rule of free people, turned into citizens, and, second, how images of the self‐governing demos (the people) became intertwined with and were mapped onto images of the self‐governing nation.