A message from the past about the nationalism of today - BBC

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Watch the BBC first on iPlayer 👉 Simon Schama explores the genesis of modern nationalism its romantic roots in a new idea of nature and homeland, the 'discovery' of native folklore and above all the part played by music especially Frederic Chopin’s mazurkas in generating the emotion of national belonging.

But where did this feverish passion for homeland begin? For many romantics, it began in 17th-century Switzerland with the diagnosis of a familiar, all-too-human emotion by the Swiss doctor Johannes Hofer - nostalgia. Hofer believed that it was a lethal malady that was triggered by anything that reminded Swiss soldiers serving abroad of home.

In Scotland, Simon looks at the work of Robert Burns, who grew up in Ayrshire in the 1770s. Speaking to singer-songwriter Eddi Reader, who performs A Red, Red Rose, Simon explores how Burns created authentically Scottish poetry and music that could hold its own against the oncoming tide of English culture.

Simon then travels to Germany to explore how Napoleon’s invasion of the German lands in the early 1800s also kickstarted a group of German romantics to begin their own ‘campaign of national belonging’ – with dark consequences.

In the last section of the film, Simon travels to Poland and Paris to look at how Polish romantic artists and musicians, in particular Frederic Chopin, created a ‘Poland of the imagination’ in their art after Poland had not just been defeated but been completely wiped off the map.

When the Nazis invaded Poland once again during the Second World War, Chopin’s music was banned, his statues (and scores) across the country were destroyed, and an extraordinary battle was waged over the relic of his actual heart, and so, visiting the Last Night of the Proms in London to hear our own national anthems, Simon asks some profound questions about the resurgence of populist, nationalist movements across the world.

The Romantics and Us with Simon Schama | Series 1 Episode 3 | BBC

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