A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Nationalist Dreams 603

that the municipal government could restore order. In January 1831, a large
crowd surrounded the Sejm, which declared that the Russian tsar (Nicholas
I) was no longer king of Poland. A provisional national government formed.
The Sejm, however, refused to attempt to mobilize peasants in support of
the insurrection, fearing that they might demand land reform and attack
their lords instead of the Russians. In August 1832 the tsar’s troops sur­
rounded Warsaw. Tensions between moderates and radicals erupted into vio­
lence, making its defense even more difficult. Warsaw fell to Russian troops
in the autumn, and about 10,000 Poles fled Russian oppression. Emigre Pol­
ish artists and musicians enriched cultural life in Western Europe capitals.
The composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) moved to Paris in 1831, hop­
ing to make his fortune. Although he was not really a political refugee,
ardent nationalism infused his music, as he drew upon Polish folk themes
and dances.
The privileges that had been accorded “Congress Poland” disappeared.
Nicholas I abolished the constitution that Poland had enjoyed within the
Russian Empire, as well as the Sejm and the Polish army. Encouraged by
Russian measures against the Poles, Prussia and Austria withdrew conces­
sions they had earlier given to the Poles in the territories they had absorbed
in the 1790s.

Uprisings in Italy and Spain

Popular stirrings in the Italian states, beginning with movements in Bologna

and the Duchy of Modena, started as protests against inefficient and corrupt

rule. Rebels in Parma literally locked Duchess Marie-Louise out of the city

by shutting the gates until an Austrian army arrived in March 1831 to let her

back in. Several cities in central Italy that declared their independence from

the Papal States proclaimed the “United Provinces of Italy.”

Like the Poles, insurgents against Austrian rule in several towns within the

Papal States unrealistically counted on help from French armies, who again

would march with a tricolor flag since the fall of the Bourbons. With Austrian

troops approaching from the north, an army of volunteers marched toward

Rome, defeating the pope’s army. But by then Austrian forces had taken

Modena, Parma, and Ferrara. A papal army mopped up resistance, sacking

several towns, and Austrian troops had to return to save the local popula­

tions. The Italian insurrections collapsed without winning popular support.

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), a lawyer by training and an energetic

revolutionary by temperament, emerged as a guiding spirit in the quest for

Italian unification under a republic. Mazzini wanted to bring peace to Eu­

rope by liberating all peoples. He was one of the first to suggest that the

states of Europe might evolve into a loose federation of democratic states

based on the principle of nationality. Mazzini believed that a defeat of Aus­

tria in northern Italy would serve as a first step toward creating a federation

of European democratic republics. Rejecting the Carbonari’s conspiratorial