Editing the Nation’s Memory

Europe's nation-states emerged from a complex of nineteenth-century developments in which cultural consciousness-raising played a formative role. The nineteenth-century reflection on Europe's national identities involved a re-inventory and revalorisation of the vernacular cultural past and, above all, the nation's literary heritage. Everywhere in Europe, foundational texts (including medieval epics and romances, ancient laws and chronicles) were retrieved from their obscure repositories. In new,