Second thought
Sep. 11th, 2006 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marlowe1I was talking to my friend Gabriel last night and we were talking about the Italian Renaissance and how the Germans would just keep marching into Italy and he corrected me somewhat by reminding me that it wasn't really Italy and Germany. It was the papal states and the Holy Roman Empire and a whole lot of fiefdoms in between held together barely by alliances and common languages.
It's just so strange talking about history and not being able to get out of the Nationalist mind set. So I will say that Germany spent about 1000 years walking into Italy to sort things out and then not quite understanding why it was impossible to impose the German model on the Italians. Yet, this is grossly inaccurate since this began as a series of Popes trying to get the Holy Roman Emporer to intervene on their behalf in the 10th century and ended in a truly Nationalistic power grab in post-Mussolini Italy as the Germans took over and began exporting Jews (fun historical fact: As long as Mussolini was alive the Jews of Italy were safe. He even had a Jewish mistress. It was only after his death that the deportations began. Ok that's not exactly fun, but is anything about history really fun. It's all a bit sordid and tragic. Although if you go back far enough you really can't get too choked up. Just think of all those descendents of those that escaped Pompey going back to Pompey - Pompeii? - and looking at the well preserved dead bodies and graffitti and going "COOL!") and can we really call the Ancient Romans Italians and the Ancient Barbaric Tribes (Huns, Goths, etc.) Germans? Or the Ancient Gauls French? Nothing that could define anyone as Goth, Roman or Gaul really applies today. Everyone moved around and had a lot of intertribal sex.
And for the past 200 years we've had Nation States and we've been defining everything based on these nations with clear borders. And we've been using Nationalism as a prejorative term even though the alternatives are tribalism, imperialism and general chaos.
Anyhow that's what I'm thinking about when I should be working.
It's just so strange talking about history and not being able to get out of the Nationalist mind set. So I will say that Germany spent about 1000 years walking into Italy to sort things out and then not quite understanding why it was impossible to impose the German model on the Italians. Yet, this is grossly inaccurate since this began as a series of Popes trying to get the Holy Roman Emporer to intervene on their behalf in the 10th century and ended in a truly Nationalistic power grab in post-Mussolini Italy as the Germans took over and began exporting Jews (fun historical fact: As long as Mussolini was alive the Jews of Italy were safe. He even had a Jewish mistress. It was only after his death that the deportations began. Ok that's not exactly fun, but is anything about history really fun. It's all a bit sordid and tragic. Although if you go back far enough you really can't get too choked up. Just think of all those descendents of those that escaped Pompey going back to Pompey - Pompeii? - and looking at the well preserved dead bodies and graffitti and going "COOL!") and can we really call the Ancient Romans Italians and the Ancient Barbaric Tribes (Huns, Goths, etc.) Germans? Or the Ancient Gauls French? Nothing that could define anyone as Goth, Roman or Gaul really applies today. Everyone moved around and had a lot of intertribal sex.
And for the past 200 years we've had Nation States and we've been defining everything based on these nations with clear borders. And we've been using Nationalism as a prejorative term even though the alternatives are tribalism, imperialism and general chaos.
Anyhow that's what I'm thinking about when I should be working.
