ABSTRACT
The French experience awakened a national con sciousness in peoples throughout Europe. The democ ratic idea of self-rule had became bound up with the ideal of national self-determination. Various ethnic groups agitated for the creation of nation-states formed
by peoples with a common heritage. It was believed that the homogeneity of these states would guarantee internal harmony and permit the development of democratic life. During the 19th century Germans and Italians created unified nation-states while Poles, Czechs and Hungari ans agitated for national independence from the empires of which they were a part. Many Central European peo ples achieved their goal following World War I, when the principle of national self-determination, articulated in Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, helped reshape the map of Europe and led to the creation of such nations as Finland, Estonia and Czechoslovakia. During the 20th century nationalist independence movements or revolu tions won victories throughout Africa and Asia as colo nial powers divested themselves of their empires. Na tionalism also played a major role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and contributed to the breakup of Czechoslovakia.
