Humankind has always had the tendency of living in groups in which they could search for protection, live and develop. They would establish communities at a territory in excellent conditions where they could create their civilization. The link with this territory would define them and here they establish a social and political life (for example Vikings, Egyptian or the Mesopotamian civilizations). They lived in a society divided by a system of hierarchy where they had different social classes, but they were also recognisable by their culture, architecture, temples, etc.
Evolution of the European States
The expansion of the European civilizations became clearer with the creation of the first maps during the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The different civilizations who settled and identified themselves with one territory expanded their territory to gain prestige. This has led to the creation of a firm society that became more organized, with a political structure (hierarchy) and which, at the same time, attracted more people.
According to the German writer and cartographer Johann Zahn, who wrote in 1696 about nations and their inhabitants, the most significant nations in Europe were Germany, Italy, Spain, France and England because of their clearly defined borders, but also because of the way of living of their inhabitants, their language and physical aspects (Leerssen, 2006, p. 63).
Although he wrote about nations, the definition of ´national character´ rose during the Enlightenment (18th century) with the principles of democracy. The North American demographic Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789) set the origin of ´nationalism´.
The word ´nation´ comes to refer to the corporate identity of all political subjects of a given country. The realization that these people form, not a servile estate or a subaltern layer in society, but the general body politic, with a will and a mandate of its own, will call into play the concept of nation […] the birth of democracy vests power, […] in the united will of the people; and that people, following 1789, will proclaim its inclusiveness and emancipation by calling itself a nation (Leerssen, 2006, p. 89).
Although nationalism was meant to be represented by democratic ideas, it was brought to extremes and interpreted by many leaders during the following centuries as a principle of totalitarianism. After the French Revolution, according to Leerssen, ¨there was no space for differences by nation, region, class, etc. In France, everyone was part of the ´Republique française, une et indivisible´¨ (2006).
The nationalistic feeling, which developed during the following centuries, changed from cultural nationalism, the identity of inhabitants with their territory, to geopolitics, where xenophobia and ethnicity took over, and leaded to different (world) wars. However, after the fall of the empires of Germany, Russia and Austria, new states emerged with, in most cases, a government based on democracy, sovereignty. All these different nations decided that there couldn´t be any other war in Europe triggered by expansionism or nationalism.
After ending the twentieth centuries wars, Europe found itself divided into multiple new states, which were defined and put onto the map. West- and South European states were delimited as we know them today, but eastern states, which were part of the former Soviet Union and Germany, experienced more changes till the last decade of the twentieth century, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991, and the end of the Balkan War in 1995.