cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

an idea. With an idea it is a question only of its truth, or in other words whether it is a
real idea, which has its root in the general consciousness and in the nature of the matter,
or a mere fancy. Of the so-called Scandinavian Idea it must accordingly be asked,
whether there really is an Idea of Scandinavia, of which the former is merely the
subjective reflection, and then whether if Scandinavia really is something, is a national
unity, which has its definite historical mission, then what this is. But this can only be
discovered by a more comprehensive historical consideration, and pending its outcome all
secondary considerations with respect to benefit, harm, etc., must be overshadowed.
The recent past has undeniably had a revolutionary, divisive and destructive
character. One can date this tendency from the Reformation, which attacked at its root
the principle of an external authority brooding over Europe, to awaken by means of an
inner--religious--domain the feeling of the individual's independence and eternal
justification. This movement must, however, also extend to the political [sphere]; since
there were also--by analogy with the aforementioned spiritual hegemony--powerful
princely houses with military power and diplomatic connections that gathered under
themselves masses of different peoples, who without inner sympathies were held together
merely by an outward compulsion. Even if the Reformation seems at first to show favor
precisely to secular absolutism, even so it could not fail that in a more distant future its
actual principle of independence and individuality must assert itself also in political
respects.
This creative spark long smouldering in silence actually broke into flame in the
French Revolution, and that movement, which from there spread over Europe, has
essentially the merit to have called forth nations instead of empires, nations which have
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