From its earliest stirrings, with their focus on the development of national languages and folklore, and the spiritual value of local customs and traditions, to the movements that would redraw the map of Europe and lead to calls for self-determination of nationalities, nationalism was one of the key issues in Romanticism, determining its roles, expressions and meanings. Īmong the key themes of Romanticism, and its most enduring legacy, the cultural assertions of romantic nationalism have also been central in post-Enlightenment art and political philosophy. (see the divine right of kings and the Mandate of Heaven). Such downward-radiating power might ultimately derive from a god or gods

Romantic nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the top down, emanating from a monarch or other authority, which justified its existence. It can be applied to ethnic nationalism as well as civic nationalism. This includes such factors as language, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and customs of the nation in its primal sense of those who were born within its culture.

Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. Painted by Hans Gude and Adolph Tidemand. Brudeferden i Hardanger (Bridal procession in Hardanger), a monumental piece within Norwegian romantic nationalism.

Verdi opera set in the 5th century