@article {Allen321, author = {Julie K. Allen}, title = {Taking the Measure of National Greatness: Georg Brandes{\textquoteright}s Condemnation of German Imperialism}, volume = {108}, number = {3}, pages = {321--331}, year = {2016}, doi = {10.3368/m.108.3.321}, publisher = {University of Wisconsin Press}, abstract = {In numerous public speeches and essays published around the turn of the 20th century, the Danish intellectual Georg Brandes (1842{\textendash}1927) criticized Germany{\textquoteright}s imperialistic behavior, in particular its oppressive treatment of the Danish minority in Slesvig-Holstein, as incompatible with true national greatness. In Brandes{\textquoteright}s view, many of the same traits and actions that bolstered Germany{\textquoteright}s national pride and international might violated human rights and compromised human dignity, thus diminishing Germany{\textquoteright}s moral and cultural stature. Grounded in the traditions of bourgeois liberalism, Brandes{\textquoteright}s brand of cosmopolitan nationalism privileges the {\textquotedblleft}universal{\textquotedblright} conception of the nation as a civic union in which the rights of heterogeneous ethnic groups must be protected by the state to which they belong, regardless of that state{\textquoteright}s dominant linguistic and ethnic identity. His defense of oppressed minority groups against the economic and military might of German imperialism exemplifies his privileging of the universal over the national. (JKA)}, issn = {0026-9271}, URL = {https://mon.uwpress.org/content/108/3/321}, eprint = {https://mon.uwpress.org/content/108/3/321.full.pdf}, journal = {Monatshefte} }