Special Chapter
Unstoppable Progress, Unstoppable Rebelliousness
As the 18th century drew to a close, the world witnessed that the Industrial Revolution will change it's face forever. New technologies were being tested and implemented left and right, progress was moving forward at speeds unimaginable to the human eye, and the rise of the industrial economy and the beginning of mass production were starting to reshape all that people thought they knew about themselves, their peers, their society, the way their society should work, and the Universe.
The power of the steam engine to provide motion power was originally implemented in power looms, but quickly, inventors and engineers learned to implement this capability to make machines move. Faced with a number of registered inventions and protests from the entrepreneur class, who wished to have a legal way to protect their inventions from being copied without their say, Director Constantin Gounelle ordered the foundation of France's first
Patent Office in 1799, and one of the first inventions that was registered in this institution was made by Jacques Langly, one of Roland Beaugendre's aides, who constructed the world's first practical
steam locomotive. This machine used steam power to produce pulling power, being able to move on rails without the help of a human, a horse or any other living being. The first experimental
railroad, built for locomotives, was constructed in 1802, connecting two mining towns in Wallonia, and while the locomotive was slow, relatively weak and scared horses, it brought upon a revolution in transport. Rail networks quickly descended across Europe like a net upon a butterfly, and by 1870, thousands of miles of railways were counted in France, Germania, Italy, Visegrad, Lithuania and the VFS. The seafarers didn't have to wait long for their own equivalent - in 1805, Gilberto Guillaumo, a shipbuilder and engineer from Genoa, Italy, set to "sail" with the world's first
steamship, arriving to Toulon in record time. While the first steamship was much smaller and more fragile than the great galleons of the time, it had one unforgettable advantage - it was not reliant on the direction of the wind to move. Steamships and railroads revolutionized transport - in 1870, people joked that "40 years ago, it would take a man many months to travel from New York to Vilnius, but now, you'd be unlucky if you needed even two months for that".
It was around this time that military technology began to take a number of leaps forward as well. While the technology for rifling - that is, making a barrel with helical grooves for more powerful shots - had existed since the 16th century, the first
rifles were used in action during the Second Dutch-Spanish War, where the Vespucian forces were supplied by a few hundred recently built French "Limousin rifles". They were so successful and so useful in the low-scale skirmish environment of the Mississippi valley and Luisiana that the word "Limousine", or "limo" even became synonymous with "rifle". Limousines were used in wars in South Vespucia, Africa and Asia, Visegrad bought a few thousand for equipping troops during the Visegradian-Ottoman War, and soon, the technology became a staple of European and Vespucian armies. Of course, the rest of the world didn't take long to adopt it as well. The second half of the 19th century was marked by an another major major development in military technology - invented by Christophe Dimont, the
Dimont gun was one of the first rapid-fire spring loaded, hand cranked weapons, a precursor to the modern machine gun. It became famous for it's cheap cost, making it available to not just wealthy European nations, but also to the entire world, as well as it's wide use in colonial warfare.
The middle and the second half of the 19th century marked the development of electrical technology, sparked by recent advancements in physics - especially by the work of
Helmut Schmitt, a scientist from South Germania who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. It was he who discovered the principles of electromagnetic induction - creating an electrical current through the use of magnetic fields - which began a revolution in electrical technology. His findings were later confirmed and expanded by other German, Lithuanian and French physicists. Induction allowed the creation of the world's first power stations, which used steam power to move magnets and thus incite the phenomenon. Schmitt also developed a rudimentary electromagnetic rotary device, a precursor to electric motors, and while they were not practical at his time, they later became the flagman of the second leap of the Industrial Revolution, where steam power was being replaced with electricity. In 1855, Vespucian businessman Jan-Willem Plenk introduced the world to it's first
electric light bulb, capable of illuminating areas without the need of fire or the Sun. Electrical lighting soon became a common sight in private homes and factories, and the increased work efficiency thanks to illumination at evening and night cannot be underestimated.
An another scientist from South Germania participated in another breakthrough, just in a far different field.
Wendelin Lindemann was a biologist from Baden who, like many others, long pondered about the way how thousands of variations of species of plants and animals arose, and, as if via intelligent design, became so well adapted to the environment they live in. Sure, the religious explanation was always there, but in this age of science and reason, the people wanted a down-to-earth reason. This mystery sent Lindemann to numerous expeditions across the globe, most importantly to the Caribbean, where he analyzed the different species of colibri on the many different islands in the archipelago. As Lindemann put it, the physical separation of a "precursor" species due to large bodies of water, putting separate species into different environments, invoked a kind of "natural selection", whereas individuals who are more fit for survival - for example, a colibri with a heavier, stronger beak than his peers in an island where the main source of food is nuts - would live longer and have more offspring, thus passing on their traits to the next generation. Using the colibri scenario, the birds with stronger beaks would eventually grow to dominate the island, as they are more fit for crushing and eating nuts, while the birds with weaker beaks would go extinct. Using many previous authors, and basing it on recently discovered evidence about geological layers in the lithosphere and thus the much, must greater age of the Earth than previously thought, Lindemann released the "Treatise on Natural Selection and the Survival of the Most Capable Species" in 1839, where he developed the theory nowadays referred to as
Lindemanism - the idea that all life on Earth share a some form of common ancestor, which evolved into all known current species through the process known as natural selection. The scientist thus believed that man was also a descendent of this common ancestor, and his closest "relatives" would be monkeys and apes. Lindemann's theory almost instantly whipped up a storm across Europe, but the book almost instantly became popular among all circles of society.
Lindemann himself was a Reformist, and often claimed to be an advent believer in God, even stating in the end of his book that he "believes that the theories of God and of evolutionary development can coexist and do not interfere with one another", but this did not stop fervent supporters of his theories to denounce the existence of God and fervent opponents to call him a "monkey-loving heretic". As expected, Britannia banned the Treatise only two years later after it's publication, and only protests from the scientific community prevented this from also happening in Spain and Italy. Debates on the accuracy of Lindemanism continued for half a century, and in some cases continue to this day, but by 1870, it was firmly established in the scientific community.
Unfortunately, in some cases, science can be distorted and taken to the extreme by people who wish to manipulate it for their own good, and evolution was no different - inaccurately applying Lindemann's ideas to social structures and nations, some began to campaign for the ideology of
National Lindemanism. This extreme ideology took natural selection to it's "logical" extreme, decrying that all nations in the world compete for survival, and only the fittest of them can live to fight another day. As such, in their eyes, the perfect nation is one which is built solely to compete with others - and this meant massive militarization, imperialism and planned economics. National Lindemanists often espoused pseudo-scientific ideas about racial superiority and the genetic differences between cultures, some even going as far as to claim that Europeans, Africans and Asians are different species. Many of them were also members of National Unitarian circles, however, this ideology did not market itself beyond niche appeal, albeit it did manage to get some ground in Lithuania, India, Japan and Germania.
A 19th century British caricature of Wendelin Lindemann
All these inventions and scientific developments, spreading across not just Europe, but now the entire world, were also rapidly accelerating the change of the culture and society of the planet. As we all know, art is a mirror of life and of the time in which is was created, so it's only fear to show the vast cultural changes through the lense of art history.
After the death of Classicism and widespread dismay with the values of the Enlightenment due to the defeat of the Great German Revolution, it was replaced by the movement called
Romanticism, which dominated Europe from the mid 18th century to the first decades of the 19th century, although strands and successor movements continued it's legacy up to the 20th century. Disappointed with the strict structures of their society and the Classicist zeitgeist of "art must follow a set list of rules", Romanticists wished to break with the old traditions of the world around them. Their art was emotional, expressive and full of motion, often presenting burning cities, death scenes, ominous shadows and similar themes, their music was no longer full of grandeur, but rather dominated by sadness and often outright anger, while their literature often portrayed tragic love stories, gruesome and emotional death scenes, and main characters which were usually rebellious, young and energetic, but end up in a tragic fate.
Romanticists brought upon a resurgence in historical interest, especially the Middle Ages, which were seen by the Enlightenment thinkers before them as a dark and uncivilized era. Stories of courtly love, knights in shiny armor, grandiose battles between good and evil became common themes in Romanticist literature, and this, coupled with the aftermath of the Great German Revolution, led to an entirely different phenomenon, which was, depending on your perspective, either ominous or positive - the beginning of
Nationalism. A resurgence in historical interest, especially national myths, the development of the modern nation state, the Great German Revolution and other similar events all led to the creation of a "national identity" - people across Europe felt no longer tied to their monarch or government, but rather to their nation, and if their nation did not have a state, also to the need for liberating it from a foreign oppressor. Always seeking a new cause to champion, Romanticists quickly leaped on the Nationalist train, calling for national self-determination and the destruction of multi-national empires that littered Europe like the self-centered idealists that they were.
However, Romanticism did not last forever, soon their enthusiasm for nationalism and historical interest faded, and as the Industrial Revolution rolled in, with technological advances massively outpacing social advancement, many people began to feel like idealistic dreams were unnecessary when there were real problems at hand, and this led to the rise of
Realism. The zeitgeist of the Realist movement called for, as the name implies, realism - to them, the job of an artist was to depict the reality of this changing world in a way that the problems that people face day and night can be confronted and solved. Realist art may have lacked in emotion or energetic expression compared to it's predecessor, but it made up for it by drawing inspiration from real life situations and events, portraying them as accurately as possible. During this era, realist music shifted roles - whereas it was previously able to stand up on it's own in concerts, it was gradually moving a background role, as the primary music genre changed from concerts and ballets to operas and plays, most of whom portrayed realistic, down-to-earth themes. However, the real elephant in the room was realist literature, the field of art where it was the strongest. It did not bother with historical events or fantasy, but rather, it presented lifelike scenarios and situations with easily visible, didactic themes. Realists believed that art must teach the viewer.
Around the time that Realism took hold, the Industrial Revolution was at it's height, and while more and more innovations were being rolled out, not everyone benefited from that. The new working class - the proletariat - had to live in horrible conditions, with tiny wages, child mortality was high, not many could afford an education or acquiring a qualified profession, radical ideologies like Unitarianism were starting to take hold, and all of this disgusted the Realists. They hoped to use art as a weapon, presenting the horrible conditions of the poor classes and the inequality that rose out of the Industrial Revolution, to encourage politicians to enact reforms and help the workers. And in some places, they were successful - the first workplace security regulations were enacted in France and the Netherlands during the 1850s, healthcare and education systems were also slowly pushed through.
Realism was dominant throughout the first half of the 19th century, and continued so to the second half, but as time went on, more and more artists were growing disillusioned with the movement. They saw Realism as too conservative, and believed that portraying events in a lifelike manner did not give enough leeway for artistic expression, or was just boring. While Realism maintained it's grip for the time being, a dark omen arrived to soon challenge it's domination, coming from the East - the
Ispudia Movement. With the name being a Western distortion of the Lithuanian word "įspūdis" (impression), the Ispudia started out as an artist circle in Vilnius in the year 1868. These painters and writers called for a reconstruction of the artistic values of the time, decrying realistic depictions to be meaningless in the face of showing the emotions and impression that a sight of an event gives to the viewer. Ispudia painters were the first to work outside rather than in their cabinets, using the recently invented field easels and portable paint tubes to draw a sight and it's impression as it unfolds before them, rather than from memory, while Ispudia writers used emotional and complex language to put down mental streams of thoughts and impressions, through that they revolutionized the style of writing in first person. Many of the members of the circle were radical Republicans, some even outright Unitarians, which led to Emperor Žygimantas II banning the movement in 1871, but the majority of it's followers managed to escape to the West, settling down in Visegrad, Germania and France and turning their ideas into a continent wide phenomenon. Ispudia artists were rebellious and easily impressed, they outright denounced Realist ideas in favor of searching for their individual styles, and while they weren't much all by themselves, they were the forerunners of a much more groundbreaking art movement...
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And now, we shall go back to Lithuania for a few chapters, after which we will finally return to your normal programming.
The next chapter will be about a nation one of our readers holds dear
