Volksgeist

Volksgeist or Nationalgeist refers to a "spirit" of an individual people (Volk) or ethnic/racial nation, its "national spirit" or "national character" of the Volksgemeinschaft.

Definition

“Geist” is a central concept in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's 1807 The Phenomenology of Spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes). Notable compounds, all associated with Hegel's view of world history of the late 18th century, include Weltgeist "world-spirit", Volksgeist "national spirit" and Zeitgeist "spirit of the age". Volksgeist was also used in Germany before Hegel.

See also

• Revolutionary Conservative Movement.
• Völkisch movement
• Zeitgeist

People

• Johann Gottlieb Fichte
• Johann Gottfried Herder
• Ludwig Jahn
• August von Schlegel
• Richard Wagner
• Paul de Lagarde
• Houston Stewart Chamberlain
• Arthur Moeller van den Bruck
• Edgar Julius Jung
• Alfred Rosenberg
• Knut Hamsun
• Walter Darre
• Carl Jung
• A.C. Cuza

External links

• "Herder's Theory of the Volksgeist" by Andrew Hamilton
• "The Heritage of Europe's 'Revolutionary Conservative Movement'" by Ian B. Warren
• "Johann Gottfried von Herder" at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy