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During the reign of Maria Theresia and her son Emperor Joseph II, Trieste was completely rebuilt and became an attractive freetax port of the Habsburg Empire. From the beginning of the eighteenth century to the first decade of the twentieth century, the population of Trieste increased from 5,000 to 230,000 inhabitants with an incredible number of migrants coming from Central Europe and the Mediterranean coastal areas. The multiethnic middle class obtained a series of privileges never granted before to the nobility, and its status is recognisable through the passion for chamber music and symphonies of Wiener Klassik, played both in private and public concerts. With the help of Czech intellectuals and musicians, during the 1860s the native Slovenes established a group of societies in which Romantic music and national anthems or Lieder were played. This trend culminated in the foundation of the Narodni dom (National House) and the Glasbena matica ([Slovene] Music Society). At the same time, the Italian nationalists maintained partial control of the Opera house, and the German minority reacted with the Schillerverein, in which Julius Heller spent his energies in spreading the music of Romantic and late-Romantic authors. Despite the political clash, the three groups gave significant impulse to instrumental music, which has marked the culture of Trieste.

The Herrnhut Brethren (Moravians) expanded to the Baltic region in the early eighteenth century and quickly became a substantial religious force, especially among the local Estonian and Latvian peasant population. Instead of following a top-down institutional approach to Christianity, the Moravians approached the peasants as equals. The resulting religious contact between the Moravians and the Baltic Lutheran Church entrenched Christianity in the Baltic countryside more than had previously been the case and empowered the local population, largely through the innovative use of media and access to education.

With the real earthquake in Lisboa, 1755, as well as the revolutionary ones in France and the shocks of the Napoleonic wars, the model of a temporally linear development of modernity, with ‘Progress’ as its universal goal, was shaken; and beyond the impact on Enlightenment rationality and philosophy of reason, it affected all assumed meaning of history, knowledge, and apparent certainties. This ‘state of crisis’ induced Heinrich von Kleist first to his novella The Earthquake in Chile (Das Erdbeben in Chili, 1806/1807) and then to suicide, whereas F. D. E. Schleiermacher responded with his theory of modern hermeneutics as a synthesis of the individual and the general. Building on Hana Šmahelová’s V síti dějin literatury národního obrození (2011), the paper focuses on the model of temporalisation of historical processes and in particular the ‘event of national reawakening’ as part of the ‘project of modernization’.

At a time when our Arab nation is fighting its most ferocious and cruel battles for the sake of realizing itself and confirming its national identity, we see that the manifestations of national awakening represent a mature idea and a national act by which this nation shields everything that might target it in its reality and its future. The thought of the nation and the language, literature, heritage, history and culture that fall under it is the fortified shield with which any nation can overcome all the difficulties that stand in the way of its unity. Our national awakening in the modern era was able to reach our nation with what it had during its glorious days and forbade it. One of the reasons for the breakthrough of our crisis at the beginning of this century was that we were able to unite through our national awakening, and this century has barely gone beyond its first half until the features of this awakening became clear to confirm its support for the reality of the Arab nation, to rise in its condition and strengthen its strength. Perhaps the dimensions that the researcher was able to sense in this awakening are based on three issues: The first: the Arabic language as a factor on which the common sentiment of the nation meets, as it is a means of understanding and communication on the one hand, as it connects what has been cut off from the nation’s reality with its common past and its glorious history. And the second: the emergence of a national concept that unites the children of a single nation, unifies its hopes and draws the lines for its future. As for the third issue, it is the embodiment of modern Arabic poetry, the implications of this awakening and it is represented by three dimensions: The past: represented by singing glories and heroism and pride in history and civilization, as these contents have always been motivations and advancement. And the present: It is represented in the restoration of our holy land in Palestine, the fight against tyranny and the resistance to colonialism, as it is represented in the call for familiarity and praise of revolutions. These are topics that our poets are still very preoccupied with, and then they are still living them as a passing reality that stimulates the tyranny of national sentiments and derives its ideas and meanings from this reality. And finally: the future: is the safety of the nation’s children in liberation and unity. Within these three issues, the researcher can put his hand on the manifestations of national awakening represented by the past, the present and the future.