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His more important contribution to the Czech cause, though, took the form of several pieces of music: a “March for the Student Legions and the National Guard,” and his “Song of Freedom,” designed to spark the battle against the forces of reaction with its opening words of “War, war, the flag is fluttering, arise Czechs!” Likewise, his Jubilation Overture expressed his own hope for the success of the Czech cause. As in Dresden, however, the revolutionary forces were defeated, and much like Wagner, Smetana was forced to flee his city, taking refuge at his parents’ house in the Bohemian countryside.
Edvard Grieg was only seven years old during the events of 1848–1849, living snugly with his family in faraway Bergen, Norway. Instead of manning the revolutionary barricades, his own involvement in a political upheaval came much later, in 1905, when he was already an old man. However, during that year’s crisis over the breakup of the Norwegian-Swedish union, Grieg, as one of the most internationally famous Norwegians of his day, did what he could to prevent an escalation into violent conflict, dispatching letters to his admirers such as Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany and King Edward of England, urging their intervention in the dispute. When the crisis was peacefully resolved and Norway had gained its independence, it was Grieg’s music that led the rejoicing. At the first concert attended by the new Norwegian king and queen, Grieg sat with them in the royal box while his Sigurd Jorsalfar was performed, a piece that glorified an ancient Norse monarch and simultaneously celebrated the modern victory of Norwegian national aspirations.
What do these three men, and these three historical turning points in which they participated, have in common? In each case, we have an example of an artist taking an active role in politics—and not just any politics, but specifically in nationalist politics. Furthermore, while Wagner’s and Smetana’s escapades at the barricades figure among the most heroic examples of artists’ politics, engagement in politics was by no means unusual for many artists in the nineteenth century. Indeed, one of the most compelling stories in the cultural history of that long century (1789–1918) was the role that so many artists took in political matters.