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More concretely, there are actually three creative processes involved here that, once we grasp them, make fully clear the role of artists in nationalist movements. The first creative process is the constitution of nationalist music itself. To understand how nationalist music was created—the why, the how, and the what for—we have to examine the ideas of those who created it. What, in the composers’ vision, was the purpose behind nationalist music? What would it do, what would it accomplish? How, exactly, did music become “national”? And how, above all, would this art form be made to serve sociopolitical ends?
The second creative process is that of the national culture. The national culture was the symbolic, aesthetic fabric that nationalist artists intended would weave national citizens into a unified and whole populace. The ultimate purpose of nationalist music was to contribute to the establishment of this national culture. But, what precisely were the mechanics of this somewhat mystical power of culture to unify people? How were these national cultures constructed? Here again the composers’ own dreams and plans can provide the answer. Their ideas and achievements help to explain the function of culture, and particularly art, within a nationalist movement.
The creation of the role of nationalist artists themselves is the third process. This is the elaboration and evolution of a particular role within the movement and within the larger society. How did nationalist artists such as composers carve out a place for themselves in nationalist movements? How did they, in short, elaborate their own role? There can be no doubt that nationalist artists were indeed active participants in elaborating their own role, since they consciously set about developing the tools and techniques they then used in their political project. We will see that both ideas and practices figure in this process of creation. On the one hand, a preexisting complex of beliefs about the nation and ideas on nation building formed a kind of intellectual structure that shaped these artists’ practices. Like all such structures, the ways of thinking about the nation and nation building both constrained and enabled the activists’ practice. The intellectual structure provided a universe of ideas and possibilities for how nationalists could create nations and national cultures.