Culture played an important role in creating the idea of the nation: art and poetry, stories and music helped express and shape nationalist feelings.effort was to create a sense of a shared collective heritage, a common cultural past, as the basis of a nation. Other Romantics such as the German philosopher JOHANN Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people – das volk. It was through folk SONGS, folk poetry and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation (volksgeist) was popularised. So collecting and recording these forms of folk culture was essential to the project of nation-building.
The emphasis on vernacular language and the collection of local folklore was not just to recover an ancient national spirit, but ALSO to carry the modern nationalist MESSAGE to large audiences who were mostly illiterate. This was especially so in the case of Poland, which had been partitioned at the end of the eighteenth century by the Great Powers – Russia, Prussia and Austria. Even though Poland no longer existed as an independent territory, national feelings were kept alive through music and language. Karol Kurpinski, for example, celebrated the national STRUGGLE through his operas and music, turning folk dances like the polonaise and mazurka into nationalist symbols.