Answer

The terms ´the Flemish people´ and ´the Flemish race´ were now quite current, in part due to the growing use of symbols such as the Flemish Lion, the establishment of a Flemish national holiday (11 July, celebration of the Battle of the Golden Spurs), and so on. Romanticism and the Flemish romantic literary movement (e.g. Conscience) had a lasting influence on the way in which one imagined and pictured ‘the people’. De Raet is one of many who thought of the Flemish people as being more than simply the sum of the individuals; for him, ´the Flemish people´ was an entity existing by itself, with a specific character – the use of the words ‘dormant’ and ‘youthful’ is telling – and with a particular history (“grown up over the centuries”).

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