Previous Year Question

The first clear expression of nationalism came with the
French Revolution of 1789.

NCERT's The Rise of Nationalism in Europe explicitly states that the first clear expression of nationalism came with the French Revolution in 1789.

Before 1789, France was a centralised territorial state
under an absolute monarchy. The political and constitutional changes brought by the French Revolution introduced the idea of transferring sovereignty from the monarch to the body of French citizens. The people themselves were now regarded as constituting the nation and determining its destiny.

The French revolutionaries introduced several measures to
develop a common national identity:

La Patrie → the idea of the fatherland
Le Citoyen → the idea of the citizen enjoying equal rights
Tricolour → a new national flag replacing the royal standard
Estates General → reorganised as the National Assembly
Uniform laws and weights and measures → a more unified administration

These measures strengthened the modern political idea that
people were not merely subjects of a monarch but citizens belonging to a nation.

1789 → French Revolution
Sovereignty → shifted from monarchy towards the citizens
Result → first clear expression of modern nationalism