Classic Theories of Nationalism in the Context of Minority Nationalism in Great Britain:regional nationalist movements as a “marginal” subject of modern historiography of nationalism

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the possibility of classical theories of nationalism use in analysis of the minority nationalisms histories in the British historiographical situation. The author analyses the complexities of integration and assimilation of the ideal models of Ruritania and Megalomania as imagining nationalising and modernising societies proposed by Ernest Gellner, as well as Miroslav Hrochs’ periodisation of nationalism as “ideal” interpretive models in the contexts of British historiography. The subject of the article is classical modernist theories of nationalism, the object is the possibility of their application in British historical research. It is assumed that the processes of nationalist modernisation and the development of regional nationalisms, on the one hand, are perceived through the prism of a constructivist approach. On the other hand, the author believes that the British historical material is characterised by a significant degree of resistance and therefore the use of classical theories of nationalism in the context of the conservatism of the historiographical imagination in Great Britain is debatable. The article analyses the difficulties of integrating the history of regional minority nationalisms and English nationalism into the contexts of sociocultural modernism of classical theories of nationalism. The results of the study suggest that the modern British historiographical situation is simultaneously characterised by an interest in the problems of the social history of regional nationalisms and significant conservatism, which expresses itself in ignoring classical theories of nationalism, despite the effectiveness of their interpretive models.