Nationalism and "imagined communities."

 

As an ideology, 'nationalism' seems to be rooted in the 19th century and was influenced by writers and poets. The Scottish national identity was to a great extent created by Sir Walter Scott. Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, are credited with creating the Italian national identity and the operas of Giuseppe Verdi are synonymous with Italian nationalism and the Risorgimento. Ukrainian nationalism, seems to stem largely from the imagination of the writer and poet, Taras Shevchenko.

Benedict Anderson was right to describe the 'nation' as an "imagined community" because we can't know everybody who is part of the nation. In a country like England, I think regional identities are probably stronger than national identities. There's definitely a 'scouse' identity and as they say, "You can always tell a Yorkshireman, but you can't tell him much."

I remember being in pub in north Devon when I got into a conversation with a local bloke who asked me where I was from. We got talking about the regions and I said that I wasn't that keen on Londoner's. He smiled and said to me, "You've got your bloody Brums"! A Scottish lorry driver who once gave me a lift, told me that as far as he was concerned, you could drop a bomb on everything south of Birmingham.