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

Kyrchanoff Maksym Waler'evich ORCID: 0000-0003-3819-3103 Doctor of History Voronezh State University, Associate Professor of the Department of Regional Studies and Economics of Foreign Countries, Faculty of International Relations; Associate Professor of the Department of History of Foreign Countries and Oriental Studies, Faculty of History; ResearcherID: B-8694-2017; Scopus Author ID: 57193934324 394077, Russia, Voronezh region, Voronezh, Pushkinskaya str., 16, office 236 maksymkyrchanoff@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction. The modern interdisciplinary historiography of nationalism is one of the dynamically developing trends in historical science. Historians involved in the study of nationalism actively use the achievements of political history, social history, the history of ideas, and intellectual history. In addition, studies of nationalism create opportunities for interdisciplinary synthesis with political and social sciences. A special place among modern European nationalisms is occupied by the nationalisms of Great Britain.

In comparison with other nationalist movements in continental Europe, in particular, and in the Western world in general, the history of nationalism in Great Britain has been studied to a lesser extent, which is facilitated by a number of reasons. Traditionally, minority nationalisms, primarily Irish, have been most actively studied in historical literature. Later, the objects of study included Scottish and Welsh nationalisms. In this situation, in historiography focused on the study of nationalism in the British Isles, there are imbalances associated with the fact that minority nationalisms have been studied to a greater extent. This assumption applies to the history and current state of Welsh, Irish and Scottish nationalism.

At the same time, formally, the nationalism of the actual majority, that is, English, in historical literature often found itself in the shadow of its more successful regional competitors, who attracted more attention from the research community. In addition, the study of nationalism in the UK is associated not only with historiographical difficulties related to the existing imbalances in the selection of objects of study through the prism of political and ideological relevance, but also with certain methodological difficulties.

It is known that in the middle of the twentieth century, a theoretical historiography devoted to nationalism developed. Through the efforts of such scientists as Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, Miroslav Khrokh and others, a methodology for studying nationalism as a universal and world-historical phenomenon was proposed. Within the framework of such a predominantly modernist and constructivist historical academic tradition, the universality of nationalism as a factor and source of social modernization was emphasized. In addition, a certain thematic disproportionality is institutionalized in the modernist historiography of nationalism, since in the scientific literature the history of nationalist movements of minority groups and formally dominant communities is studied unevenly. In this situation, issues related to methodological and theoretical aspects of the study of the history of nationalism in the United Kingdom become particularly relevant in historiography.

Purpose and objectives. Therefore, the purpose of the author in this article will be to analyze the possibilities, features and prospects of using the methodological tools that have been proposed in the international historiography of nationalism, focused mainly on the study of the nationalist experience of European or American societies and states. The author's tasks include 1) exploring the possibilities of applying and transplanting classical interpretations of the history of the emergence and development of nationalism, conceptualized within the framework of modernist historiography, in which the success of nationalist movements was often associated and explained by the consequences and results of social and political modernization, 2) identifying interdisciplinary links between the historiography of nationalism and related areas of development of modern historical science, including memorial research, new social history, history of ideas and intellectual history, 3) analysis of the prospects for integrating regional British subjects related to the history of Welsh, English and Scottish nationalism into the international historiography of nationalism, which inevitably involves the assimilation of constructivist tools in the British tradition of studying the history of nationalism.  

Gellner's theory of Nationalism in English contexts. Despite the fact that British historical science has considerable experience in studying both English and minority nationalisms, the social theories of nationalism associated with the study of modernization processes have had less influence on academic discourse than the approaches that arose as a result of studying the island's own historical and political experience. In the first half of the 2010s, British historians came to realize the fact that the situation in which the "politics" of classes and distribution"was "normal" and the "nationalist" policy was "abnormal"" ^[1] did not adequately reflect the consequences of the development of minority nationalisms, which forced researchers to reconsider research priorities.

Methodological problems were also characteristic of regional historiographies, for example, the Welsh one, in which "the decentralization of Wales has not received adequate theorizing. After the vote for the transfer of powers to Wales in 1997, many scholars in Wales took an openly "celebratory", uncritical view of the transfer of powers as a radical change in the British state, taking at face value the claim that it was designed to rejuvenate Welsh democracy" ^[2]. This approach indicates a gradual transformation of academic discourse into political discourse, which seems especially regrettable against the background of unique Welsh material that demonstrates the inclusion of nationalism in the contexts of social history, although this dichotomy in historical literature is practically not considered through the prism of theories of nationalism, which tend to perceive the latter in broad contexts of modernization.

The exception to the situation of such negative historiographical dynamics was probably Ireland ^[3], whose history in British historiography was perceived as a space for testing various methods, which did not exclude the actualization of the potential and social history, which, however, was conceptually limited to the concepts of "internal colonialism" by M. Hechter ^[4] and "cultural nationalism" by J.. Hutchinson ^[5]. Therefore, as the English historian David McCrone believes, "when discussing "identity politics" in modern Britain, questions of ethnicity and national identity are rarely found in literature, since academic rhetoric itself is based on concepts of ethnicity structurally adjacent to "multiculturalism", which makes the vocabulary and rhetoric of nationalism and national identity studies related to the study of constitutional policy and transfer of power" ^[6].

Such academic isolationism defines the main vectors and trajectories of the study of nationalism in the historiography of Britain, which tends to ignore the theoretical concepts used to analyze European nationalisms, despite the fact that some of them were introduced into scientific circulation by English researchers. Moreover, some historians tend to "linguistically" argue with sociocultural modernism, which dominates the international historiography of nationalism, emphasizing their disagreement with the latter at the level of the title of their own research ^[7]. Among the concepts proposed in the framework of nationalism research, the Ruritania/Megalomania dichotomy proposed by E. Gellner occupies a special place ^[8].

According to the ideal model of the British historian, Ruritania and Megalomania could historically be part of one multi-component society and, although the political institutions of such a society were of secondary importance for E. Gellner, it is not possible to exclude that it could be a composite monarchy. Like most similar state entities, the levels of development of Ruritania and Megalomania differed significantly. Megalomania represented the most developed part of the state as a result of industrialization and social modernization, while Ruritania remained a predominantly agrarian region populated by the peasantry, forced to migrate to more developed megalomaniac cities under the conditions of industrialization.

Helen Lewis, commenting on the peculiarities of the British space, points out the contradictions of logistics, since "geography is an important factor. The rural north of Wales is close to Liverpool and arguably has better transport links to the English city than the Welsh capital Cardiff in the south of the country. Scotland also has a more rural north in its structure, but it is located in the middle of the cold North Sea" ^[9]. Analyzing these spatial features of social history, M. Jones identifies a number of factors that determined the main vectors of its development.

Firstly, in Wales, the population is concentrated along flat coastal areas, including Cardiff, Swansea and Newport. Secondly, these regions have become the center of industrial development. Thirdly, the central highland plateau, unlike these more developed regions, is characterized by the predominance of the agricultural sector, which "has always made communication and transport within Wales difficult." Fourth, in central and north-east Wales, "low population density has played a crucial role in the survival of the language." Fifthly, territorial and, as a result, relatively "isolated communities have become self-sufficient and even closed, receptive to ideas of self-help and independence, encouraged by nonconformist religion, very cohesive and clearly distinct from other social units such as other villages or religious groups" ^[10].

The differences between Scotland and Wales, as two composites of such a state formation, were also manifested in identity: Ruritanians and Megalomaniacs spoke languages that belonged to different groups. In such a situation, relations between different groups were reduced to coexistence in conditions of integration of minority communities into imperial contexts, although the degree of success of such integration could be different, which, for example, manifested itself in the functioning of the Welsh community ^[11], which, despite the lowering of the status of the minority group, was able to preserve identity. Therefore, analyzing the history of the development of regional nationalisms, it is necessary to take into account the multi-speed social dynamics characteristic of the processes of nationalist modernization at the regional level.

In the conditions of the first accelerated capitalist transformation of England, which took place after the emergence of a political nation, the Celtic regions became the leaders of the development of regional nationalisms. Therefore, French researcher Francoise Orazi believes that nationalism in Great Britain not only intensified, but also became universal as Celtic politics developed ^[12]. The latter was actually limited to London's efforts aimed first at suppressing regional nationalisms, and later at dialogue with them.

Taking into account not only the linguistic features of minority communities in British history, as well as the simultaneous and parallel co-development of factors of ethnicity and identity ^[13], political and socio-economic processes contributed to the nationalization of communities, endowing the principles of nationalism not only with the qualities of universality, but also with the characteristics of inevitability.  Transplanting these assumptions into the contexts of British history, it should be taken into account that the number of such composites was more than two. Commenting on the peculiarities of the historical process in Britain at the regional level, John M. Mackenzie emphasizes that "each of the four nations had a separate relationship with the empire, and each identity developed and strengthened, and was not destroyed by the imperial experience" ^[14].

The development of the British monarchy led to the institutionalization of different statuses of composites. For example, Scotland was actually forced to abandon its own statehood, which led to the institutionalization of the junior partnership within the United Kingdom ^[15]. If in the case of Scotland, the peculiarities of the region were associated with political institutions, then in Wales the changes were mainly of a social nature, being associated with a slower pace of modernization ^[16]. In addition, a number of social, but different, structures at the regional level of Welsh communities coexisted in the same social space ^[17], which became the political sphere of the deployment of the Welsh nationalist project. Within the framework of the historically established hierarchy of composites of the British monarchy, Wales often found itself in the position of a social outsider, which manifested itself in ignoring the cultural characteristics of the Welsh space in order to implement modernization projects ^[18]. In this situation, identity was subjected to forced traumatization, which was reflected in historical memory and memorial culture ^[19].

The latter two have become factors in the permanent actualization of the social level of Welsh nationalism at the level of local activism. Therefore, at the regional level, "the Welsh have invested much of the national memory in trauma and landscapes. The trauma lies in the external force of colonization of language and culture, while the exploitation of the landscape through industry has an element of internal complicity that allowed such a development to occur. Much of Wales is embedded in the landscape... subsequently industrialisation, deforestation, quarries and reservoirs all contribute to changes in national identity."^[20] Ethnic differences were also emphasized by the different statuses of languages: if Megalomaniac dominated politics, education and judicial proceedings, then Ruritanian could not compete effectively and successfully with it, remaining a set of peasant, uncodified dialects, the use of which was limited to the territories of compact residence of their speakers.

By transplanting Gellnerian assumptions into Welsh contexts, the linguistic problem of the status and use of the Welsh language actualizes not only various social and cultural, but also actually class statuses. Therefore, the strengthening of Welsh nationalism generates "new sources of class friction" ^[21]. In the context of British social history, the scheme proposed by E. Gellner is noticeable in the history of progress and strengthening of regional nationalisms, which actually contributed to the functioning of Great Britain as a multi-component monarchy not only with multiple identities ^[22], but also various political institutions ^[23]. If E. Gellner's concept can be recognized as applicable to the study of the history of minority nationalisms, then the English material, unlike the Welsh or Scottish, is characterized by great resistance in the case of its description through the prism of the Gellner approach.

Therefore, in British historiography, in relation to English nationalism, it is emphasized that "Englishness in European terms differs by class, not ethnic character, which guaranteed a very reliable and stable identity" despite the fact that by the end of the twentieth century, the existence and development of a "more ethnized form of identity" was nevertheless recognized ^[24]. The scheme proposed by E. Gellner does not exclude social changes and cultural transformations. On the contrary, it provides for them and connects them with the parallel development of both Megalomaniac and Ruritanian nationalism, the political speeds of the genesis and development of which were different and depended on the initial conditions of modernization associated with the peculiarities of the regional development of Megalomania and Ruritania.

If formally Megalomaniac nationalism was the nationalism of the majority, then Ruritanian was a minority, regionally limited nationalism. Further theoretical assumptions by E. Gellner, on the one hand, are related to the historical experience of right and left authoritarianism, and, taking into account the lack of experience of both the first and second in the British history of the twentieth century, can be omitted as significant only for continental Europe, but not for the British Isles. On the other hand, Gellner's concept of nationalism provides for the existence of a social and political hierarchy in society, due to the fact that the formal majority community can actually apply discriminatory strategies against minority groups.

The assimilation of British material in modern studies of nationalism shows that the British can claim majority status, but the peculiarity of the situation is that the transformation of English identity towards a political and civil nation chronologically occurred later than similar processes took place among Scots and Welsh as minority groups. Therefore, historians began to analyze the "shift towards English identity, which is often defined as a necessary reaction to the growing self-confidence of "other" national groups within Britain" ^[25] later than they tested social theories of nationalism on the history of minority groups.

In addition, it should also be taken into account that if, for example, Welsh nationalism synthesized the values of the nation and the principles of class already in the first half of the twentieth century, then English was only by the end of the twentieth century actually faced with a choice between the proper national identity of the British as a formal majority and the challenges of "class, inequality and isolation" ^[26]. Therefore, studies of English nationalism, based on the assimilation of the ideas of continental French sociology with its concepts of "class trajectory" ^[27] and "secondary properties of classes" ^[28], formed the image of a typical supporter of English nationalism as an "offended nationalist" and "liberal cosmopolitan" ^[29].

British historiography recognizes the complexity of the situation that has developed with English nationalism against the background of the general crisis of political parties, since the latter do not quite successfully compete with new challenges, for example– regionalism. If, with regard to Welsh and Scottish nationalisms, it is recognized that they successfully passed the stage of regionalism in their development in the 19th century, then the new English nationalism against the background of the crisis of traditional parties that claimed to actualize English identity in politics can significantly weaken English nationalism, which is completely defined as "nascent" ^[30]. Moreover, the perception of class in English historiography is intertwined with the development of ideas about race, which takes place against the background of sanctioned "amnesia about the colonial past and its consequences for the postcolonial present" ^[31], which significantly affects both the methodology of nationalism research and the topics to which they are limited.

In addition, it should be recognized that the study of social history ^[32] did not become an incentive for the integration of conditionally "class" subjects into the research of nationalism. At the same time, the transplantation of E. Gellner's approach into research focused on the study of nationalism in the UK actualizes the dichotomy associated with different perceptions of English, on the one hand, and regional (Welsh and Scottish) nationalisms, on the other. If the latter, being perceived as minority nationalisms of unequal groups, is actually legitimized, then the former is stigmatized, since London's social "transgressions" towards the Celtic regions are almost automatically transferred from the concept of "Britishness" to "English" narratives ^[33], which actualizes not only the multidimensional nature of Great Britain, but also its social dimensions based on on the application of discriminatory practices. 

The theory of M. Khrokh in British contexts. A special place in the attempts to conceptualize the history of nationalism is occupied by the approach of the Czech historian M. Hroch, who proposed theoretical grounds for the periodization of nationalist movements. Historical nationalism was a factor of social change and transformation, as it "occupied a central place in some of the greatest movements for freedom and justice since the end of the 18th century, such as many movements for self-determination"^[34]. Miroslav Khrokh sought to fill such abstract statements not only with examples, but also chronologically localize them in the contexts of social, historical, political and cultural time. That is why the Czech historian proposed to distinguish three phases in the history of nationalism.

According to his assumption, Stage A was characterized mainly by cultural nationalism and the activity of nationalists aimed at learning language and culture. Stage A in the Welsh case was preceded by general negative starting conditions. According to K. Dickman, "the peripheral status of Wales in comparison with England was formed in the Middle Ages. Unfavorable natural conditions hindered population growth and urban development" ^[35]. Analyzing the development of nationalism in the British Isles, one should probably take into account the opinion expressed by Hans Kohn in 1940, when he emphasized the presence of different speeds of social and political changes in European history, believing that historically England was a peripheral and not very developed country in comparison with continental Europe ^[36].

At the same time, further social dynamics brought the state to the number of economic leaders, and the aforementioned X. However, the imbalances were actually institutionalized at the regional level, as evidenced in the 19th and 20th centuries by the dynamics of the development of minority nationalisms, including Scottish and Welsh, which in the historical perspective can be defined as successful ^[37]. Therefore, Stage B is associated with the activities of national activists who consistently struggle to change the status of the group to which they belong, in the direction of increasing it. In some cases, the successes of nationalism at this stage were combined with defeats at the social and economic level.

For example, in Wales, where the development of nationalism chronologically coincided with "the improvement of transport links with England, which led to the emergence of a new industry in Wales, thereby creating a system of regional economic inequality, emphasizing for the Welsh that their economy was subordinate, serving the needs of predominantly English capitalism" ^[38], nationalist mobilization and its consequences They were not only ethnic, but also social in nature ^[39]. Stage C is a period of active political and social modernization, in which society acquires its completed structures, and nationalism loses its exclusively intellectual character, turning into a mass movement aimed at creating a national state.

In the case of Welsh nationalism, the role of leaders becomes important and noticeable precisely at Stage C, the beginning of which in Wales should probably be dated to the 1960s ^[40], which actualizes the slow dynamics of social and political transformations, since nationalists and society reached a compromise on the importance of ethnic nationalism in the 1960s –1970s.^[41], that is, later than ethnicity was institutionalized by other minority nationalisms. At the same time, attempts to institutionalize ethnicity within the framework of Welsh nationalism took place earlier, but similar strategies in British historiography are studied mainly within the framework of cultural history ^[42].

Such harmony of M. Khrokh's concept does not assimilate the British material well. According to Tom Nairn, the composites of the British multi-component statehood by the beginning of the twentieth century "at least partially overcame the main barrier of the development process. Unlike southern Ireland, during the 19th century they became significantly industrialized, becoming important subcenters of the Victorian capitalist economy, and around their largest urban centers – Belfast, Cardiff and Glasgow – the middle and working classes formed, who consciously and indisputably gave their main political allegiance to the imperial state" ^[43], and not regional nationalist movements, as M. Khrokh wrote, recognizing nationalism as a universal factor of development.

By the beginning of Stage C in the history of Welsh nationalism, Wales as a region had undergone certain transformations, as "the process of modernization led to the equalization of social differences and the erosion of traditional Welsh everyday and high culture" ^{[44, p. 87]}. Therefore, nationalist movements in the regions of Great Britain that have reached this stage should be defined as "minority nationalism", that is, "nationalism of politically subordinate groups seeking statehood" ^[45]. As for nationalism in Wales, the process of emergence and consolidation of local economic and social institutions was largely slowed down due to the fact that, according to S. Brooks, "Wales was unsuccessful in its geography. It had no urban centers, and before industrialization it was an impoverished mountainous area in close proximity to a much richer and more dominant plain. This preserved ethnic differences, but made it difficult to raise capital for expansion and nation-building. Many representatives of the Welsh bourgeoisie concentrated in the major cities of England, such as Liverpool and Manchester, and not in Wales" ^[46].

Nevertheless, such formally negative social dynamics underwent significant politicization ^[47], which led to the instrumentalization of nationalism and the actualization of those of its functions that were aimed at solving specific tasks, which gave Welsh nationalism greater success in comparison, for example, with English. The formal separation of the national bourgeoisie from the historical and ethnic territory of Wales significantly weakened its influence on the emerging nationalism, actualizing the slow pace of social modernization. In a similar context, Welsh nationalism, according to some historians, "rejected urbanism, which may be one of the reasons for its insufficient development. Most of the "Welsh urbanism" took place in English cities, to some extent cutting them off from the national territory" while "the influence of new urban settlements on the coalfields of Wales" ^[48] was a secondary factor.

In such a situation, despite the simultaneous strengthening of Welsh nationalism and the Welsh national bourgeoisie, these processes took place in different geographical spaces. Despite the formal logic of such periodization, its real transplantation into the contexts of British history seems difficult, since, according to D. Moore ^[49], the processes of nation-building in Wales developed discretely and, therefore, the region is characterized by simultaneous and parallel flow of various processes within the framework of national modernization. Thus, the development of nationalism is integrated into the contexts of social history ^[50], which turns nationalism into a factor of social change and transformation.

If nationalism in Scotland and Wales became a factor of social change already in the 19th century, then in England these processes proceeded more slowly. The social component of English nationalism became noticeable only in the 1980s, when M. Thatcher aggravated social problems by pursuing a policy of destroying trade unions ^[51], which forced the labor movement to mutate towards a national one. Within these three phases, if we transfer this periodization to the contexts of Welsh social history, it is probably necessary to state "two waves of industrialization, first copper, and later coal and steel, which created a radical liberal, and then a social democratic society" ^[52], socially rooted at the regional level. Periodization, which is largely abstract in nature, being divorced from the European historical context, in the works of M. Khrokh is accompanied by attempts to sociologize the history of nationalism.

Despite the obvious tendencies towards the sociologization of history, which resulted from M. Hroch's participation in the development and maintenance of the Czech version of historiography, formally based on Marxism, the social dimensions of the processes of nationalism development are actually ignored. The latter is especially interesting against the background of the fact that such a social component in the history of regional nationalisms in Great Britain was more integrated into historiography thanks to the efforts of the American historian Michael Hechter, who showed the importance of such factors as "regional economic inequality" and "spatial spread of industrialization" ^{[53, p. 130-132, 138-141]} in the social development of, for example, Welsh nationalism. 

It is noteworthy that the latter is based on a strange polemic with E. Gellner, since the late British historian is no longer able to respond to his opponent's remarks. Firstly, M. Khrokh reduces the genesis of nationalism to two forms: within the framework of the state and in conditions of the unequal status of a minority group. Secondly, according to M. Khrokh, the concepts of nationalism by E. Gellner and B. Anderson exaggerate the role of such social and cultural practices as "imagination" and "invention". Thirdly, although M. Khrokh recognizes the importance of social transformations, he interprets them differently than E. Gellner, believing that "the role of industrialization cannot be overestimated. Empirical evidence does not support the Gellnerian theory, according to which industrialization was a crucial prerequisite for the emergence of “nationalism”. The connection in this case was more complicated.

The direct impact of industrialization was rather limited, but indirectly its influence was transmitted through social mobility and strengthening of social communication" ^[54], which, despite their significant cultural pace, were not always correlated with changes at the level of national identity, since the latter consolidated under the dominance of negative social dynamics. Despite the regular mention of England in this text, it seems difficult to integrate the historical experience of English nationalism into the interpretative model that was proposed by M. Khrokh.

This situation was the result of the fact that the history of English nationalism was studied outside the European context, since "Europe is a special problem for the British" ^[55]. This is due to the fact that, according to R. English, English nationalism not only "may differ in many ways from neighboring nationalisms", but actually represents a "missing factor" due to the fact that "most British people still believe that their English identity can be expressed within the framework of Britishness and the British state, which do not require serious change or nationalist mobilization", testifying in fact that. England "has experienced a revival of cultural identity, but not nationalism as such" ^{[56, p. 7]}.

Conclusions. The modern historiography of Great Britain, focused on the study of English, Welsh and Scottish nationalisms as regional, is largely characterized by a certain isolationism. The history of these nationalisms is interpreted almost exclusively in the British coordinate system, which allows the authors to ignore social, political, cultural and economic factors that could be common or close to similar phenomena in Europe. Unfortunately, the study of the history of regional nationalisms in the modern British academic tradition is characterized by significant imbalances.

Therefore, the analysis of minority nationalisms can be exclusively theoretical or overly descriptive, being focused on the event levels of their history, which significantly affects the quality of historiography devoted to the history of nationalism, turning it into at least peripheral, if not marginal, in comparison with academic research on the history of nationalism in Europe, which is characterized by significant The study of social and economic conditions, as well as political factors of modernization and changes that led to the institutionalization of nations as imaginary communities, replacing traditional systems of loyalty, legitimacy and identity.

The terminological apparatus used in such studies is characterized by a situation of uncertainty, ambiguity or frontierism, which is associated with the localization in the history of modernization of the experience of, on the one hand, English, and, on the other, Scottish and Welsh nationalisms. If the second two can be described as minority in comparison with the first, then the definition of "regional nationalisms" can formally become an "umbrella" concept for everyone. The analysis of English, Welsh and Scottish nationalisms through the prism of regionality, in general, is extremely interesting from a comparative perspective.

At the same time, such a research strategy is fraught with the reduction of the history of nationalisms to social history in the context of political modernization as a factor in the institutionalization of nations. It should also be taken into account that, since 1983, there has been a stable tradition in historiography of studying European, American or Eastern nationalisms through the prism of the theories analyzed in this article. Therefore, attempts to transplant them into the historiography of regional nationalisms in the UK are fraught with secondary conclusions, the deliberate integration of Scottish or Welsh subjects into broader European contexts, which not only can stimulate comparative research, but also lead to ignoring local factors as secondary in comparison with the general trends that were characteristic of the history of nationalism as a whole. Nevertheless, the author is forced to state that in the modern interdisciplinary historiography of nationalism there are obvious imbalances associated with varying degrees of study of the history of regional nationalisms in Great Britain.

In addition, the research tactics and strategies used by British historians were probably the result of a conscious historiographical choice. The British historiography of English, Welsh and Scottish nationalisms is anomalous in terms of updating the regional context and ignoring the experience of international study of nationalism. The latter does not exclude the possibility of non-assimilation of the achievements of the theoretical historiography of nationalism by British historians, but allows us to revise the canon that has developed in their research, integrating the stories of English, Welsh and Scottish nationalism into broader contexts of interdisciplinarity proposed within the framework of social history, constructed through the prism of modernization.