UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN—EAU CLAIRE THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF SCOTTISH NATIONALISM: A LOOK THROUGH “IMAGINED COMMUNITIES” DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY BRITTANY MATTOON SUPERVISING PROFESSOR: JOE ORSER COOPERATING PROFESSOR: PATRICIA TURNER EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN DECEMBER 2013 Copyright of this work is owned by the author. This digital version is published by McIntyre Library, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, with the consent of the author. 2 Abstract Nationalism presents itself as this rather ambiguous concept, lacking any clear definition because of its ability to be seen through the eye of the beholder and interpreted differently. So, constructing a form of understanding nationalism, particularly through the works of historian Benedict Anderson, I have applied the model to identify the growth of Scottish Nationalism. Within the 18th century the two parliaments of Scotland and England were united in the year 1707, dissolving the Scottish government. Instead of stifling the development of Scotland’s national identity completely it and the events surrounding it create circumstances for it to grow increasingly. This is seen through both the oppression that the Scots faced and through the educational expansion that caught fire and spread. 3 Introduction Scotland, beautiful and intriguing, filled with its own mystical background and antiquity, yet somehow it is not considered its own nation. At least not as of today. The desire for independence within Scotland is timeless in its nature. It is quite obvious by just glancing at its wealth of abrasive history with England involving war and the like. There is a period of time, however, in which Scotland’s national identity takes a leap forward in a way that it had not before. This comes about when Scotland seems to have lost everything, as far as having a voice within its own government. Scotland was facing constraints on multiple sides placed by England approaching the union of the two parliaments in 1707. Also at this same time the importance of education increased within Scotland’s borders. Within the 1700s Scotland’s intelligencia seems to outmatch much of remaining Europe’s. The oppression that the Scots felt they endured from England and the blossoming of Scottish education, bringing about a change and expansion of ideas, created the grounds for a national identity to mature and become more established around the union of the Scottish and English governments in 1707. Thus leading to the Scottish enlightenment. Background and Historiography The concept of nationalism has many faces to it, political, ethical, cultural, and economical. All of these perspectives formed by historians must be taken into account if one is to understand the development of what nationalism has come to be, its own history, and how it has been argued over by historians and scholars. The historians following have placed their own arguments as to the development of nationalism and 4 how it has been used, and each have their place. One of such historians by the name of Benedict Anderson, author of Imagined Communities, presents this incredibly useful book that tries to better explain the origins of nationalism and how nationalism can best be defined. According to Anderson there is no easy answer made in the attempt to define nationalism. Anderson points to historian, Hugh Seton-Watson’s words that there is, “no scientific definition” of the nation that exists1. Anderson argues that nationalism is “imagined” or “created”2. He argues that it should be analyzed in the style that it is imagined rather than there being one true concept of a given nation. He also suggests that a nation must have limits and should be seen as a community. When one pictures a nation does not one think of the other nations beside it? If one nation were to be limitless without boundaries, in that all humanity belonged to it, would it really be a nation? As Anderson states, “no nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind”3. One could take this to mean that no nation sees itself as the only one that should exist. Then in what way would it be distinguishable from anything else? He feels that the nation should be seen as a community a, a “deep, horizontal comradeship”, perhaps not much unlike the saying ‘brothers in arms’. This is why, Anderson states that one sees so many willing to lay down their lives for their country.4 Also in the argument of the origins of nationalism Anderson presents in his chapter on “Cultural Roots”, that there are three ideas or concepts that formed nationalism, or the imaging of the nation, as he would say. One being the birth of 1 Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso (1991), 3. 2 Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities (1991), 6. 3 Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities (1991), 7. 4 Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities (1991), 7. 5 scripted language into the world, the second, a belief that society should conform under a higher power (monarchy for example), and thirdly, the idea that man’s history is conscripted with the formation of the world or that “cosmology and history were indistinguishable.”5 These three concepts grounded people to the “nature of things,” it gave meaning and purpose to things that once before seemed meaningless or hollow otherwise. Anderson continues to discuss that around the 19th century in Western Europe and spreading there was a “wedge” thrown in between the idea that cosmology and history were one. Part of this “wedge” came from escalating development in technology. The idea that historical or natural events were ordained or controlled by a higher power had been diminished. People then looked for a way to tie things meaningfully together as they once did6. Nationalism was then formed out of that search for meaning, in belonging. This shows the “Imagined Communities” approach held by Anderson. In the search for meaning people imagine their place in the world, and often times it involves belonging to a set of comrades, to a country. To continue into the discussion of Scotland’s nationalism, another author provides a more popular yet still very intuitive work on the matter. Political theorist Tom Nairn’s book The Break-Up of Britain crops up frequently to anyone researching the topic of nationalism particularly when researching Scotland’s nationalism. Unlike the work that Anderson presents Nairn provides a different analysis on Scotland’s nationalism in comparison with that of the rest of Europe. Nairn discusses the general development of nationalist movements in Europe, most of them occurring in the 1800s. Nairn argues that for Scotland this movement was “absent” and that the century following the union of 5 Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities (1991), 36. 6 Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. Imagined Communities (1991), 36. 6 parliaments in 1707 as a “fairly insignificant time-interval by the criteria which soon became common under nationalism”7. What Nairn is referring to as “criteria which became common” are those traits which appear to happen similarly for most of the European nations during the 1800s in their development of nationalism. Such as the “wedge” of technological advance as described earlier in Anderson’s work. Nairn describes Scotland as having the potential to have a nationalist movement such as other nations did in the 1800s but rather it did not. Differently from Nairn, I propose that Scotland’s nationalism or national identity was alive and well before hand. Nairn himself brings this to light when he speaks on Scotland’s development of intelligencia. Scotland following the Union of the Parliaments in 1707 built itself upon a wealth of scholarship. This is seen through the example of such theorists such as Adam Smith, and poet Robert Burns. Some of their works attest to such a strong voice of national identity of the country. What Nairn sees as simply the potential for Scotland to develop nationalistically I see as a form of nationalism that already exists. Nairn describes Scotland as a culturally sound country including through the following events of the Union of Parliaments in 1707. Here is where I agree and disagree. Scotland as Nairn writes retains its culture through the oppression and hardship endured by the country perhaps more than that of any other minority country in Europe, but according to Nairn’s view of nationalism Scotland’s nationalism is “absent”8. Now in agreement with Nairn, there is a failure to have a classic national movement by Scotland until a little later, but nationalism in the form of an “Imagined Community” is firmly established through a sense of oppression felt by Scotland and through the advancement of education in the country. 7 Nairn, Tom. The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism. London: NLB (1977), 105 8 Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain, 105 7 To understand the development of Scottish nationalism it first helps to understand where the Scots come from. This ambiguous topic has been debated and sought after between many historians and archeologists and creates quite the predicament for one rather new to the subject. There exists some debate as to how exactly the Scots came to rule Scotland but one truth that seems to be evenly shared among scholars upon the subject is that the Scots were not the island’s first inhabitants. Before the Scots there were people in what was to be Scotland called the Picts. According to Lloyd and Jenny Laing, who wrote a useful book on this topic cleverly named “The Picts and The Scots”, it is thought that the Picts having been there prior may have been from the southern Britain and were seeking refuge in the north from the incoming Romans 9.