“Revolutionary Nation”: “High Culture” of Emerging English Political Identity of the 17th Century

Abstract

The author analyzes how the emerging political identity of the early modern English nation expressed itself in literary texts of the 17^th century. The revitalization of English nationalism in Britain actualizes the analysis of the early stages in the history of the formation and development of English identity. The author of the article believes that intellectual history, as a form of knowledge of the past, is, on the one hand, among those methodological approaches we can use for analysis of English identity. The author uses constructivist methods of Nationalism Studies, believing that the nation is the result of political and social modernizations, inspired by intellectuals as representatives of “high culture”. Analyzing the problems of the imagination and invention of a political nation in 17^th century English identity, the author believes that several factors determined the main vectors and trajectories of developments and transformations of the self-consciousness of English intellectuals. It is assumed, that religion was one of those factors that influenced political identity significantly. Intellectuals were the main inspirers of the emerging English political identity. The intellectuals who represented the “high culture” initiated the processes of nationalization of politics, that expressed in the radical project of the Republic, which in fact became the historical predecessor of the modern nation-state. The author believes that the political imagination in 17^th century England justified and legitimized political changes, stimulated the development of national identity and inspired the processes of transformation of Englishmen from traditional groups with unstable estate identities into an early modern nation with an emerging political identity.