Dalle isole inglesi alla storia di quattro nazioni. Una prospettiva comparata sulla storiografia nazionale in Gran Bretagna

Stefan Berger

Abstract


Questo articolo parte dalle lamentazioni di diversi storici inglesi per la crescente difficoltà di perpetuare una tradizione storiografica nazionale inglese e le contestualizzata nell’ambito di una più ampia critica del declino della storia nazionale, riscontrabile in tutta una serie di stati-nazione europei a partire dagli anni Ottanta. Viene quindi passata in rassegna l’evoluzione dall’Ottocento agli anni Sessanta di una grande narrazione storica trionfante, quella inglese/britannica, e il suo successivo venir meno. Successivamente, viene proposta una comparazione fra la decomposizione della grande narrazione storica inglese/britannica e le sorti delle grandi narrazioni storiche in altri Stati europei plurinazionali, e in particolare in Spagna, Belgio, Danimarca, URSS, Cecoslovacchia e Jugoslavia, mostrando come gli sviluppi storiografici in Gran Bretagna siano parte integrante di un più ampio trend storiografico europeo che si ritrova in diversi Stati plurinazionali. Infine, l’articolo cerca di rispondere alla domanda dove vada oggi la storiografia nazionale britannica.  

 

This article begins by analyzing the lament expressed by several English historians about the growing difficulty of writing English national history, and it contextualizes this lament in a wider criticism of the decline of national history that could be found in a range of European nation states from the 1980s onwards. Subsequently, the article reviews the evolution of a triumphant English/British historical master narrative from the nineteenth century to the 1960s and its subsequent demise. A comparison is then drawn between the decomposition of the English/British historical master narrative with the fate of historical master narratives in other multi-national states in Europe, in particular Spain, Belgium, Denmark, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, showing how the historiographical development in Britain is part and parcel of a wider historiographical trend in Europe that can be found in many multinational states. Finally, the article concludes by asking where British national history writing is heading.


Parole chiave


Storiografia nazionale; nation-building; Gran Bretagna; Inghilterra; Scozia; Galles; Irlanda del Nord; national history; nation-building; Great Britain; England; Scotland; Wales; Northern Ireland

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15162/2282-5681/1567

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