I wanted to go back to Scotland after the April election in order to see what had happened to the country I sometimes claim as my own. In the former Soviet Union, people say the British are either from Anglia or from Velikobritania. To reject the first means to accept the second, with its Imperial echoes. Indeed, when I correct officials or acquaintances who use Anglia, as the English themselves do, to mean Britain, they often assume that I am claiming, not non-English Britishness, but Great Britishness. This is not, in fact, inappropriate.

LRB 25 June 1992 | PDF Download