"INVENTION" OF THE PAST AS AN FACTOR OF THE INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE 16<sup>th</sup> AND THE 17<sup>th</sup> CENTURIES
The author analyzes the problems of the development of historical self-consciousness in the emerging English national identity of the early modern nation in the 16th and 17th centuries. The intellectual history and theoretical approaches proposed by Nationalism Studies are the main methodologies, the author used in this article. Analyzing the problems of imagination and the invention of history in English identity of the 16th and 17th centuries, the author believes that several factors determined the main vectors of developments and transformations of the historical self-consciousness of English intellectuals. It is assumed that intellectuals were the main founding fathers of historical English identity. The intellectuals who represented the «high culture» initiated the nationalization of the historical past. It is assumed that English authors of the 16th and 17th centuries proposed several versions of history writing, idealizing and mythologizing the romantic and heroic moments of the English past. The author presumes that the historical imagination in England of the 16th and 17th centuries, legitimizing and justifying political transformations and changes, stimulated the development of national identity and the transformation of the Emglishmen from traditional groups with blurred estate identities into an early modern nation with an emerging political identity.