Historical Aspects of the Imperial Identity: Perspectives of Interdisciplinary Research
The article attempts to identify new opportunities for studying the role of the imperial factor in British foreign policy, which are opened up by using the category of imperial identity, which the authors present as a variant of a more universal category of regional identity. In order to find out the complex nature of regional identity, the authors make a comparative analysis of the existing ones in modern regionalism. (A. Paasi) and “humanitarian geography” (D.N. Zamyatin) definitions of the region as a way of political, historical and cultural organization of space. The methodological postulates of these concepts create the basis for an interdisciplinary approach in the framework of the “new imperial history” and allow us to consider the British Empire at the height of its power in the 19th - first half of the 20th centuries as the most significant region in world politics. Awareness of its special role in the prevailing international system was at the heart of the imperial identity and foreign policy ideas of the British political elite, which, in turn, makes it possible to draw a clearer line between identity and imperial ideology. The authors come to the conclusion that such a formulation of the problem forms a new discussion agenda both on imperial issues and on issues of identity.