Victoria’s imperial title exemplifies official nationalism’s fusion of nation and empire

Evidence

No less interesting than Alexander III, Russifying Czar of All the Russias, is his contemporary Victoria von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Queen of England and, late in life, Empress of India. Actually her title is more interesting than her person, for it represents emblematically the thickened metal of a weld between nation and empire. Her reign too marks the onset of a London-style ‘official nationalism’ which has strong affinities with the Russification being pursued in St. Petersburg. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 353

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces official nationalism as the welding of dynasty/empire onto the nation-form, carried forward into the Islamophobia readings on colonial statecraft.
• XREF: Feeds the toolkit for later Islamophobia readings on how imperial states selectively absorbed the nation form after 1820. — connects to: Official nationalism is a copyable state-serving policy with a Janus-headed legacy — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 625

Broader Connections

• Official nationalism is a copyable state-serving policy with a Janus-headed legacy #expands (0.92) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 625