Projects

A Brief Lesson in Caledonian Antisyzygy

A Brief Lesson in Caledonian Antisyzygy combines two HPS projects; one which involves the creation of a series of hand-made books on Unsung Heroes of the Highlands and another on Scottish heroes who would have done best to have remained unsung.

The term Caledonian Antisyzygy was coined in 1919 by the literary critic G Gregory Smith, to describe the lack of a coherent direction in Scottish literature. The term has been used ever since to describe how we Scots are a nation of contradictions and inner conflict, both on an individual level and in our national psyche. Basically, it’s no coincidence that we’re the country that produced Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde!

One such contradiction is in the people we choose to raise into national icons. There has been many a book written on how we Scots have changed the world. Economics, science, philosophy, medicine; huge progress in all of these areas has been down to the natives of this one small country. However this achievement remains what historian Tom Devine calls, a ‘hidden history of success’. A success that isn’t taught in our schools, filled with heroes that remain largely unknown outside their chosen field.

By contrast, the people we do choose to embrace as cultural icons have invariably failed in their chosen task. Failed by getting themselves killed… or by getting an awful lot of other people killed… or both. Flawed individuals romanticised into tragic heroes.

The Studio worked with Highland primary schools to create its series of books on ‘unsung heroes’. It then worked with older people’s groups to create its volumes on ‘much sung zeros’. Dr Lachlan Grant and Drover’s Dogs versus Bonnie Prince Charlie and The Monarch of the Glen. Who would you like to see on your shortbread tin?