Writers have been in the forefront of maintaining and promoting a distinctive Scottish identity

Dr Richard Finlay

He told BBC Radio Scotland: "One of the things that has happened with the emphasis on political change in the parliament is that it boils down to questions of identity.

"Writers have been in the forefront of maintaining and promoting a distinctive Scottish identity.

"Now we have got the parliament and everybody is quite gung-ho about being Scottish, the people who contributed to that and were in the forefront of promoting that identity tend to be forgotten."

He gave the example of writers like Alasdair Gray and William McIlvanney, as well as those who work at promoting Scottish culture in schools and universities.

"They have all created and maintained a sense of identity, but I don't think they get the credit or the recognition for that," he said.

'Deeper appreciation'

He said that other countries in Europe cherished aspects of their culture.

"A country which does not look after its culture or is obsessed with materialism isn't a particularly healthy society," he said.

He said there needed to be a "deeper appreciation" of Scotland's culture.

Rather than simply "spouting" poetry which they had learned, Scots needed to understand the work more.

Museum piece

He said that the continuous development of Scottish culture also had to be encouraged.

"Culture is not just something that you keep frozen as a museum piece," he said.

"Culture is somethig that is always going on, it has always got to develop, it has always got to be nurtured. I don't think we do that very well."

This year's International Burns Conference takes place on Saturday at Strathclyde University.