Formation of the "Australian nation" political concept in the Australian periodicals of the mid XIX century

The article is devoted to identifying the semantic content of the concept of “Australian nation” in the Australian press in the mid-nineteenth century. Selected sources are Australian newspapers of the 1830s -1880s. Changes in the definition of the Australian nation and the various contexts of using this expression are considered. The conclusion is made about the instrumentalization of this concept by supporters of the political unification of Australia by the end of the 1870s. The dynamics of the use frequency of this concept in the period under review is traced in the context of the political history of the Australian autonomies. The thesis is being advanced that by the 1880s the idea was established that the Australian nation was a political, not blood, linguistic, geographical, religious, etc. entity.