Independence referendum: One Year OnHow the World Sees Us Now

It was also a defining milestone in changing world perceptions of Britain, and of Scotland.

Because, fully a year after her movement lost the independence referendum, Sturgeon is effectively operating her own foreign policy. And one that, in its own modest way, really matters.

Scotland, after centuries in the wilderness, has an international voice, a voice that is being heard.

"That wee boy has touched our hearts," Sturgeon told Holyrood. "So, yes, I am angry, very angry, at the ‘walk on by on the other side’ approach of the UK government."

These words had near global impact. Her tears and anger were reported by Germany's business daily Handelsblatt and America's Washington Post. Her cry of "moral obligation" became a headline in Madrid's El Diaro.

The old Soviet news agency TASS ran a story - widely picked up that Scotland's leader was ready to take refugees in to her own home.

The Paris correspondent of Argentina's Clarín, María Laura Avignolo, summing up criticism of the refugee crisis, said Sturgeon "was the toughest".

The issue, she added, meant Cameron, ahead of the EU referendum, was haunted by his "ghosts": "Failed foreign policies; lack of respect for his xenophobic positions; lack of solidarity with European colleagues over the crisis and British responsibility in Libya and Iraq."

As Avignolo's Argentinian analysis suggests, Sturgeon's stance highlights the things some people don't like about Britain.

John MacDonald, director of the Scottish Global Forum think tank, has watched Sturgeon grow in her curious role as leader of a "non-sovereign" nation on the world stage.

"It may surprise some people, but Scotland does foreign affairs," MacDonald said. "And it goes beyond Tartan Day and selling salmon to the French.

"The SNP government has been very successful in cultivating a louder and more coherent voice than the UK on, say, refugees.

"And the strength of Scotland has been elevated by the comparable weakness of UK. The SNP in Holyrood and Westminster are articulating a narrative that we are hearing quite strongly on the continent, which is completely different from the UK.

"The context of that [is] a wider sense of disapproval among continental Europeans of the UK's attitude to the EU."

Disapproval for Cameron should not be misread as support for Scottish independence. European powers and Britain's Nato allies are far from cheerleaders for Sturgeon's core policy. It is, after all, just a year since the likes of Barack Obama and Spain's Mariano Rajoy made it clear they thought the UK was 'better together'.

But there can be no doubt that it is the independence referendum that catapulted Sturgeon and the SNP take on the world in to a global league.

Many journalists and policy-makers overseas are now familiar with the Scottish Question - although some have started to ask the British question instead. Slowly but surely, they have figured out Scotland. But, equally, they have realised they don't understand the UK.

What is Britain? A nation-state? A multi-national state? A nation of nations?

For much of last year's referendum, the world watched Scotland through London eyes, certain this country was a region of a nation-state, one of Europe's oldest.

Even as the long independence debate dragged on, many international journalists - unsurprisingly - took most of their cues from Fleet Street.

Why? Because Britain - and not Scotland - was their story. And because London - not Glasgow or Edinburgh - was their patch.

That's still true. The world media is still far more interested in the UK, the planet's tenth biggest economy in real terms, than they are in what many still think of as its northernmost region.

But now it is Britain, increasingly, that is viewed through Scottish eyes, not the other way round.

That was the case during after the SNP landslide in general election. Some, such as the Washington Post, referred to the SNP among "nationalist and fringe movements" taking centre state in British politics.

Back in May Paris news magazine L'Obs headlined on the "Revenge of the Scots".

"They were thought to be dead, but they have come back to life," wrote Sarah Halifa-Legrand. "The failure of last September's referendum should have closed the debate on the dream of independence. On the contrary, the nationalists are back and they are stronger than ever."

As two polls suggest that - for the time being, at least - independence supporters outweigh unionists - overseas observers are increasingly convinced that the "Scottish question" - despite the referendum - has not been answered. And that, of course, raises questions about the very nature of Britain.

Some media - such as Iran's Press TV or some Russian outlets - seem to revel in the Schadenfreude of a weaker London.

The Russians, in particular, are playing a complex diplomatic game with Scotland.

The Russian Federation is formally a multi-national state, unlike, say Britain or Spain, which don't quite recognise themselves as such.

Our referendum is a great propaganda tool for the unrecognised statelets President Vladimir Putin props up in eastern Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia. But Scotland's vote also poses a precedent for separatism that would be far from welcomed inside Russian borders.

There are thoughtful Russian voices, however, wondering out loud about the UK being re-imagined, at home and abroad.

RIA Novosti in Moscow speculated about regional devolution in England, asking if UK would have to change its "island mentality". The thrust: that Britain is no longer being seen as a nation state.

But Britain doesn't - overseas observers can't avoid noticing - have the constitution of a multi-national state, even a paper one like the Russian Federation.

Fiona Hill, of the Brookings Institute in Washington, closely follows both Britain and Russia.

Writing on the eve of the general election, Hill said whoever won would "have to address the crisis of governance in the UK and grapple with the prospect of rationalising and formalising the existing ad hoc architecture".

Is Cameron tidying up Britain's constitution? Or are the barely "grappled" with ad hoc arrangements leaving constitutional and political space for Sturgeon to exploit internationally?

The SNP's global profile is only growing after May and her refugee crisis intervention. This summer she was profiled by the New York Times. It introduced Sturgeon as "Scotland’s feminist first minister".

I thought that was remarkable. Why? Because the world's greatest English-language newspaper did not feel the need to tell its readers that Nicola Sturgeon was a nationalist. They already knew.