Definition of a nation. Nations of the world. People and nation. How a nation differs from a people: features and differences of concepts Scientific understanding of the terms “people” and “nation”

The concept of “ethnicity” is of Greek origin, which had about ten meanings: people, tribe, crowd, group of people, etc. It pointed to any collection of identical living beings that have certain common properties. The term “ethnos” in its modern understanding appeared in the second half of the 19th century, but there is still no established point of view on its essence and meaning. Thus, academician Yu. V. Bromley pointed out: “Determining the place of ethnic communities among various human associations is an extremely difficult task, as is clearly evidenced by significant differences in existing definitions of an ethnic group. Some authors, for example, name language and culture as the main characteristics of an ethnic group, others add territory and ethnic identity to this, some point, in addition, to the characteristics of the mental makeup; others also include community of origin and state affiliation among ethnic characteristics."

Further, Yu. V. Bromley proposes to define an ethnos as “a historically established set of people who have common relatively stable characteristics of culture (including language) and psyche, as well as an awareness of their unity and difference from other similar entities.” The functioning of an ethnos is ensured by two types of information connections: synchronous (in space) and diachronic (in time). The first type provides territorial boundaries, and the second - ethnic continuity.

In addition to the unity of territory and traditions, the morphology of culture and the logic of its development certainly affected the formation of the integrity of the ethnic group. Thus, the early form of culture, religion and self-determination (identification) of a person was totemism (worship and deification of an animal, less often a plant, as an ancestor, blood relative, parent). Totemism is guided by the following collective logic: “we are the children of the bald eagle, and therefore we are blood brothers, we are united and whole; we are the children of the bald eagle, they are the children of the water rat, and therefore we and they are different: we speak different languages , we are not alike and we are at enmity.” This is a mechanism of both local integration and differentiation of the human collective. That is, already in the pre-ethnic period, a universal opposition “us - them”, “us - strangers” is formed. Until now, this is how ordinary consciousness answers the question of difference. Russians and Georgians, for example: “we are the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of some First Slav, and they are First Georgians.”

There are few such universals formed in primitive times, but they are archetypal in nature and still guide man today.

However, in addition to the ancient primary conditions for the unity of an ethnic group, criteria are needed that are also conditions that today unite people into a people or markers designed to differentiate ethnic groups.

The first and simplest such marker is a certain type of physical appearance. This feature is effective only in distinguishing races; in the European community, for example, it cannot be a criterion (it is not easy to distinguish a Frenchman from a German based on the color of his eyes, hair and physique, although at the everyday level this particular feature is elevated to a system: the French have wavy hair, Italians are dark-skinned, Germans are fair-haired and light-eyed, etc.).

The next sign is unity of origin. However, ethnography cannot name strictly isolated tribes that became the ancestors of certain peoples. Even the Russian people arose from the mixing of the Slavs with the Balts, Finns, Ugrians, Mongols, and Tatars. There is a myth of the origin of the Scythians from the kiss of Hercules and the Snake Woman. – Isn’t this a mixing of essences for the emergence of a new unity?

Third is the unity of place of residence. However, the long-remaining mystery of the origins of the Gypsies, for example (due to their distribution first throughout Europe and then throughout the world) did not negate their integrity as a people. And later, when it turned out that the gypsies did not come from a certain province of India, but were representatives of a caste of horse dealers and wandering musicians, they were still recognized, and in fact they were a single people.

Fourth is the unity of language. However, for example, Spaniards, Argentines, Cubans speak the same language, being different peoples; in France - five languages (French, Breton, Gascon, Provençal, German (in Alsace)); In general, in the world there are up to 30 thousand different languages, and about a thousand peoples. Even such a quantitative discrepancy makes it impossible to determine ethnicity only by language.

Self-name (ethnonym) is often mentioned among the criteria for defining an ethnic group. This is a truly important element of the historical memory of the people; it allows us to capture the difference between “us” and “they”. The ancient Greeks called themselves Hellenes, the Byzantine Greeks called themselves Romans. The name "Greeks" was given to this ethnic group by the Romans, from whom it passed into other languages. Iron is the self-name of Ossetians; Kabardians call themselves Circassians.

Thus, a people is a genetic community, on the one hand, and a social one, on the other. Ethnic groups most often arise as human populations, but later develop as social systems. An ethnos is a social group whose members are united by ethnic self-awareness - the awareness of their genetic connection with other representatives of this group. It should be noted that what is meant here is not so much the actual genetic connection as the idea of it. “Genes” (blood relationship) by themselves do not yet form ethnic identity. It is determined not by biological factors of origin from parents, but by socio-psychological factors - by what the individual thinks about his origin. If we talk about an entire community, that is, about collective consciousness, then it would be appropriate to use L.N. Gumilev’s term “ethnic dominant” - a system of political, ideological or religious values that serve as a unifying principle for the formation of an ethnic system.

Thus, the ethnos is determined not so much by the common features of the members of the collective that exist in reality, but by the commonality of their thinking, in particular, the ethnos is united:

1. The presence of ideas shared by group members about a common territorial and historical origin, a common language, common features of material and spiritual culture;

2. Politically formed ideas about the homeland and special institutions, such as statehood, which can also be considered part of what constitutes the idea of the people;

3. A sense of distinctiveness, i.e., awareness by group members of their belonging to it, and forms of solidarity and joint actions based on this.

Max Weber's definition of an ethnic group is still valid today: a group whose members “have a subjective belief in their common origin because of similarity in physical appearance or customs, or both, or because of a common memory of colonization and migration".

An important role in creating a theoretical basis for the study of ethnicity was played by the work of the Norwegian scientist F. Barth on the problem of correlating ethnic and social boundaries. This scholar noted that the characteristics used to define ethnic groups cannot be reduced to the sum of the cultural material contained within ethnic boundaries. Ethnic groups (or ethnic groups) are defined primarily by those characteristics that the group members themselves consider significant for themselves and which underlie self-awareness. Thus, ethnicity is a form of social organization of cultural differences.

Based on the above, the concept of “people” in the sense of an ethnic community is understood as a group of people whose members have a common name, language and cultural elements, have a myth (version) of a common origin and a common historical memory, associate themselves with a special territory and have a sense of solidarity .

One of the main objects of ethnological knowledge is the study of how people are related to each other according to an established set of rules that go beyond ordinary biology. For most of human evolution, communities of people organized their groups based on kinship relationships. And to this day, all peoples have their own inherent kinship systems. Relation to ancestors has always played a key role in the social structure of traditional societies, to the point that a rootless person was, at best, an individual without social status. Under the influence of industrialization, kinship ties ceased to play a decisive role in human life and many features of known kinship systems simply disappeared. However, kinship relations remain an important element of social life and often play an important role in maintaining the integrity and identity of ethnic groups.

Ethnogenesis (that is, the entire set of historical phenomena and processes that take place during the formation of a particular people and lead to the final formation of its ethnic personality) is closely connected with the change and development of the information sign system (more than with consanguinity, because ethnicity is This is more a phenomenon of culture than of nature). Pre-literate culture is traditional, pre-ethnic communities, the emergence of writing is an important prerequisite for the formation of a nationality, the growth of the media is the basis of massification, globalization and the erasing of ethnic boundaries within a nation.

There are at least two approaches to describe the origin of an ethnos. The first is that an ethnos is a community that arose as a result of a natural historical process. The second is that the ethnic group was formed purposefully, for example, the Viking I. Arnarson founded the first settlement in Iceland, thereby marking the beginning of the ethnogenesis of the Icelanders. In this regard, it would be natural to recall the theory of L.N. Gumilyov, who attributed a significant role in the formation of ethnic groups to especially active people - “passionaries”, although he considered the process of ethnogenesis itself as purely natural. The meaning of his hypothesis is to explain historical phenomena by natural ones (alleged eruptions of the biosphere).

Traditionally, ethnologists distinguish three main stages of the ethnosocial development of mankind: a primitive communal tribe, a nationality formed in the process of unity and development of culturally similar tribes, and a nation - a community typical of modern times, united not only by territory, culture, language, but also by a common economic life, statehood, a single national market.

In a primitive tribe, everything happens according to the law of their ancestors. The culture that unites such a tribe is mainly hereditary - from grandfathers and great-grandfathers. The process of accumulating cultural skills is extremely slow, imperceptible in the life of a generation. It is the traditions, consecrated by the ancestors, that regulate the entire life of the tribe, for in the conditions of a brutal struggle with nature, from generation to generation, only that which turned out to be expedient in this struggle is passed on and fixed in the minds of descendants. This is expedient - not only labor skills, but also understanding of natural phenomena, problems of life and death, cosmogonic ideas embodied in mythology. The cultural image of such a society is so stable that there is a term - traditional society, traditional culture. In such a society, intertribal ties are extremely weak and do not play a significant role.

A group of closely related tribes forms a nationality. The volume of knowledge and ideas about the world is changing qualitatively - writing, which appears at this stage of development, allows this new information to reach a much larger number of people than before. Indeed, in the absence of writing, any knowledge cannot overcome a certain “level of density.” The narrator of myths, legends, or something that recently happened conveys his knowledge directly to specific listeners. What is written already lives an independent life. Clay tablets with the epic of Gilgamesh were read by the Sumerians, then by the Assyrians, and we can read them. State laws, temple inscriptions, sayings and instructions of kings carved on rocks, circulars of government officials, trade agreements, records of travelers, historians, and writers appear. The laws of ancestors are still, naturally, extremely strong, but they no longer so much govern society as serve as the foundation on which new social relations are built. And this is where the problem of preserving historical values arises. The laws and traditions of ancestors can be forgotten - after all, they are no longer the only thing necessary for the life of people, the existence of the people. And it is no coincidence that it is at this stage of human development that epic tales appear, telling about long-gone times. This, in essence, is basically an attempt to save for contemporaries information about the irretrievably gone world of the past. When there are no stable economic ties between different parts of an ethnic group, political and spiritual factors (a centralized, often absolutist state, religious relations, cultural centers) play a decisive role in the consolidation of the nationality. As economic ties develop and a market economy becomes established, it is the latter that begin to act as the main unifying force, and the nationality consolidates into a nation.

Already in the ancient world, the tribes of barbarians, who were united by ties of blood and cohabitation, were opposed by the citizens of the policies, who knew, in addition to the ties of “blood” and “soil,” the unifying power of the state. State power and writing became the first prerequisites for the future national unification of people. And they arose, as we already know, long before antiquity. The states of the Ancient East began to overcome the isolation and limitations of communal life, subordinating the tribes that were part of the empires to legal law. And above the ethnic culture, thanks to writing, a culture of a different order began to be built on, examples of which are Egyptian science, the ancient Hebrew religion, ancient philosophy and art. The creator of this kind of culture in the Renaissance became the intelligentsia. Thus, by the 17th century, a number of prerequisites for the formation of nations and national culture were already present in Europe. And yet, their transformation into a new quality required several centuries. From the 17th to the 20th centuries. In different countries of Europe, the process of forming national states was underway.

Discussing the relationship between the national spirit and the state structure, N. Ya. Danilevsky in his book “Russia and Europe” specifically highlights the fact that the imperial ambitions and aggressive campaigns of Napoleon I strengthened and finally demonstrated the desire for state independence among European peoples. All political movements of the 19th century, according to Danilevsky, were national movements. In the end, France itself, in the person of Napoleon III, proclaimed nationality as its highest political principle. Danilevsky saw this as a manifestation of the main trend of cultural and historical development: one nation - one state.

The nation state turned out to be an adequate, or, in other words, a convenient political form for the development of a market economy. But the reunification of close ethnic groups and their lands within one bourgeois state resulted not only in new economic and political unity. In the 19th century, nations appeared in the history of mankind - new entities united not only economically and politically, but also by the power of the human spirit.

The Slavophiles considered the nation a spiritual organism, correlating the national spirit with the characteristics of religious faith. But there is another interpretation of the nation as a community of people, united not so much by blood kinship as by the national economy, the national state, and also the national culture. A nation is an association of people living over a large territory, and therefore not only having lost their blood relationship, but even unfamiliar with each other. And in this case, people distinguish between “us” and “strangers” differently than it was in the ethnic group. Their unity expresses itself not so much externally as internally. And in this regard, the phenomenon of national identity begins to play a special role.

We have already talked about writing as a prerequisite for national culture. Writing gives rise to a special kind of reality, which includes a variety of texts. At the same time, the written language differs from local spoken dialects and eventually turns into a single literary language of national significance. The emergence of a literary language is an important milestone on the path to the formation of a national culture. And today, national culture, in contrast to ethnic culture, is studied, as a rule, by philologists, since they are the ones who deal with written texts. National culture is initially written. And yet, the presence of a literary language and an array of texts is not yet proof that they represent national culture.

The Greeks and Romans, as you know, had many educated people who knew ancient literature, history and philosophy. But let us recall the conflict that arose between the philosopher Socrates and the Athenian state, which stood guard over local traditions. The Athenian court accused Socrates of undermining faith in the local pagan gods. And the reason for the trial was the complaint of the tanner Anytus, whose son neglected the custom of inheriting his father’s business by communicating with Socrates. Thus, already in antiquity there was a conflict between local tribal customs and those universal principles on behalf of which philosophy spoke. The same applies to the spiritual culture of the European Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modern times. Created by an educated minority, such a culture opposed the ethnic culture of the majority, exacerbating the differences between the upper and lower classes. The situation is changing radically with the advent of national life, the formation of which is facilitated not only by the national market and civil liberties, but also by the spread of literacy in all segments of the population. Only a literate population can be consolidated with the help of national culture.

So, a nation, in contrast to an ethnos, is united not so much by consanguinity, but, in addition to economic and political factors, by national character and national psychology, national ideals and national self-awareness. This psychological and ideological image of the nation is most clearly expressed by national art. It is not for nothing that art is considered the center of national culture. Philosophy plays a special role in the formation of national culture. It is in it that the basis of national unity is realized in a clear theoretical form and is expressed in the form of the so-called “national idea”.

Thus, two levels can be distinguished in national culture. On the one hand, it is expressed in national character and national psychology, unthinkable outside of national life itself. On the other hand, it is represented in literary language, high art and philosophy. National psychology is mainly formed spontaneously, under the influence of random factors. National identity is articulated through the conscious efforts of the national intelligentsia. And since spiritual culture concentratedly expresses the self-awareness of the nation, the intelligentsia is considered the subject and creator of national culture.

The “health” of a nation is determined by the harmony of these aspects of national culture. When a people does not have a national intelligentsia and developed forms of spiritual life, it is not able to clearly recognize and express its national interests. But conflicts in national life can also be caused by the opposite reason, when the national culture suffers from the underdevelopment of national life, from the illiteracy and narrow-mindedness of the popular majority. It is in such a situation that it becomes clear that the intelligentsia, being the driving force of national culture, is not its only creator. Behind the national intelligentsia there must be an active and competent national majority, whose interests are articulated by the creative elite.

Thus, Russians as a people were formed in the 14th – 15th centuries. based on part of the Old Russian nationality, which disintegrated by the 13th century. both under the influence of internal (internecine struggle) and external (Mongol-Tatar invasion) factors. As a nation, Russians consolidated in the 18th – 19th centuries.

The intermediate links from ethnos to nation are subethnos and superethnos. Superethnos is a socio-ethnic system that arises due to natural and socio-historical reasons from several ethnic groups. The unification of ethnic groups into a superethnos occurs on the basis of a certain ethnic dominant. Thus, the Arab superethnos was formed from individual tribes on the basis of Islam, the Byzantine - on the basis of Orthodoxy, the Russian - on the basis of Russian statehood. Subethnos is an ethnic system that arose within an ethnic group and is distinguished by its economic, everyday, cultural and other characteristics. Thus, subethnic groups in the history of the Russian people are Pomors, Old Believers, and Cossacks. The subethnic groups of the Ukrainian people are the Hutsuls, the Boyks, living in the Carpathian region of Ukraine.

As a conclusion, let us imagine the informational change in human groups in graphical form. In the primitive communal era, the map of the Earth would have looked like the spotted skin of a jaguar, where each spot is a clot of social-hereditary information cementing a particular tribe. If you looked closely, you would see that some of these spots are connected by separate lines - channels of intertribal information, the information that people of different tribes exchanged with each other. Gradually, these lines become more and more numerous, and the time comes when several small spots-tribes merge into one large spot-nationality: in the language of science, there is an increase in the density of inter-tribal ties, which are already beginning to cement the nationality. For some time, in this large spot-nationality, spots-tribes of a darker color are visible - traditional ties within the tribes that make up the nationality for a long time significantly exceed inter-tribal ties. And there may come a moment when only a very close look can see the difference. Some researchers believe that in modern times, every small nation objectively faced a dilemma - either preserve their national traditions to the detriment of social development, or follow the path of social progress, sacrificing their history. The formation of national states played an important role in resolving this issue. Each nation is characterized by the creation of a single semiotic field - a system of symbolic means generally known to all its representatives (language, traditional forms of behavior, symbols - everyday, artistic, political, etc.), which ensure their mutual understanding and everyday interaction.

The problem that arises during the transformation of many local communities of the same type into a nation is to transfer in the most natural way all the wealth of cultural forms that has been accumulated over thousands of years by all previous generations into new normative and value systems, to pour and melt them in the optimal way , without destroying or losing more of what inevitably has to be left overboard. The complexity of this task arises from the fact that simultaneously with this transition the type of culture itself is changing: from a “culture of texts” it turns, in Yu. Lotman’s apt expression, into a “culture of grammar”. The “culture of texts” corresponds to the traditional type of society, in which the normative systems themselves and their value justifications exist, as it were, in the form of a set of precedents. Howard Becker calls these "clumps of verbalized experience" that are captured in parables. Parables are the main form of transferring experience from generation to generation in traditional societies.

Consequently, the people “enter” the nation with the cultural wealth that they have preserved. We can say that a nation is a kind of “joint-stock company”, to which each nationality contributed its own “share” - its own culture (language, traditions, etc.). But the very existence of a nation forced one to select from all traditions only what was necessary for the future life of the entire nation: after all, the everyday existence of a nation depends on the economic community, which affects all aspects of life. Including culture. It turns out that the process of “loss” of cultural values has sharply intensified in our time - and intensified naturally. The French nation, for example, was formed as a result of the merger of several nationalities. Within it there are still several rather isolated ethnic groups - for example, the Bretons. The Breton language still exists, but the commonality of economic life with the whole of France forces the Bretons to use French. The Breton language as hereditary information is no longer vital for the existence of the Bretons. And, as research shows, this information is gradually forgotten in everyday life: the active vocabulary of the Breton language becomes poorer from generation to generation. And we can assume that in the future this language may become only a museum value, like Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit. And in principle, a similar process is ubiquitous.

Increasingly, disputes arise on the topic of what nation, people, nationality means. Some public figures are trying to reintroduce the nationality column into the identity document. Yes, not just to introduce, but so that a person proves his belonging to a particular nation in government bodies.

In modern Russia, nationality is understood as belonging to one or another ethnic group. In European countries, nationality means citizenship or nationality. In Russia, a person chooses his nationality himself, and this is precisely what certain forces, acting through popular public figures, want to change.

Let's look into this confusing issue. What do the words, people, nation and their derivatives mean? Let us pay attention to the fact that in some countries nationality denotes a specific genotype of the human species, and in others citizenship. For example, they say that Russia is a multinational country and at the same time in Russia there are national projects, a national guard and a national leader. The multinational leader of Russia, the multinational guard, do not say. Those. when they talk about a multinational country they mean one thing, and when they talk about a national leader they mean something else. To understand this, let’s look at the etymology of these words.

What does the word People mean?

The noun people, among the eastern and part of the southern Slavs, has the same root with the words genus, relativesand others denoting “blood” relationship. Derived from the old verb “to be born”, preserved in the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages as “naradziўsya” and “narodivsya (sya)”. In modern Russian, “na” is lost, and the full form is used as an archaism, for example, “how was born” and the like. (Encyclopedia)

That is, the People are formed by the Clan, and any clan begins with a man and a woman. A man and a woman are carriers of a genotype or haplogroup. A people is formed by blood, and carriers of a certain haplogroup are one People. The people have existed for centuries and millennia. That is, the people are timeless the concept of a community of people of the same blood. Over time, a people carries not only its blood, but also its culture, habits and peculiarities unique to it. Other haplogroups that come into contact with the people are assimilated and become one. The people are eternal.

What does Nation mean?

Unlike the word People, the word Nation comes from the Latin language, and means tribe or people. Begins to be used in the 18th - 19th centuries. It seems to have the same meaning, but what is the difference? The word People is defined by the word ROD, and the word Nation is defined by the word CI. Latin is an artificial dead language formed from an older language and it does not have acrophony. The letters of this language do not carry meanings. The letter CI (Tsy) exists only in the Old Slavonic ABC and means to penetrate. I’m not pulling any punches; in fact, the Old Church Slavonic Alphabet is a more complex example of alphabetic writing, unlike the Hebrew script or the Greek language. The alphabet has one hundred percent acrophony, unlike the simpler Hebrew and Ancient Greek. With a detailed comparison, it is obvious that it was Greek that could be formed from the ABC, and not vice versa. Ancient Sanskrit and the ABC are homogeneous brothers. Therefore, I decipher the supposedly Latin word using the ABC.

A people is a human society united by blood ties or genetics.

A nation is a society united by the penetration of something.

What do I mean by “penetration of something”. Human society (the People) is permeated by an idea, a need, a certain necessity, a problem, without a solution to which the People may perish. The majority of the People rallies around this idea and the Nation and the national idea arise. For example, in a specific time period, the country was attacked by an enemy who seizes territories and destroys the people. The majority of the people are inspired by the idea of the National Liberation Struggle. People rally around this idea and begin to implement it. A nation must have a national idea that is achievable in a specific time period. Various national institutions and projects arise among the people at a specific time and are based on the problems of the existence of the People, and not on belonging to one or another haplogroup.

A nation is a temporary concept of a community of people; its emergence is not based on the blood ties of the People. This is an ideological concept. If the People are eternal, then the Nation is a temporary phenomenon.

The People is a non-temporal concept of a community of people, and the Nation is a Temporary concept.

The People and the Nation are one and the same thing, only we look at the People through the prism of time, and we participate in national projects today.

It remains to deal with the word Nationality.

As stated above, in other countries, nationality is citizenship or nationality, but in Russia it is blood ties. The thing is that Lenin divided our house into national apartments. It was from Lenin’s ideologists that the current understanding of the word nationality came. In the Russian Empire there was no concept of nationality, and even less so the concept of Russian did not apply to it. This was done by the communists on purpose, as our National Leader V.V. said. Putin - "Lenin planted a bomb under the foundation of the USSR." The incorrect understanding by the majority of the country's population of the meaning of the word Nation and nationality, its distorted interpretation, made possible the collapse of the USSR. And right now, modern political scientists, publicists and “patriotic” writers have again begun to exaggerate the national question of who the Russians are. Those who claim that Russian is a nationality should turn their attention to the documents of people of the 19th century, there is no such concept there. There are the concepts of Velikoros, Maloros, and Belarus, there are records about the class affiliation of people and that’s it. So who are the Russians, let's try to figure it out.

Rusy, Rus, Rus, Russian, in this order I propose to understand.

Light brown - light

Rus - the epic name of the people of Rus'

Rus' is the land, the White Light. Not part of the Eurasian continent, but the White Light.

Russian is an adjective applied to everything, to a person, thing, event, etc. Russians are the most numerous people in Europe. But who can be considered Russian? This is where the dog is buried. The new Leninists propose the following method. Collect certificates about who your relatives are, and on the basis of these certificates you can make a decision whether you are Russian or whether you do not have enough “Russian blood”. And write this down in a document to those true Russians who have proven the purity of their blood. What does it look like? For a second attempt to destroy our statehood.

But Russian people are not determined by haplogroup R1A1. It is quite possible that the carriers of this haplogroup are the descendants of an ancient people who bore the name Rus, Ariytsi, Daariytsi or some other name; one can only make assumptions. If our ancestors had fought so hard for the purity of their blood, they would not have come to India thousands of years ago and would not have given the local residents their knowledge and their faith. We would not assimilate with them. It is no secret that the highest caste in India, Brahmins, belong to haplogroup R1A1. And Indian Brahmins do not make a pilgrimage to the field of Kurukshetra, but go to the north of Russia, where their “Mecca” is located. Our ancestors were not stinking Nazis, they were teachers and brothers, Because Russian is not only the blood of the Family, it is, first of all, a worldview. The Russian language, Russian culture, Russian worldview make a Russian person. A Russian is one who considers himself Russian. The Russian worldview is a fraternal world order on the entire planet. In the Russian family there is enough space for everyone and no one is forgotten. And brothers, who may be different in age and development, do not compete and do not enslave each other, because they know their father’s covenant and give their mother’s love.

A nation is a cultural-political, historically determined community of people. is quite vague, so there are clarifying and corrective formulations. They are necessary so that this concept can be used in popular science literature and not depend on the context.

How to understand the term “nation”

Thus, the constructivist approach argues that the concept of “nation” is entirely artificial. The intellectual and cultural elite creates an ideology that the rest of the people follow. To do this, they do not necessarily need to shout political slogans or write manifestos. It is enough to direct people in the right direction with your creativity. After all, the most lasting thought is the one that penetrates the head gradually, without direct pressure.

The boundaries of influence remain quite tangible political and geographical cordons. Constructivist theorist Benedict Anderson defines a nation as: an imagined political community that is sovereign in nature and limited from the rest of the world. Adherents of such thinking deny the participation of the experience and culture of previous generations in the formation of the nation. They are confident that after the period of industrialization a new society has emerged.

Ethnicity

Primordialists decipher the concept of “nation” as a kind of evolution of an ethnos to a new level and its transformation into a nation. This is also a type of nationalism, but it is associated with the concept of the spirit of the people and emphasizes its connection to the “roots”.

Adherents of this theory believe that what makes a nation unified is a certain ephemeral spirit that is invisibly present in every citizen. And a common language and culture helps unite people. Based on the doctrine of language families, one can draw conclusions about which peoples are related to each other and which are not. But besides this, not only the cultural, but also the biological origin of peoples is tied to this theory.

Nationality

People and nation are not identical concepts, just like nationality and nation. It all depends on point of view and cultural ideology. In countries this word is expressed, but it does not cover everyone who falls under the definition of a nation. In Europe, nationality is belonging to a nation by right of citizenship, birth, and upbringing in a closed environment.

At one time there was an opinion that the nations of the world are formed according to genetic characteristics, but in practice one can find such combinations as Russian German, Ukrainian Pole and many others. In this case, heredity plays no role at all in a person’s self-identification as a citizen of the country; something stronger than the instincts inherent in every cell of the body prevails here.

Types of nations

Conventionally, the nations of the world can be divided into two types:

Multi-ethnic.
Monoethnic.

Moreover, the latter can be found only in those corners of the world where it is difficult to reach: high in the mountains, on remote islands, in harsh climates. Most nations on the planet are multiethnic. This can be logically deduced if you know world history. During the existence of mankind, empires were born and died, containing the entire world known at that time. Fleeing from natural disasters and war, peoples moved from one end of the continent to another, in addition, there are many other examples.

Language

The definition of a nation is not related to language as such. There is no direct relationship between the means of communication and the ethnicity of the people. Currently there are common languages:

English;
French;
German;
Chinese;
Arabic, etc.

They are accepted as state ones in more than one country. There are also examples where the majority of members of a nation do not speak the language that should reflect their ethnicity.

Psychology of the Nation

According to economic theory, a person is born, lives and dies without leaving his usual habitat. But with the advent of industrialization, this pastoral picture begins to crack. Nations of people mix, penetrate each other and bring their own cultural heritage.

Since family and neighborhood ties are easily destroyed, the nation creates a more global community for people without restricting their movements. In this case, community is formed not through personal involvement, blood relationship or acquaintance, but through the power of popular culture, which conjures an image of unity.

Formation

In order for a nation to be formed, it is necessary to combine economic, political and ethnic characteristics in place and time. The process of formation of a nation and the conditions of its existence develop simultaneously, so the formation proceeds harmoniously. Sometimes, in order for the formation of a nation to occur, it is necessary to give a push from the outside. For example, a war for independence or against enemy occupation brings people very close together. They fight for one idea, without sparing their own lives. This is a strong incentive for unification.

Erasing national differences

It is interesting that the health of the nation begins with the head and ends with it. In order for representatives of a people or a state to recognize themselves as a nation, it is necessary to give people common interests, aspirations, a way of life and a language. But to make things special in relation to other peoples, we need something more than cultural propaganda. The health of a nation is manifested in its homogeneous thinking. All its representatives are ready to defend their ideals, they do not doubt the correctness of the decisions made and feel like a single organism consisting of a large number of cells. Such a phenomenon could be observed in the Soviet Union, when the ideological component influenced a person’s self-identification so strongly that from childhood he felt like a citizen of a huge country in which everyone thinks at the same time.

A nation is a broad concept that makes it possible to outline its borders. At the moment, neither ethnicity nor political boundaries or military threat can influence its formation. This concept, by the way, appeared during the French Revolution as a contrast to the power of the king. After all, it was believed that he and all his orders were considered the highest good, and not a political whim. New and modern times have made their own adjustments to the definition of a nation, but the emergence of a unified way of governing the state, the export and import market, the spread of education even in third world countries, increased the cultural level of the population, and, as a result, self-identification. Consequently, it has become more difficult to influence the formation of a cultural and political community.

Under the influence of wars and revolutions, all the major nations of Europe and colonial countries, Asia, and Africa were formed. They remain multi-ethnic, but in order to feel belonging to any nation, it is not necessary to have the same nationality. After all, this is rather a state of soul and mind, rather than physical presence. Much depends on the culture and upbringing of an individual, on his desire to become part of the whole, and not to be separated from it with the help of moral principles and philosophical ideas.

There are about 2 thousand nations, nationalities and tribes in the world. Most often, one country includes several nations; such states are called multinational, and these concepts are studied in detail in the 8th grade. Now let’s try to figure out what the concepts of clan, nationality, ethnicity, nation, tribe, nationality mean, and identify their similarities and differences.

Ethnos

Ethnicity is a general collective name for numerous consanguineous groups of people who form a tribe, nationality or nation.

A person can be assigned to one or another ethnic group depending on his biological and social characteristics.

Each ethnic group has features that are characteristic of its representatives. They are formed over a long period of time and under the influence of various factors: natural and climatic conditions, territory of residence, historical past.

The appearance and character of people are influenced by the natural conditions in which their people lived for a long time. For example, strong winds and sandstorms determine such a feature as narrow eyes, and a hot, sunny climate has led to the appearance of people with dark and black skin. The remoteness of the place of residence and isolation affected the way of life and relationships with other people.

So, let's highlight a number of ethnic characteristics as a stable community of people:

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consanguinity;
common historical development;
general area of residence;
common traditions;
common cultural heritage;
unity of life and language.

Tribe

This is the earliest form of ethnos. Its appearance was preceded by the unification of people into families, clans and clans.

The family is the smallest of the groups, based on consanguinity. It brings parents and children together. The union of several families forms a clan. Several clans that enter into an alliance become a clan. An association of several clans is called a tribe.

The tribes had their own language and lived in the same territory. In addition, at this time, the management system was already emerging. Each tribe had its own leader, as well as a special council in which the most important issues were discussed. Traditions and ceremonies were formed.

Ethnicity: nations and nationalities

Nationality

This is a more developed form of ethnos, which replaced the tribe. Its main differences is that:

it included a larger number of people;
its appearance was associated with the emergence of states that united large territories into one whole;
The unification of people now took place not only along blood lines, but along linguistic, territorial, economic and cultural grounds.

Nation

This is a type of ethnic group, the largest group of people united by common institutions and values.

Signs of a nation:

single territory;
a single language;
commonality of the economic system;
a single national character, a sense of solidarity.

Migration

People tend to constantly move due to natural disasters, military operations, and the development of new territories for farming. Some peoples were forced to move from their homeland, as a result of which they became familiar with another culture, territory, established connections with other ethnic groups, and adopted their features. The place to which they moved became their historical homeland.

What have we learned?

The concept of ethnicity includes various stable and changing associations of people that were formed throughout the historical development of mankind, acquiring new features, becoming more complex and larger in number. The very first social groups were family, clan and tribe, and then they transformed into nationalities and nations.

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Preamble
Before the Russians become a nation, they need to restore themselves as a people

In Russian society there is no consensus on who the Russians are - a people or a nation? This is due to the influence of the Soviet period in the formation of Russia and the fact that each of these concepts promises its pros and cons, can potentially influence the vector of the further formation of Russian society and the set of principles for the formation of the Russian World. The improvised watershed separating these two groups of people is the concept of “Soviet people” from the USSR, with the usual and inherent ideology of internationalism.

Figuratively speaking, people who miss the Soviet Union gravitate toward the opinion “Russians are a nation,” while people who consider the periods of the Russian Tsardom and the Russian Empire to be more significant in the history of the development of Russian statehood are closer to the opinion “Russians are a people.” Therefore, before we begin to search for an answer to the question: are Russians a people or a nation, it is necessary to define these two terms, as well as briefly evaluate their essence.

About terms

People is a term for the science of ethnography (Greek folk description) and is understood as an ethnos, that is, a group of people of common origin (blood relationship), which, in addition, has several unifying characteristics: language, culture, territory, religion and historical past.
That is, people are a sociocultural phenomenon.

Nation- is a socio-economic, cultural-political and spiritual community of the industrial era. The nation is studied by the theory of political doctrines, and the main task of the nation is to reproduce the cultural and civic identity common to all citizens of the country.
That is, a nation is a political phenomenon.

To summarize: the concept of “people” is based on interconnected ethnic processes that do not always depend on the will of the people, and the concept of “nation” is closely related to the influence of the state apparatus. General historical memory, language and culture- the property of the people, and the common territory, political and economic life is closer to the concept of a nation. Let us note one more point: the concept of people arose much earlier than the concept of nation.

In relation to development processes and state formation, it can be argued that the people create the state, and then the state volitionally shapes the nation: A nation is based on the principle of citizenship, not kinship. A people is something organic and living, a nation is an artificially built rational mechanism.

Unfortunately, in pursuit of civil unity, the nation involuntarily nullifies everything that is original, ethnic and traditional. The people who created the state and are the core of the nation gradually loses its ethnic identity and natural self-awareness. This is due to the fact that the living, natural processes of linguistic evolution, traditions and customs in the state acquire a formal, strictly defined form. Sometimes the price for the formation of a nation can be a split and confrontation within the people.

From the above, two conclusions suggest themselves:

A nation is an analogue of a people, which is artificially formed by the state.
The people are the people, the nation is the principle, dominant over people, ruling idea.

The people create the state, and the state volitionally forms the nation

About Russian problems

An approach to the Russian question would not be complete without mentioning the enormous external and internal pressure on the Russian community over many centuries, which sometimes took a form of outright ethnic and cultural terror. In the history of Russia there are three most significant and striking moments of attempts to break and reformat Russian identity:

reforms of Peter I, which manifested themselves in all spheres of Russian life, the stratification of Russian society with the subsequent separation of the elite from the common people
Bolshevik revolution of 1917, which actively fought against the Orthodox religion and culture, pursued a policy of Belarusianization of Russians, and used distortions of Russian self-awareness
color revolution 1991, was characterized by a particularly violent defamation of Russians in the world media space, where everything Russian was presented in an exclusively derogatory light; Western countries also pursued a policy of reducing the birth rate towards Russians and replacing Russian folk culture with the symbols and concepts of Western media culture

It can be argued that for almost three centuries, the Russians were subjected to quite conscious pressure from their own state. The goals were pursued differently, the methods also corresponded to their time, but the result of the impact was always weakening of the Russians and their societies. Add here numerous wars, epidemics and famines, multiply this by the extermination of the most prominent Russian representatives and the picture will become even more depressing.

Russians are very “historically tired” and very much “exhausted”: ethnic identity is distorted, folk culture is not perceived to the required extent, mortality exceeds the birth rate of the formation of the Russian people, habits and worldview are confused and cosmopolitanized, the institution of family and internal ties of the people are destroyed. The Russian state actively and harshly took advantage of the Russians, doing practically nothing to support their people's and.

Russians are very “historically tired”

And what?

If now the Russian state begins to form the Russian nation on the basis of the Russian people in its current state, then the result will be disastrous both for the state and for the Russian people, who, no matter what, still recognize themselves as a people. Although, of course, it depends on what kind of nation the state wants to form...

The example of events in Ukraine clearly shows what attempts to form a nation on the basis of a people with distorted ethnic identity, formatted by historical memory and state-imposed archetypes and guidelines.

Without due and complete restoration of the Russian people in all its uniqueness: ethnic, cultural, religious, ideological, behavioral and geopolitical, it is impossible to create a reliable and integral Russian World, and ultimately the Russian nation. Russians need to be a little conservative with themselves for a while...