Reproductive and cultural isolation (at least partial) + increase in cultural differences over time + different living conditions + randomly spread neutral or mildly harmful mutations.
Where does reproductive and other isolation come from? Firstly, geography. Even today, you are unlikely to fly hundreds of kilometers to find a partner. Rather, limit your search to your immediate surroundings. Secondly (these are no longer natural reasons, but they provide isolation), cultural and other differences. They usually look for a partner among “their own” (co-religionists, fellow tribesmen, people with similar social status) - even if “strangers” live in the same building.
Any isolated or partially isolated population acquires some of its own distinctive features. Some of these features are associated with living conditions and are adaptive in nature (or once were). This trait helps to survive and leave more offspring. And even if "more" is only 0.01% more, natural selection will maintain the trait and help it spread - after many generations. And some others, on the contrary, will be rejected and they will not be in this population or there will be almost none. (This is straight out of Darwin.) Different populations have different living conditions and different traits will be useful. White skin near the equator is a harmful sign (poor protection from ultraviolet radiation). In northern Europe it is useful (facilitates its own production of vitamin D under weak ultraviolet irradiation).
In addition to beneficial and harmful traits, there are neutral ones for which natural selection does not dictate. They can also spread in a population (especially in a small, or initially small) population for purely random reasons. (This is not Darwin, but modern genetics and evolutionary theory.)
In addition to biology different groups there will be cultural differences among people. And even animals will, if by “culture” we mean skills acquired by training. Here, isolation also plays a role: territorial, or group (dividing relatives into “us” and “strangers”). The same bird species can perform DIFFERENT songs in different areas. Because in childhood we heard different things. And an alien from another territory will eventually relearn how to sing in a new way. People have the same story with languages.
Some groups of chimpanzees crack nuts with sticks, others with stones, and still others do not know how to do this in any way. Different groups of people also have different types of food and ways of obtaining and processing it. More sophisticated, of course. But the reasons for the differences are also cultural (plus different living conditions, of course).
By the way, different nationalities may not differ anthropologically, but always differ in language and traditional culture. Conversely, different anthropological types can have the same culture and belong to the same nationality.
So, culture is primary for a nationality, and biology and anthropological type (together with Darwin) are secondary (there are Negro Abkhazians, for example; the great Russian poet Pushkin was biologically a mestizo quadroon, etc.).
Linguistic differences among neighboring peoples, by the way, may be absent, but cultural differences can be significant
Culture, by the way, is also a product of evolution. in the animal world, individuals usually compete at the level of individuals + interspecific competition.
People also have the concept of civilization. Strong immunity, developed intelligence, physical strength and endurance do not guarantee the survival of the human population and successful competition with other human populations. The civilizational factor, the level of development of civilization, and the moral and ethical standards of civilization are very important here. Those. so-called “traditional values” became traditional, in general, not by chance....
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Nation(from Latin “natio” - people) - 1) In the Western European tradition, initially, nation is a synonym for ethnic group. Further, the totality of subjects of one sovereign, citizens of one republic. With the advent of “nation`s state” (national state) - a set of subjects, citizens of the state (a historically established multi-ethnic community). Thus, the Spanish nation is ethnically composed of Spaniards, Catalans, and Basques. One common view is that nations are formed through the emergence of industrial societies. Another point of view is that N. can be recognized as an ethnos that created a national state or was the core of an empire. There is also a point of view that from the circle of ethnic groups that have national statehood, only those who have made a significant contribution to the process of formation of world cultures can be considered a nation. 2) B Eastern Europe and Asia, the dominant point of view is that a nation is an ethnic group, which may include foreign ethnic groups (according to L.N. Gumilyov - “Xenia”) that share basic national interests. In view of the above, nationalism in some cases means the priority of the interests of an ethnic group; in other cases - the interests of civil society and the nation.
The concept of a nation (from the Latin “natio”) for a long time was and was perceived as a synonym for the Greek word “ethnos”. However, in the era of the High Middle Ages in Europe, due to certain features of the development of Western European culture, it acquired a different sound and perception, becoming perceived as “compatriotism.” “For example, at the very famous University of Prague in Europe during the time of Jan Hus, there were officially four “nations” (four corporations of students and teachers): Czech, Polish, Bavarian and Saxon.”
Subsequently, the semantic load of this term in the West continued its evolution, simultaneously giving rise in science to two traditions of interpretation of this concept. The “Eastern” tradition and the “Western” tradition. Moreover, within them, as in the case of the categories “ethnicity” and “ethnicity,” there is no consensus on defining the essence of this phenomenon, but there is a large number of diverse points of view, often depending on the political, ideological, cultural, and personal preferences of the authors. As a result, there is great confusion in the interpretation and use of the term “nation”, as well as its relationship with the categories “ethnicity”, “people”, “nationalism” and others.
IN Western tradition (which we often call the Anglo-Roman, French or statist tradition), based on a formational approach to the process of socio-historical development, the nation is a phenomenon characteristic exclusively of New and Contemporary times. The emergence of nations as a historical phenomenon is associated with the formation of “nations states” (national states), as well as with the formation of capitalist relations and the emergence of the bourgeoisie. One common view is that nations are formed through the emergence of industrial societies. The formation of a nation, according to E. Gellner, is a direct result of the beginning of the modernization process, i.e. transition from a traditional agrarian society to an industrial and post-industrial society. Before the process of modernization began, nations as such did not exist.
According to the Western tradition of understanding the nation, it is the next link in the chain of development of human groups: clan - tribe - ethnicity - nation. Or in its Marxist-Leninist interpretation: clan - tribe - nationality (people) - nation. The concept of a nation in itself is a supra-class concept. A nation as a special human collective is a historically established multi-ethnic community - a collection of subjects, citizens of the state. For example, the Spanish nation is ethnically composed of Spaniards, Catalans, and Basques. Therefore, it is not surprising that it is in this understanding that the category “nation” migrated from the Anglo-Saxon system of law and firmly entered into use in the system of international law. When we talk about the United Nations (UN), we are talking about nations in the sense of states (“nation-states”).
The concept of “nation” in the Western tradition is in principle inseparable from the concept of “nation state”. In this tradition of interpreting the phenomenon of a nation, the main features of a nation are the presence of a single culture, national identity and statehood or the desire to acquire such. A person’s nationality is determined not by his ethnicity, but solely by his state and legal affiliation.
National self-awareness, in other words, the ability to recognize oneself as a member of a national collective, is a defining feature of a nation. It arises in modern times, when the usual forms of community of people (clans, workshops, communities) of a corporate nature collapse, a person is left alone with a rapidly changing world and chooses a new supra-class community - a nation. Nations emerge as a result of policies aimed at the coincidence of ethno-cultural and state borders. The political movement of self-affirmation of peoples with a common language and culture as a single whole is nationalism . Nationalism can be unifying (national movements in Germany and Italy in the 19th century) and disjunctive (national movements in Austria-Hungary in the 19th – 20th centuries).
Within the framework of this tradition of interpretation of the nation and nationalism, postmodern concepts of constructivism, which deny the natural and initially given essence of these phenomena, have become widespread (E. Gellner, B. Anderson, E. Hobsbawm and others).
Like an ethnos, they view a nation as a social and intellectual “construct”, an artificial social formation, a product of the purposeful activities of political elites (E. Gellner) or collective “imagination” (B. Anderson).
According to E. Gellner: “Nations as natural, by God established methods classification of people as some kind of primordial... political destiny is a myth.” A nation is a construct that creates nationalism: “It is nationalism that gives birth to nations, and not vice versa.”
Nationalism is “a political principle, the essence of which is that political and national units must coincide. Nationalistic feeling is the feeling of indignation caused by the violation of this principle, or the feeling of satisfaction caused by its implementation. A nationalist movement is a movement inspired by feelings of this kind."
B. Anderson is not so categorical in his conclusions and defines a nation as “an imaginary political community, and it is imagined as something inevitably limited, but at the same time sovereign.” "It imaginary for the members of even the smallest nation will never know, meet, or even hear of the majority of their fellow-nations, while the image of their community lives in the minds of each of them.
The nation is imagined limited, because even the largest of them, numbering, say, a billion living people, has finite, albeit moving boundaries, beyond which are other nations. No nation imagines itself to be commensurate with all humanity. Even the most messianically minded nationalists do not dream of the day when all members of the human race will join their nation, as was possible in some eras when, say, Christians could dream of an entirely Christian planet.
She's imagining sovereign, for this concept was born in an era when the Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the hierarchical dynastic state established by God. Coming of age at that stage of human history when even the most ardent adherents of any universal religion inevitably encountered living pluralism Such religions and the allomorphism between the ontological claims of each religion and the territory of its distribution, nations dream of being free and, if under the rule of God, then immediately. The pledge and symbol of this freedom is a sovereign state.
And finally, she is imagined as community, for, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may exist in each nation, the nation is always understood as a deep, horizontal fellowship. Ultimately, it was this brotherhood that for two last centuries gives many millions of people the opportunity not so much to kill as to voluntarily die for such limited products of the imagination."
The concept of nation and nationalism in the Western tradition is an effective tool for studying the social life of the Western world. However, it is not applicable in other regions. In this vein, the problems of discrepancy between theory and practice that arose among the Bolsheviks and Soviet scientists when trying to apply pro-Western Marxist theories on Russian soil, where there were simply no nations in the Western European sense, are typical. After coming to power, the Bolsheviks were forced to divide the ethnic groups living in the USSR into “nations” and “nationalities”, where nations were considered to be ethnic groups that, when carrying out administrative-territorial delimitation, were endowed with a status semblance of statehood (in the form of union and autonomous republics), and all other ethnic groups that do not have their own administrative-territorial units were considered nationalities. At the same time, the argument for the validity and expediency of endowing one or another ethnic group with a status similar to statehood was the far-fetched criterion of the presence or absence of an ethnic group of its own working class, as well as the level of urbanization.
In Soviet science, it was generally difficult to talk about any objectivity in defining and considering the essence of the “nation”, since it was completely dominated by the Marxist-Leninist ideology based on “progressive” and Eurocentric postulates and economic determinism, which automatically curtailed any debate on this matter. question and not “noticing” facts that contradict the theory. Therefore, it is not surprising that it dominated for a long time, in fact becoming official, without being subject to any critical analysis definition of “nation”, which was given in 1912 by I.V. Stalin in his work “Marxism and the National Question”. Analyzing the polemics of two prominent Marxist theorists Karl Kautsky and Otto Bauer, I.V. Stalin gave the following definition of a nation: “A nation is a historically established stable community of people that arose on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and mental makeup, manifested in a common culture.” The characteristic features of a nation (not racial, not tribal, but a historically established and stable community of people) in his opinion are: “common language”; “common territory”; “commonality of economic life, economic connectedness”; "common mentality". And only the presence of all these characteristics taken together allows us to consider this or that community a nation.
Subsequently, virtually none of the Soviet scientists dared to question the validity of this definition, although the indicated characteristics, to one degree or another, were inherent in other ethnic communities identified by Soviet scientists: tribe, as well as nationality. Stalin's signs could not explain the phenomenon, for example, of Jews and Gypsies realizing themselves as a nation (without a common territory and economy), as well as the Swiss (speaking three languages). However, everything was in the same vein already in the 80s of the 20th century in the Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary a definition of a nation similar to “Stalin’s” was given as “a historical community of people that takes shape during the formation of a common territory, economic ties, literary language, and certain features of culture and character.”
Within the framework of Soviet social sciences and humanities, in particular in the dualistic concept of the evolutionary-historical direction of primordialism, the nation as a type of “ethnosocial organism (ESO)” and socio-historical community was clearly tied to a certain socio-economic formation. In relation to the capitalist socio-economic formation, the category “bourgeois nation” was used; in relation to the socialist system - “socialist nation”. “A socialist nation is a new social community of people that has grown out of the nation or nationality of capitalist society in the process of the liquidation of capitalism and the victory of socialism; which retained, although they received a qualitatively new development, certain ethnic characteristics, but the entire structure of political, socio-economic and spiritual life was radically transformed on socialist international principles.”
Socialist nations were to be replaced by supranational, international communities, which was to happen in the era of mature communism.
Already in the post-Soviet period V.A. Tishkov, the main representative of constructivism in Russian science, interpreting the nation within the framework of this tradition, noted that one should abandon the understanding of the term “nation” in its ethnic meaning, using it exclusively within the framework of the Western tradition, in accordance with world legal and Western European political practice. The ethnic interpretation of the nation (as an ethno-nation), in his opinion, is a dangerous fruit of the creativity of politicians and can lead to acute ethnic conflicts, wars, and the collapse of states.
The nation, in his view, is “a political slogan and a means of mobilization, and not at all a scientific category,” “a phenomenon that simply does not exist, and makes judgments about persons and forces operating in social space on the basis of the proper criterion for a mythical definition.”
Within the framework of this tradition of interpreting the essence of the nation in Russian science and journalism, there are other points of view. Fundamentally disagreeing with the theses of constructivists and Marxists, a number of authors believe that an ethnic group that created a national state or was the core of an empire can be recognized as a nation. There is also a point of view that from the circle of ethnic groups that have national statehood, only those who have made a significant contribution to the process of formation of world cultures can be considered a nation. For example, S.P. Pykhtin interpreted the nation as “a qualitatively new community in the development of human self-organization.” In his opinion: “Humanity develops in forms that change in a certain sequence. Family, clan, tribe, people - these are the phases of this process, which belongs to the natural nature of all continents where there is Homo species sapiens. Under the influence political history humanity folk form self-organization, which had dominated for several millennia, acquired a new quality. It first appeared only in the 17th-18th centuries AD. Unlike all other forms of self-organization, a nation is not a natural-historical, but political form, the external sign of which is the state."
"IN general view a nation is an ethno-social, cultural-historical and spiritual community of people that emerged in the process of forming a state and accelerating a developed culture. The term “state” in this definition is the key element that distinguishes this type of community from the community called the people. The history of nature, of which human nature is a part, creates nations. When peoples enter into political relations, nations are formed. The modern ethnic map of the world includes up to 2000 peoples, political map there are less than 200 nations.” . Because of this: “We call the Russian nation a multi-ethnic community created by the Russian people and including all the numerous indigenous peoples integrated into the Russian spiritual, cultural and state tradition. Russians as a people, in turn, represent an ethnic community consisting of Great Russians, Little Russians, Belarusians and Rusyns.” .
Standing apart within this tradition of understanding the essence of a nation is the philosophical and historical concept of A.G. Dugin, in which he, making an analysis of the Marxist and postmodern approaches, calls for the pragmatic use of this term exclusively in the political and formal legal sense, as is customary in the West. He believes that: “Nation” is a political and legal phenomenon, almost completely coinciding with the concept of “citizenship”. Belonging to a nation is confirmed by the presence of a mandatory document indicating the fact of citizenship.”
In the opinion of A.G. Dugina: ““Nation” in the classical sense of this term means citizens united politically into one state. Not every state is a “nation-state”. Nation states (or nation states) are modern European-style states, most often secular and based on the political dominance of the bourgeoisie. Only to the citizens of such a modern secular (secular, non-religious) bourgeois state can we justifiably apply the definition of “nation”. In other cases, this will be an unauthorized transfer of one semantic complex to a completely different one.
We find signs of ethnos in all societies - archaic and modern, Western and Eastern, politically organized and living in communities. And the signs of a nation are found only in modern, Western (by type of organization) and politicized societies.”
“A nation is a purely political and modern phenomenon. In a nation, the main form of social differentiation is class (in the Marxist sense, i.e. based on the attitude to ownership of the means of production). A nation exists only under capitalism. The nation is inextricably linked with the “modern state” and the ideology of the New Age. The nation is a European phenomenon."
"Eastern" the tradition of interpreting the phenomenon of nation and nationalism, in contrast to the Western tradition, is based not on Eurocentric, progressivist positions, but on polycentrism. This approach allows us to overcome the narrowness of the formational approach in its Marxist, neo-Marxist or postmodern interpretations, where the experience of the development of Western European culture is taken as a basis and absolutized. Due to this, unfortunately, many researchers, as we have already seen, give the phenomena of nation and nationalism in their Western European understanding a global character and wrongfully apply them to the study of social processes in other regions of the world, which leads to a distortion of the subject of research and causes fair rejection the results of their research.
The position of polycentrism, on the basis of which stood such outstanding thinkers as F. Ratzel, N.Ya. Danilevsky, K.N. Leontyev, O. Spengler, L.N. Gumilyov and other authors suggest the presence on Earth of several cultural centers with their own unique appearance and originality of development (Middle East, India, China, Pacific Islands, Eastern Europe). All these cultural centers can be described by concepts developed by the “eastern” tradition of studying social life. For the analysis of the social life of Russia, it is also the “Eastern” tradition of interpretation of nation and nationalism that is more suitable, in which a special role belongs to representatives of the German and Russian philosophical and political science schools.
In the “eastern” (ethnic) tradition (common in Germany, Eastern Europe and Asia), the concept of nation is synonymous with the concept of ethnicity. A nation (or ethno-nation) is an ethnic group that may include other ethnic groups (according to L.N. Gumilyov - “Xenia”) that share basic national interests. In this tradition, one cannot do without understanding the ethnic nature of the nation, its natural essence, expressed in culture and national character.
Let us recall that, in accordance with the views of L.N. Gumilyov, ethnos is a stable human community historically formed on the basis of an original behavioral stereotype, a collective of people who have a common self-awareness, some inherent stereotype of behavior and contrast themselves with all other similar groups, based on the subconscious sympathy (antipathy) of people who recognize each other according to the principle “ "one's own - someone else's." Ethnicity is manifested in the actions of people and their relationships, which makes it possible to divide into “us” and “strangers”. The uniqueness of an ethnos is not in the language, not in the landscape of the territory it occupies, not in economic structures, but in the way of life and traditions of the people who make it up. Ethnic self-awareness exists throughout the entire historical life of mankind, becoming in the process of nation-building the second plane of national self-awareness.
Each nation has its own unique spiritual image and its own special historical mission. A person’s nationality is determined not so much by his state-legal status as by his self-awareness, which has both an ethnic and a national component.
The emergence of this tradition of interpreting the phenomenon of the nation in Germany dates back to the end of the 18th century and is associated with the work of I. Herder and the German romantics. Not accepting the interpretation of a nation as a collection of subjects, citizens of a state (political nation), they form the idea of a nation as an ethnic, natural community of people expressing “ folk spirit"("Volksgeist") and based on common culture, values, ideological characteristics and common origin.
The interpretation of the nation not in the sense of a political nation, but of an ethno-nation, inevitably led to a different understanding of nationalism than in the Western tradition. G. Cohn proposed to distinguish between Western (also known as political, civil, state, liberal nationalism, dominant in England, France and the USA) and Eastern (ethnic, cultural, organic, dominant in Germany and Russia) nationalisms. At the same time, many authors unjustifiably confuse ethnic nationalism with tribalism or ethno-separatism, which in our opinion is not entirely true. But this will be discussed in more detail in the next paragraph.
In the Russian philosophical and political science tradition, such famous thinkers as: L.A. addressed the definition and understanding of the idea, the essence of the nation. Tikhomirov, V.S. Solovyov, N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, P.B. Struve, I.A. Ilyin and many others. At the same time, the word nation was used by different authors and as describing an ethnic community, state affiliation of an individual, form government structure and the state itself, but always in close connection with its Spirit, Idea.
L.A. Tikhomirov, considered the nation as one of the four elements of the structure of the state and defined it as “the entire mass of individuals and groups whose joint residence gives rise to the idea of supreme power, equally ruling over them. The state helps national unity, and in this sense contributes to the creation of a nation, but it should be noted that the state does not at all replace or abolish nations. All history is full of examples of a nation experiencing the complete collapse of a state and, after centuries, being able to create it again; in the same way, nations often change and transform government systems their. In general, the nation is the basis, with the weakness of which the state is also weak; a state that weakens a nation thereby proves its insolvency.”
S. Bulgakov wrote about the nation as a “living spiritual organism”, belonging to which “does not depend at all on our consciousness; it exists before him and besides him and even in spite of him. It is not only a creation of our consciousness or our will; rather, on the contrary, this very consciousness of nationality and the will to it are the essence of its generation in the sense that in general, conscious and volitional life already presupposes a certain existential core of the personality as a nutritious and organic environment in which they arise and develop, of course, then gaining the ability to influence the personality itself.”
P.B. Struve believed that: “A nation is a spiritual unity created and supported by a community of spirit, culture, spiritual content, bequeathed by the past, living in the present and the future created in it.” “At the heart of a nation is always a cultural community in the past, present and future, a common cultural heritage, common cultural work, common cultural aspirations."
A.V. Gulyga, analyzing the views of Russian philosophers on the essence of the nation, noted that: “A nation is an organic unity, of which a person feels himself a part from birth to death, outside of which he is lost and becomes unprotected. A nation is a community of destiny and hope, metaphorically speaking. Berdyaev is right: “All attempts to rationally determine nationality lead to failure. The nature of nationality is indefinable by any rationally perceptible criteria. Neither race, nor territory, nor language, nor religion are characteristics that define nationality, although they all play one role or another in its definition. Nationality is a complex historical formation; it is formed as a result of a complex mixture of races and tribes, many redistributions of lands with which it connects its fate in the course of the spiritual and cultural process that creates its unique spiritual peak. And as a result of all historical and psychological research, an indecomposable and elusive residue remains, in which lies the whole secret of national individuality. Nationality is mysterious, mystical, irrational, like any individual existence.” The destruction of traditional foundations (a value system established over centuries) is destructive for the nation...
A nation is a community of sacred things... Nations are not going to merge, but there is no need to install additional partitions between them. Nationality is not a question of origin, but of behavior, not of “blood,” but of culture, of that cultural stereotype that has become native. This is what the Germans call Wahlheimat. Everyone is free to choose their own nationality; they cannot be dragged into it or pushed out of it. You can live among Russians without accepting their “faith.” (Then you just don’t have to claim leadership, you can’t consider the people as a means, as material for manipulation, this causes protest and excesses). Complete acceptance of the culture of the people, merging with it, readiness to share the fate of the people, makes any “non-believer” Russian, as well as German, etc.
The Russian nation is multi-ethnic and has many roots. That's why it is so numerous. The Russian nation in general is not a relationship “by blood”; what is important here is not origin, but behavior, type of culture. You don’t have to be born Russian, it’s important to become one. But it is not at all necessary to become. There are many peoples in Russia, but Russians have always been distinguished by national tolerance; it was this that turned Russia into the powerful state that our country has been for centuries.” .
Extremely important within the framework of the Russian philosophical and political science tradition of considering the phenomenon of the nation are the concepts of “Spirit of the Nation”, “National Idea”.
“The spirit of a nation is the most subtle, deeply integrated over the centuries national history, the ontological core of national identity. The spirit of the nation defies verbal description (“ no one has ever seen a spirit"), but it is he who enters as an unconditional generating principle into the entire national idea, national ideology and national-historical action, defining what is called national character, being the most fundamental constant of national existence. Where the national spirit is alive, the nation is alive." The spirit of a nation is formed at the dawn of its formation. “The basis and beginning of it is a complex of religious ideas and beliefs, which, refracted into specific historical conditions, and creates the image of the nation, its specific features, the scale of its historical potential (passionarity).” . But since “spirit is a substance inexpressible in words, then the only verbal disclosure of the concept of historical passionarity turns out to be national idea." . "The concept passionarity national spirit is manifested primarily in the content of its national idea. Those peoples and civilizations that possess and preserve their fundamental spiritual and ideological foundations are the most historically stable (India, China, countries of the Islamic world). And those peoples who were unable to preserve their national idea or did not find ideological forms adequate for their national history disappeared from the historical field or are on the verge of national degeneration (the peoples of Africa, Western Europe, and now Russia). Briefly, this thesis can be formulated as follows: there is an idea - there is passionarity, there is no idea - there is no passionarity .» .
Without taking into account the concepts of “Spirit of the Nation” and “National Idea”, which additionally reveal the essence of the nation (ethno-nation) in the “eastern” tradition of its interpretation, the category of “nation” fades, loses its internal content, dooming itself to spiritual degeneration. In this connection, the words of the song of Hieromonk Roman (Matyushin) come to mind:
“Without God, a nation is a crowd,
United by vice
Either blind or stupid
Or what’s even worse - she’s cruel.
And let anyone ascend the throne,
Speaking in a high syllable.
The crowd will remain a crowd
Until he turns to God!” .
It should be noted that within the framework of the modern Russian school of political science, a number of works have appeared where the authors mean by the category “nation” a super-ethnic group, trying to reconcile the Western and “Eastern” traditions of interpreting the phenomenon of nation and nationalism. For example, historian D.M. Volodikhin writes: “I equate the concepts of “superethnos” and “nation.” From this point of view, a superethnos can be either multi-ethnic (it can have at least 10 or 20 ethnic groups) or mono-ethnic. Thus, a nation can be either multi-ethnic or mono-ethnic. Another thing is that a nation is always and invariably built around the everyday, linguistic and cultural preferences of one ethnic group. A superethnos, that is, a nation, is not a fusion of heterogeneous elements into a motley unity forever frozen in its inviolability. A nation, for all the universality of its religious super-value and high culture, nevertheless has the language, history and everyday priorities of one ethnic group. And attached to them are some inclusions from the history of life of other ethnic groups that became part of the nation. The presenter. Predominant. At some point in national genesis, it is undividedly dominant. In a word, an ethnos-builder.” .
The works of I.A. can rightly be considered the pinnacle of the creative heritage of the Russian philosophical and political science school. Ilyin, in which he gives a philosophical and legal interpretation of the essence of the nation and a special, different from the Western, interpretation of the phenomenon of nationalism.
We easily use the word “nation” in everyday speech, considering it generally accepted and completely understandable to each of us. However, do we know what the definition of the word “nation” is? Where did it come from and in what cases is it appropriate to use it? In this article we will look at these issues.
A little history
The term “nation” is a rather complex definition, because the points of view of scientists and researchers are strikingly different from each other. Ernest Gellner studied the concept of this word from the point of view of modernism. Before the industrialization of mankind, that is, before the need for its education and coordinated work arose, such a concept did not exist. The author wrote that only aristocrats could be united into the concept of “nation” in front of the court, since it was not yet familiar to the lower strata of society. Simply put, ordinary people have not grown up to nationalism. The pre-national state was based on one thing - submission to monarchs. Later, with industrialization, being a citizen came to mean being an equal member of society. That is, a person was not just called a citizen - he felt himself to be part of a single nation.
Definition of what a nation means
Nation - translated from Latin means “tribe”, “people”. This concept was mentioned for the first time in Russian documents at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries as a borrowed concept. It is often used to mean ethnic community or nationality. Only after the Great French Revolution the term “migrated” into Russian-language use. Uvarov in the triad “Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Nationality” mentions the word “nation”, the concept and definition of which echoes “nationality”, in fact, being its synonym. Belinsky wrote in the middle of the 19th century: given word differs from the term “people” in that it covers the entire society, while the latter only covers its lower strata.
What is a nation?
This question, which seems to have a simple answer, is dangerous with many pitfalls, so it should be considered in more detail. In essence, a nation is a social association that is initially not associated with political overtones. That is, first a people arises, and then a nation. For example, Lithuanians initially appeared, and only after that the state of Lithuania arose. In this regard Soviet politicians they were cruelly mistaken in calling a nation Soviet people. They reduced this concept to a political meaning, forgetting that people were not united by culture, biological kinship, or other necessary characteristics. While the idea of a nation is primarily based on the fact that a society of people has a single culture and history. Thus, a full-fledged nation cannot have a single link - there are many of them. Among them are politics, culture, history and other factors.
It is incorrect to call Slavic peoples Russians, since each of them has its own cultural characteristics and its own mentality. Russians are just one of the subgroups Slavic peoples. With such mistakes, confusion arises, and it becomes unclear where the Russians actually are and where the other Slavic peoples are.
Thus, a nation is a community that arose in the industrial era. In international law, the meaning of the word "nation" is synonymous with the nation state.
Below we consider several definitions of a nation:
- A nation is a society that is united by a common culture. The concept of “culture” includes norms of behavior, conventions, connections, etc.
- Two people belong to the same nation only if they themselves recognize each other's belonging to it. That is, a nation is a product of people’s beliefs, their willingness to follow generally accepted rules and norms.
What factors unite a group of people into a nation?
The meaning of the word nation is:
- Residence in the same territory, where the same legislation applies. Its borders are recognized by other states.
- Ethnic community. This concept includes culture, language, history, way of life.
- Developed economy.
- State. Every people has the right to call itself a nation if it is organized into a state and has its own legislation, management system, etc.
- National awareness. It is this that plays an extremely important role, because a person must understand that he is part of his people. He must not only respect its laws, but also love it. A people who actually do not consider themselves a nation, even if they have all the above-mentioned characteristics, are considered a people, but not a nation. For example, after the Second World War, the Germans stopped considering themselves a nation, and therefore are simply called the “German people,” but patriotic Americans, essentially being a mixture of many ethnic groups, are a nation. Take the last president of America: although he is ethnically Haitian and racially Negro, he is nevertheless an American.
Signs of nationality
The fact that a person has national identity is indicated by such signs as:
- knowledge of the history of one’s people, which is called ethnic memory;
- knowledge of customs and traditions, a sense of respect for them;
- knowledge of native language;
- a sense of national pride, which is inherent in almost every resident of the state.
All these signs indicate that in front of you is a worthy representative of a particular nation. They make you feel special, different from others, but at the same time they give you a sense of belonging to something big - a social whole, an ethnic group, a nation. This knowledge can protect a person from feelings of loneliness and defenselessness in the face of global danger.
Ethnicity and nation - concepts and differences
An ethnic group is a people that has the same culture and lives in the same territory, but is not considered a state due to its absence. Ethnicity is often put on the same level as a nation, balancing these concepts. Others believe that the nation stands a level higher, but at the same time is practically no different from it. However, in reality these terms are completely different. An ethnic group is not a state and is considered, rather, a tribe that has its own culture, but is not burdened national identity. Ethnic groups that have developed historically do not set themselves any political goals, do not have economic ties with neighboring states and are not recognized by them at the official level. But a nation is also political term, which consists in the work of masses of people who set themselves certain goals and achieve them. Most often they are political in nature. A nation is a social force to be reckoned with.
Instead of a conclusion...
What is a nation, from the point of view of some experts? In fact, if we start from versions of the origin of man (in particular, remember the story of Adam and Eve), each of us has one ethnic group, one people. Each of us is an inhabitant of the Earth, and it is not so important what part of the world you live in, what eye shape and skin color you have - all these nuances have developed historically under the influence of climate.
from lat. nation - people) - historical. a community of people formed on the basis of the commonality of their language, territory, economics. life, culture and certain character traits. Economical the basis for the emergence of N. is such development produces. forces and the totality of production. relations, which were first achieved during the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The development of capitalism creates a socio-territorial division of labor, which binds the population economically in N. This also leads to political. concentration, towards the creation of a national state on the site of the former feud. fragmentation of the country (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 4, p. 428 and vol. 21, pp. 406–16). N. arises from kinship. and non-relations. tribes, races and nationalities. Rus. N. developed from part of Old Russian. The nationality of the region, in turn, was formed from kinships. East Slavic tribes, but many elements from the Western surroundings joined it. and south Slav., German., Finno-Ugric and Turkic-speaking peoples, etc. French N. was formed as a result of the merger of the Gauls, Germans, Normans, and others. N. arose from settlers from almost all Europe. countries with which blacks from Africa and Indians partly mixed. You cannot replace the national a community of race, tribe, as well as religion. and state community. There are many different N., which mainly belong to the same race. There are N., parts of which profess different religions. On the other hand, there are different N. who profess the same religion. There are N. who live in the same state and do not have their own nationality. statehood, and, conversely, there are many such?., dep. Some of them live in different states. Therefore, racial, tribal, religion. and state community cannot be included in the general concept and definition of N. as its necessary characteristics. Lenin showed, criticizing the views of the populist Mikhailovsky, that during the period of the formation of N., the clan and tribal organization of society no longer existed, and N., like nationalities, arose on the basis of territorial-economic. connections. Therefore, they cannot be considered as a simple continuation and expansion of clan and tribal ties. Clans and tribes - historical. communities of people from the era of the primitive communal system, and nationalities from the era of slave owners. and feud. societies - preceded by N. Economic. The basis of the process of national formation, cementing their linguistic, territorial and cultural community, was the development of commodity production, the emergence of local markets, their merger into a single national. market. “...The creation... of national ties,” wrote Lenin, “was nothing more than the creation of bourgeois ties” (Op. , vol. 1, p. 137–38). Common language and territory, based on common economics. lives are the main signs of N. Common language, territory, economic. The life and culture of N., growing on the basis of capitalism and, even more so, socialism, is qualitatively different and in its social type, character, and level of development is historically higher than similar communities among clans, tribes and nationalities that arose in pre-capitalist times. formations. The development of capitalism eliminates feud. economic, political and cultural disunity of the population speaking the same language, through the growth of industry, trade, and market. This leads to economical and political consolidation of nationalities in N., to the creation of centralized national. state-in, which, in turn, accelerate the consolidation of N. Economic. and political N.'s consolidation contributes to the formation of a single national. language from the language of nationalities based on the convergence of written lit. language with vernacular; national the language gradually overcomes the dialectal fragmentation of the national language, which also contributes to the creation of stable ties between people in a given territory. Features of historical development of N., its economic. building, culture, way of life, customs and traditions, geotraffic. and historical environments leave their mark on its spiritual appearance, create the characteristics of the national. character or psychology of the people who make up a given N., give rise to special “national feelings” and “national consciousness” in them. But these features cannot be interpreted in the spirit of the national ideology. “exclusivity”, according to which some N. are hardworking, businesslike, revolutionary, etc., while others do not or cannot have these qualities. Noting this or that feature in a given N., we do not at all deny it in other N., but only emphasize that it is especially clearly and strongly developed in this N. in at the moment and is uniquely combined with other traits and characteristics of her character. In an exploitative society, the class position and interests of people, and not their nationality. affiliation is determined decisively by the driving motives and goals of their activities, incl. their national will, feelings, consciousness and self-awareness. National consciousness expresses not only a person’s belonging to a certain group. nation, but also this or that attitude towards other N., this or that understanding of the national. interests from the viewpoint defined social group , class. National character is a phenomenon of spiritual life, it reflects economic. and socio-political. N.'s structure is manifested in its culture and is formed under their influence. General economic life, culture and character of the bourgeoisie. N. is very relative and does not exclude class antagonism. If in the culture of N. under capitalism there are “two cultures,” then both its character and its nationality. consciousness also seems to “split into two.” Burzh. nationalism and prolet. internationalism is two opposing worldviews and two opposing policies in the nation. question. The corresponding classes of different nationalities have common social, class, and also special national ones. traits. German The bourgeoisie differs by nationality. features from French, American, Japanese, although their class consciousness is essentially the same. The class consciousness, interests and character of the bourgeois and proletarian of any N. are directly opposite to each other. The proletariat is by its nature international, while remaining at the same time national. Rus. the worker differed and differs from German, English, French in language and other nationalities. characteristics, according to the conditions of life and culture, and therefore according to the characteristics of the national. character, although their class traits and interests, goals, ideals and feelings are common and international. The latter play a decisive role in his character, manifesting themselves in his nationality. features. These points are not disclosed in Stalin’s definition of the “community of mental makeup” of the bourgeoisie. N. and national specifics (see "Marxism and the national question", Soch., vol. 2, M., 1954), which left loopholes for the bourgeoisie. theories of "national exclusivity". So, the features of the national psychology (character) also constitute a necessary, although not primary, but a derivative sign of N. Some of the signs of N. can be common, the same for several. N. There are different N., speaking the same language (for example, the British and North Americans, Portuguese and Brazilians, Mexicans, Cubans, Argentines and Spaniards), or living in a common territory, or having close territorial, economic, state. and cultural ties and, as a result, have a lot in common in their history, culture, way of life, customs, traditions, and psychology. N. has not only something special, something that distinguishes them from each other, but also a common thing that brings them together and connects them. The nature of the economic system determines the social structure and political. N.'s structure, the nature of her life and culture, psychology and spiritual appearance. In the bourgeoisie sociology there is no generally accepted theory of N. It is dominated by non-scientific. statist theories connecting N. with the state. In others, idealistic. theories stick out national. consciousness, "national spirit" or nat. character as a leader, and sometimes as a unity. characteristic of N. (American sociologists V. Sullbach, G. Kohn, American lawyer K. Eagleton, etc.). N. is considered as only a subjective feeling and desire, will, decision of an arbitrary group of people (G. Kohn) or a “psychological concept”, “unconscious mental community” (Marittain). Mn. modern bourgeois ideologists rely on the theories of O. Bauer and K. Renner, which reduced N. to a community of nationalities. character on the basis of a common destiny, to a union of “like-minded people.” Modern ideologists reformism, revisionism and nationalism. communism is sliding towards the bourgeoisie. nationalism and great-power chauvinism, inflating nationalism. moments in the development of their countries, attributing to all N. in general, incl. and socialist N., what is inherent in the bourgeoisie is the struggle to subjugate other countries and nations. Having analyzed the essence and emergence of N. and national. state, Marx and Engels showed the inevitability of the replacement of N. by a higher type of historical. community; capitalism gives birth to nationalities and at the same time creates tendencies and material prerequisites for their unification and merger. Marx and Engels pointed out that by exploiting the world market, the bourgeoisie makes the production and consumption of all countries cosmopolitan. “The old local and national isolation and existence at the expense of products of their own production is being replaced by comprehensive communication and comprehensive dependence of nations on each other. This applies equally to both material and spiritual production. The fruits of the spiritual activity of individual nations become the common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness are becoming more and more impossible..." (Works, 2nd ed., vol. 4, p. 428). Lenin developed these provisions in relation to the new historical. era, revealed the inconsistency of two tendencies of capitalism in the national question - the tendency of the awakening of N. and the internationalization of their economies. life, showed the resolution of these contradictions in the process of socialism. construction, developed a program for the party of the proletariat on the national question. Socialist The revolution creates the basis and conditions for the transformation of the bourgeoisie. N. in socialist N., for the transition to socialism of peoples who have not gone through (fully or partially) the stage of capitalism. Socialist N. differ radically from bourgeois in their economics. basics, social structure, socio-political and spiritual appearance, for they are free from social, class antagonisms inherent in the bourgeoisie. N. Socialist. From the very beginning, N. strive not for isolation from each other, but for rapprochement. All the nationalities and nationalities of the USSR united into a single family of peoples and achieved enormous success in the development of their nationalities. statehood, economy and culture. On this basis, the friendship of the peoples of the USSR grew stronger, and a multi-ethnic community emerged. owls people are new, highest type historical communities of people - their international. community. An important condition, which contributed to the development of socialism. N., the party criticized the cult of personality, violations of the principles of Leninist national. politics. The party decisively put an end to these perversions and carried out measures that strengthened the friendship of the peoples of the USSR, international. their connections with the peoples of the socialist camp and the working people of the whole world. The period of extensive construction of communism represents a stage of further comprehensive development and rapprochement of socialism. N., their achievement of complete economic, political, cultural, spiritual unity. The construction of communism in the USSR and other countries of the world socialist system prepares the conditions for the complete voluntary merger of N. after the victory of communism throughout the world. The conditions and prerequisites for this future stage of the merger of N. are: a) the creation of a single world communist. economics; b) complete and widespread disappearance of class differences; c) equalization of economic and the cultural level of all N. and countries based on their general rise; d) complete extinction on this basis of the state and state. borders, creating full scope for population mobility throughout the world; d) development of communist life and culture of peoples, international in its foundations, character and content; f) maximum convergence of N.’s spiritual appearance and psychology, character; g) the emergence of a common world language, most likely through the voluntary adoption as such of one of the most developed modern languages. languages that are already performing the functions of a means of international communication. The CPSU program emphasizes that all issues of national and national development. The party decides relations from the perspective of the span. internationalism and Leninist nationalism politics; one can neither exaggerate nor ignore the national features and differences, neither delay the progressive process of erasing them, nor accelerate it artificially, through pressure and coercion, because this can only slow down the processes of rapprochement between N. And after the construction of basically communism in the USSR, it would be wrong to declare a policy of merging N. But those are also wrong , who complains about the ongoing processes of gradual erasure of national. differences and features. Communism cannot perpetuate and preserve nationalism. features and differences, because it creates a new, international. community of people, international unity of all humanity. But such unity and complete fusion of N. will be realized only after the victory of socialism and communism on a worldwide scale. Lit.: Marx K. and Engels F., On the colonial system of capitalism. [Sat. ], M., 1959; Lenin V.I., About the national. and the national-colonial question. [Sat. ], M., 1956; him, Abstracts of the essay on national. question, Soch., 4th ed., vol. 41, p. 273, Lenin collection, XXX, [M. ], 1937, p. 61–70, 98–112, 189–99; CPSU in resolutions and decisions, 7th ed., part 1, M., 1953, p. 40, 47, 54, 82, 286, 314–15, 345, 361, 416–17, 553–62, 709–18, 759–66; Part 4, 1960, p. 127–32; Materials of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, M., 1961; Materials of the XXIII Congress of the CPSU, M., 1966; Program documents of the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism, M., 1961; Kammari M. D., Socialist. nations of the USSR in the conditions of transition from socialism to communism, "Communist", 1953, No. 15; his, Towards complete unity, M., 1962; Socialist nations of the USSR, M., 1955; Tzameryan I., Sov. multinational roc-vo, its features and development paths, M., 1958; Dunaeva?. ?., Cooperation socialist. nations in the construction of communism, M., 1960; Bypassing capitalism. [Sat. Art. ], M., 1961; Formation of socialist nations in the USSR. [Sat. Art. ], M., 1962; Alekseev V.V., Rod, tribe, nationality, nation, M., 1962; Batyrov Sh. B., Formation and development of socialist. nations in the USSR, M., 1962; Kravtsev I. E., Development of national. relations in the USSR, Kyiv, 1962; Chekalin M.V., Communism and N., Leningrad, 1962; From socialism to communism. Sat. Art., M., 1962 (see art. Oleynik I.P., Kammari M.D. and Dzhunusov M.S.); Semenov Yu. I., From the history of theoretical. developed by V.I. Lenin national. issue, "Peoples of Asia and Africa", 1966, No. 4 (the article contains materials from the discussion of the issue of N. in Soviet literature); Synopticus [Renner K.], State and Nation, trans. from German, St. Petersburg, 1906; Springer R. [Renner K.], Nat. problem. (Struggle of nationalities in Austria), trans. from German, St. Petersburg, 1909; Bauer O., Nat. question and social democracy, trans. from German, St. Petersburg, 1909; Kautsky K., Nat. problems [trans. with him. ], P., 1918. See also lit. at Art. Nationalism. M. Kammari. Moscow.
Which can be expressed not only in political manifestos, but also in literary works, scientific works, etc. According to constructivists, nationalism does not awaken the nation, which until then remains a thing-in-itself, but creates a new nation where there was none . In this case, the geographical boundaries of the national project are the actual political borders of the state, and the ethnic differences of the population participating in the construction of such a nation do not matter at all.
One of the main theorists of constructivism, Benedict Anderson, defines nations as “imagined communities”: “I propose the following definition of a nation: it is an imagined political community, and it is imagined as something inevitably limited, but at the same time sovereign.” What is meant, of course, is not that nations are some kind of fiction in general, but that only rationally thinking individuals really exist, and the nation exists only in their heads, “in the imagination,” due to the fact that this is how they identify themselves , and not in any other way.
Constructivists deny continuity between the ethnic groups of pre-industrial society and modern nations; they emphasize that nations are products of industrialization, the spread of universal standardized education, the development of science and technology (in particular, printing, mass communications and information) and that in the pre-industrial era, ethnic groups and ethnic identity did not play such an important role, since traditional society offered many other forms of identity (class, religion, etc.).
Ethnicity
Ethnonation (the theory of sociobiological primordialism of a nation) understands a nation as the transition of an ethnos to a special national stage of development, that is, as a biological phenomenon. The emergence of this type of nationalism is associated with the formation of the mystical concept of the “folk spirit” (Volksgeist) within the framework of German “populist” (volkisch) and racist, ariososophical nationalism of the 18th-19th centuries (in particular, in the works of representatives of German romanticism). The early German nationalist romantics believed that there was a certain “folk spirit” - an irrational, supernatural principle that embodied in various peoples and determined their originality and difference from each other, and which found expression in “blood” and in race. From this point of view, the “national spirit” is transmitted with “blood”, that is, by inheritance, thus the nation is understood as a community descended from common ancestors, connected by consanguineous ties.
Since the 1950s of the twentieth century, the theory of ethnonation has rapidly begun to lose ground in Western science. The reason for this was, first of all, a fact pointed out by one of the main opponents of primordialism, Benedict Anderson: “Theorists of nationalism have often been perplexed, if not irritated, by the following three paradoxes: The objective modernity of nations in the eyes of the historian, on the one hand, and their subjective antiquity in the eyes of a nationalist, on the other..." The point is that historical research has shown that nations were formed in Western Europe not so long ago - in the early modern era, and in other regions even later - in Eastern Europe in the 19th century, in Asia and Africa in the 20th century , so it is very problematic to elevate them to any one ethnic group, of which this nation is supposedly a higher stage of development. For example, the French nation was formed in the era of the Enlightenment and the Great French Revolution as a result of the union of culturally diverse peoples - Gascons, Burgundians, Bretons, etc. Many of them continued to exist in the 19th and 20th centuries, never fully “Frenchizing” . In this regard, an expression like: “French culture of the 12th century” looks dubious. Moreover, after the collapse of the colonial system in the 1950s and 1960s, new nations rapidly began to form in Asia and Africa, including a wide variety of ethnic groups. And this despite the fact that just a few decades ago the peoples of Africa, who later became part of certain nations, did not even have an idea of such a community as a nation and nationality; they, along with the ideas of a nation state and the ideology of nationalism, were brought to them by the European colonialists.
Nation and nationality
It is necessary to distinguish between such interrelated, but not identical concepts as “nation” and “nationality”. The concept of “nationality” in Russia and other countries of the post-Soviet space, expressing an ethnic community, is only one of the factors of a nation and nationality. Therefore, it is narrower than the concept of “nation”. This does not apply to other countries where nationality is belonging to a certain nation based on citizenship. The source of the ethnic connection of people is the commonality of cultural characteristics and natural conditions of life, leading to the differentiation of a given primary group from another. Racism theorists believed that genetic characteristics are the basis of the ethnic group, but this is refuted empirically (for example, Abkhazian blacks). A nation is a more complex and later formation. If ethnic groups existed throughout world history, then nations are formed only in the period of New and even Contemporary times.
A nation can be of two types: multi-ethnic (multi-ethnic) or mono-ethnic. Ethnically homogeneous nations are extremely rare and are found mainly in remote corners of the world (for example, Iceland). Usually a nation is built on the basis large quantity ethnic groups brought together by historical fate. For example, the Swiss, French, British, Russian, and Vietnamese nations are multiethnic, while the Americans do not have any distinct ethnic face at all. Latin American nations are racially heterogeneous - made up of whites, Africans, Creoles and Amerindians.
In some cases, the concept “people” is synonymous with nation; in the constitutional law of English- and Romance-speaking countries - a term usually meaning “state”, “society”, “the totality of all citizens”.
In the USSR, a nation was more often understood as any ethnic group within the state, and for a multi-ethnic community the term “multinational people” was used, which included, for example, Soviet, Indian, American, Yugoslav and others. In English-language terminology (and in most of the current Russian terminology), the nation is associated with the state, for example, they write about the Indians as a “multi-ethnic nation”. Some researchers believe that the definition of ethnic groups as nations in the USSR was associated with the political technological need to use the right of nations to self-determination to fight the multi-ethnic countries of the capitalist world.
Nation and ethnicity in academic science
The scientific-functional approach to the difference between nation and ethnic group is that ethnic groups are studied by ethnology, for research in the field of ethnology they are given the title of candidates and doctors of historical, sociological sciences or cultural studies (depending on the topic of research). The theory of political doctrines studies the nation and nationalism. There is no “nationology”; it is precisely a political doctrine. For research in this direction they are awarded the title of candidate and doctor of political science. This title is not given for ethnic research. Ethnology is not included in the training program for political scientists, and the nation is not included in ethnological disciplines.
Academic science denies such a concept as “ethnonation”, and recognizes as a nation only a political association of citizens on the basis of common citizenship.
Nation and language
National culture
A nation is primarily a political phenomenon, and only then ethnic and social. Therefore, the main task of a nation is to reproduce the cultural identity common to all citizens of the country in political interests. For this purpose, there are ministries of culture, whose task is to determine the format national culture, common to everyone.
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