Definition of a nation. Nations of the world

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 questions.

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, simple people have not matured 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: this 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 public association, which at first is 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 plan Soviet politicians they were sorely mistaken in calling them 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:

1. A nation is a society that is united by a common culture. The concept of “culture” includes norms of behavior, symbols, communications, etc.
2. 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:

1. Residence in the same territory, where the same legislation applies. Its borders are recognized by other states.
2. Ethnic community. This concept includes culture, language, history, way of life.
3. Developed economy.
4. 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.
5. 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 ceased to consider themselves a nation, therefore they 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;
• feeling 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 ethnos is not a state and is considered, rather, a tribe that has its own culture, but is not burdened with 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.

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 process of their emergence. 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) In Eastern Europe and Asia, the dominant point of view is that a nation is considered an ethnos, which may include foreign ethnic groups (according to L.N. Gumilev - “Xenia”) that share the main national interests. Due to 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 to two traditions of interpretation of this concept in science. 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 traditional agricultural society to 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 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 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, a nation is considered by them as a social and intellectual “construct”, an artificial social education, a product of purposeful activity political elites(E. Gellner) or collective “imagination” (B. Anderson).

According to E. Gellner: “Nations as natural, God-established ways of classifying people, as some kind of primordial ... political destiny, are 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, although 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 the Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the hierarchical dynastic state established by God. Reaching maturity at that stage 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 is this brotherhood that over the past two centuries has given 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 research tool public life 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 to Russian soil, where there were simply no nations in the Western European sense. 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 issue and not “noticing” facts that contradict the theory. Therefore, it is not surprising that for a long time it was dominated by, in fact, becoming official, without being subjected to any critical analysis, the 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, almost none of the Soviet scientists dared to question the validity of this definition, although the indicated characteristics were, to one degree or another, 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 in the same vein already in the 80s of the 20th century in the Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary gave a definition of a nation similar to “Stalin’s” as “ historical community people, emerging during the formation of the community of their territory, economic ties, literary language, some 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 nation 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. social community of people; 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 a socialist international basis.”

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 those acting in social space persons and forces on the basis of due criteria for the 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 the species Homo sapiens exists. Under the influence of the political history of mankind, the popular form of 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, analyzing the Marxist and postmodern approaches, calls for the pragmatic use 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 the nation the main form social differentiation is class (in the Marxist sense, i.e. based on the relationship 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. The “Eastern” tradition of interpretation of nation and nationalism is also more suitable for analyzing the social life of Russia, 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 identity 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 nation in Germany dates back to end of the XVIII 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 the “national spirit” (“Volksgeist”) and based on a 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. Kohn 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 system 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 complicated history education, 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 in centuries of national history, ontological core of national self-consciousness. 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 the complex 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”, additionally revealing 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 that is 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 top creative heritage The works of I.A. can rightfully be considered a Russian philosophical and political 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.

A characteristic feature of early modern times was the process of formation of modern nations. It was based on intensive economic development, the formation of internal markets and the centralizing policy of absolutism.

B European countries There was an erasure of differences between the nationalities that inhabited them, the unification of dialects and the formation of common national languages, the formation of distinctive cultures and the formation of national identity. France, England, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, and Scotland became predominantly states of one dominant nation.

The process of forming nations in Europe was complicated by the existence of the universalist Habsburg power, which united many peoples, as well as a number of political unions between countries that tended to be isolated (Denmark and Sweden, Sweden and Poland, Spain and Portugal, etc.). Nevertheless, the formation of nations took place in multi-ethnic states. Within the Empire, the separation of the German and Austrian nations began, and on the basis of the Northern Netherlands, which was separated from the Habsburgs, the Dutch nation was formed.

In Central and South-Eastern Europe, the formation of nation states was hampered by the routine state of the economy (its predominantly agrarian nature), as well as a number of political factors, most notably the Ottoman conquest. Nevertheless, the subordinate position within the multinational powers of the Czechs, Hungarians, Slovaks, Croats and others), the domination of foreign conquerors (for the Balkan peoples and Hungarians), religious persecution stimulated the growth of national consciousness among peoples who had not yet received their statehood or had lost it .

Along with the formation of nations, one of the phenomena of early modern times was the Europeans' awareness of their cultural and political community. The concept of “Europe” has become relevant against the background of the discovery of new continents and acquaintance with other civilizations, religions and cultures. With all ethnic and religious differences European peoples united community historical origin, territory, Christian faith, cultural and political traditions.

New forms political culture. The 16th-17th centuries became an important stage in the formation of the political culture of modern times. Printing played a huge role in awakening the political activity of society, the emergence of which was essentially a revolution that created a new means of disseminating information. By the end of the 16th century. Periodicals appeared at the beginning of the 17th century. The press is born - the first newspapers and magazines. Printed books and pamphlets were systematically used in official state propaganda and in political and religious struggle. At the same time, the desire of secular and ecclesiastical authorities to control information available to society gave rise to such a phenomenon as printed caesura.

A big step was made in the development of the theory of society and state. The central problems of political and legal thought, which was increasingly secularized, were the nature of monarchy and representative power, the concept of “sovereignty,” the place of law and religion in society, the problem of tyranny and resistance to it.

Everyday practice of representative institutions of the XVI - first half XVI I century formed the basis of modern parliamentarism. At this time, the methods of lawmaking were finally formed: the procedure for drafting bills, introducing them and discussing them. Parliaments, like bureaucratic bodies, have developed their own discipline, corporate ethics, ritual and office work. B XVI century In the English Parliament, demands for freedom of speech, access of deputies to the monarch and their immunity were first put forward. Interpreted at that time in a very limited way, they nevertheless became the foundation of the modern understanding of political freedoms. At the beginning of the 15th century. Here the institution of a legal parliamentary opposition arose, critical of the authorities, but loyal and working in alliance with them.

New forms have also emerged in the culture of international relations. In the early modern period, the theory of the law of peoples, war and peace was actively developed, and began to take shape new system European international law. The development of interstate contacts was facilitated by the formation diplomatic service, systems of permanent embassies at foreign courts, development of the theory of diplomatic art and protocol.

The problem of social revolutions of the 16th century. In modern historiography there is no unambiguous use of the term “revolution”. In relation to early modern times, we can talk about the “price revolution” in the economy, the “spiritual revolution” that was carried out by the Reformation, “ scientific revolution" XVII century, " social revolutions"during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, etc. In the latter case, the term “revolution” is associated with an important debatable issue - the interpretation of the Reformation and the Peasant War in Germany as a phenomenon representing the first in the history of mankind (albeit defeated) early bourgeois revolution.

This concept developed in Marxist historiography, based on the ideas of F. Engels. Oia rightly rejected one of the common tendencies in the study of the Reformation - the attempt to explain its history by purely religious or religious-polntic factors, leaving aside the role of diverse social interests and the significance of mass movements in the historical process.

In turn, in the concept of the early bourgeois revolution in Germany, the religious aspect is considered only as a “shell”, an “ideological disguise” of the social aspirations of various social strata, which modernizes history and does not correspond to the reality of the 16th century. The disadvantages of this approach are the exaggeration of the degree of maturity of early capitalist relations and the emerging bourgeois elements, an underestimation of the fact that the bourgeoisie, in whose interests the revolution should have been carried out, had barely begun to form as a special stratum of society. Individual private crises, the presence of which is characterized as a prerequisite for the Reformation and an indicator of an imminent “revolutionary situation,” even in the aggregate did not have any national , nor universal, systemic in nature. The Reformation developed both during and after the Peasants' War in Germany, covering vast regions not at all affected by this social conflict. She cut social strata not along class lines, but along religious lines. Awareness of the excessive rigidity and other shortcomings of the concept of the early bourgeois revolution led to significant differences even among supporters of this trend when determining the chronological framework of the revolution in Germany, its stages, and place in the “cycle of early bourgeois revolutions.”

From the same methodological perspective, the events of 1566-1609. in the Netherlands are usually assessed as the second act of the process of early bourgeois revolutions in Europe. It is argued that they took place during the period of manufacturing development of capitalism, when the emerging bourgeois class was still characterized by insufficient political maturity and the task of the revolution was to clear the way for its further growth. The specificity of the bourgeois revolution in the Netherlands is seen in the fact that it went under the ideological banner of Calvinism and was associated with the war of liberation against Spanish power. The significance of this revolution in the cycle of others is determined as follows: for the first time in the world, it ended victoriously, although in a small region.

The authors of this concept make a reservation that the social essence of the events in the Netherlands is not clearly identified, and explain this by the fact that the bourgeois revolution “externally” took the form of a struggle for independence against Spain. The birth of the Republic of the United Provinces as a result of the break with the Spanish monarchy, as well as the temporary rapid acceleration of the pace of development of the early capitalist structure in the Dutch economy (which, however, almost did not affect social relations in the countryside) are attributed to the success of the revolution.

Meanwhile, all this was a consequence of the northern provinces gaining freedom from Spanish despotism, from the burden of its extortions and the cruelest political persecution of dissent. In fact, events in the Netherlands in the second half of the 16th - early 17th centuries. were a long-term liberation struggle that took on a large scale, during which, naturally, a number of important socio-economic problems were resolved. It is this concept, widespread in foreign historiography, that is reflected in the corresponding chapter of this textbook.

Reformation. The 15th century was the time of a powerful movement for the reform of the Roman Catholic Church that swept across Europe, called the Reformation. It not only absorbed the centuries-old traditions of the church and clergy, but also put forward new principles for understanding faith, Holy Scripture and church structure. Beginning with the speech of Martin Luther in 1517, by the middle of the century the Reformation led to the emergence, along with the Catholic Church, of several other Christian churches: Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinist, Christian with their new Protestant denominations. Various religious communities independent of the official churches - Anabaptists, anti-Trinitarians and others - became complex and continued to multiply. In the Reformation, to varying degrees, all social strata and groups took part - from the masses of the peasantry and plebeian urban strata to the highest titled nobility, clergy and sovereigns. The scale of the movement, its ideological orientation and results in different countries were different.

In its ideological foundations and goals, the Reformation was of a religious nature and was based on a dogma that rejected the need for a special mediating role of the clergy in the “salvation of the soul.” Only the Holy Scripture was recognized as the basis of Christian doctrine; in contrast to the Catholic Church, the role of the Holy Devotee - the decrees of church councils and Pope. The path to salvation was associated with “ true faith” and following moral principles the Gospel, and not with “good works.”

According to official Catholic doctrine, “good works” presupposed strict compliance all church rituals and acts of mercy. The reformers contrasted external manifestations of piety with the sincerity of religious convictions, “inner faith.” The Reformation rejected the traditional Roman Catholic cult with its pompous rituals and emphasized sermons explaining the truths of Holy Scripture.

The increased opportunity for every believer to independently become acquainted with the main Christian texts with the advent of printing sharply stimulated translations of the Bible into national languages ​​and the publication of religious literature. Hence the attention of new confessions to primary education and to the teaching of theology in universities. The Reformation also carried a powerful social charge. The burghers, who especially actively supported the Reformation, were close to the ideas of a “cheap” church and the new ethical principles put forward by Protestantism. The nobility saw the secularization of church lands as an opportunity to expand their own possessions. The aspirations of the lower classes in some radical movements of the Reformation - among the Anabaptists, followers of the teachings of Thomas Münzer and others - took the form of demands for social and property equality. The state authorities, which carried out the Reformation “from above” in a number of countries, saw in its victory an opportunity to replenish the treasury and strengthen their own political positions.

The Reformation covered most of the countries of Western and Central Europe. She managed to win victories in many German principalities and cities, in a number of cantons of Switzerland, in England, as well as in Ireland, conquered by the British, where part of the population, however, remained faithful to Catholicism; in Denmark with Norway and Iceland that belonged to it; in Sweden with Finland, which was part of this kingdom; in the northern part of the Netherlands - the independent Republic of the United Provinces. The Reformation was able to become one of the most influential forces in Hungary, and for a certain period - in France and Poland. It had no impact on Spain and Portugal, and had only sporadic manifestations in Italy, where the Catholic Church decisively rebuffed it and completely triumphed.

The Reformation forced papal Rome to take decisive steps to strengthen the Catholic Church in alliance with the remaining authorities loyal to it - this movement was called the Counter-Reformation. Based on the decisions of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the main ones of which were the condemnation of the Protestant “heresy” and the recognition of the supremacy of the pope over the church council and bishops, Rome also carried out a number of important reforms. They updated Catholic Church and over time they strengthened their positions without affecting the traditional foundations of Orthodox Catholic dogma.

An important result of the Reformation was the emergence of a number of state churches independent from Rome, which contributed to the national consolidation of their countries. Even more significant was the very fact of the establishment of church-religious “polyphony” in Europe, despite the climate of brutal interfaith disputes and religious wars. This pluralism had a positive impact on cultural processes, including the development of science, and became one of the main traditions of European development in subsequent centuries.

Changes in the picture of the world. Early modern times were an era when great things were accomplished by Europeans at sea and on land. geographical discoveries. For the first time, Europe's diverse economic and cultural ties with other countries were established or dramatically expanded. This contributed to the introduction of significant adjustments, and sometimes radical changes, to the picture of the world that developed in the Middle Ages. The discovery of the American continent, a significant enrichment of ideas about Africa and Asia, the first trips around the world - all this changed the traditional image of the Earth for Europeans: its spherical shape was confirmed, and after the discoveries of Copernicus, the idea of ​​our planet revolving around Solitz gradually began to take hold.

Ideas about the tribes and peoples who inhabited the Earth changed, information about the diversity of languages, customs, and beliefs rapidly multiplied. Contacts with previously unknown ethnic groups, especially with the Indians of America, gave rise to many questions that were difficult to find answers to in traditional theology (for example, do the Indians, about whom nothing is said in the Holy Scriptures, have a soul, and are they the kind of people like Europeans). The answers then were not only theoretical, but also practical significance: from recognition of unity human race or rejection of this view depended on how to evaluate violence towards the conquered inhabitants of America - to accept or, conversely, to condemn such methods. The expansion of ideas about the diversity of ethnic groups, in turn, stimulated awareness of a certain community of peoples inhabiting Europe.

Nationality is a term in modern Russian that denotes a person’s belonging to a particular ethnic community; a complex historical formation, it is formed as a result of blood mixing of races and tribes, many redistributions of lands with which it connects its fate, and a spiritual and cultural process that creates its unique spiritual face.

The concept of "nationality" in the understanding of philosophers

"Nationality is a historical spiritual community of people bound together by the unity of Faith, spiritual and material culture. Neither territory, nor state affiliation, nor blood and anthropological type, nor way of life, nor even language are in themselves signs that distinguish a representative of one nationality from a representative of another...” (N. Berdyaev)

There are two opposing points of view on the existence of nationalities. Some believe that nationality is an atavism. By identifying himself with this or that nationality, a person limits himself to the framework of this nationality, and this is just another limitation on the freedom of thought and development. Others say she is valuable.

Man enters humanity through national individuality, as national man, and not an abstract person, like a Russian, French, German or Englishman. A person cannot skip over an entire stage of existence; this would make him poor and empty. Culture has never been and will never be abstractly human; it is always concretely human, i.e. national, individual-folk and only in this capacity ascending to universal humanity.

The concept of "nationality" from the point of view of historians

Anton D. Smith said: “A nationality is a group of people having a name, myths about common ancestors, common historical memories, one or more elements of a common culture, a connection with a homeland, and a certain degree of solidarity, at least among the elite.”

One nationality may consist of several racial types, and most often of their hybrids. Starting from the “Great Migration of Peoples” to our time, there has been a significant mixing of races and at certain stages of historical development, a person’s nationality was determined in different countries in different ways.

In Hitler's Germany, nationality was determined based on the nationality of the ancestors and biologically - according to external signs. In Russia, until the beginning of the 20th century, the question of a person’s ethnicity practically did not arise, although there was information about religion in the personal statement of students and in the matriculation certificate. Since 1850, a column about the nationality of students of foreign origin appeared in the statement, and information about Jews also appeared in the document of administrative registration of city residents. The column “nationality” appeared in passports only under Soviet rule, as part of the fight against any religion. At the same time, when receiving a passport, the citizen made a choice based on the nationality of his parents. Currently, in many countries, passports do not indicate nationality, but only citizenship.

Few people know what nationality is like distinguishing feature of every Russian, subject to mandatory mention in general civil documents, began to appear in passports only 85 years ago and existed in this capacity for only 65 years.

Until 1932, the legal status of Russians as a nation (as well as representatives of other nationalities too) was uncertain - in Rus', even with birth records, nationality did not matter; only the religion of the baby was written in church books.

Lenin considered himself a “Great Russian”

History shows that the word form “Russian nationality” in relation to a specific ethnic group did not become commonly used in Russia even by the beginning of the twentieth century. You can give a lot of examples when famous Russian figures were actually of foreign blood. Writer Denis Fonvizin - direct descendant German von Wiesen, commander Mikhail Barclay de Tolly - also from the Germans, the ancestors of General Peter Bagration - Georgians. There is nothing even to say about the ancestors of the artist Isaac Levitan - and so everything is clear.

Even from school, many remember the phrase of Mayakovsky, who wanted to learn Russian only because Lenin spoke this language. Meanwhile, Ilyich himself did not consider himself a Russian at all, and there is numerous documentary evidence of this. By the way, it was V.I. Lenin who first in Russia came up with the idea of ​​​​introducing the column “nationality” in documents. In 1905, members of the RSDLP reported in questionnaires about their affiliation with a particular nation. Lenin in such “self-denunciations” wrote that he was a “Great Russian”: at that time, if it was necessary to emphasize nationality, the Russians called themselves “Great Russians” (according to the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron - “Great Russians”) - the population “ Great Russia”, called by foreigners “Muscovy”, which has been constantly expanding its possessions since the 13th century.

And Lenin called one of his first works on the national question “On the National Pride of the Great Russians.” Although, as Ilyich’s biographers found out relatively recently, there were actually “Great Russian” blood in his pedigree - 25%.

By the way, in Europe, nationality as belonging to a certain ethnic group was a commonly used concept already in the 19th century. True, for foreigners it was equivalent to citizenship: the French lived in France, the Germans lived in Germany, etc. In the overwhelming majority foreign countries this identity has been preserved to this day.

From Stalin to Yeltsin

For the first time, nationality as a legally formalized status criterion for a citizen of a country in Russia (more precisely, in the USSR) was established under Stalin in 1932. Then the so-called “fifth column” appeared in passports. From that time on, nationality for a long time became a factor on which the fate of its owner could depend. During the years of repression, Germans, Finns, and Poles were often sent to camps simply for belonging to a “suspicious” nation. After the war, the famous case of “rootless cosmopolitans” broke out, when Jews came under the pressure of “purges”.

The Constitution of the USSR did not single out Russians as representatives of a “special” nationality, although at all times they had a numerical superiority in the state (they still make up 80% of them in Russia today). The modern Constitution of the Russian Federation provides citizens with the right to independently choose their nationality.

In 1997, the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, by his decree abolished the “fifth point”, and nationality in our country ceased to be a subject of law in relation to civil document flow. But it remained in criminal law, which today spells out responsibility for inciting ethnic hatred (extremism).

He who loves the country is Russian

Before the introduction of legal status for nationality in Russia, there was a multi-valued conceptual definition of “Russians”. This could be the ethnic group most numerous people countries. Tsar Peter I proposed that anyone who loves Russia should be considered Russian. The leader of the White Guard movement, Anton Denikin, held a similar opinion. The genius of Russian literature A.S. Pushkin, although he joked about his “Arap profile”, invaluable contribution into Russian culture during his lifetime he received the status of the greatest national Russian poet. Just as a poet in Russia is more than a poet, so a Russian in our country is always a broader concept than just nationality and the fifth point in the passport.