The rise of nations. When the nationality "Russian" appeared

lat. natio - tribe, people) - socio-economic, cultural and political. and spiritual community of people. Formed historically, characterized by the unity of the territory, economy, language, culture and psychology. features. However, in some cases, N. do not have a territory of residence, as, for example, gypsies. N. is a polysemantic concept used to characterize large socio-cultural communities of the industrial era, its appearance is preceded by nationality, which is a historically developed linguistic, territorial, economic. and cultural community of people. In legal In practice, the concept of N. correlates with the concepts of "state", "society" and "the totality of all citizens." In int. N. law is most often regarded as a set of citizens. There are 2 main approach to understanding N. One is connected with the ideas of K. Deutsch, E. Gelner, B. Anderson and E. Smith (Deutch, 1966). N. is defined as a form of a group, within which the level of communicative activity is much higher than outside it. E. Gelner (1983) noted that N. is the result of the needs of modern. societies in cultural homogeneity, due to the development of industrial production. The formation of N. is associated with the spread of universal education and the media. According to E. Gelner, N. are purposefully created communities, in which the leading role belongs to the intelligentsia. B. Anderson (1991) believes that N.'s education is based on the phenomenon of "printed capitalism" with its characteristic newspapers and novels that depict N. as a sociocultural community. E. Smith (1989) emphasizes that modern. N. are organically connected with pre-industrial communities, designated by him as ethnia. All their diversity can be reduced to 2 types: aristocratic and folk. N. arise on the basis of the first type of ethnia, they are created through the bureaucratic incorporation of lower social groups within the framework of one state. The leading role in the formation of N. from folk ethnics is played by the intelligentsia, who are fighting for the preservation of ethnic. traditions. In a number of works on sociology and philosophy, N. is treated as a socio-economist. and cultural and political. a community of people that has developed as a result of the formation of the state and the development of supra-ethnic. cultural and political. traditions. N. may be monoethnic. and polyethnic. Since N. is a historical category, the ambiguity of its definition also depends on linguistic traditions. In the English-speaking tradition, N. most often means a community united by one board, for example. state. And according to M. Weber, N. is a human community united by a common language, religion, customs or fate and striving to create its own state. In the fatherland ethnological theory of the 1960-1980s. N. is considered as an ethno-social group characterized by an inextricable relationship between socio-economy. and ethnocultural properties. N.'s formation is promoted by an intensification economy. ties and relationships and the creation of nationwide. market, to-rye are accompanied by increased interaction and exchange of information. Among the essential features of N. include a common identity and social culture. As an ethnosocial community, N. can be interpreted both as a broader and narrower concept in comparison with the concept of nationality (ethnikos), which often depends on ethnicity. composition of def. territory and character of ethnic settlement. From the standpoint of ethnogenesis, N. is a phase in the development of an ethnos that goes up the steps: clan-tribe-nationality-people-nation, in which this ethnos acquires sovereignty and creates its own full-fledged statehood. According to another point of view, N. is understood as a set of interconnected peoples and nationalities, which, complementing each other, create a kind of “superethnos”. The ethnological approach does not remove the problems associated with the criteria for identifying N. and its significant differences from the concept of nationality. With t. sp. psychology important results nat. processes are: homogeneous for all culture; single nation. language that facilitates communication; the formation of a national self-awareness. Lit.: Anderson B. Imagined communities. M., 1991; Gelner E. Nations and nationalism, 1983; Deutsch K. Nationalism and social communication. 1966; Smith E. The Origin of Nations. 1989; Sukharev V., Sukharev M. Psychology of peoples and nations. Donetsk, 1997; Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ed. count S. S. Averintsev, E. A. Arab-Ogly, L. I. Ilyichev et al. M., 1989, pp. 405-406. T. I. Pashukova

NATION

from lat. natio - tribe, people) - a historical community of people, emerging in the process of forming a community of their territory, economic ties, language, ethnic characteristics of culture and character. In modern literature, a number of scholars associate a nation with a certain people and include a common self-consciousness and social structure among its essential principles. Dr. propose to consider the nation as a community by belonging to a particular state. N. are the main subjects of interethnic conflicts. See ethnicity

NATION

from lat. natio - people) - a large social group, a historically emerging type of ethnic group, which is a certain community of people, characterized by the unity of the territory, close economic ties of people, common language, culture, mental makeup. The main role in the formation and development of the nation is played by socio-economic factors. The first nations arose during the period of the collapse of feudalism and the formation of capitalist statehood. The economic basis for the emergence of nations was private ownership of the means of production, the elimination of feudal fragmentation, the strengthening of economic ties between individual ethnic communities, and the unification of local markets into national ones. The guiding force of the emerging nations at that time was the bourgeoisie, striving to unite individual peoples within the framework of a single state, to provide favorable conditions for their free development. Although the process of nation-building in Europe and Asia has been largely completed, it is still ongoing in some parts of the world. Most often, nations are the result of the ethnic development of the peoples whose name they usually retain. Some nations were formed on the basis of several nationalities. Sometimes one nationality gives rise to the formation of two or more new socio-ethnic formations. However, many nationalities cannot be formed into a nation due to their small number. In Western political science and sociology, there are various theories of N. The psychological theories of N. are reduced to the cultural and psychological community of people united by a common destiny. This "psychologization" of N. found its greatest embodiment in the works of O. Bauer. There are theories that reduce the national community to a simple continuation of tribal ties in the new conditions. But there are also theories in which the state-political features of national life are absolutized, which ultimately reduces it to a state community. M. Weber believed that in a community of people united by a common language, religion, customs or fate, the desire for their own state existence prevails. Difficulties in defining the concept of a nation are due to the fact that it has a number of both essential and non-essential features, the differences between which are not always clearly established. Hence the well-known conventionality and limitations of any of the existing definitions of N. In contrast to these approaches, ethnological distinguishes ethnic features as the main ones: the original stereotype of behavior, features of origin, self-consciousness, etc. The mentioned theories are quite common in the West, and now in Russia. In Soviet scientific literature, the historical and economic theory was considered the only correct one. N.K. Kautsky, the founder of this concept, called common territory, common economic life, language, and traditions the signs of N.. Kautsky's ideas formed the basis of the definition of N., which was given in 1913 by I. V. Stalin: "A nation is a historically established, stable community of people that has arisen on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and mental make-up, manifested in a common culture." This definition, with various modifications, has been shared and is shared by many authors on national issues. This is due to its synthesized nature. The specificity was that Soviet social scientists were instructed to treat the definition set out above as a theoretically unshakable model. In fact, different approaches have the right to exist.

Few people know that nationality, as a distinctive 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 (however, representatives of other nationalities too) was uncertain - in Russia, 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 common in Russia even by the beginning of the 20th century. You can give a lot of examples when famous Russian figures were actually of foreign blood. The writer Denis Fonvizin is a direct descendant of the German von Wiesen, the commander Mikhail Barclay de Tolly is also from the Germans, the ancestors of General Pyotr Bagration are 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 at all consider himself a Russian, and there are numerous documentary confirmations of this. By the way, it was V. I. Lenin who first in Russia came up with the idea to introduce the column “nationality” in documents. In 1905, members of the RSDLP reported on belonging to a particular nation in questionnaires. Lenin in such “self-bearers” wrote that he was a “Great Russian”: at that time, if it was necessary to focus on nationality, the Russians called themselves “Great Russians” (according to the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary - “Great Russians”) - the population of “Great Russia ”, called by foreigners “Muscovy”, from the 13th century constantly expanding its possessions.

And Lenin called one of his first works on the national question "On the National Pride of the Great Russians." Although, as the biographers of Ilyich found out relatively recently, the actual “Great Russian” blood in his pedigree was from gulkin’s nose - 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 vast majority of 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 fixed under Stalin in 1932. Then the so-called “fifth column” appeared in the passports. Since that time, nationality has for a long time become 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 just for belonging to a “suspicious” nation. After the war, the famous case of “rootless cosmopolitans” broke out, when Jews fell 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 are still 80% in Russia today). The modern Constitution of the Russian Federation provides a citizen with the right to independently choose his nationality.

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

Who loves the country, he is Russian

Before the introduction of a legal status for nationality in Russia, there was an ambiguous conceptual definition of “Russians”. It could be an ethnic group, the most numerous people of the country. Tsar Peter I suggested that everyone who loves Russia be considered Russian. A similar opinion was shared by the leader of the White Guard movement Anton Denikin. The genius of Russian literature A. S. Pushkin, although he joked about his “Arap profile”, received the status of the greatest national Russian poet during his lifetime for his invaluable contribution to Russian culture. 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 item in the passport.

The idea of ​​a nation is so familiar that few people think to analyze it or question it - it is simply taken for granted to distinguish between "liberal" and "ethnic". Meanwhile, the term "nation" is applied with equal success to very different phenomena - to a state, a country, an ethnic group, and even a race. The United Nations, for example, is completely misnamed because it is an organization of states and not of national communities. What then are the characteristics of a nation? What distinguishes a nation from other social groups, from other forms of community of people?

“The forms of the universal are historically changeable. The unity of the tribe rested on tradition. The unity of the people has a religious basis. The nation is united through the state. The emergence of an ideology marks the moment of the formation of a nation. “Nationogenesis” is the essence of any ideology, and not necessarily nationalism,” notes V. B. Pastukhov. Consequently, not only the concept of “state”, but also the concept of “nation” has historically changed. It is impossible to define a nation on the basis of objective factors alone.

In ancient times, it meant "common origin" and was synonymous with the concept of gens - "tribe". “In classical Roman usage, natio, like gens, was the opposite of civitas. In this sense, nations were originally communities of people of the same origin, not yet united in the political form of the state, but connected by a common settlement, a common language, customs and traditions,” writes J. Habermas.

In the Middle Ages, a nation began to be called local communities united by a linguistic and / or professional community, and in the time of M. Luther, the term “nation” was sometimes used to refer to a community of all classes in a state. This concept was used in relation to guilds, corporations, unions within the walls of European universities, feudal estates, masses of people and groups, based on common culture and history. “In all cases,” writes K. Verderi, “it served as a selection tool - that unites some people who need to be distinguished from others who exist side by side with these first; here are just the criteria that were used in this selection ... such as the transfer of craft skills, aristocratic privileges, civic responsibility and cultural-historical community - varied depending on time and context. The word "nation" originally by no means applied to the entire population of a particular region, but only to those of its groups that developed a sense of identity based on a common language, history, beliefs, and began to act on this basis. So, in M. Montaigne in his "Experiences" the word nation serves to denote a community bound by common mores and customs.

Starting from the XV century. the term "nation" was used by the aristocracy increasingly for political purposes. The political concept of "nation" also covered only those who had opportunity to participate in political life. It had a serious influence on the process of folding the nation state. The struggle for participation in the construction of such a state often took the form of a confrontation between the monarch and the privileged classes, which often united within the framework of the estate parliament. These classes often presented themselves as defenders of the "nation" (in the political sense of the term) before the court. The meaning of the word "nation" in the XVIII century. I. Kant accurately expressed the difference between the concepts of "nation" and "people": which, in view of their common origin, recognizes itself as united in one civil whole, is called a nation (gens), and that part that excludes itself from these laws (a wild crowd in this people) is called a mob (vulgus), whose unlawful association is called a gathering (agree per turbas); it is behavior that deprives them of the dignity of citizens.

However, already J.-J. Rousseau's concept of the nation is synonymous with the concept of "state" (Etat), and the nation is mainly understood as "a people having a constitution." At the end of the XVIII century. the struggle for the recognition of nations widened and deepened, engulfing also the unprivileged classes. The independently enlightened middle classes (bourgeois) demanded that the political community be included in the “nation”, and this caused anti-monarchist and anti-aristocratic complications. “The democratic transformation of the Adelsnation, the nation of the nobility, into the Volksnation, the nation of the people, involved a profound change in the mentality of the population as a whole. This process was initiated by the work of scientists and intellectuals. Their nationalist propaganda was the impetus for political mobilization among the urban educated middle classes even before the modern idea of ​​the nation gained wider resonance.

It was the Great French Revolution that forever destroyed faith in the divine and indisputable right of monarchs to rule and kindled the struggle against the privileged classes in the interests of becoming a sovereign nation of free and equal individuals. In the concept of a sovereign nation, which was established during the years of the French Revolution, the scheme of legitimizing the power of an absolute monarch is used in a secular version, and the nation is identified with the sovereign people. True, now representatives of the privileged classes were excluded from the ranks of the citizens of the nation. One can recall the concept of Abbé E. Sieyes, who declared French only representatives of the third estate (who, in his opinion, were descendants of the Gauls and Romans) and denied belonging to the French nation of the aristocracy as the descendants of the Norman conquerors. In particular, he wrote: “The third estate has nothing to be afraid of going deep into the centuries. It will find itself in pre-conquest times and, having today enough strength to fight back, will now show much more powerful resistance. Why does it not cast into the forests of Franconia all those families that cherish the insane claim to descent from the conquering race and to their rights? Purified in this way, the nation will be quite right, I believe, to name among its ancestors only Gauls and Romans.

The French revolutionaries, acting for the good of a sovereign nation, emphasized their devotion to the Fatherland - that is, their civil obligations to the state, which is the guarantor of the existence of the nation defined as "one and indivisible". However, in 1789, half of the population of France did not speak French at all, and this despite the fact that the French language, which was formed on the basis of the Francian dialect of the historical region of Ile-de-France, was declared mandatory for use by a royal ordinance back in 1539 in all official acts. Litigation was carried out everywhere, financial documents were drawn up, and the Huguenots made it the language of religion, thereby contributing to its penetration into the people's environment. Even in 1863, about a fifth of the French did not speak the official literary French language. “The fusion of rural and peasant France with a republican nation on the principles of the same year 89 will last at least another century and much longer in such backward regions as Brittany or the southwest,” notes the famous historian Francois Furet. “The victory of republican Jacobinism, so long attributed to the Parisian dictatorship, was achieved only from the moment when it received the support of rural voters at the end of the 19th century.” The task of “turning peasants into Frenchmen” (J. Weber) was finally solved only in the 20th century.

In the United Kingdom, somewhat earlier than in France, the “political” nation was formed from those who inhabited the British Isles, and included various ethnic components, but was perceived as a single whole primarily due to the common commitment to Protestantism, liberty and law, as well as the hostility shared by all towards Catholicism and its embodiment in the universal national enemy - France (the image of an external enemy). In addition, national unity was cemented by brutality against British Catholics of Gaelic and Scottish origin (the image of the internal enemy), who were ruthlessly exterminated and expelled from the country because they were identified with the external enemy of the nation. Such brutality was necessary in order to overcome the hostility that had hitherto existed even between English Protestants and Scots Protestants, who historically belonged to peoples who had been at war with each other with little interruption during the previous six hundred years.

In Italian society, shortly after the unification of the country in 1870, the "standard" state language (which was based on the Tuscan-Florentine dialect) was used by an insignificant part of the population, and regional differences were so great that this gave rise to the writer and liberal politician M. d "Azeglio make an appeal: We created Italy, now we must create Italians!».

The political motto of the Old Order is "One King, One Faith, One Law!" - the French revolutionaries first replaced the formula "Nation! Law. King". From then on, it was the nation that made the laws that the king had to enforce. And when, in August 1792, the monarchy was abolished, the main the source of sovereignty finally became the nation. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen stated: “The source of all sovereignty is rooted essentially in the nation; no group or individual can exercise power that does not explicitly come from that source.” Everything that was previously royal, now turned into a national, state. According to the ideas of the French revolutionaries, the nation is built on the free self-determination of the individual and society and the unity of civil political culture, and not on cultural-historical or even blood ties.

The nation is the unity of the state and civil society

The French Revolution proclaimed and legislated another important principle, but in the sphere of international relations: non-interference in the affairs of other peoples and condemnation of wars of conquest. Innovations in international law, together with radical foreign and domestic political transformations, contributed to the emergence and development of national movements in Europe, the main goal of which was the creation of sovereign nation-states.

One of the results of the French Revolution was the birth of the first nationalist dictatorship of the modern world - Bonapartism (1799), which is the first attempt in the history of modern times to introduce one-man rule based on the will of the people: if the formula of European absolutism is "The State is me" (Louis XIV), then the newest formula on which the power of Napoleon I was based - “The nation is me” (however, even before Napoleon, M. Robespierre modestly declared: “I am neither a kowtower, nor a ruler, nor a tribune, nor a defender of the people; the people - this is me").

The formation of a despotic regime, growing out of democracy and mixed with nationalist appeals to the nation and people, was indeed a completely new phenomenon (the unusual formula appears in connection with this: "The Emperor according to the constitution of the Republic"). The perspective of the Bonapartist ideology is therefore defined as the desire for unlimited personal power of the Caesarist persuasion, based on the legitimate will of the people (nation). For the first time, a situation arose, which was then repeatedly repeated, when the new democratic principles of the legitimation of power were used to recreate and legitimize unlimited domination. As a result, Napoleon combined two types of legitimation - democratic (plebiscitary) and traditional monarchical (divine - coronation in Notre Dame Cathedral), becoming emperor "by the grace of God and the will of the French people."

However, it was from the time of the French Revolution that the word “nation” (in the West) began to mean the natives of the country, the state and the people as an ideological and political whole, and was opposed to the concept of “subjects of the king”. It was the leaders of the revolution who put into circulation the new term "nationalism" and formulated the so-called principle of nationality, according to which every people is sovereign and has the right to form their own state. Nationalism has transformed the legitimacy of peoples into the highest form of legitimacy. These principles were embodied in the European history of the 19th century, called the "age of nationalism." It is no coincidence that the nation is understood here as before primarily politically - as a community of citizens of the state, subject to general laws.

In this case, we are talking about the evolution of the concepts of "state" and "nation" in Western Europe. However, already in Germany, where state and national unity came late (in 1871) and “from above”, and the national idea preceded it, the word Reich embraced a wider sphere, soared into spiritual transcendental limits. It may be recalled that only the recognition by the Treaty of Westphalia of the sovereignty of the German principalities deprived Germany of its former dominance in the foreign affairs of Europe. However, the state formation, which until 1806 included the German states, was called " Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation". Therefore, such a fundamentally new phenomenon as the formation of a single national German state in 1871 was presented as a restoration of historical justice and a return to the traditions of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, created by Otto I back in the 10th century.

According to R. Koselleck, the Latin term status was translated into German by the word Staat already in the 15th century, but as a concept denoting the state, it has been used only since the end of the 18th century. The Reich has never been a "state" in the French sense of the word. Therefore, until the end of the XVIII century. the term Staat was used here exclusively to designate status or class, especially high social status or power status, and often in phrases such as Furstenstaat. If the phrase "sovereign state" arose in France already in the 17th century, then in Germany it began to be used only in the 19th century. Hence the German cult of the state often noted by researchers. F. Dürrenmatt, explaining the deification of the state in the German tradition, wrote: “The Germans never had a state, but there was a myth of a holy empire. German patriotism has always been romantic, invariably anti-Semitic, pious and respectful of authority.”

The concept of "nation" also takes on a different meaning here. For the German romantics, the nation is something person-like - "megaanthropos": it has an individual, one-of-a-kind destiny; it has its own character or soul, mission and will, it is characterized by an internally connected spiritual and psychic development, which is called its history. Nations were even sometimes assigned a "age of life", while distinguishing between "youth", "maturity" and "old age"; as its material referent it has a limited territory, like the human body. The state, on the other hand, should be “an internal connection of integral mental and spiritual needs, an integral internal and external life of the nation in one large, active and infinitely mobile whole” (A. Muller), i.e. the state is the product of the final formation of the nation as an organic integrity.

German philosopher and historian I.G. Herder (1744-1803) put forward the thesis that humanity as something universal is embodied in separate historically formed nations. “Peoples with their different languages ​​are a diverse expression of a single Divine order, and each people contributes to its implementation. The only source of national pride can be that the nation is part of humanity. special, separate national pride, as well as the pride of origin, is a great stupidity, for "there is no people on earth who is the only one chosen by the Lord: everyone must seek the truth, everyone must create a garden of common good." Thus, already on the eve of the French Revolution, the educated strata of German society opposed the "imperial nation" of princes with a new understanding of the nation as a people's community based on a common language, culture, history and human rights.

Already Leon Duguit, who in 1920 introduced the concept of "nation-state" into scientific circulation, noted the difference between the "French" and "German" understanding of the nation. In particular, he believed that by the beginning of the XX century. In Europe, two concepts of public life, forms of state power and its legitimation were formed, which opposed each other in the First World War. On the one hand was Germany, which defended the worldview according to which power (sovereignty) belongs to the state, and the nation is nothing but an organ of the state. On the other hand, France with its traditions of the sovereignty of the nation, defending its vision of the state as a "nation-state".

Consequently, according to L. Dyugi, the main feature of the "nation-state" is that the nation has sovereignty. As for the "nation-state", it qualifies as a political organization with an unfinished national basis. In this case, national identity does not organically mature in the course of the country's historical development, but is rather artificially stimulated by the state. This largely explains the fact that the vast majority of nationalist-minded politicians are the offspring of precisely "nation-states". And, as a rule, the struggle for the creation of a spirit of national identity in their country turns into hostility towards other nations for such politicians.

If the French nation is a political project, born in the stubborn political struggle of the third estate, then the German nation, on the contrary, first appeared in the writings of romantic intellectuals as an eternal gift based on a common language and culture. For the latter, language was the essence of the nation, while for the French revolutionaries it served as a means of achieving national unity. It is no coincidence that I.G. Herder believed that nationality should be considered, first of all, as a cultural phenomenon, that is, as a category related to civil society, and not to the state.

For all modern nationalists, nations are eternal (primordial) entities, natural human collectives. They do not arise, but only awaken after having been in a state of lethargy for some time. Realizing themselves, nations seek to correct historical injustice or achieve it.

Eric Hobsbawm singles out two fundamental meanings of the concept of "nation" in modern times:

1) a relationship known as citizenship, in which the nation is constituted by collective sovereignty based on common political participation;

2) attitude known as ethnicity, within which the nation includes all those who are supposedly bound by a common language, history or cultural identity in the broadest sense.

In this regard, J. Rözel proposes to distinguish between "liberal" and "ethnic" nation-states. The idea of ​​a liberal nation, according to the researcher, arose earlier than the idea of ​​ethnonation. The formation of liberal nations is associated with the democratization of the state, they are fundamentally open to membership. Liberalism perceives humanity as a kind of aggregate, consisting of individuals who have the opportunity to freely unite. The ethnic concept of the nation is objectivist and deterministic in nature. Ethnonation is a closed nation. Humanity in this concept appears as a conglomerate, naturally splitting into ethnic groups that seek to maintain their identity. According to the author, these two conceptions of the nation are not just incompatible, they are in constant competition.

Throughout the 20th century the words “nation” and its derivative “nationality” were used in Russian usually in an ethnic sense, not related to the presence or absence of statehood, which today introduces additional confusion into the issue of delimiting the content of concepts in Russian ethnopolitical science. In Soviet science, it was customary to single out the stadial-historical varieties of an ethnos - a tribe, a nationality, a nation, linking them with certain socio-economic formations. The nation was considered as the highest form of an ethnic community that developed during the period of the formation of capitalism on the basis of economic ties, the unity of territory, language, culture and psyche, i.e., ideas about the nation were based on the famous definition of I.V. Stalin at the beginning of the 20th century:

“A nation is a historically established, stable community of language, territory, economic life and a mental warehouse, manifested in a community of culture (...) none of these signs, taken separately, is insufficient to define a nation. Moreover, the absence of at least one of these signs is enough for a nation to cease to be a nation” (work “Marxism and the National Question”).

N.A. Berdyaev had an idealistic approach in defining a nation: “Neither race, nor territory, nor language, nor religion are signs that determine 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 blood mixing of races and tribes, many redistributions of lands with which it connects its fate, and the spiritual and cultural process that creates its unique spiritual face ... The secret of nationality is kept behind all the fragility of historical elements, behind all the changes of fate, behind all the movements that destroy the past and create the non-existent. Soul of France of the Middle Ages and France of the 20th century. - the same national soul, although in history everything has changed beyond recognition.

Many authors do not distinguish between the use of the words "nation" and "people" in relation to ethnic and territorial-political communities. From here, the two main types of nationalism (in the Western way) and the definition of a nation, national and nationalist (in Russian literature), are not distinguished or are rigidly opposed. But at the same time, civil or state, cultural or ethnic types of communities actually overlap with each other and do not mutually exclude each other. We are talking about a nation-ethnos and a nation-state, without completely opposing them, but only tracing the logic of their own historical development, genesis.

The peoples inhabiting the USSR were divided into nationalities, national groups and nations (such a division was enshrined in the Constitution of the USSR in 1936). Nations were those peoples who had their own statehood., - that is, the titular peoples of the republics, union and autonomous, therefore, there was a kind of hierarchy of ethno-cultural communities and national-state formations. Thus, a primordialist approach to ethnic categories dominated in Soviet science and political practice.

In turn, Zbigniew Brzezinski asks the question: what is Russia - a nation-state or a multinational empire? And he responds with a call to “persistently create a stimulating environment so that Russia can define itself as Russia proper ... Having ceased to be an empire, Russia retains a chance to become, like France and Great Britain or early post-Ottoman Turkey, a normal state.”

Today, in Russia, both ethnic (German) and political (French) understanding of the nation is widespread - with a clear predominance of the first- and there is no unity of opinion about their content and correlation. In reality, such a division of the definitions of "nation" into two classes is rather arbitrary, since this concept is also polysemantic and has different shades and definitions. As the American political scientist G. Isaacs notes, “each author has his own list of parts that make up a nation. One sign more, one sign less. They all include a common culture, history, tradition, language, religion: some add "race", as well as territory, politics and economics - elements that, to varying degrees, are part of what is called a "nation".

M. Weber defines a nation as follows: “The concept of a nation can be defined approximately as follows: it is a community given in sensibility, an adequate expression of which could be its own state and which, therefore, usually tends to give rise to this state from itself.” A similar definition of a nation was formulated by Ernest Renan in 1882, emphasizing the special role in its formation of historical consciousness and common collective memory. E. Renan noted that many factors, such as a common religion, ethnic principle, natural geographical boundaries and, above all, a common language and culture, may well play an outstanding role in the self-perception of nations, but this is not enough as a criterion for determining a nation. In particular, rejecting the common interests of the group as such a criterion, Renan ironically remarks: "A customs union cannot be a Fatherland." As a result, according to E. Renan, “the nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things make up this soul, this spiritual principle. One of them belongs to the past, the other to the present. The first is the joint possession of a rich heritage of memories, the second is real harmony, the desire to live together. A nation, therefore, is a large community of solidarity, supported by the idea of ​​the sacrifices already made and those that people are ready to make in the future. The condition of its existence is the past, but it is determined in the present concrete fact - a clearly proclaimed desire to continue coexistence. The existence of a nation, excuse me for such a metaphor, is a daily plebiscite.

Thus, M. Weber, J. S. Mill. E. Renan and other (mostly liberal) thinkers represented the nation as the result of a free choice of people expressing the will to live together and under "their" rule, a choice that is made under certain historical circumstances and is determined by a number of factors, none of which is a priori decisive .

According to another well-known definition - B. Anderson, nations are “imaginary communities”, which, of course, does not mean that a nation is a purely artificial structure: it is a spontaneous creation of the human spirit. It is imaginary because the members of even the smallest nation never know each other personally, never meet or talk. And, nevertheless, in the minds of everyone there is an image of their nation. An obligatory condition for the formation of any community's idea of ​​itself is the continuity of consciousness. The very essence of the "nation" as a collective whole, living successively from generation to generation, predetermines a certain "tradition" of its life, the preservation of the foundations of this life. The cult of ancestors in a traditional society, national holidays and worship of national shrines in our days are designed to remind us that we are all connected by common roots and a common past. Nations are as conditional as they are organic, because any of them have their own boundaries, beyond which there are already other nations ... They are real thanks to the reproduction of people's faith in their reality and the institutions responsible for the reproduction of this faith.

V.A. Tishkov has a similar approach: the nation, in his opinion, is a semantic-metaphorical category, which has acquired great emotional and political legitimacy in history and which has not become and cannot be a category of analysis, i.e. become a scientific definition.

In the minds of people, a nation is always a single community. Regardless of the inequality that exists in it, we tend to perceive it at the level of horizontal connections. But at the same time, it also acts as a political community. We do not take it for a voluntary association of private persons, which may disintegrate at any moment; on the contrary, the nation manifests itself through a system of public institutions created to serve the community, the main one being the state. Therefore, the nation is seen as an independent unit, it is no coincidence that its concept was born in the era of the French Revolution, which called into question the legitimacy of traditional dynastic rule and the sovereignty of the monarch. Since then, peoples who recognize themselves as nations have been fighting for national liberation, and the symbol of this freedom is the sovereign state. “A nation is nothing but a nation-state: the political form of territorial sovereignty over subjects and the cultural (linguistic and or religious) homogenization of a group, overlapping each other, give rise to a nation,” writes D. Cola.

Thus, like any national community, Western nations were created on the basis of one or another combination political, socio-economic, cultural and ethnic factors. The process of their formation was based on the culture and unity of the dominant ethnic group, which in turn had a centuries-old history of previous consolidation. Therefore, ethnic and political history cannot be ignored, since the history of the formation of any phenomenon contains the key to understanding its nature.

Nation and Violence in Renan's Nation State Model

Ernest Renan, widely cited as a primary source on the Western model of the state nation, has no doubts about the presence of violence in its history. In his famous report "What is a nation" in 1882, he writes: "Unification always takes place in the most cruel way. The north and south of France were united as a result of almost a century of continued extermination and terror. The House of Habsburg did not take advantage of the "tyranny" of the merger, so "Austria is a state, but not a nation". “Under the crown of Stephen, Hungarians and Slavs remained completely different, just as they had been eight hundred years before. Instead of uniting the various elements of their state, the House of Habsburg kept them separate and often even opposed them to each other. In Bohemia, Czech and German elements lie on top of each other like water and oil in a glass.”

Renan's constantly cited metaphorical definition of the nation as a "daily plebiscite" was not a contradiction to the united violence on the way to the modern nation, but a call to contemporary Europeans to take the side of the state nation - against ethnonation. Renan called it a "profound error" to confuse "ethnography" and "nation". “The ethnographic factor played no role in the formation of modern nations. France is Celtic, Iberian and Germanic; Germany - Germanic, Celtic and Slavic. Italy is a country with the most complex ethnography. There the Gauls, Etruscans, Greeks were extremely intricately intertwined and crossed, not to mention a whole series of other elements.

Renan strongly opposes the assertion of the existence of a nation-race. Anyone who makes politics under the "banner of ethnography" causes the danger of "zoological wars" that could "grow only into wars of annihilation." Renan debunks the idea of ​​Europe consisting of homogeneous nations. “Nations are not eternal. They once began and someday they will end.

“A nation is a non-eternal large connection of partially equivalent provinces that form the core around which other provinces are grouped, connected with each other (...) by common interests. England, the most perfect of all nations, is also the most heterogeneous in terms of ethnography and history. Pure Bretons, romanized Bretons, Irish, Caledonians, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, pure Normans, French Normans, they are all fused into a single whole there.

Renan, as a representative of the Western type of the state nation, argues against the defenders of the idea of ​​ethnonation. Its goal is to create a "United States of Europe" united on the basis of a "federal pact" which would "regulate the principle of nationalities by means of the principle of federation". In Mannheim terminology, Renan's hopes for a confederate nation-state in Western Europe could be defined as "multinational nationalism" politically organized into a multinational confederation dominated by three hegemonic nations: France, Germany, and England. In an era of warfare that produces nation states, Renan sought to dampen the potential for violence in nations and their states. But even this appeasement of the war-dangerous nations had domination as its aim. The formation of the self-consciousness of nations, according to Renan, occurs "only under pressure from outside". Thus, the French nation was formed "only under English oppression", and France itself became "the midwife for the German nation." And now, in the second half of the 19th century, the challenge posed to Western Europe by North America, “the vast world of the East, which must not be allowed to cherish too high hopes”, and above all by “Islam”, perceived by Renan as “the utter negation of Europe”, has become understandable. But "the future belongs to Europe and only Europe."

Renan speaks of "the Indo-European spirit" and "the final victory march of Europe." To do this, Europe needs a confederation led by France, Germany and England, "an invincible trinity, by the fortitude of the spirit directing the world, especially Russia, on the path of progress."

Renan, whose authority everyone, including politicians in their speeches, willingly uses in establishing Western-style state nationalism as opposed to all ethno-national ideologies, also considered the nation and the national state as instruments of struggle, generated by a series of wars of unification and realized themselves under alien, foreign pressure. . He imagined that Western-style Europe would approach a multinational confederation with nation-state cores, and its superior strength would ensure that the three most powerful European nations dominated the rest of the world. Renan's view of the nation is confirmed by Eric Hobsbawm's position that one of the three main criteria for defining a people as a nation is "a proven ability to conquer", and more precisely, the ability to form into a nation, based on violence in civil or interstate war. This applies even to Switzerland, where in 1847 the Sonderbund War initiated the transition from a cantonal federation to a multilingual national federal state, and to Belgium, which broke away from the Netherlands in 1830 in a French-covered civil war and was transformed into a multinational federal state.

Nations - interpretation of E. Heywood

Nations (from Latin nasci - to be born) is a complex phenomenon formed by a combination of cultural, political and psychological factors:

• in the cultural dimension, nations are a community of people connected by common customs, language, religion and historical destiny, although for each nation these factors operate in their own way;
• in the political dimension, a nation is a community of people who recognize themselves as a naturally formed political community, which most often finds expression in the desire to acquire - or maintain - statehood, as well as in the civic consciousness inherent in this nation;
• in the psychological aspect, nations appear as a community of people connected relations of internal loyalty and patriotism a. The latter, however, is not an objective prerequisite for belonging to a nation - a person belongs to it even in the absence of these attitudes.

To begin with, it is really difficult to give any precise definitions here, because nations are a unity of the objective and the subjective, a combination of cultural and political characteristics.

From an objective point of view, a nation is a cultural community - in other words, a group of people who speak the same language, profess the same religion, are connected by a common past, and so on. It is precisely this understanding of the matter that underlies nationalism. Residents of Canadian Quebec, for example, identify themselves by speaking French, while the rest of Canada speaks English. National problems in India are connected with religious confrontation: examples are the struggle of the Sikhs in Punjab for their "home" (Khalistan) or the movement of Kashmiri Muslims for the annexation of Kashmir to Pakistan. The problem, however, is that it is impossible to determine a nation on the basis of objective factors alone, because in reality nations are a much wider combination very, very specific cultural, ethnic, and racial traits. The Swiss remained Swiss despite the fact that in the country, apart from local dialects, they speak three languages ​​(French, German and Italian). The differences between Catholics and Protestants, which are so acute in Northern Ireland, are of no fundamental importance for the rest of the UK.

From a subjective point of view, a nation is what people who belong to it understand as such, it is a kind of political-psychological construction. What distinguishes a nation from any other group or community is, first of all, that the people belonging to it are aware of themselves as a nation. This means that one can talk about a nation only when the people belonging to it realize themselves as an integral political community, which, in fact, is the difference between a nation and an ethnic group. After all, an ethnic group is also bound by a sense of internal unity and a common culture, but, unlike a nation, it has no political aspirations. Nations, on the other hand, historically have always sought to obtain (or maintain) their statehood and independence, in extreme cases, to secure autonomy or full membership within a federation or confederation of states.

The complexity of the problem, however, does not end there. The phenomenon of nationalism sometimes eludes strict analysis also because its own varieties understand the nation in different ways. Two concepts stand out here. One represents the nation mainly as a cultural community, while emphasizing the importance of deep ethnic ties - material and spiritual; the other sees in it a predominantly political community, emphasizing the role of civil - public and political - ties. Offering their own view of the origin of nations, both concepts have found a place for themselves in different currents of nationalism.

Nations as cultural communities

The idea that the nation is first and foremost an ethnic and cultural community is rightly considered the "primary" concept of the nation. This idea has its roots in Germany in the 18th century. - to the works of Herder and Fichte (1762-1814). According to Herder, the character of any nation is determined by such factors as the natural environment, climate and physical geography - factors that shape the lifestyle, work habits, preferences, and creative inclinations of people. Above all, Herder placed the factor of language; in it he saw the embodiment of the traditions characteristic of the people and their historical memory. Each nation, according to Herder, has its own Volksgeist, which finds its expression in songs, myths and legends and is for this people the source of all and all forms of creativity. Herder's nationalism should be understood as a kind of culturalism, where national traditions and collective memory come to the fore, but not statehood. Ideas of this kind contributed in no small measure to the awakening of the national consciousness of the Germans in the 19th century, when they discovered ancient myths and legends, as manifested, for example, in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and the operas of Richard Wagner (1813-1883).

The main idea of ​​Herderian culturalism is that nations are "natural" or organic communities that are rooted in antiquity and will continue to exist as long as humanity exists. The same position is taken by modern social psychologists, who point to the need for people to form groups in order to gain a sense of security, community and belonging. The division of mankind into nations, according to this point of view, just comes from this natural tendency of people to unite with those who are close to them in origin, culture and way of life.

In Nations and Nationalism (1983), Ernest Gellner showed that nationalism is linked to modernization, especially the process of industrialization. According to his concept, in the pre-capitalist era, society was held together by a great variety of very different ties and connections, so characteristic of feudalism, while the emerging industrial societies relied on social mobility, independence and competition: in order to preserve the cultural unity of society, all this required some kind of completely new ideology. The role of such an ideology was assumed by nationalism - a reaction to new social conditions and circumstances. With all this, according to Gellner, nationalism is fundamentally ineradicable, since society can no longer return to pre-industrial social relations.

The postulate of a link between nationalism and modernization, however, aroused objections from Anthony Smith, who in The Ethnic Roots of Nations (1986) showed the continuity between modern nations and ancient ethnic communities: such communities he called ethnic groups. According to Smith, nations are a historically determined phenomenon: they are formed on the basis of a common cultural heritage and language, everything that arises much earlier than any statehood or struggle for independence. Although ethnic groups precede any and all forms of nationalism, Smith agreed that modern nations were born only when fully formed ethnic groups accepted the idea of ​​political sovereignty. In Europe, this happened at the turn of the XVIII - XIX centuries, and in Asia and Africa - in the XX century.

The German historian Friedrich Meinecke (1907) went even further, dividing nations into "cultural" and "political". "Cultural" nations, in his opinion, are characterized by a high level of ethnic homogeneity: ethnos and nation in this case are almost synonymous. Meinecke considered the Greeks, Germans, Russians, British and Irish as "cultural" nations, but such ethnic groups as Kurds, Tamils ​​and Chechens also fit his concept. These nations can be considered "organic": they arose more in the course of natural historical processes than any processes of a political nature. The strength of "cultural" nations lies in the fact that, having a strong and historically determined sense of national unity, they are, as a rule, more stable and internally united. On the other hand, "cultural nations", as a rule, claim to be exclusive: in order to belong to them, political loyalty alone is not enough - you must already be a member of an ethnos, inherit your nationality. In other words, "cultured" nations tend to see themselves as something like a large family of relatives: it is impossible to "become" German, Russian, or Kurdish simply by assimilating their language and faith. Such exclusivity gives rise to closed and very conservative forms of nationalism, since the differences between the nation and the race are practically leveled in the minds of people.

Nations as political communities

Those who consider a nation to be an exclusively political organism see its distinguishing feature not as a cultural community, but as civic ties and, in general, its inherent political specificity. The nation in this tradition appears as a community of people linked by citizenship without any dependence on cultural or ethnic affiliation. It is believed that this view of the nation goes back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a philosopher in whom many see the "progenitor" of modern nationalism. Although Rousseau did not specifically address either the national question or the very phenomenon of nationalism, his reflections on the sovereignty of the people - and especially the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe "general will" (or public good) - actually sowed the seeds from which the nationalist doctrines of the French Revolution then grew. 1789 By proclaiming that government should be based on the general will, Rousseau, in effect, denied the existence of both the monarchy and all sorts of aristocratic privileges. During the years of the French Revolution, this principle of radical democracy was reflected in the idea that all French people are "citizens" with their inalienable rights and freedoms, and not just "subjects" to the crown: sovereignty thus comes from the people. The French Revolution established this new kind of nationalism with its ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity, as well as the theory of the nation, over which there is no other power than itself.

The idea that nations are political, not ethnic, communities has been further supported by many theorists. Eric Hobsbawm (1983), for example, has found much evidence that nations are, in a certain sense, nothing more than "fictitious traditions." Not recognizing the thesis that modern nations were formed on the basis of ancient ethnic communities, Hobsbawm believed that all talk about the historical continuity and cultural specificity of nations, in fact, reflects only a myth - and a myth generated by nationalism itself. From this point of view, it is precisely nationalism that creates nations, and not vice versa. The awareness of belonging to a nation, which is characteristic of a modern person, the researcher argues, was developed only in the 19th century and was formed, perhaps due to the introduction of national anthems, national flags and the spread of primary education. In this case, the idea of ​​a “native language”, which is transmitted from generation to generation and embodies the national culture, is also questionable: in fact, the language also changes as each generation adapts it to its own needs and modern conditions. It is not entirely clear even whether it is possible to speak of a "national language", since before the 19th century. most people did not know the written form of their language and usually spoke in a local dialect that had little in common with the language of the educated elite.

Benedict Anderson (1983) also considers the modern nation to be an artifact, or, as he puts it, "an imaginary community." The nation, he writes, exists more as a speculative image than as a real community, because it never reaches such a level of direct personal communication of people, which alone can support a real sense of community. Within one's own nation, a person communicates with only a tiny part of what is supposedly a national community. According to this logic, if nations exist at all, then they exist only in the public mind - as artificial structures supported by the education system, the media and the processes of political socialization. If, in the understanding of Rousseau, the nation is something that is spiritualized by the ideas of democracy and political freedom, then the idea of ​​it as a “fictitious” or “imaginary” community rather coincides with the views of Marxists, who consider nationalism to be a kind of bourgeois ideology - a system of propaganda tricks designed to prove that national ties are stronger than class solidarity, and thereby tie the working class to the existing power structure.

But even putting aside the question of whether nations arise from the desire for freedom and democracy, or are they nothing more than ingenious inventions of political elites and the ruling class, it should be understood that some of them have a uniquely political character. In the spirit of Meinecke, such nations may well be classified as "political" - such nations for which the moment of citizenship has a much greater political significance than ethnicity; often such nations consist of several ethnic groups and are therefore culturally heterogeneous. Great Britain, the USA and France are considered classical examples of political nations.

Great Britain is essentially a union of four "cultural" nations: the English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish (although the latter can be divided into two nations - Unionist Protestants and Republican Catholics). The national feeling of the British, as far as it can be said, is based on political factors - loyalty to the Crown, respect for Parliament and commitment to the idea of ​​​​the historically won rights and freedoms of the British. The United States, a “country of immigrants”, has a pronounced multi-ethnic and multicultural character: since the national identity here could not develop from any common cultural and historical roots, the idea of ​​the American nation was deliberately constructed through the education system and the cultivation of respect for such common values ​​as ideals. Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Similarly, French national identity owes much to the traditions and principles of the French Revolution of 1789.

For all these nations, at least theoretically, one thing is characteristic: they were formed by voluntary adherence to some general principles and goals, sometimes even in contradiction with the cultural tradition that existed before. Such societies, they say, have a special style of nationalism - tolerant and democratic. There is only one idea here: since a nation is primarily a political organism, access to it is obviously open and not limited by any requirements in terms of language, religion, ethnicity, and so on. Classic examples are the US as a "melting pot" and the "new" South Africa as a "rainbow society". It is understandable, however, that from time to time such nations lack that sense of organic unity and historicity that is characteristic of "cultural nations." Perhaps, as they write, this explains the well-known weakness of the general British national feeling in comparison with Scottish and Welsh nationalism, as well as the widespread feeling of “good old England”.

Developing states faced particular challenges in their quest for national identity. These nations appear as "political" in two senses.

First, in many cases they only achieved statehood after their struggle against colonial rule was over. Under the idea of ​​the nation here, therefore, there was a special unifying principle - the desire for national liberation and freedom, which is why nationalism in the "third world" received such a strong anti-colonial coloring.

Secondly, historically, these nations were often formed within the territorial boundaries defined by the former mother countries. This is especially true in Africa, where "nations" often consist of a spectrum of ethnic, religious, and local groups that, apart from a shared colonial past, have very little to do with one another. Unlike classical European "cultural" nations, which developed statehood on the basis of an already established national identity, in Africa, on the contrary, "nations" are created on the basis of states. This discrepancy between political and ethnic identities now and then gave rise to sharp contradictions, as was the case, for example, in Nigeria, Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi, and these conflicts are not based on the legacy of “tribalism”, but rather the consequences of the widespread in the colonial era principle of "divide and rule".

The nation as a source of sovereignty, the basis of legitimacy and an object of loyalty

Historians have argued a lot about the point at which one can speak of the existence of nations. Some began counting from the 5th century, others from the 16th century, and others from the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. In theoretical and political terms, according to V.S. Malakhov, disputes about when “nations” arose are meaningless. The nation in the modern sense of the word arises along with the emergence of a new understanding of sovereignty and legitimacy.

The concept of "sovereignty" was introduced into scientific circulation by the French jurist Jean Bodin (1530-1596). According to Bodin, sovereignty is a part of "public power", defined as "the absolute and eternal power of the state". In other words, sovereignty is the highest and undivided power. “Whoever receives instructions from an emperor, pope or king does not have sovereignty,” says Boden. Sovereignty, according to another classical definition given by Carl Schmitt, is "power, next to which there can be no other power."

In pre-bourgeois societies, the "sovereign", that is, the bearer of sovereignty, is the monarch. His right to rule by no one can be challenged - except perhaps by another monarch. The seat of power occupied by the monarch is always occupied. It cannot be empty. The king has two bodies - the physical, which is mortal, and the mystical or political, which is immortal. Therefore, the physical death of the monarch does not mean his disappearance as a mystical source of power: "The king is dead, long live the king!".

With bourgeois revolutions, when a (democratic) Republic replaces the monarchy, things change radically. Democracy declares the place of power empty. No one has the original right to occupy this place. No one can have power without being authorized to do so. But who gives such authority? Who is the sovereign: the people or the nation?

Meanwhile, the "nation" does not exist in the form of an empirically fixed integrity, a certain collection of people. This is a fictitious value that does not even indicate the total population of the country. From the “nation”, in whose name a new type of power is proclaimed, not only the nobles and the clergy, but also the peasants, the “rabble” are excluded. Members of the "nation" during the French Revolution were considered only representatives of the third estate, the bourgeoisie. The "nation" is thus nothing but an instance of sovereignty.

Here we cannot do without another key concept of political philosophy - legitimacy. In the era of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the legitimacy of power (that is, its justification and validity) is undeniable. The power of the monarch is sacredly secured - bestowed on him by God. The monarch (king, king, emperor) is the anointed of God. If there are ambiguities with the succession to the throne, this inevitably entails a political crisis, a revolt.

In modern times, with the emergence of a new class, the bourgeoisie, on the historical forefront, the legitimacy of monarchical power is being questioned. Since the sacred origin of the power of the monarch is no longer believed, the right to exercise power needs special justification. Who gives such a basis? Again, "nation". And again, "nation" does not mean in any way the total population of the country, not the physical multitude of people. The nation is something to which they appeal, seeking to legitimize power.

This thought chain can be traced from the other end. The essential feature of the state is legitimate violence. The state, according to the textbook definition of Max Weber, is an institution that has a monopoly on legitimate violence. The specificity of the modern "national state" in comparison with pre-modern - estate-dynastic - states is that the source of legitimate violence here is the "nation".

One can define a nation as a specific object of loyalty. It is specific primarily because before the onset of Modernity, such an object did not exist. The population of this or that country could be loyal to the church, confession, local overlord, whose vassals they felt themselves to be, provinces, cities (Venice, Hamburg, Novgorod), but they were not loyal to the “nation”.

What today is taken for granted - the feeling of belonging to one or another national community, was not taken at all as such even a century and a half ago. Representatives of the upper classes in the society of the XVIII century. did not consider themselves members of the same community with representatives of the lower classes of their own country. Ordinary people until the 19th century. did not feel belonging to one "nation" - not only with the nobility of his country, but also with ordinary residents of neighboring regions. The peasants felt themselves to be "Gascons", "Provencals", "Bretons", etc., but not "French"; "Tverichi", "Vladimir", "Novgorod", but not "Russian"; Saxons, Swabians, Bavarians, but not "Germans".

It took many decades of special efforts by the state to push regional and class loyalties into the background and develop loyalty to the nation among the common people.

For modern researchers of nationalism, Eugene Weber's reference book “From Peasants to French. Modernization of rural France. 1880-1914". The discovery of this work was that in such a seemingly exemplary "nation-state" as France, the lower classes gained "national consciousness" only at the beginning of the First World War. Until that time, in most European countries, loyalty to the state rested on the loyalty of the dynasty. The peasants could be mobilized for the armed defense of the country under the slogans of defending the throne and the "true" religion. As for the “motherland” in the triune formula “For the Tsar, for the Motherland, for the Faith!”, then “Motherland” here does not mean the country as such, but a small homeland, the place where a person was born and raised.

Konstantin Leontiev at one time drew attention to the fact that the Russian peasants in the first weeks of the Napoleonic invasion behaved rather indifferently. Some even took advantage of the anarchy and began to burn down the master's houses. Patriotic (i.e., national) feelings awakened in them only when the invaders began to desecrate churches. The “people” (i.e., the peasantry) behaved in a similar way everywhere. When foreign troops entered the territory of the country, the peasants sold fodder to the invaders. Nations fought not, armies fought. Mass (i.e., national) mobilization is a phenomenon of the 20th century. The First World War was the first international conflict in history.

Thus, the idea of ​​national loyalty as a natural manifestation of popular feelings is erroneous. Collective solidarity and collective mobilization (popular movements in defense of the fatherland), which we perceive today as evidence of the existence of national self-consciousness in the people, in pre-modern societies was something else.

Another circumstance speaks of the specificity of national loyalty. It challenges the monarch's sovereignty. If for the subjects of a state the nation, and not the sovereign, becomes the object of loyalty, the monarchy is threatened. It is no coincidence that Russian tsarism looked with distrust at the first Russian nationalists - the Slavophiles. Although subjectively the Slavophiles were for the most part convinced monarchists, they theoretically questioned the monarchy as an object of loyalty. Such an object in their constructions turned out to be “the people”, or “nationality”, which was absolutely unacceptable for the ruling regime.

Thus, a nation is a specific object of loyalty, which is formed only under certain conditions. Before the advent of Modernity, or Modernity, such loyalty was either punctual or non-existent. In the era of Modernity, national loyalty faces serious competition from class, confessional, subcultural and other forms of loyalty. At present, which some authors call postmodern, competition from non-national forms of loyalty takes on a new dimension.

State people, nation, ethnos, ethnic substratum

The central concepts of national themes in the ethnic, national and state field of concepts are usually denoted by many different words, for example,

• "state",
• "nation",
• "people",
• "ethnos",
• "state people"
• "nationality",
• "national group"
• "national minority",
• "ethnic minority"
• and many others.

Not only do different words sometimes denote the same concept, but the same word often implies different concepts. This often causes significant misunderstandings in general and scientific discussions. The confusion of concepts is even more aggravated if we consider similar designations that have the same origin in different languages. Especially words with the Latin root natio, like "nation", "national", "nationality", "nationalist", "national" and "nationalistic", are used in many languages ​​with very different meanings. The English word "nation" often has a different meaning than the French word "nation", the German "Nation", or the Russian word "nation". In addition, words are often given a very emotional and politically completely different normative assessment.

Of course, it is desirable to use words as neutrally as possible, which would facilitate the analysis and explanation of the opposite state of affairs. In reality, the neutral use of language in the social, political and historical sciences is impossible, because science cannot do without frequently using the same words that evoke completely different associations and assessments in readers and listeners.

Let's explain this with an example. Both common and political language, as well as the language of international law, know the concept of " people's right to self-determination", which is often also called " the right of nations to self-determination", but the language does not know the concept of "the right of ethnic or nationalities to self-determination." This means, calling a certain large group of people an ethnos, it is suggested - consciously or not, that this group does not have the right to self-determination, and vice versa - consciously or not, it is implied that this group has such a right if it is called "nation" or "people ".

Below, one should proceed not from words and their various uses, but from concepts that are meaningful for international comparative analysis, that is, about facts and situations distinguished in scientific and political disputes. Four fundamental provisions or concepts should be distinguished, which in the terminological and political dispute is often not respected.

The community of members of a state (independent, federal or autonomous state) - today most often citizens of a country - is called the state people. In international politics, the people of the state are also called the "nation", and the citizenship of the state, in accordance with this, is also called the "nationality". State citizenship is an objective state fact and a fact of international law, regardless of whether an individual citizen of the state desires the state citizenship he has or another.

The community of those who wish for themselves an existing or still to be formed their own statehood is called a nation. In other words, the general will of one's own statehood (national consciousness, nationalism) establishes the nation. It follows from this that it is necessary to make a distinction between nations without a state and nations that have a state, and further, that the people of the state need not be a nation if significant parts of the state people do not want an existing state. Accordingly, nationality designates belonging to a nation, whether this nation is a state people or only still wants to become one.

A community of people, regardless of their place of residence, who, on the basis of the same origin (i.e., close family ties), language, religion or territory of origin, or on the basis of a combination of these characteristics, feel connected to each other, form an ethnos. The existence of an ethnos depends on a certain consciousness of unity, an important indicator of which, as a rule, is the common use of the name of the group (ethnonym). Belonging to an ethnic group (ethnicity) can have different types and levels from a microethnos to a macroethnos, covering several such microethnoi.

An ethnos can, but does not necessarily have to create a national consciousness, that is, a political need for its own statehood, and this means becoming a nation. In most cases, many small or scattered ethnic groups do not develop the need for their own statehood.

Nations, in turn, can be both monoethnic and polyethnic, i.e., consist of several ethnic groups or (parts of) ethnic groups. Therefore, there is no necessary connection between ethnicity, nationality and citizenship.

Ethnic movements want to further strengthen the consciousness of ethnic unity and promote ethnic interests, while national movements want to become more firmly established in the national consciousness and, against the background of the political goal, to preserve the existing statehood, i.e. maintain state unity, restore the former statehood or achieve the construction of a new state .

A set of people with certain ethnic properties (this means being closely related to each other, communicating in the same dialect or literary language, having the same religion, or coming from the same region), is unlikely to be aware of this community and will perceive ethnic properties only in a small group in a territorially limited space; it will be perceived as a generality under certain conditions only by an observer, contemporary or historian. Such a set is only an ethnic category of attributes or an ethnic substratum, socially-statistically - a cohort, and not a large group in the sense of a living social communication relationship. Ethnic substrates can even exist for centuries, and the large ethnic groups that exist today in the form of self-conscious, communicating large groups are a fairly modern phenomenon and are only a few years or decades older than today's nations. From all that has been said, it follows that the emergence and disappearance of ethnic substrates, ethnicities, nations and nation-states should be clearly distinguished in the analysis.

Literature

Abdulatipov R.G. Ethnopolitology. St. Petersburg: Peter, 2004. S.50-54.

Achkasov V.A. Ethnopolitology: Textbook. St. Petersburg: Publishing House of St. Petersburg. un-ta, 2005. S. 86-105.

Malakhov V.S. Nationalism as a Political Ideology: Textbook. M.: KDU, 2005. S.30-36.

Nationalism in late and post-communist Europe: in 3 volumes / [gen. ed. E. Yana]. M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia (ROSSPEN), 2010. V.1. Failed nationalism of multinational and partially nation states. pp. 43-47, 78-86, 97-99, 212-214.

Political Science: Encyclopedic Dictionary. M.: Publishing House of Moscow. commercial un-ta, 1993. S.212-213.

Tishkov V.A. Ethnology and politics. Scientific journalism. M.: Nauka, 2001. S.235-239.

Heywood E. Political science: A textbook for university students / Per. from English. ed. G.G. Vodolazov, V.Yu. Belsky. M.: UNITI-DANA, 2005. S.131-137.

Political terms are not ideologically neutral, but, on the contrary, are most often an instrument of actual political struggle or an expression of the system of power relations existing in society. T&P made an overview of the works of the largest contemporary researchers of political history, finding out what certain terms meant at different times and what is behind them now.

It is assumed that the voters and citizens of the country understand exactly the language in which the politician or statesman speaks to them, and thus can understand what awaits them in the future or what they already have in the present. From political terms, in this case, objectivity and clarity are required, taking into account that political language is, among other things, an important tool for political socialization and education. However, upon closer examination, it turns out that the same words meant different, often opposite things, depending on who used them and at what time.

Nation

In classical Roman usage, which runs through the Middle Ages until modern times, natio, as opposed to civitas, means the association of people on the basis of a common origin, which at first did not have a political dimension.

Historian Alexey Miller points out that at the beginning of the 18th century the word "nation" appears in various Russian documents as a borrowed one - most often in the meaning of an ethnic community and state affiliation. The Great French Revolution introduced a clear political content into the concept of a nation, which was later transferred to the Russian language as well. The word “nation” evoked stable associations with national sovereignty and national representation that formed after the French Revolution, so Uvarov in his famous triad (“Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality”) used the concept of “nationality” that semantically intersects with it, linking the latter with the principle of conservatism and loyalty to power. In the 1840s, Belinsky wrote about the relationship between the concepts of nation and people, that the people denotes only the lowest layer of the state, while the nation is "the totality of all estates."

Ernest Gellner is one of the first explorers of the nation who took a modernist approach to the study of this concept. Before industrialization, mankind lived in closed communities, the masses were engaged in manual labor, in the process of work they communicated in the same circle. In an agro-literate society, culture is the expression of an internal, differentiated status system with its own complex, intertwining power relations. The cultural differences of each social group serve to disintegrate in such a society. In an industrial society, there is already a need for a universal worker with his ability to move. Education, written culture, and the national language are gaining strength, uniting many separate communities within the state. The industrial society suggests new ways of communication that do not depend on everyday communication within closed local communities. Labor ceases to be physical and becomes semantic. Thus, more universal mass information channels are emerging through which standardized, context-independent messages are transmitted. This is the new, standardized culture that brings people together.

“The aristocracy represented a kind of “nation” in the face of the court, that is, in fact, it was the only representative of that early form of the nation, access to which had not yet been gained by the broad masses of the population.”

The role of standardizing culture at that time could only be assumed by the state, so each individual culture sought to acquire statehood. Gellner believes that nations began to emerge in the 19th century. Already by 1848, cultural and linguistic boundaries began to correlate with political ones, and the legitimacy of political power began to be determined by correlation with the concept of “nation”. In the new industrial society, constant economic growth becomes important, which, in turn, depends on the efficiency of each worker. In such a situation, the old social structure is impossible, in which the position of the individual was determined not by his efficiency as a worker, but by origin.

According to Jurgen Habermas, the success of nation-states in the 19th century is due to the fact that the tandem of bureaucracy and capitalism (the state needs taxes, capital needs legal guarantees) turned out to be the most effective means for social modernization. Feudal society was based on a system of privileges bestowed by the monarch in need of taxes and a regular army. The aristocracy represented a kind of "nation" in the face of the court, that is, in fact, it was the only representative of that early form of the nation, access to which had not yet been gained by the broad masses of the population. Subsequently, it was the national consciousness that turned out to be a powerful stimulus to the growth of the political activity of the masses, which led to the democratic transformation of society. On the other hand, in the process of the separation of the church from the state prepared by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, the need arose for a new legitimization of power.

In the pre-national state, the belonging of a citizen was determined only by submission to the monarchical power. Now, to be a citizen meant not to be a subject of the monarch, but, above all, to belong to a community of equal citizens. In the industrial age, new, non-estate principles of social relations appeared. In order to push the population of the country to maintain new social ties in the name of abstract rights and freedoms after the establishment of a new type of government, marked by the American and French revolutions, the idea of ​​a nation with a single culture and history served. Intellectuals - philosophers, writers, artists - begin to carefully construct romantic myths and traditions that correspond to the "spirit of the nation."

In The invention of tradition, Eric Hobsbawm convincingly shows how the need for a national myth was met by the invention of traditions. Tradition gives any change the sanction of a precedent in the past, expressing, first of all, the balance of power in the present (as, for example, a claim to territory historically allegedly belonging to ancestors). Thanks to tradition, these claims become perpetual, so tradition is required to be invariant (which distinguishes it from more flexible and changeable customs). As soon as certain practices lose their practical function, they turn into a tradition. Tradition is created in the process of ritualization and formalization through repeated repetition and reference to the past. The modern symbols of Scotland - the kilt and "national" music performed on the bagpipes, which, in theory, should indicate something ancient, in fact, are the product of modernity. The spread of Scottish kilts and clan tartans occurred after the union with England in 1707, and before that, in a still extremely undeveloped form, they were considered by most Scots as an expression of the rudeness and backwardness of the Celtic highlanders (although even the highlanders did not find anything particularly ancient and distinctive in them for their culture).

“Anderson considers the emergence of the nation as a profound change in the picture of the world, in the perception of time and space. The nation is becoming a new form of religious consciousness.”

Until the end of the 17th century, in general, in essence, there were no highlanders as a cultural community. The western part of Scotland was extremely close, culturally and economically, to Ireland and was, in fact, its colony. In the XVIII-XIX centuries, Irish culture was rejected and a single Scottish nation was constructed, including through the artificial creation of a highland tradition. The folk epic of the Scottish Celts is created on the basis of Irish ballads, for which James MacPherson specifically invented the “Celtic Homer” Ossian in the middle of the 18th century (according to his idea, the folk epic of the Celts was stolen by the Irish in the late Middle Ages). The national symbols that spread in Germany, France and the USA in the 19th century - flags, memorable dates, public ceremonies, monuments - are part of that "social engineering" that, by inventing tradition, creates a nation.

Benedict Anderson argues that the nation is such an "imaginary community", limited and sovereign, that arises as the power of the church and dynasties decreases. It is imaginary because all members of the community will never be able to recognize each other, as, for example, the inhabitants of one village. The image of the community belongs precisely to the realm of the imagination, having no concrete, material expression. A nation is born with the destruction of three key ideas: firstly, about the sacredness of a special written language that gives access to ontological truth, secondly, about the natural organization of society around centers (monarchs whose power is of divine origin) and, thirdly, the idea of ​​a time in which cosmology is inextricably linked with history, and the origin of people and the origin of the world are identical. The decisive role in the formation of the nation was played, according to Anderson, by what he calls "print capitalism", when, thanks to the boom of the market, there was a wide distribution of printed literature in national languages. It is capitalism, Anderson believes, that, like nothing else, contributed to the collection of related dialects into unified written languages.

Anderson considers the emergence of the nation as a profound change in the picture of the world, in the perception of time and space. The nation becomes a new form of religious consciousness, having a historical extent in which the individual, identifying himself with the nation, acquires imaginary immortality. A nation is conceived as something that has no beginning and no end, but remains in eternity. Language connects the past with the present, gives the nation the appearance of "naturalness".

An example of modern usage:

“Thanks to the unifying role of the Russian people, centuries-old intercultural and interethnic interaction, a unique civilizational community has been formed on the historical territory of the Russian state - a multinational Russian nation, whose representatives consider Russia their homeland. Russia was created as a unity of peoples, as a state, the backbone of which historically is the Russian people. The civilizational identity of Russia and the Russian nation is based on the preservation of Russian culture and language, the historical and cultural heritage of all the peoples of Russia.” Strategy of the national policy of the Russian Federation until 2025.

Bibliography:

E. Gellner. Nations and nationalism

A. Miller. Romanov Empire and nationalism

Y. Habermas. Political works

E. Hobsbawm. The invention of tradition

B. Anderson. Imaginary Communities. Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism.

A nation is a cultural-political, historically conditioned community of people. quite vague, so there are clarifying, corrective wording. They are necessary to be able to use this concept in popular science literature and not depend on the context.

How to understand the term "nation"

Thus, the constructivist approach claims that the concept of "nation" is entirely artificial. The intellectual and cultural elite creates an ideology that the rest of the people follow. To do this, they do not necessarily need to shout out political slogans or draw up manifestos. It is enough to direct people in the right direction with their creativity. After all, the most durable is the thought that penetrates the head gradually, without direct pressure.

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

ethnonation

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

Adherents of this theory believe that a certain ephemeral spirit, which is invisibly present in every citizen, makes a nation unified. A common language and culture helps in uniting people. On the basis of the doctrine of language families, conclusions can be drawn about which peoples have affinity with each other and which do not. But besides this, not only the cultural, but also the biological origin of peoples is tied to the named theory.

Nationality

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

At one time there was an opinion that the nations of the world are formed on a genetic basis, but in practice one can find such combinations as a Russian German, a Ukrainian Pole and many others. In this case, heredity does not play a role at all in the self-identification of a person as a citizen of the country, something stronger than the instincts inherent in every cell of the body prevails here.

Types of nations

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

1. Polyethnic.
2. Monoethnic.

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

Language

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

• English;
• French;
• Deutsch;
• Chinese;
• Arabic, etc.

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

Psychology of the nation

According to economic theory, a person is born, lives and dies without leaving their habitual habitats. But with the advent of industrialization, this pastoral picture is cracking. Nations of people mix, penetrate each other and bring their cultural heritage.

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

Formation

In order for a nation to form, it is necessary to combine economic, political and ethnic features in place and time. The process of formation of the nation and the conditions of its existence develop simultaneously, so the formation is harmonious. Sometimes, in order for the formation of a nation to take place, it is necessary to give a push from outside. For example, a war for independence or against occupation by the enemy brings people very close. They fight for one idea, not sparing their own lives. This is a strong incentive for association.

Erasure of national differences

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

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

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