The concept of "ethnos" has become widespread in our country, largely due to the outstanding work of Lev Gumilyov "Ethnogenesis and the biosphere of the earth." The original theory of passionarity attracted the attention of not only scientific experts, but also the general public. In reality, the concept of "Ethnos" appeared a very long time ago.
Instruction manual
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The term "ethnos" of Greek origin. So the ancient Greeks called foreign nations - all who did not belong to Greek civilization. In Russian, instead of it, the word "people" was used for a long time. The ethnos entered scientific life in 1923. thanks to the works of the Russian emigrant scientist S.M. Shirokogorova. In his presentation, an ethnos can be called a group of people who speak the same language, having a common origin and a single way of life. Thus, Shirokogorov singled out the community of culture as a mandatory feature of an ethnos: language, customs, faith, and traditions.
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In modern science, ethnology science deals with the problems of the existence and process of development of ethnic groups. Within its framework, there are two main approaches to the interpretation of the term "ethnos". The first approach considers the ethnic group as a form of human existence, as well as his culture, taking into account natural factors. This interpretation is based on the theory of ethnogenesis of Lev Gumilyov.
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The second approach considers the ethnos as a historical and social system with its own period of origin, development and structural change. With this view of the ethnos, its historical borders may not coincide with the borders of national states. As an example, we can take the history of the Jewish people, which for a long time existed outside the state form.
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Summarizing these two approaches, we can conclude that an ethnic group is a large group of people united by a common language, lifestyle, cultural traditions and recognizing themselves as a single community. Historically, the formation of ethnic groups often occurs around such sustainable cultural elements as language or religion. For example, in this aspect we can talk about Christian culture or Islamic civilization.
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The main prerequisites for the formation of an ethnic group are a common territory and a certain common language as a means of communication. Moreover, a common language can be formed on the basis of several multilingual elements. As additional conditions for the formation, we can name the proximity of community members in racial terms, the presence of large mestizo (mixed) groups and common beliefs.
