Dictionaries explain that the word "nationality" denotes the belonging of a certain group of people to a particular ethnic group. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was determined by the language a person spoke and his religion. Those. nationality "Russian" was indicated only for those people who spoke exclusively Russian.
Soon the situation changed. In the USSR, a person was obliged to choose a nationality that coincided with the nationality of one of the parents. So, at least, required the Constitution of the time. However, in fact, there were also curious cases.
Once a girl, whose father was an Ossetian, and whose mother was a Ukrainian, received a passport. By the way, the parents at the same time handed over their passports for exchange. In the same passport office.
As expected, their nationalities were recorded in their passports. As expected, the girl in the statement wrote "I ask you to assign the father's nationality." The due date has passed, and the girl receives a passport, which says that she is Russian. The citizen in bewilderment turns to the passport officer, whose answer was stunned. It sounded like this:
-Do you care?
The girl didn't care: in the USSR everyone was equal. But when her parents received the passports, the shock became even stronger. In the column "nationality" Russian was indicated by the father, Russian - by the mother. So this family became Russified. Only one thing calmed them: both the mother and father of the girl, their relatives in the fourth generation were born and grew up in a completely Russian city, in the middle lane. And Ossetians and Ukrainians were recorded according to the nationality of their parents.
Today's Constitution of the Russian Federation directly states that a person has the right to independently determine his nationality, and no one can prevent this. Sometimes funny things happen. In one of the major cities in the eighties, a Russian wedding was played between a student from Cameroon and a black girl from South Africa. Now their grandson, charming dark-skinned, broad-nosed and puffy-lipped Louis NJOGU Mwai, who is about 30 today, indicates in all questionnaires: nationality - Russian. Reading his documents caused more than one smile from the officials.
But Louis is really Russian. In his incomplete 30 years, he has been to Africa four times, has a residence permit in one very large Russian city, is fluent in Russian and four more languages, among which, alas, there are no dialects of his parents. And most importantly, he has a Russian soul: kind, broad, sympathetic.
The concept of "Russian nationality" has become much broader. We are still divided out of habit into Russians and Ukrainians, Belarusians and Kazakhs. For Turkey, Egypt, Japan and many morein other countries, for any representative of the territory where the USSR used to be, there is only one nationality: Russian.
This word has a certain greatness, great pride, involvement in history. After all, the Russians are the Russian national ballet, which has been considered unsurpassed for more than a hundred years. The Russians are the victory over Nazi Germany and the first flight into space.
Russian is a proud, strong and great word. You must always remember this. We should be proud that we are Russians.
