What is a nation? When did it come about? Is it the same with the concept of "people", or does the nation have its own properties? Why are people in the United States referred to as "fast food nation"? We will try to find answers to these questions in this article. However, before defining what a nation is, let's deal with a concept close to it.
What is a people?
The concept of the people was introduced by mankind a long time ago. From ancient times, it denoted a certain community of people connected by a common origin, living in a certain territory, belonging to a specific cultural environment.
In different eras, there could be different admissions to the category of persons of a particular people. So, in ancient Greece, the people, in contrast to the barbarians, were all those who spoke ancient Greek. The situation was similar in China. In medieval Europe, only the privileged estates, which had weight in the feudal structure, began to be called the people. Numerous peasant masses were seen as monotonous mob in all corners of the continent. Today, people, as a rule, are called all the inhabitants of a certain state. Thus, the concept unites everyone who has citizenship or nationality.
What is a nation? Definition introduction
It is important to note that in modern vocabulary there are different visions of this concept and features specific to a nation. Moreover, there is some conflict with translations from other languages. So, the German "volk" unites both the nation and the people in one word. That is, for the Germans there is no difference. In the English-language specialized literature, the concepts of "nation" and "people" are distinguished. The latter, however, is not quite the same as the people in the Russian language. The Russian-language concept of "nation" is to a certain extent a continuation of the people, its development. If the people is more of a biological or legal unity that has existed since ancient times, then the nation is a socio-psychological concept. To transform a people into a nation, it needs to realize its commonality and common historical destiny. This is no longer just a set of identical factors such as language or culture (although they are extremely important as a basis), it is a psychological awareness of unity by all members of the nation and the desire for joint development. The highest point in the development of any nation is the creation of its own state. It is this desire that often determines the birth of a nation in the eyes of historians and sociologists.
Political and ethnic nations
Modern researchers of the phenomenon distinguish just such two forms among modern nations.
In short, they differ inregarding non-root elements. Ethnic nations put blood unity and biological characteristics at the forefront. Poles and Germans are classic examples of such a nation. The globalization of the world and mass migration have given rise to the need to integrate foreign elements into the community of the nation. So, in the French mass consciousness, the descendants of migrants from the Maghreb countries also became French. Of course, for this they need to share the historical aspirations of this nation. The need for the concept of a political nation also creates the emergence of multi-ethnic states (like the USA or the USSR). The concept of "Soviet man" then becomes a tool for combining heterogeneous elements into one body.
What is a nation? When did it start?
Benedict Anderson - one of the researchers of the nation as a phenomenon - coined the term "imagined communities". Thus, the nation exists only in the heads of its representatives and arises only when traditional communities like village communities are destroyed, and the worker of Dortmund feels national solidarity with the clerk of Rostock. The press contributed a lot to the formation of such unity. And the destruction of traditional communities - an industrial revolution. Thus, many researchers (including Hobsbawm, Gellner, Smith) associate the birth of nations with the 13th and especially with the 19th century in the history of Europe and America.
