What is the current ethnic composition of the population. Ethnic (national) composition of the world population

MORDOVIA STATE UNIVERSITY

NAMED AFTER N.P. OGAREV

Historical and Sociological Institute

TEST

On the topic of:

Ethnic composition population of Russia

Completed by: Pyanzov M. A.

Student of the correspondence department.

ISI spec. Regional studies

Checked by: Mokshina E. N.

Saransk 2008

Introduction

1. National composition of the population of the Russian Federation

1.1 Language families

1.2 Census results

Conclusion

List of sources used

Introduction

Russia, like no other country, differs from the rest thanks to its completely unique geographical characteristics, the main of which is a huge territory (9000 km length from west to east and 2000 km from north to south). This determines many features in the geography, economy, and geopolitics of the country.

Due to its location, at the junction of two continents, Russia came into contact with a variety of cultures, and the need to exist at the junction of the civilizations of Europe and Asia led to the formation of a unique national mentality and a unique culture, determined a special path for the development of the Russian people. Naturally, this coexistence was not always peaceful. For many centuries, the country was forced to fight either with nomads in the south or with its western neighbors, and this fact was of decisive importance for Russian history.

Ethnos– it is stable and at the same time dynamic, arising naturally – historically intergenerational social organism having a number of ethnic characteristics: ethnic territory, language, community economic life etc.

There are more than 130 peoples in Russia. Each nation has a different way of life, customs, historical traditions, culture, work skills.

1 National composition of the population of the Russian Federation

1.1 Language families

2002 census results reaffirmed that Russia is one of the most multinational states in the world .

1. Indo-European family (80% of all inhabitants)

1. Slavic group

· Russians

· Ukrainians

Belarusians

2. Iranian group

· Tajiks

· Ossetians

3. Romanesque group

· Moldovans

4. German group

2. Altai language family (6.8% of all residents)

1. Turkic group

· Altaians

· Tuvans

· Khakass

· Bashkirs

· Karachais

· Balkars

2. Mongolian group

· Kalmyks

3. Tungus-Manchu group

· Nanais

4. paleasian group

3. Uralic language family (2% of the Russian population)

1. Finnish band

· Komi-Permyaks

· Mari

2. Ugric group

3. Samoyed group

· Selkups (in the Taz River basin)

4. Caucasian language family (2% of the Russian population)

1. Kartvelian group

· Georgians

2. Dagestan group– over 30 nationalities:

Lezgins

· Dargins

3. Adyghe-Abkhaz group

· Adyghe people

· Abkhazians

· Circassians

· Kabardians

4. Nakh group

· Chechens

This national composition of Russia is reflected in the political and administrative map of Russia.

1.2 Census results

Nationality during the population census was indicated in accordance with the Constitution Russian Federation by the respondents themselves on the basis of self-determination and was recorded by census workers strictly from the words of the respondents. The census received more than 800 different responses from the population to the question about nationality, the spelling of which often differs from each other only because of the language dialect and the accepted local self-names of ethnic groups. When processing census materials, the population's answers about nationality were systematized into approximately 160 nationalities.

The change in the population of the most numerous nationalities is characterized by the following data:

During the intercensal period, changes in the national composition are due to the action of three factors.

First factor associated with differences in the natural movement of the population.

Second factor– these are processes in external migration that developed under the influence of the collapse of the USSR.

Third factor associated with change processes ethnic identity under the influence of mixed marriages and other phenomena.

In 2002, there were 23 of the most numerous nationalities, the population of which exceeded 400 thousand people; in 1989, there were 17 such nationalities. Due to population growth, this group included Azerbaijanis, Kabardians, Dargins, Kumyks, Ingush, Lezgins and Yakuts, Jews dropped out due to population decline. As in 1989, the number of seven nations exceeds 1 million people, however, changes have occurred in the composition of this group: during the intercensal period, Chechens and Armenians entered the group, Belarusians and Mordovians left.

So, according to Goskomstat data:

The Russian population is still the largest(about 116 million people) and accounts for almost 80% of the total population. Compared to 1989, its share in the entire population of the country decreased by 1.7 percentage points. This happened mainly due to natural loss, amounting to almost 8 million people, which could not be compensated by the slightly more than three million migration increase of Russians.

Second largest population in the country, as in the last census, are occupied by Tatars, whose number is 5.56 million people (almost 4% of the country's population).

Due to emigration and natural decline, the number of Jews (from 0.54 million people to 0.23 million people) and Germans (from 0.84 million people to 0.60 million people) decreased during the intercensal period.

Mainly due to migration growth, the number of Armenians (from 0.53 million people to 1.13 million people), Azerbaijanis (from 0.34 million people to 0.62 million people), Tajiks (from 0.34 million people) increased significantly 04 million people to 0.12 million people), Chinese (from 5 thousand people to 35 thousand people).

For the first time since the 1926 population census, the number of people who classified themselves as Kryashens was obtained (about 25 thousand people). Also, for the first time since the 1897 census, the number of people who called themselves Cossacks (about 140 thousand people) and a number of small peoples of Dagestan was obtained.

Of the approximately 1.5 million people who did not complete the answer to the census question about nationality, almost two thirds are living in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Moscow region.

Conclusion

Russia is a multinational country and the results of the 2002 census. this was confirmed once again.

Each nation is individual, because it differs in its way of life, customs, historical traditions, culture, and work skills.

A distinctive feature of a people is its language - the most important means of communication between people.

Based on the similarity of languages, peoples are grouped into language groups, and close and related groups into language families.

Based on linguistic characteristics, all the peoples of Russia can be united into 4 language families:

1. Indo-European family

2. Altai language family

3. Uralic language family

4. Caucasian language family

List of sources used

1. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 37. M.: 1956

The Caucasus is the place where Christian and Muslim world, with the numerical predominance of the latter. Of all the peoples of the Caucasus, only Armenians, Georgians and Ossetians are Christians, almost all the rest are Muslims.
Central Asia is a meeting place for such different cultures, like Parthian and Turkic, Arabic and Chinese, Iranian and Mongolian and many others. The Muslim religion (and relatively small Russian Orthodox communities) predominate here. The cultures of sedentary farmers (their descendants are most of the Tajiks and Uzbeks) and nomads (Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs) have always interacted in this territory. There are also a few Chinese (Dungans are Chinese Muslims) and Baluchis (immigrants from Balochistan - at the junction of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan) who live here. In this region, as in the Caucasus, state borders cut ethnic territories: several million Tajiks and about 2 million Uzbeks live in Northern Afghanistan (which makes it very likely that Afghan civil strife will penetrate into the territories of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), about a million Turkmen live in Iran, China - about a million Kazakhs.
Modern Kazakhstan has a particularly “butt”, “transitional” situation, the entire northern part of which is inhabited by Russians. They are slightly less than half of the total population of the republic, and some of them appeared on this territory earlier than the Kazakhs. There are many Germans (expelled in 1941 from the territory of the European part of Russia, Ukraine and the Baltic states), in the south there are Uzbeks, Dungans, Uighurs (Muslim Turkic people, the main part of which lives in the west of China), etc. Therefore, any manifestations are especially dangerous for Kazakhstan interethnic tension. Apparently, this country can exist within its modern borders only with the “transparency” of these borders and a very “soft” national policy.
The Far North of Russia is sometimes called part of the “Fourth World”.
In other words, this is a region of peoples whose way of life is associated mainly with appropriating economy (hunting, fishing, gathering) or with reindeer herding. In total, there are 26 such peoples in Russia with a total population of 180 thousand people.
If we compare the settlement areas of these peoples with a map of the natural living conditions of the population, it turns out that they live
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They live in areas with “unfavorable” natural conditions. This once again speaks to the conditionality of any human assessments: the map was compiled from the point of view of a resident Central Russia, for whom, for example, life in Taimyr is not at all attractive. But for the Nenets, the indigenous inhabitants of this area, this is precisely the nature to which they have adapted over many centuries. In other conditions, “better” from the point of view of a European, they would not be able to live, because they would not have the opportunity to do their own thing. traditional farming- pasture reindeer husbandry (and even if they had survived in other conditions, they would have become a completely different people).
Currently, the Far North for the Russian economy serves as a “storehouse of natural resources,” primarily minerals. This is where most of the oil and gas, all diamonds, gold, and many other non-ferrous metals come from. Industrial development of the territory destroys the natural basis of life of these peoples: it disables reindeer pastures and fishing grounds. Therefore, the protection of the natural environment in these areas is a very acute problem: otherwise small nations will simply disappear from the face of the Earth.
Factors of transformation of the ethnic structure of Russia in post-Soviet period. Changes in the ethnic composition of the population of Russia in the post-Soviet period occur under the influence of several factors: differences in the natural movement among various ethnic groups, processes of external migration due to political conflicts after the collapse of the USSR and labor migrations, changes in ethnic self-awareness among representatives of various ethnic groups.
Higher rates of natural growth of peoples North Caucasus, in comparison with other ethnic groups in Russia, influenced the growth of both their absolute numbers and relative weight in the ethnic structure of the country's population.
External ethnic migrations in Lent Soviet time also became one of the significant factors in changing the ethnic structure of the Russian population. In the early 1990s. ethnic emigration to Germany and Israel significantly reduced the absolute and relative number of Germans and Jews in our country.
At the same time, return migrations of the Russian-speaking population from the former republics of the USSR compensated for the demographic
158.
physical decline in Russia's population. The collapse of the USSR, social conflicts and economic difficulties in the Transcaucasus were one of the main reasons for the mass immigration of Armenians and Azerbaijanis to Russia. Also, the formation of the CIS countries entailed the return of the titular ethnic groups of the former Soviet republics from the Russian Federation to their countries.
In the period from 1989 to 2002, the number of titular ethnic groups in those former USSR republics where ethnic and social conflicts took place increased. The number of Tajiks, Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians has more than tripled.
Data from the 2010 population census show that the active growth in the number of representatives of the Transcaucasian countries in the period 2002-2010. stopped. The number of Georgians and Azerbaijanis in Russia decreased compared to 2002, the number of Armenians increased by 4.6%.
A new trend has become the increase in the number of titular ethnic groups Central Asian countries, which is a consequence of active labor migration from Central Asia to Russia, which intensified in the first decade XXI V. (Table 2).
Researchers believe that changes in ethnic identity, especially in families where there are representatives of Russian and other ethnic groups, led to a significant decrease in the number of Germans in Russia in the period from 2002 to 2010; similar processes of change ethnic identity occur in mixed Russian-Mordovian and Russian-Ukrainian families.
The 2010 census recorded the 22 most numerous ethnic groups in Russia, the number of which in Russia exceeds 400 thousand people; in 2002 there were 23 such ethnic groups, and in 1989 - 17. Due to population growth, by 2002 this group included Azerbaijanis, Kabardians, Dargins, Kumyks, Ingush, Lezgins and Yakuts, but dropped out due to a decrease number - Jews. In the period from 2002 to 2010, the Germans left this group due to a decrease in numbers, all other ethnic groups retained a population of more than 400 thousand people.
The number of seven peoples in Russia exceeds 1 million people: Russians, Tatars, Ukrainians, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Chechens and Armenians. There were changes in the composition of this group in the post-Soviet period: in 2002, Chechens and Armenians entered the group, and left it

Changes in the number of titular ethnic groups of the republics of the former USSR,
as well as Germans and Jews in Russia in 1989-2010.

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Belarusians and Mordovians. The same picture was preserved according to the 2010 census.
In accordance with the linguistic classification of languages, the peoples of Russia belong mainly to four language families: Indo-European (81.3% of the population), Altai (8.9%), Uralic (1.7%) and Caucasian (3.6%), which, in turn, are divided into groups. About 4% of Russian residents, according to the 2010 population census, did not indicate their nationality.
The largest in number is the Slavic group Indo-European family, 79.5% of the Russian population belongs to it.
The population of the most numerous among the Slavic peoples - Russians - amounted to 111.02 million people in 2010, this is 77.7% of the population of Russia. The number of Russians compared to 1989 by 2010 decreased in Russia by 8.85 million people. This happened mainly due to natural decline, which could not be compensated by the migration influx of Russians from neighboring countries, which was active in the first decade after the collapse of the USSR and amounted to more than 3 million people during that period.
Russians are settled everywhere, but most of them are concentrated within the main settlement zone. The most mononational are the central and northwestern regions of the European part, where the Russian state originated. Here the share of Russians in the population exceeds 93%. As a result of long migrations, Russians settled in the areas inhabited by other peoples of Russia, and now in most republics and almost all autonomous districts the Russian population numerically predominates.
The area of ​​settlement of the Russian ethnic group does not coincide with the state borders of Russia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, about 25 million (about 17% of all Russians in the USSR) ethnic Russians remained outside the Russian Federation on the territory of other union republics, in different time those who moved from Russia or were born in a new place. A distinctive feature of the Russian population of the former republics of the USSR is that most of them are predominantly urban residents and in Soviet times traditionally had a higher social status compared to the titular population of the union republics.
Most Russians outside of Russia live in Ukraine. According to the 1989 population census, there were 11 million people, or 22% of the country's population, and according to the latest Ukrainian census (2001) - a million people. (17.3% of the population of Ukraine). Russians in Ukraine live in the eastern regions, where heavy industry is developed, as well as in the central and southern regions.
There are many Russians in Kazakhstan: in 1989 there were one million, or 38% of the population, according to the 2009 Kazakhstan census - one million, or 24% of the population (the main reason for the decrease in the number of Russians in Kazakhstan is migration outflow to Russia). A significant part of the Russians in Kazakhstan are descendants of settlers from the tsarist era, who plowed the fertile lands of Northern Kazakhstan, or who arrived in the 1950s. develop virgin and fallow lands in the same areas. In 2009, Russians made up a significant share of the population in North Kazakhstan, East Kazakhstan, Karaganda, Kustanai, Pavlodar and Akmola regions.
After the collapse of the USSR, there were 1.3 million Russians in Belarus; according to the 2009 census, their number decreased to 785 thousand; in Uzbekistan in 1989, 1.6 million lived, according to various data at the beginning of the 2000s. - 1.2 million; in Kyrgyzstan - 0.9 million, according to the 2009 census - 0.4 million.
A special situation arose in Latvia, where in 1989, out of a total population of 2.6 million people. slightly less than 1 million were Russians. The Latvian government seeks to maintain a number of advantages for the indigenous population and limit the rights of “migrants”, which, first of all, concerns obtaining citizenship and the possibility of studying in Russian. A similar situation has developed in Estonia, although there are fewer Russians there (0.5 million, or 30%).
In other republics of the former USSR, the number of Russians who ended up there ranged from 50 thousand (Armenia) to 500 thousand (Moldova), and their share in the population is much smaller.
TO Slavic group The Indo-European family also includes a million Ukrainians, 521 thousand Belarusians and 47 thousand Poles. A significant part of Ukrainians live in regions bordering Ukraine
Chernozem region and Krasnodar region. Agrarian migrations of the late XIX - early XX centuries. formed an increased share of Ukrainians in the population of the Primorsky Territory; during the Soviet period, the main direction of migration became the northern areas of new development - from Vorkuta to Magadan. The largest migration was to oil and gas producing regions Western Siberia: in the population of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the share of Ukrainians in 1989 was 17%, Khanty-Mansiysk - 12%, with the Russian average level - 3%. Currently, due to external migrations and changes in ethnic identity, the share of Ukrainians in the Russian population has decreased to 1%, and in these regions to 9.4% and 6%, respectively.
The Indo-European family also includes peoples of the Germanic group - Germans (394 thousand), living mainly in the south of Western Siberia, and Jews (156 thousand), living mainly in large cities of the European part of the country (in the population of the Jewish Autonomous Region their share is less than 1 %). The number of these peoples has decreased significantly over the past 20 years due to emigration to Germany and Israel.
Armenians are included in a separate language group, whose number in Russia in the 1990s. more than doubled and amounted to 1.13 million in 2002; by 2010, the active growth in the number of Armenians in Russia stopped, and their number amounted to 1.18 million. Most of Armenians live in the North Caucasus.
The largest people of the Iranian group in Russia are the Ossetians (528 thousand). The languages ​​of the Iranian group are spoken by Tajiks (there are 200 thousand of them in Russia), Tats living in the North Caucasus (1.6 thousand) and Mountain Jews (0.7 thousand). The number of peoples of the Baltic group (Latvians (19 thousand), Lithuanians (31 thousand) in Russia is relatively small; there are more Moldovans (156 thousand), whose language belongs to the Romance group.
The Altai language family is represented by several groups, the largest of which is Turkic. The settlement areas of the peoples of the Turkic group are located in the Ural-Volga region, Siberia, and the North Caucasus. This group includes the second largest people in Russia - the Tatars (5.3 million). 38% of all Tatars in Russia live in Tatarstan, a significant proportion of them are settled in Bashkiria, in the Volga regions and in the south of Western Siberia. The same group includes the Chuvash (1.44 million), living in the Middle Volga, and the Bashkirs (1.58 million), inhabiting the south of the Urals.
In the North Caucasus, the Turkic peoples include the Kumyks (503 thousand) and Nogais (104 thousand), living mainly in Dagestan, as well as the Karachais (218 thousand) and Balkars (113 thousand). In Siberia and the Far East, the Turkic group is represented by Yakuts (478 thousand), Tuvinians (264 thousand), significantly smaller Khakassians (73 thousand), Altaians (74 thousand), Shors (13 thousand), as well as Dolgans living in the Far North (8 thousand).
Of the Turkic peoples of the near abroad, the largest number of people in Russia are Kazakhs (648 thousand); they are concentrated in the regions of the Ural-Volga region and the south of Western Siberia bordering Kazakhstan. Central Asian peoples are represented by Uzbeks (290 thousand), Kyrgyz (103 thousand) and Turkmens (37 thousand). The number of Azerbaijanis living in Russia is noticeably higher - 603 thousand; their settlement area is also very wide: less than 1/3 live in the border North Caucasus region.
Mongolian group The Altai language family is represented by two related peoples - the Buryats (461 thousand) and the Kalmyks (183 thousand), who migrated from the south of Siberia to the Lower Volga in the 17th century. The Tungus-Manchu group of the same family includes small peoples Siberia and Far East- Evenks (38 thousand), Evens (22 thousand) and Amur peoples (Nanai, Ulchi, etc.). Koreans (153 thousand) make up a separate language family, most of them live in the Far East.
Peoples Ural family They live mainly in the north of the European part of Russia, in the Volga-Vyatka region and the Urals. In the Finno-Ugric group, the largest and most widely settled ethnic group is the Mordovians (744 thousand), whose numbers are constantly declining due to assimilation. This group also includes Udmurts (552 thousand), Mari (548 thousand), Komi (228 thousand), Komi-Permyaks (94 thousand) and Karelians (61 thousand). The number of Karelians has decreased by almost a third over the past 30 years due to rapid assimilation; their share in the Republic of Karelia is less than 7%. 18 thousand Estonians and 20 thousand Finns live in Russia, and there are very few Hungarians, Vepsians and Sami, who also belong to this language group. Beyond the Urals, the Finno-Ugric peoples are the Khanty (31 thousand) and Mansi (12 thousand), whose share in their autonomous region decreased to 1.5% after

mass migration of the Slavic population during the development of major oil and gas fields. The Samoyed group of the Ural family includes the Nenets (45 thousand), the small Selkups (3.6 thousand) and Nganasans (0.9 thousand) living in the Far North.
The peoples of the North Caucasian language family are represented by two groups. In the northwestern part live the Adygeis (125 thousand) and related Kabardians (517 thousand), Circassians (73 thousand) and Abazas (43 thousand). All of them belong to the Abkhaz-Adyghe group. It also includes Abkhazians living mainly in Transcaucasia. The Nakh-Dagestan group unites the peoples of the southeastern part of the region. The largest people of the North Caucasus are the Chechens (1.43 million); There are 445 thousand Ingush, close to them in language. In the Dagestan subgroup, the largest people in number are the Avars (912 thousand), followed by the Dargins (589 thousand), Lezgins (474 ​​thousand), Laks (179 thousand) and Tabasarans ( 146 thousand), in addition to them, Dagestan is inhabited by many ethnic groups and subethnic groups (Rutulians, Aguls, Tsakhurs, Udins, etc.).
The Chukchi-Kamchatka language family is extremely small; it includes the Chukchi (16 thousand), Koryak (8 thousand) and Itelmen (3 thousand). There are even fewer Eskimos (1.7 thousand) and Aleuts (0.5 thousand) in Russia, united in a separate family. The languages ​​of two small peoples (Kets and Nivkhs) do not belong to any of the existing language families and stand out as isolated.
Ethnic structure of Russian regions. Of the 83 regions - subjects of the Federation - 26 are national-territorial entities: 21 republics, 1 autonomous region, 4 autonomous districts.
Of the 21 republics of Russia, in 10 titular peoples make up more than half of all residents. This is the majority of the North Caucasus republics: Dagestan (more than 80%), Chechnya (95%), Ingushetia (94%), Kabardino-Balkaria (70%), North Ossetia (65%), Karachay-Cherkessia(53%), as well as Kalmykia (57%), Chuvashia (68%), Tatarstan (53%) and Tuva (82%). The minimum shares of titular ethnic groups are in Karelia (7.4%) and Khakassia (12%).
In autonomous okrugs, titular peoples make up a minority of the population. Minimum values ​​due to the influx of new settlers in last decades have Khanty-Mansi (2.1%) and Yamalo-Nenets (about 6%) districts.
The dispersed distribution of many peoples, their intensive contacts with each other and especially with the Russians contributed to the process of assimilation (“dissolution” of some peoples among others). Among the Finno-Ugric peoples, the ethnic territory of the Mordovians is the most dispersed: 45% of the Mordovians live on the territory of Mordovia. Among the population of Mordovia, Mordovians make up 40%, the rest of the population is mainly Russian, with a few Tatars and Chuvash. The share of the titular nation in Karelia is even smaller: there Karelians make up 7.4% of all residents. The number of Karelians and Mordovians has been declining in recent decades due to assimilation among Russians.
The meaning of the Russian language for the peoples of Russia. According to the 2002 census, the Russian language is spoken not only by almost all Russians living in Russia (99.8%), but also by representatives of other nations. Out of 29 million people. The non-Russian population of Russia is 27 million people. stated that they speak Russian. In total, 98.4% of the Russian population speak Russian.
Thus, the vast majority of the Russian population can communicate with each other in Russian. This is especially important for regions where people speak different languages, for example, in Dagestan, where the Russian language serves as a language of interethnic communication. This is also important for other republics, where the titular peoples speak very different languages, for example, for Kabardino-Balkaria (where Kabardian language belongs to the North Caucasian family, and Balkar - to Turkic group Altai family).
In addition, knowledge of the Russian language by representatives of non-Russian peoples allows them to join Russian culture (and through it to the world), receive education not only at home, but also in any region of Russia, and participate in solving all-Russian problems.
At the end of the 1980s. Numerous national movements appeared that set as their goal the revival of their native language and culture. Often their activities were accompanied by increased ethnocentrism and nationalism, and ethnic conflicts. In the struggle of the Russian republics for sovereignty and increased status, ethnic reasons were not always the main ones. Most often, the main driving force behind the conflict with the federal authorities was the desire of the republican elites for greater independence from the Center, for which purpose the national map.
The real manifestations of separatism were strongest in Chechnya, where the conflict lasted for more than 10 years. In the early 1990s. Separatism was also noticeable in Tuva, which for several decades had own statehood and only in 1944 was annexed to Soviet Union. A positive example of reaching a compromise between the federal and republican authorities was the Republic of Tatarstan, which was the first to conclude an agreement on the division of powers, which put an end to the confrontation.
Another reason for the emergence of conflicts is interethnic contradictions, which were the result of the deportations of some peoples during the war years (see the section “Population migrations”) and the repeated redistribution of the borders of the republics. The most acute were the armed clashes between the Ingush and Ossetians over the Prigorodny region, which belongs to North Ossetia, but was previously part of the Chechen-Ingush Republic. Similar contradictions exist between the peoples of Dagestan, but they are resolved peacefully. The change in the borders of the republics led to the transfer to their composition of part of the flat lands inhabited by the Cossacks. The growing agrarian overpopulation of the republics of the North Caucasus has increased competition for land, which is now leading to the displacement of Russians from these areas and increasing contradictions between different ethnic groups.
Conflicts related to the numerical predominance of one of the two ethnic groups and the concentration of power in the hands of its representatives exist in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia. Somewhat different problems are typical for Bashkiria, where until recently the Bashkirs were only the third largest people after the Russians and Tatars (the 2002 and 2010 censuses recorded a slightly larger number of Bashkirs in Bashkiria than Tatars).
Most interethnic conflicts have roots in ancient and recent Russian history, aggravated by ethno-demographic and economic problems, so there are no simple paths to agreement. To resolve interethnic problems, improvement is necessary national policy, strengthening real federalism, creating conditions for free development languages ​​and cultures, strengthening guarantees that exclude infringement of the rights of citizens in ethnicity, taking into account the vital interests of small peoples when implementing large projects in the main territory of their residence.
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The confessional (religious) composition of the population of Russia is characterized by the absolute predominance of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is professed by the overwhelming majority of believers among the East Slavic peoples - Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia - Mordovians, Udmurts, Maris, Komi, Komi-Permyaks, Karelians, a number of Turkic peoples - Chuvash, Khakass, Yakuts. Among the peoples of the North Caucasus, only Ossetians profess Orthodoxy.
The second largest religion in Russia is Islam. It is professed by Tatars, Bashkirs and almost all peoples of the North Caucasus (except Ossetians).
Buddhism became widespread among the Mongol-speaking peoples - the Buryats, Kalmyks, and also among the Tuvans.
The majority of believers among representatives of small nationalities of the North, Siberia and the Far East (Nenets, Khanty, Mansi, Shors, Evenks, Nanais, etc.) are officially considered Orthodox, but in most cases they also profess tribal, pagan beliefs (shamanism).
The number of religious supporters of other faiths in Russia is small. Recently, there has been active missionary activity by representatives of non-traditional faiths in Russia.
Questions and tasks Define ethnicity. Describe the main approaches to ethnicity. What ethnic processes do you know? Give examples of ethnic
ical processes. Describe the ethnogeographical position of Russia. Indicate the main factors for changing the ethnic structure in
villages of Russia in the post-Soviet period. The number of which ethnic groups in Russia has changed due to mass
new ethnic migrations after 1991? Which ethnic groups in Russia are most actively affected by the AS process?
simulation? Give an ethno-linguistic classification of the ethnic groups living
in Russia. List the five most numerous peoples of Russia. Give a description of the ethnic structure of Russian regions.

168. What are the main causes of ethnic contradictions? What religions predominate in Russia?
Literature http://demoscope.ru - demographic weekly "Demoscope" http://www.perepis-2010.ru - portal "All-Russian census of
leniya 2010". http://www.gks.ru - official website of the Federal State Service
gift statistics. http://www.cisstat.com - interstate statistical company
CIS meeting. http://www.iea.ras.ru - website of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology
RAS. http://www.ethnology.ru - site “Ethnography of the Peoples of Russia”. http://socioline.ru - site “Sociology in a new way”.

49. Ethnic (national) composition of the world population

The study of the ethnic (national) composition of the population is a science called ethnology(from Greek ethnos - tribe, people), or ethnography. Formed as an independent branch of science in the second half of the 19th century, ethnology still maintains a close connection with geography, history, sociology, anthropology and other sciences.

The basic concept of ethnology is the concept of ethnicity. Ethnicity is a stable community of people that has developed in a certain territory, possessing, as a rule, a common language, some common features of culture and psyche, as well as a common self-awareness, i.e., awareness of their unity, in contrast to other similar ethnic formations. Some scientists believe that none of the listed characteristics of an ethnic group is decisive: in some cases main role territory plays, in others - language, in others - cultural features, etc. (In fact, for example, the Germans and Austrians, the British and Australians, the Portuguese and Brazilians speak the same language, but belong to different ethnic groups, and the Swiss, on the contrary, they speak four languages ​​and form one ethnic group.) Others believe that the defining feature should still be considered ethnic identity, which is also usually fixed in a certain self-designation(ethnonym), for example, “Russians”, “Germans”, “Chinese”, etc.

The theory of the emergence and development of ethnic groups is called theories of ethnogenesis. Until recently in national science The division of peoples (ethnicities) into three stage types prevailed: tribe, nationality and nation. At the same time, they proceeded from the fact that tribes and tribal unions - as communities of people - historically corresponded to the primitive communal system. Nationalities were usually associated with the slave-owning and feudal system, and nations, as the highest form of ethnic community, with the development of capitalist and then socialist relations (hence the division of nations into bourgeois and socialist). Recently, due to the revaluation of the former formational approach, which was based on the doctrine of historical continuity of socio-economic formations, and with an increasing focus on modern civilizational approach, many previous provisions of the theory of ethnogenesis began to be revised, and in scientific terminology – as a generalizing one – the concept of “ethnos” began to be used more and more widely.

In connection with the theory of ethnogenesis, it is impossible not to mention one fundamental dispute that has long been waged by domestic scientists. Most of them adhere to the view of ethnicity as historical-social, historical-economic phenomenon. Others proceed from the fact that ethnicity should be considered a kind of bio-geo-historical phenomenon.

This point of view was defended by geographer, historian and ethnographer L. N. Gumilev in the book “Ethnogenesis and Biosphere of the Earth” and his other works. He considered ethnogenesis to be a primarily biological, biospheric process associated with passionarity a person, that is, with his ability to supercharge his forces to achieve a great goal. In this case, the condition for the emergence of passionary impulses that influence the formation and development of an ethnic group is not solar activity, but special condition The Universe from which ethnic groups receive energy impulses. According to Gumilyov, the process of existence of an ethnos - from its origin to its collapse - lasts 1200–1500 years. During this time, it goes through phases of rise, then breakdown, obscuration (from the Latin obscurous - darkened, in the sense of reactionary) and, finally, relict. When the highest phase is reached, the largest ethnic formations—superethnoses—emerge. L.N. Gumilyov believed that Russia entered a phase of recovery in the 13th century, and in the 19th century. moved into a phase of breakdown, which in the 20th century. was in its final stage.

After becoming familiar with the concept of ethnicity, you can move on to considering the ethnic composition (structure) of the world's population, that is, its distribution according to the principle of ethnicity (nationality).

First of all, naturally, the question arises about total number ethnic groups (peoples) inhabiting the Earth. It is usually believed that there are from 4 thousand to 5.5 thousand. It is difficult to give a more precise figure, since many of them have not yet been sufficiently studied, and this does not allow distinguishing, say, a language from its dialects. In terms of numbers, all nations are distributed extremely disproportionately (Table 56).

Table 56

GROUPING OF PEOPLES ACCORDING TO THEIR NUMBER (1992)

Analysis of table 56 shows that in the early 1990s. 321 nations, numbering more than 1 million people each, accounted for 96.2% of the total population of the globe. Including 79 nations with a population of more than 10 million people accounted for almost 80% of the population, 36 nations with a population of more than 25 million people accounted for about 65%, and 19 nations with a population of more than 50 million people each accounted for 54% of the population. By the end of the 1990s. the number of largest nations grew to 21, and their share in the world population approached 60% (Table 57).

It is easy to calculate that total number The 11 nations, each numbering more than 100 million people, make up about half of humanity. And at the other pole there are hundreds of small ethnic groups living mainly in tropical forests and in the regions of the North. Many of them number less than 1,000 people, such as the Andamanese in India, the Toala in Indonesia, the Alakaluf in Argentina and Chile, and the Yukaghir in Russia.

Table 57

NUMBER OF THE LARGEST NATIONS OF THE WORLD AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURY.

No less interesting and important is the question of the national composition of the population of individual countries of the world. In accordance with its characteristics, five types of states can be distinguished: 1) single-national; 2) with a sharp predominance of one nation, but with the presence of more or less significant national minorities; 3) binational; 4) with a more complex national composition, but relatively homogeneous in ethnically; 5) multinational, with a complex and ethnically diverse composition.

First type states are quite widely represented in the world. For example, in overseas Europe about half of all countries are practically single-national. These are Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Italy, Portugal. IN foreign Asia There are significantly fewer such countries: Japan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and some small countries. There are even fewer of them in Africa (Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Madagascar). And in Latin America, almost all states are single-national, since Indians, mulattoes, and mestizos are considered parts of single nations.

Countries second type are also quite common. In foreign Europe these are Great Britain, France, Spain, Romania, and the Baltic countries. In foreign Asia - China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Syria, Turkey. In Africa - Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Zimbabwe, Botswana. IN North America– USA, in Oceania – Australia and New Zealand.

Third type countries is much less common. Examples include Belgium and Canada.

Countries fourth type with a rather complex, although ethnically homogeneous composition, are most often found in Asia, Central, Eastern and South Africa. They also exist in Latin America.

Most typical countries fifth type– India and Russia. This type also includes Indonesia, the Philippines, and many countries in Western and Southern Africa.

It is known that recently, in countries with a more complex national composition, interethnic contradictions have noticeably worsened.

They have different historical roots. Thus, in countries that emerged as a result of European colonization, oppression of the indigenous population (Indians, Eskimos, Australian aborigines, Maoris) continues. Another source of controversy is the underestimation of the linguistic and cultural identity of national minorities (Scots and Welsh in Great Britain, Basques in Spain, Corsicans in France, French Canadians in Canada). Another reason for the intensification of such contradictions was the influx of tens and hundreds of thousands of foreign workers into many countries. In developing countries, interethnic contradictions are associated primarily with the consequences of the colonial era, when the boundaries of possessions were drawn for the most part without taking into account ethnic boundaries, as a result of which a kind of “ethnic mosaic” arose. Constant contradictions on national grounds, reaching the point of militant separatism, are especially characteristic of India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, DR Congo, Sudan, Somalia, and many other countries.

The ethnic composition of the population of individual countries does not remain unchanged. Over time, it gradually changes, primarily under the influence of ethnic processes, which are divided into processes of ethnic division and ethnic unification. Separation processes include those processes in which a previously unified ethnic group either ceases to exist or is divided into parts. Unification processes, on the contrary, lead to the merging of groups of people of different ethnicities and the formation of larger ethnic communities. This occurs as a result of interethnic consolidation, assimilation and integration.

Process consolidation manifests itself in the merging of ethnic groups (or parts thereof) that are close in language and culture, which as a result turn into a larger ethnic community. This process is typical, for example, for Tropical Africa; it also happened in former USSR. Essence assimilation lies in the fact that individual parts of an ethnic group or even an entire people, living among another people, as a result of long-term communication, assimilate its culture, perceive its language and cease to consider itself belonging to the previous ethnic community. One of the important factors of such assimilation is ethnically mixed marriages. Assimilation is more typical for economically developed countries with long-established nations, where these nations assimilate less developed ones national groups of people. And under interethnic integration understand the convergence of different ethnic groups without merging them into a single whole. It occurs in both developed and developing countries. It can be added that consolidation leads to the consolidation of ethnic groups, and assimilation leads to a reduction in national minorities.

Russia is one of the most multinational states in the world. It is inhabited by more than 190 peoples and nationalities. According to the 2002 census, Russians make up more than 80% of the total population. In second place in terms of numbers are the Tatars (more than 5 million people), the third are the Ukrainians (over 4 million), and the fourth are the Chuvash. The share of each of the other nations in the country's population did not exceed 1%.

Racial and ethnic (national) composition of the population

In resolving issues related to the justification of the location of productive forces, the study of the racial and ethnic (national) composition of the population, i.e., the ratio of representatives of individual races and peoples, their location, legal status, labor skills, etc., is of great importance.

All of humanity characteristic features appearance People are usually divided into three large races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Equatorial.

Caucasians, making up 47% total number inhabitants of the Earth, before the great geographical discoveries, lived in Europe, North Africa, the Near and Middle East and India, and later settled throughout the world. Mongoloid people, who make up 37% of the world's population, live mainly in East and Southeast Asia. The indigenous population of America, the Indians, also belong to the Mongoloid race. Representatives of the equatorial, or Negro-Australoid, race (about 5% of the Earth's population) live mainly in Africa.

The rest of the planet's inhabitants (about 11-12%) belong to mixed and transitional racial groups, formed as a result of migrations and mixing of racial types.

Large races, in turn, are divided into so-called small races. For example, Caucasian is divided into northern, Baltic, Alpine and a number of other small races.

Human races-- a group of people connected by a common origin and external physical signs(skin color, hair type, facial features, etc.), formed in the distant past under the influence of the natural environment. These traits are mainly of an adaptive nature, acquired by humans as a result of adaptation to the conditions of the natural environment.

Nations(peoples, ethnic groups) were formed as society developed, usually from representatives of several small or large races.

The characteristic features of an established nation are: common territory, language, economic life, national culture, a sense of patriotism.

Thus, peoples (ethnic groups) are groups of people united by the historically established unity of language, territory, economic life and culture, national identity. There are about 4 thousand peoples in the world, which can be classified according to various criteria, including size and language.

The numerous peoples (from 100 million or more people) include: Chinese - Han (representatives of the Han ethnic group live mainly in China and make up more than 95% of the population of this country), Hindustani (residents of India, make up about a quarter of the population of this country), Americans (USA), Bengalis (the main population of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal), Punjabis (mainly residents of Pakistan and the Indian state of Punjab), Biharis (residents of the Indian state of Bihar, Bangladesh, Nepal), Russians, Brazilians, Japanese, Mexicans, Javanese.

The number of most peoples is small - less than 1 million people.

The classification of peoples by language is based on the principle of their kinship, i.e., taking into account the relatedness of the origin of the language. On this basis, all peoples are united into linguistic families. There are about 20 such families in total. The most common of them is the Indo-European family, its languages ​​are spoken by almost half of all humanity. The Indo-European family includes Slavic, Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Baltic and other language groups. Sino-Tibetan, Altai, Uralic, Caucasian, Niger-Kordofanian, Semitic-Hamitic families of languages ​​are also widely spoken.

In accordance with the national composition of the population, all countries of the world are divided into single-national and multinational. In general, the world is dominated by multinational states, some of them are home to dozens and even hundreds of peoples. Representatives of such states can be India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, the USA, and most African countries. Examples of single-national states are Poland, Hungary, Germany (in Europe), Chile (in Latin America), Japan, Korea, Bangladesh (in Asia), Australia.

Ethnic composition of the population

Studying any country in geography is impossible without knowledge of the peoples who live in it. Here it is important to know what language this people speaks, and what features of spiritual and material culture distinguish it from other peoples, and what is the peculiarity of its demographic behavior. Many sciences study the past and present of peoples: archeology, geography, philosophy and other sciences. But there is also a special science - ethnography (ethnology), which studies the origin of peoples, their main characteristics and properties, and the relationships between them.

The main concept in ethnography is the concept of ethnicity.

Ethnos– (from the Greek éthnos - society, group, tribe, people) a historically established stable community of people, possessing a set of characteristics: common territory and language, relatively stable features of material and spiritual culture and psyche, as well as awareness of its unity and difference from others of the same kind formations, i.e. self-awareness and self-name (according to Yu.V. Bromley

Of the listed characteristics of an ethnic group, not one is absolutely necessary to classify a group of people as a specific nation. Thus, the same people can speak two languages ​​(for example, Belarusians speak both Russian and Belarusian). And on English language spoken by the British, Australians, New Zealanders, US Americans, Irish and other peoples. As for the commonality of territory, this attribute is not always an obligatory attribute of an ethnic group. For example, those emigrants who moved to permanent place residence in Canada, USA, Brazil. Very difficult inside large group people to find absolute similarity in clothing, food, social behavior. People are always different. And maybe a metropolitan resident of Moscow will be closer in terms of material and spiritual culture to a Parisian or Londoner than to a similar Russian, but living in a village beyond the Urals. Rather, the commonality of territory is a necessary condition for its emergence and existence.

That's why the most important element ethnic identification of any group of people is ethnic identity.

Under ethnic identity It is customary to understand a person’s awareness of his belonging to a certain people (ethnic group), and by self-designation designate this ethnic group with a word.

Sometimes ethnic self-awareness takes on hypertrophied forms, i.e. representatives of a certain people consider themselves more “significant” in comparison with other peoples living nearby, while achieving the privileges of one people over another in many spheres of life (in the sphere of power, economic structures, symbols, etc.) This ethnic identity is called nationalism. An extremely aggressive form of nationalism is chauvinism, in which representatives of a certain ethnic group apply ethnic discrimination or forced assimilation to other peoples. Moreover, if these measures reach the extermination of people of another nationality, then such a phenomenon as genocide.

Famous Russian scientist L.N. Gumilyov believes that the ethnic group is in the process of constant development and transformation, has a stage of origin, development, aging and disappearance (now such peoples as the Byzantines, Hellenes, Romans, Huns, Babylonians have already been forgotten, but once these were great peoples who left us traces of our great culture). From the moment of origin to the moment of extinction, about 1200-1550 years pass, and the current “backward peoples”, for example, the peoples of Africa or Oceania, are just ethnic groups at their stage of youth or, on the contrary, old age, and civilized Europeans are arrogant because they can use the accumulated culture of previous centuries of its development.

In our ethnography it is customary to distinguish three stages formation of an ethnos (the so-called staged or temporary types).

The earliest and simplest stage of development of an ethnos is considered clan and tribe. A clan and tribe has the following characteristics: a certain territory; general signs economic activity; tribal power. Ethnic self-awareness among tribe members is reflected in the idea of common ancestor. This category is historical and classic example Evenks, Nenets (northern peoples living in European north our country) back in the recent pre-revolutionary past. Examples of the modern period include some surviving tribes in inaccessible isolated places among the Indians of South America, the aborigines of Australia, and the peoples of equatorial Africa.

With the growth of the social division of labor, with the advent of class society and the formation of states, nationalities– the second stage of development of the ethnos. Nationality can be perceived in two senses:

1. Stage of development of an ethnos, occupying an intermediate position between a tribe and a nation. In this case, this group of people has the following characteristics: a single territory, culture, the beginnings of a community of economic life and statehood; ethnic self-awareness is already expressed in the awareness of common origin from a particular tribe.

2. Modern ethnic groups that have lost the characteristics of a tribe and have not become nations.

The highest stage of development of an ethnic group is the nation.

Nation can also have two meanings:

§ The highest stage of development of an ethnic group, characterized by the presence of statehood, common ethnic territory, economic life, emergence and spread literary language, recognized as state, by the presence of ethnic identity;

§ The totality of citizens of one state.

Ethnic communities are in constant motion: their numbers change, their gender and age composition changes, some communities disappear, others emerge. All those processes that lead to changes either in some individual elements or in the ethnic group as a whole are called ethnic processes. They are ethnically unifying or ethnically dividing.

At the stage of the emergence and formation of states, ethno-unification processes were most common. Experts mainly distinguish two such processes: consolidation and assimilation. Consolidation is the merging of groups that are close in language and culture into a larger ethnic community or the inclusion of a group close to it into an ethnic community. Thus, from the related tribes of the Krivichi, Radimichi and Dregovichi, such a people as the Belarusians were subsequently formed. Ethnic assimilation is the process of “dissolution” of a previously independent ethnic group or some part of it in the environment of another, usually more large ethnic group. It can be natural and violent. With natural assimilation, due to long residence in a foreign country, immigrants acquire the language, culture, and stereotypes of behavior of people in the country of residence. The main way in this case is interethnic marriages. An example of forced assimilation could be the Polishization of Belarusians during the annexation of Belarusian lands to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, when the Polish language, the Catholic faith, and Polish schools were implanted in our population.

Not today precise definition the number of peoples, but the most common value for the number of peoples is 2000 – 2500, which are at various stages of development. The most widespread among geographers are classification of peoples by number and language.

By population the grouping of peoples was proposed by S.I. Brook. The largest nations, whose number exceeds 100 million people. are: Chinese, Hindustani, US Americans, Bengalis, Russians, Brazilians, Japanese, Punjabis. These 8 nations account for about 41% of the total world population. Nations with a population of 50 to 100 million make up about another 17% of the population. Today there are 12 such peoples. But most of all (more than 180) peoples have a population of 1 to 5 million people. Although together they account for only 8% of the world's population.

The most common is linguistic classification of peoples world (based on the relationship of languages). The taxonomic ranks of the peoples of the world adopted in the linguistic classification of peoples are as follows:

§ Subgroup

§ Division

In the linguistic classification of the peoples of the world, it is customary to distinguish the following families: Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Niger-Congo family, Semitic, Berber, Cushitic, Chadian, Austronesian, Dravidian, Altai, Ural-Yukaghir, Austroasiatic, Paratai, Nilo-Saharan, North Caucasian, Kartvelian, Miao-Yao family, Australian, Eskimo- Aleutian, Chukchi-Kamchatka, Papuan families, families of Indian peoples, Andaman.

Some peoples occupy an isolated position, i.e. do not belong to any named family (Ainu, Basque, Nivkh, Burishi, Hoti, Kusunda).