Over the past quarter century, the self-identification of citizens of our country has undergone changes many times, most often against the backdrop of political unrest. Well, over the past few years it has even become fashionable to be “Russian”. It is not for nothing that it is believed that the nationality “Russian” is more than just the concept of “nationality”, it is a state of mind. How many nationalities are there in the world, how were they formed and how do they differ from citizenship? All these questions have become very relevant recently.
Origin of nationalities
Just a few centuries ago, such a concept as “nationality” did not even exist; only data on the speakers of a particular language were calculated. Actually, this is what is happening now in many other countries on our planet. Humanity has always sought to divide itself into certain ethnic groups, for example into tribes of a primitive communal system. Later, during the era of slavery and feudalism, the concept of nationality began to take shape. And when society came to the bourgeois system, the concepts of “nation” and “nationality” appeared as the next stage in the development of ethnic groups. In most countries of the world these definitions refer to the identification of citizenship, while in Russia and some other countries they have a broader meaning.
On a global scale
The concepts of “nationality”, “nation” and “nationality” are almost identical, and it is difficult to isolate the main difference between them, because the division into ethnic groups has existed much longer than any of these definitions. Today, it is incredibly difficult to count all the nationalities of the world, because they are in constant dynamics, merging with each other, as a result of which many disappear. According to rough estimates, there are now about two thousand nationalities on the planet with a tendency of their constant decrease. This is somewhat more than self-identification on a linguistic or territorial basis, because with 251 official states in the world, there are about six thousand languages, each of which is native to someone. Therefore, it is difficult to determine how many nationalities actually exist. In addition to the most common and well-known, such as the Americans, British, Germans, French, Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Bulgarians and others, there are small and little-known ethnic groups: Baluchis, Golds, Ingris, Lappis, Mishars and many others.
Difficulty of definition
Nationality is usually called belonging to a particular ethnic group. It is hereditary in nature, because its main features are the person’s surname and appearance, as well as some character traits that are defined as mentality. But this concept is quite conditional. Due to the constant dynamics of mixing of ethnic groups in the pedigree of a person, the presence of representatives of a wide variety of nationalities is possible, which complicates the very definition of nationality. Thus, despite the fact that in many countries the main feature of such a definition is citizenship or language, nationality increasingly remains a concept of individual self-identification.
From Empire to Federation
In the Russian Empire, a population census was held in 1897, then a citizen’s belonging to one or another ethnic group was determined on the basis of language and religion. A little later, the concept of “nationalities” and “peoples” began to be used, and the column “nationality” in passports appeared already in the Soviet Union in the 70s of the last century. The Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR had this name to more accurately define the territorial entities represented in it (republics, autonomous regions and districts). Well, today the Constitution of the Russian Federation enshrines the right to self-determination in choosing nationality.
Such different “Russians”
Many people are very interested in the question of why all the nationalities of the world are nouns (Latvians, Poles, Romanians, Tatars and others), and only Russians have this as an adjective. It is difficult to answer this question for sure, and different scientists have put forward different theories. Let's start with the fact that this is the largest nationality in the world. According to various estimates, from 130 to 150 million people around the globe, living not only in Russia, but also far beyond its borders, have the “Russian” nationality. Russians are the largest East Slavic ethnic group. This is the bulk of the population and indigenous people of Russia, as well as the majority of the population of former Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova and others. But Russians are widespread not only in the post-Soviet space; in the USA, Germany, Canada and Brazil, as well as in other large countries, they are represented by large diasporas. The language of nationality is Russian. Some subethnic groups of the Russian people in other countries have their own names: Goryuns (region of Ukraine), Lipovans (region of Romania), Albazins (region of China), Nekrasovtsy (region of Turkey). As for the territory of Russia itself, despite the common nationality “Russian”, the population is also divided into narrower ethnic groups, such as Cossacks, Sayans, Tudovites, Pomors, Kolyma residents, Siberians, Markovites and many others, depending on the region of residence .
What defines a Russian?
It is believed that as a nationality, “Russian” is too concise a concept. These are not just some anthropological characteristics or endings of surnames with -ov/-ev. V.I. Dahl, the great Russian scientist, writer and lexicographer, had his own point of view on determining a person’s nationality, and there is undoubtedly a rational grain in this opinion. He believed that depending on what language a person thinks in, he belongs to that people. Russian is spoken by a huge part of the world's population and, in addition to Russia, by the overwhelming majority of the population of some former republics of the USSR, while classifying themselves as other nationalities on a territorial basis. Russians are more than a nationality, they are a civilization, original and unique, combining language, culture, and mentality into a single whole.
Russians are an unusually numerous people, formed from the tribes of the Eastern Slavs. Today, most Russians live on the territory of the Russian Federation (more than eighty percent of its population). Where did the Russian nation come from?
Russians descended from the Indo-European group of peoples. If you believe archaeological data, the Slavs appeared in the first millennium BC. They are the direct ancestors of the Russians and some other peoples. Slavic tribes, or rather East Slavic tribes, gradually settled and occupied the area of modern Russia.
The Eastern Slavs are even called “Russian Slavs”. Each tribe had its own name depending on the area where they were located. But later they all united (in the twelfth century), and then gave rise to the Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians (this happened in the seventeenth century).
After the tribes united, the Old Russian nation was formed. The main groups of Eastern Slavs from which the Russians originated:
- Krivichi.
- Slovenia.
- Vyatichi.
- Northerners.
It is also necessary to note the Finno-Ugric tribes: Merya, Meshchera, Muroma and others. But the process of uniting the tribes was disrupted due to the invasion of the Mongols. Gradually, the Cossacks, Belarusians, and Ukrainians began to separate themselves. The Russian state was formed in the fifteenth century, from where the Russian people emerged.
Where the Russian people came from can be found out from ancient literary sources: “The Tale of Bygone Years”, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “Veles’s Book”.
Where did the word “Russian” come from?
It is not difficult to guess that the name of the people came from the word Rus', that is, from the state in which they lived. In turn, the origin of the word Rus is still controversial. There are many versions on this matter, which you can read about in the article “Theories of the origin of the name Rus”.
Initially, the word “Russian” was not used, they said Russian people. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the name “Russians” came, then “Great Russians”. But at the same time, the word “Russians” appeared here and there.
Where did the Russian land come from?
The emergence of Rus' and the state occurred as a result of the settlement of lands by Slavic tribes. Initially, these were Kyiv, Novgorod and the adjacent territories, the banks of the Dnieper and Dniester rivers. The Russian land was then called the Old Russian State, or Kievan Rus. Independent Russian principalities gradually formed (starting from the twelfth century). Then, in the middle of the sixteenth century, the Russian land was called the Russian kingdom. Since the eighteenth century - the Russian Empire.
Where did the Russian language come from?
Russian is an East Slavic language. It is very widespread in the world, and also occupies the lion's share among other Slavic languages in terms of frequency. Today, Russian is the official language in Russia. In addition, it is such in some other countries that have several languages.
Russians have been known since ancient times. They are mentioned in both Western European chronicles and Slavic chronicles. And today Russians remain the main people of Russia, maintaining their special character and rich culture.
Anthropologists classify Russians as the so-called Caucasoid race. The appearance, height, eye and hair color, and physique of Russians were formed as a result of the long development of their historical predecessors: the Scythians and Proto-Slavs, as well as contacts with other peoples - the Balts, Finno-Ugrians and even the Turks. An ordinary, typical Russian has blond hair, a not very wide face, and a fairly large nose. In the northern regions of European Russia, light-eyed and fair-haired people are often found; in the center - brown-eyed, with soft, usually dark brown, slightly curly hair, and in the south - dark-skinned and dark-eyed: the admixture of the blood of the Mongolian and Caucasian peoples is reflected. Russians in the northeast of the country have thin, straight hair and slightly narrowed eyes.
Russians have been known since ancient times. They are mentioned in both Western European chronicles and Slavic chronicles. There are many theories explaining the origin of the words “Rus”, “Russians”. Many modern scientists associate the name of the eastern group of Slavs with the left tributary of the Dnieper - the Ros River. In the first centuries of the new era, a large tribe of “Russians” or “Rodians” lived along the banks of this river, which, perhaps, gave the name to the first East Slavic state - Rus'.
At the beginning of the 14th century. The Moscow princes managed to unite individual lands, exhausted by internecine wars, and by the end of the 15th century. free yourself from the Horde yoke. The Russian state created by the Moscow rulers (in Western chronicles it was called Muscovy) quickly acquired, in the words of the outstanding Russian historian Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin, “independence and greatness.” Ivan III (1462-1505) - the first Moscow prince, who became known as the “autocrat of all Rus'.”
Muscovites XV-XVII centuries. spoke the same language and recognized themselves as a single people with a common faith (Orthodoxy) and culture. They perceived as brothers the inhabitants of the former ancient Russian lands, which ended up being part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Since that time, Russia has repeatedly declared itself as a multinational power. The idea of the special mission of Muscovy as the core of the world Christian Orthodox empire, of its unifying power, was supported by the theory of Moscow as the “third Rome.” According to the monk Philotheus (16th century), “two Romes have fallen, the third stands, and the fourth will not exist.”
The borders of the Russian state steadily expanded during the 16th and 17th centuries. The annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates (in 1552 and 1556, respectively), and the development of Siberia opened the way for Russian settlers to pour into these lands. New natural and cultural conditions forced the colonists to adopt forms of land cultivation and farming characteristic of local residents. Getting used to alien living conditions, the Russians, in turn, shared their own experience, including agricultural experience, with their neighbors.
Scientists date the beginning of the formation of the Russian nation to the end of the 16th century. A single material and spiritual culture arose, a unified administration in the created state, a common territory and, which had not existed before, economic life.
The resettlement of Russians to the lands of Left Bank Ukraine, which became part of the Russian state in 1654, the development of the Ural and Siberian lands by “willing people”, the successful struggle of Russia for access to the Baltic and the founding of a new capital in 1703 - St. Petersburg - expanded the territory inhabited by Russians . In the second half of the 18th century. the lands of Right Bank Ukraine and Crimea were annexed to it. In the same century, settlers from the center of the country moved to Kamchatka and began to develop lands beyond the Bering Strait - “Russian America” (Alaska, part of California and the Aleutian Islands).
The censuses of that time noted the religion, not the nationality, of people, so it is difficult to say exactly what the number of each people was in the multinational Russian Empire. According to data from the end of the 18th century, of the 37 million people inhabiting the Russian Empire, Russians made up approximately 53%, Ukrainians - 21, Belarusians - 8%.
By the beginning of the 19th century. There were two large ethnographic groups among Russians - Northern Russian and Southern Russian. They differed in the type of housing, clothing, language characteristics, and form of farming.
Northern Russian group at the beginning of the 19th century. occupied the territory from the Volkhov River in the west to the Mezen River and the upper reaches of the Vyatka and Kama in the east (modern Karelia, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Vologda,
Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Kostroma, part of the Tver and Nizhny Novgorod regions). The inhabitants of these lands spoke (and still speak) the “okay” dialect (for example, they pronounce: fifty dollars). They built monumental tall houses; There were few courtyards in the settlements. The basis of the traditional women's costume here was a sundress and a shirt worn underneath, which were richly decorated with embroidery or linen lace. The arable tool of the northerners was the plow.
Southern Great Russians are the inhabitants of the black earth strip of Russia from the Desna River basin in the west to the Sura River (a tributary of the Volga) in the east (modern Ryazan, Penza, Kaluga, Tula, Lipetsk, Tambov, Voronezh, Bryansk, Kursk, Oryol, Belgorod regions), They say in the “aka” dialect (here they will say: paltinnik). The basis of women's clothing was a richly embroidered shirt with a blanket. Houses in the south were not built as tall as the northerners, and the settlements, on the contrary, were large.
The interfluve of the Oka and Volga (modern Moscow, Vladimir, Kaluga, Ryazan, Penza, part of the Tver and Nizhny Novgorod regions) turned out to be a “transitional” zone, in the culture of which southern Russian and northern Russian traits crossed and modified.
The Russians living in western Russia had much in common with the Belarusians (light color of clothing, culinary preferences, for example, love for potatoes), and the Russian population of the Middle Volga region borrowed from their neighbors, the non-Slav Volzhans, ornaments on clothing and features of the interior decoration of their homes.
The Russians of Siberia were distinguished by their special way of economic life and way of life. They made up almost 70% of the settlers who arrived in this region in the 18th-19th centuries. Among the Old Believers who fled here from the persecution of the Nikonians, several groups formed (see the volume “History of Russia”, part 3, “Encyclopedia for Children”). From the middle of the 17th century. Whole families of Old Believers settled in Transbaikalia, hence the name Semeiskie. As a rule, colonists occupied lands along the banks of large rivers (Ob, Yenisei, Angara, Lena, Amur, Kolyma) and their tributaries. At the end of the 19th century. Russians settled in southern Siberia along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which was built from 1891 to 1916.
By the beginning of the 20th century. Russians made up 75% of the population of Siberia, 70% of the Urals, 63% of the Volga region, 40% of the Caucasus, 7% of Central Asia. The Russian government did not provide them with advantages on the annexed lands, so there was no hostility between Russian and non-Russian peasants. However, the bulk of Russians (more than 90%) still lived not in Siberia, but in the European territory of Russia. Almost all of them (98%) were Orthodox.
For many centuries, Russians lived in accordance with their unwritten laws, “according to conscience and truth.” There was practically no xenophobia (hatred of strangers, foreigners) in the Russian national character. Vindictiveness was also uncharacteristic for Russians: either a direct reaction to an insult or forgiveness of guilt was allowed. Orthodoxy demanded adherence to strict moral standards. Modern psychologists who study the national character of different peoples consider the following to be the traditional traits of Russians: long-suffering - and at the same time the ability to recklessly rise to rebellion, “senseless and merciless,” in the words of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin; hope for a true king (ruler) who can protect from untruth - and at the same time dreams of “free will” and freedom; asceticism, heroism - and weak character, humility (no wonder Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov wrote: “You are both powerful, you are also powerless, Mother Rus'”); thirst for the absolute (goodness, equality, justice) - and denial of the relative (success for oneself, happiness for a while). Russians have always highly valued a good name, honor, reputation in the eyes of friends and neighbors, and the desire for a united, “whole world” solution to controversial issues.
October 1917 opened a new page in the ethnic history of Russians. The Soviet state sought to replace everything “national” with “international”, workers’ and peasants’. The founder of the Soviet state, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, directly spoke about the need “not to think about your nation and to put the interests of everyone, universal freedom and equality above it. The central authorities waged a decisive struggle against the “dissenters.” In the press, the word “Russian” began to be replaced with “Russian” (proletariat, revolution, culture, etc.). “It’s over with Russia...” - the poet Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin sadly concluded, seeing how the lines between the national Russian and multinational cultures of the Russian Empire were blurring.
Soviet laws proclaimed the equality of all peoples, religions and languages. After the civil war, the ideologists of the new life openly announced the policy of “indigenization,” i.e., increasing the share of representatives of the indigenous, non-Russian population in government structures.
In words, the Soviet leadership strove for “the flourishing of all nations and cultures”, their “bringing together and merging.” In fact, such a policy led to a sharp reduction in teaching in national languages, and this caused a natural protest from non-Russian peoples. Russian was legally declared the “second native language” for all peoples of the Union. However, Russians did not have any advantages. Their standard of living in the RSFSR, especially in the provinces, was lower than in many republics (primarily in the Baltic states). This situation led to mutual antipathy in everyday life. The declaration of the RSFSR as “first among equals” gave rise to national discord between Russians and other peoples of the “fraternal family of republics.” The desire to develop a “multinational Soviet” (and in fact, nationally faceless) culture to the detriment of national cultures, including Russian, led to the eradication of the peculiarities of Russian folk life.
The collapse of the USSR in December 1991 changed the situation of Russians in the former Soviet republics. They turned into a national minority there and quickly began to join the ranks of emigrants.
In the 90s Nationalist parties and movements emerged in Russia. This is largely explained by the desire to return to the former moral foundations of society, which had previously been eradicated, and the desire to revive Russian culture.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia remains one of the world's largest powers. Russians live in it on a vast territory from the Kaliningrad region to the Far East, from Murmansk and northern Siberia to the foothills of the Caucasus and the former Central Asian republics. Their total number in the world is more than 146 million people; Of these, almost 120 million live in the RSFSR (out of the 148 million population of the country as a whole). Almost 24 million people ended up in the “near abroad” (i.e., in the territory of the former USSR), and 2.5 million people in the “far” (in the USA, Canada and other countries). Russians in the Russian Federation consider Russian their native language and use the Cyrillic alphabet when writing. Most believers are Orthodox.
There are more women among Russians than men (52.7% versus 47.3%), although every year this difference becomes less noticeable. The most common family among Russians today is a family of three (parents and one child), which does not even ensure simple reproduction.
Half of all Russians in the Russian Federation (49.7%) live in the center of European Russia, in the northwest, in the Volga-Vyatka region and the Volga region. Russians of the southern and northern ethnographic groups retain their characteristics, primarily the traditions of building and decorating houses, as well as culinary traditions.
Today, Russians remain the main people of Russia, maintaining their special character and rich culture.
When preparing the article, photographs from V. Belov’s book “Lad” were used
Russian Civilization
History shows that the word form “Russian nationality” in relation to a specific ethnic group did not become commonly used in Russia even by the beginning of the twentieth 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 German, the ancestors of General Peter 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 consider himself a Russian at all, and there is numerous documentary evidence of this. By the way, it was V.I. Lenin who first in Russia came up with the idea of introducing the column “nationality” in documents. In 1905, members of the RSDLP reported in questionnaires about their affiliation with a particular nation. Lenin in such “self-denunciations” wrote that he was a “Great Russian”: at that time, if it was necessary to emphasize nationality, the Russians called themselves “Great Russians” (according to the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron - “Great Russians”) - the population of “Great Russia” ”, called by foreigners “Muscovy”, which has been constantly expanding its possessions since the 13th century.
And Lenin called one of his first works on the national question “On the National Pride of the Great Russians.” Although, as Ilyich’s biographers found out relatively recently, there were actually “Great Russian” blood in his pedigree - 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 overwhelming majority of foreign countries, this identity has been preserved to this day.
History of the Russian people originally took place over vast geographical areas. The Old Russian state, which arose in the 9th century, extended from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the lower reaches of the Danube and the Carpathian Mountains in the west and the Volga-Oka interfluve in the east. This was the chronicled Russian land and the area of settlement of the ancient Russian people, which already in those distant times was distinguished by a strongly conscious unity with its land. The concept of Rus' came into the history of Kievan Rus from previous centuries. It has an ancient chronology and is localized in the southeast of the East Slavic area - this is the right bank of the Middle Full Rights - the Don region - the Azov region. On this territory in the 6th-7th centuries there was a strong tribal Russian union, which served in the 9th-10th centuries. the core for the formation of the Old Russian people, which included almost all East Slavic tribes.
The word Rus belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. The dual vocalization of the root Ros/Rus is a reflection of the ancient Indo-European vowel alternation in its local version. The original meaning of the word Rus is associated with the concept of light, white. Russian folk vocabulary retained this understanding until the twentieth century. The word Rus is like the whole wide world or the Tver concept in Rus', i.e. in an open place, space, on the south.
As East Slavic farmers settled in the Old Russian state, an ongoing process of internal land development took place, accompanied by ethnocultural contacts with multilingual peoples and, first of all, with the most geographically dispersed Balts (the Balts are peoples of Indo-European origin, speakers of the Baltic languages, who inhabited in the past and inhabit today the territory of the Baltic states from Poland and the Kaliningrad region to Estonia) and Finno-Ugric peoples. In the 10th-12th centuries, the Slavic Russians began the massive development of the Volga-Oka basin, where the core of the historical and ethnic territory of the Russians was later formed. The Old Russian state perished under the onslaught of Batu's invasion (1240), which was accompanied by mass extermination of the population and destruction of cities. The result of the collapse of statehood and grand-ducal strife was the isolation of ethno-territorial associations, which in a historical perspective led to the formation of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples.
The Russian development of vast spaces is a distinctive feature of Russian history. Very early, Russians developed the basins of the great northern rivers - Pechora, Onega, Northern Dvina; in the 13th century, Russians already compactly populated North-Eastern Rus'; in the XVI-XV centuries. They are developing the Middle and Lower Volga region, the Northern and Southern Urals, which were desolate due to the raids of nomads in the forest-steppe and steppe of Don Rus', as well as the Northern Caucasus. The peculiarity of the Russian movement to the northeast and east is characterized by two important factors. This, first of all, was the abundance of free land, which allowed Russian settlers not to clash in their interests with indigenous peoples. Secondly, almost uninhabited spaces were being developed: in the northeast - the huge region of Pomerania with impenetrable forests and forest-tundras, with a cold subarctic climate; in the east - the Volga region with dense forests and, beyond the Urals, the south of Siberia, Altai and Transbaikalia; in the southeast there are vast expanses of semi-deserts all the way to Central Asia. The development of Siberia and the Far East had outstanding geoterritorial significance for the Russians. As a result, from the 15th century the Russian state became Eurasian. This is an outstanding phenomenon of the Russians, who managed to unite the Eurasian space into a single state.
In the old Russian vocabulary there is a capacious and proud word: explorers. This was the name given to the first handful of brave people who discovered new lands and developed them economically themselves (as opposed to the colonial conquests of Europeans). During the entire observable historical period, the Russians developed 21 million square meters. km of land. This became possible thanks to the creation of Russian statehood and the developed self-awareness of the people. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Russians were the second largest people in the world. Along with them, the population of the empire increased. If under Peter I the population of Russia was slightly more than 13 million people, then in 1913 it was 174 million. This increase occurred mainly due to rapid population growth; to a lesser extent due to the annexation of new lands. By the beginning of the twentieth century. Russians in the European part of Russia made up 90% of the population. The total number of Russians in 1913 was about 76 million people.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century. the number of Russians, despite significant losses as a result of two world wars and other socio-economic cataclysms, almost doubled. According to the 1989 census in the USSR, the number of all Russians was 145 million, including 120 million in Russia. This is explained not only by significant natural population growth, but also by the merging of certain groups of other peoples with Russians. Since the 1970s, the growth rate of Russians began to decrease noticeably due to a sharp decline in the birth rate, and since the 1990s, a sharp increase in mortality. According to the 2000 census, the number of Russians in Russia was 126 million people. The increase by 6 million people in the number of Russians in Russia compared to the 1989 census was solely due to the influx of the Russian population from the former Soviet republics to Russia (approximately 4 million people), as well as due to changes in ethnic identity among part of the population of other nationalities , living in Russia; In addition, since 2000, natural population growth rates have stabilized slightly.
The settlement pattern is also changing. Already during the 1980s, there was a decrease in the migration of Russians outside Russia, with their simultaneous outflow from the former Soviet republics. In the 1990s, ethnotransformation processes (the process is called ethnotransformation, when, when individual components of an ethnic group change, the ethnic self-awareness of the people included in it changes, and at the same time, a person’s ethnicity also changes) intensified. The flow of Russian migrants to non-CIS countries has increased. As a result of depopulation processes (depopulation processes - a decrease in population growth rates, a decrease in its size), demographers predict a significant reduction in the Russian population by the middle of the 21st century.
The Russian language belongs to the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic group, which is part of the Indo-European family of languages. It is the most widely spoken language in the world, one of the six official and working languages of the UN, as well as one of the five working languages of the parliamentary assemblies of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Before the collapse of the USSR, the total number of Russian speakers was about 250 million people. The Russian language inherited its written language from Ancient Rus'. The modern Russian alphabet is based on the Cyrillic alphabet, one of the oldest Slavic alphabet.
Orthodoxy played an ethno-consolidating role (ethno-consolidation - people’s attitude to language, national-cultural ideology) at all stages of Russian history. Russian Orthodoxy continues this historical mission in modern conditions. Folk traditions of celebrating Easter, Trinity, the Nativity of Christ, the Assumption and many temple (throne) holidays help strengthen family, kinship and territorial ethnic ties.
The ethnocultural unity of the Russian people throughout the entire space of their settlement did not exclude a variety of differences and features in different aspects of life. These features and differences were formed during the ethnic history of Russians under the influence of the diversity of natural and climatic conditions and, accordingly, territorial and economic ways of life. Therefore, ethnographic literature traditionally distinguishes ethnocultural areas (from area - area, space), characterized by the specificity of dialects, anthropological types, the presence of ethnographic population groups, ethnocultural characteristics in economic activities, crafts and material culture, the diversity of local customs and rituals with the unity of the general model ritual and festive culture. For example, ethnographers traditionally distinguish northern and southern ethnocultural areas in the European territory of Russian settlement, and an intermediate center between them. This division is based on differences in dialects and elements of folk culture. Back at the beginning of the twentieth century. these differences between the North Russian and South Russian areas were very noticeable. During the twentieth century. some ethnocultural differences were being smoothed out (especially in clothing, as well as in language, local dialects were being smoothed out - there were almost no regional dialects left). But the lives of northern and southern Russians will have their own peculiarities, since the noticeable difference in natural and climatic zones also affects the specifics of everyday culture.
Every people on earth is a biosocial and cultural-historical phenomenon. Each people made its own special contribution to civilization processes. The Russians have done a lot on this path. But the main thing, according to some historical providence, that the Russians had to accomplish was to unite the vast Eurasian expanses from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean into a single historical, sociocultural and at the same time ethnically diverse space. This is an outstanding cultural and civilizational phenomenon of Russians.
