Abstract: The article studies the logic of the process of style formation at the early stage of national composers’ work. The author uses the methodologies of ethnopsychology and sociology of the depths to make an assumption about the need for interpreting this process of the birth of a new, individual author’s form of artistic synthesis of the European professionality and the fundamentals of the traditional culture of the author’s ethnos via the structural logic of a rite of passage. This problem is solved based on the analysis of one of the early works of Dagestan composer M. Kasumov - “First concerto for violin with orchestra” (1971). The usage of a four-stage model of passage (V. Turner, Yu.M. Lotman, A.-J. Greimas), instead of a three-stage one (J.G. Frazer, V.I. Tiupa), which includes the stage of partnership, helps specify the process of assimilation of the Russian music culture and clarify the specificity of the moment of turning a “foe” into a “friend”. The analysis of Kasumov’s concerto shows that the principle of self regulation of heterogeneous style systems is connected with a special form of dialogue relations between the two canons which are among the supreme sacral values of the European and the traditional cultures. Therefore, the very process of sensemaking at the early stage of creative work of a national composer includes two stages of dramaturgic development. The first one is defined by the necessity to achieve cultural identity, the second one, inspired by the instinct of self-preservation, is aimed at ethnic self-identification. Every national composer solves this problem of a two-staged artistic challenge in their own manner forming the individual image of their style system.