Safonov, A. L. Nation and Ethnos as Essentially Different Social and Historical Phenomena: From Early States to Globalization

Abstract: The author develops and substantiates the concept of the co-existence of nations and ethnoses in the course of historical process. The author views nation and ethnos as essentially different social phenomena that have their peculiar genesis, socio-dynamic development and ontological grounds. According to the author, ontological differences between nation and ethnos are not always clearly seen based on the materials of the previous two or three centuries of the European history. These differences are much better seen based on the examples of the development of early political communities of the Ancient times and Classical Antiquity. According to the author, the periods of the rise and decline of a state institution has been evidently accompanied with the periodic (cyclic) actualization and de-actualization of ethnoses and ethnic identities. The periods of the progressive development and rise of political communities (state institutions and civilizations) have been accompanied with the cyclic weakening of ethnic groups and ethnic identity. The author offers the terms ‘early nation’ and ‘proto-nation’ to describe early political communities. The methodological base of the present research is the comparative social and philosophical analysis of the main theories and concepts of socio-genesis combined with the comparative study of the early forms of state institutions and social communities of the political genesis that were created by particular forms of state institutions and were different from the initial ethnic substrate. The fact that the early states had a developed system of evident class, estate and cast groups which genesis and reproduction were directly related to the state and governmental institutions allows to make an assumption that the early states also had a system-forming social community which genesis was also related to the political sphere. According to the author, these communities called ‘early nation’ or ‘proto-nation’ were created when the common social space of a traditional community was split and elites of warriors and hierophants became independent and led to the formation of political institutions. Early political communities started to differentiate from the early ethnos as a result of objective differentiation of different spheres of human existence. Early political communities that appeared as a result of the formation of the first urban localities as political, cultural and trading centers demonstrated a more obvious difference from the initial ethnic substrate that existed in the form of a traditional rural community. This proves the author’s hypothesis according to which national and ethnos are long-coexisting but at the same time esse ntially different social phenomena that have their peculiar genesis, socio-dynamic development and ontological grounds.

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