Germanic peoples

Germans. The basis of the German ethnos was formed by the ancient Germanic tribal associations of the Franks, Saxons, Bavars, Alemanni, and others, mixed in the first centuries of our era with the Romanized Celtic population and with the Reths. After the partition of the Frankish Empire (843), the East Frankish kingdom with a German-speaking population emerged. The name (Deutsch) has been known since the middle of the 10th century, which indicates the formation of the German ethnos. The seizure of the lands of the Slavs and Prussians3 in the X-XI centuries. led to the partial assimilation of the local population.

The British. The ethnic basis of the English nation was made up of the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, who conquered in the 5th-6th centuries. Celtic Britain. In the VII-X centuries. the Anglo-Saxon nationality was formed, which also absorbed the Celtic elements. Later, the Anglo-Saxons, mixing with the Danes, Norwegians and after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by immigrants from France, laid the foundation for the English nation.

Norse. The ancestors of the nobility - Germanic tribes of pastoralists and farmers - came to Scandinavia at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. NS. In Old English sources of the IX century. for the first time the term "Nordmann" - "northern man" (Norwegian) is encountered. Education in XX! centuries the early feudal state and Christianization contributed to the formation of the Norwegian people around this time. During the Viking Age (IX-XI centuries), settlers from Norway established colonies on the islands of the North Atlantic and in Iceland (Faroese, Icelanders).

Slavic peoples

The Slavs are the largest group of related peoples in Europe. It includes Slavs: Eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), Western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians) and southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Muslims, Macedonians, Bosnians). The origin of the ethnonym "Slavs" is not clear enough. It can be assumed that it goes back to the common Indo-European root, the semantic content of which is the concepts of "man", "people". The ethnogenesis of the Slavs probably developed in stages (Proto-Slavs, Proto-Slavs and the early Slavic ethnolinguistic community). By the second half of the 1st millennium AD. NS. separate Slavic ethnic communities (tribal unions) were formed.

Slavic ethnic communities were originally formed in the area either between the Oder and the Vistula, or between the Oder and the Dnieper. Various ethnic groups, both Slavic and non-Slavic, took part in ethnogenetic processes: Dacians, Thracians, Turks, Balts, Finno-Ugrians, etc. mainly with the final phase of the Great Migration (U-UI centuries). As a result, in the K-X centuries. formed a vast area of ​​Slavic settlement: from the modern Russian North and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Volga to the Elbe.

The emergence of statehood among the Slavs belongs to the UP-GX centuries. (First Bulgarian kingdom, Kievan Rus, Great Moravian state, Old Polish state, etc.). The nature, dynamics and pace of formation of the Slavic peoples were largely influenced by social and political factors. So, in the IX century. the lands inhabited by the ancestors of the Slovenes were captured by the Germans and became part of the Holy Roman Empire, and at the beginning of the X century. the ancestors of the Slovaks after the fall of the Great Moravian state were incorporated into the Hungarian state. The process of ethnosocial development among the Bulgarians and Serbs was interrupted in the XIV century. Ottoman (Turkish) invasion, stretching for five hundred years. Croatia in view of the danger from the outside at the beginning of the XII century. recognized the power of the Hungarian kings. Czech lands at the beginning of the 17th century. were included in the Austrian monarchy, and Poland survived at the end of the 18th century. several sections.

The development of the Slavs in Eastern Europe had specific features. The peculiarity of the process of the formation of individual nations (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) was that they equally survived the stage of the Old Russian nationality and were formed as a result of the differentiation of the Old Russian nationality into three independent closely related ethnic groups (XIV-XVI centuries). In the XUII-XUIII centuries. Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians ended up in one state - the Russian Empire. The process of the formation of nations among these ethnic groups proceeded at different rates, which was conditioned by the peculiar historical, ethnopolitical and ethnocultural situations experienced by each of the three peoples. So, for Belarusians and Ukrainians, an important role was played by the need to resist Polonization and Magyarization, the incompleteness of their ethnosocial structure, formed as a result of the merger of their own upper social strata with the upper social strata of Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, etc.

The process of the formation of the Russian nation proceeded simultaneously with the formation of the Ukrainian and Belarusian nations. In the conditions of the war of liberation against the Tatar-Mongol yoke (mid-12th - late 15th centuries), the ethnic consolidation of the principalities of North-Eastern Russia took place, which formed in the 11th-10th centuries. Moscow Russia. The Eastern Slavs of Rostov, Suzdal, Vladimir, Moscow, Tver and Novgorod lands became the ethnic core of the emerging Russian nation. One of the most important features of the ethnic history of Russians was the constant presence of sparsely populated areas adjacent to the main Russian ethnic territory, and the centuries-old migration activity of the Russian population. As a result, a vast ethnic territory of Russians was gradually formed, surrounded by a zone of constant ethnic contacts with peoples of different origins, cultural traditions and language (Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Baltic, Mongolian, West and South Slavic, Caucasian, etc.).

The Ukrainian people was formed on the basis of a part of the East Slavic population, which was previously part of a single ancient Russian state (IX-

XII centuries). The Ukrainian nation took shape in the south-western regions of this state (the territory of the Kiev, Pereyaslav, Chernigov-Seversky, Volyn and Galician principalities) mainly in the XIU-XU centuries. Despite the capture in the XV century. a large part of the Ukrainian lands by the Polish-Lithuanian feudal lords, in the XUI-XUII centuries. in the course of the struggle against the Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian conquerors and opposition to the Tatar khans, the consolidation of the Ukrainian people continued. In the XVI century. the Ukrainian (so-called Old Ukrainian) book language was formed.

In the XVII century. Ukraine was reunited with Russia (1654). In the 90s of the XVIII century. Russia included the Right-Bank Ukraine and the southern Ukrainian lands, and in the first half of the 19th century. - Danube. The name "Ukraine" was used to designate various southern and southwestern parts of the Old Russian lands back in the XII-

XIII centuries Subsequently (by the 18th century) this term in the meaning of "land", that is, the country, was fixed in official documents, became widespread and became the basis for the ethnonym of the Ukrainian people.

The most ancient ethnic basis of the Belarusians were the East Slavic tribes, which partially assimilated the Lithuanian tribes of the Yatvingians. In the IX-XI centuries. were part of Kievan Rus. After a period of feudal fragmentation from the middle of the XIII - during the XIV century. the lands of Belarus were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then in the 16th century. - a part of the Commonwealth. In the XIV-XVI centuries. the Belarusian people were formed, their culture developed. At the end of the 18th century. Belarus was reunited with Russia.

Other peoples of Europe

Celts (Gauls) are ancient Indo-European tribes that lived in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. NS. on the territory of modern France, Belgium, Switzerland, the southern part of Germany, Austria, the northern part of Italy, the northern and western parts of Spain, the British Isles, the Czech Republic, partly Hungary and Bulgaria. By the middle of the 1st century. BC NS. were conquered by the Romans. The Celtic tribes included Britons, Gauls, Helvetians, etc.

Greeks. Ethnic composition of the territory of Ancient Greece in the III millennium BC NS. was motley: the Pelasgians, Lelegs and other peoples, who were driven back and assimilated by the proto-Greek tribes - the Achaeans, Ionians and Dorians. The ancient Greek people began to form in the II millennium BC. e., and in the era of Greek colonization of the coast of the Mediterranean and Black Seas (VIII-VI centuries BC), a common Greek cultural unity was formed - the Hellenes (from the name of the tribe that inhabited Hellas - a region in Thessaly). The ethnonym "Greeks" originally belonged, apparently, to one of the tribes in Northern Greece, then it was borrowed by the Romans and extended to all Greeks. The ancient Greeks created a highly developed ancient civilization that played an important role in the development of the culture of Europe. In the Middle Ages, the Greeks constituted the main core of the Byzantine Empire and were officially called Romans (Romans). Gradually they assimilated the groups of Thracians, Illyrians, Celts, Slavs, Albanians who migrated from the north. Ottoman rule in the Balkans (15th - first half of the 19th century) was largely reflected in the material culture and language of the Greeks. As a result of the national liberation movement in the XIX century. the Greek state was formed.

Finns. The Finnish nationality was formed in the process of the merger of the tribes that lived in the territory of modern Finland. In the XII-XIII centuries. Finnish lands were conquered by the Swedes, leaving a noticeable imprint on the culture of the Finns. In the XVI century. Finnish writing appeared. From the beginning of the XIX to the beginning of the XX century. Finland was part of the Russian Empire with the status of an autonomous grand duchy.

The ethnic composition of the population of Europe as a whole is shown in table. 4.3.

Table 4.3. ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION OF EUROPE (data are given as of mid-1985, including the former USSR)

There are many blank spots in the history of the Slavs, which makes it possible for numerous modern "researchers", on the basis of conjectures and unproven facts, to put forward the most fantastic theories about the origin and formation of the statehood of the Slavic peoples. Often, even the concept of "Slav" is misunderstood and viewed as synonymous with the concept of "Russian". Moreover, there is an opinion that the Slav is a nationality. These are all delusions.

Who are the Slavs?

The Slavs constitute the largest ethno-linguistic community in Europe. Within it, there are three main groups: (i.e., Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians), Western (Poles, Czechs, Lusatians and Slovaks) and southern Slavs (among them we will name Bosnians, Serbs, Macedonians, Croats, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Slovenes) ... A Slav is not a nationality, since a nation is a narrower concept. Separate Slavic nations were formed relatively late, while the Slavs (or rather, the Proto-Slavs) separated from the Indo-European community for one and a half thousand years BC. NS. Several centuries passed, and ancient travelers learned about them. At the turn of the epochs, the Slavs were mentioned by Roman historians under the name of "Wends": it is known from written sources that the Slavic tribes waged wars with the Germanic ones.

It is believed that the homeland of the Slavs (more precisely, the place where they formed as a community) was the territory between the Oder and the Vistula (some authors argue that between the Oder and the middle reaches of the Dnieper).

Ethnonym

Here it makes sense to consider the origin of the very concept of "Slav". In the old days, peoples were often called by the name of the river on the banks of which they lived. Dnieper in ancient times was called "Slavutich". The very root "glory", perhaps, goes back to the common word kleu for all Indo-Europeans, meaning rumor or fame. There is another widespread version: "Slovak", "tslovak" and, ultimately, "Slav" is just a "person" or "a person who speaks our way." The representatives of the ancient tribes did not consider all strangers who spoke an incomprehensible language to be people at all. The self-name of any people - for example, "Mansi" or "Nenets" - in most cases means "man" or "man".

Household. Social system

A Slav is a farmer. They learned how to cultivate the land back in the days when all Indo-Europeans had a common language. In the northern territories, slash-and-burn agriculture was practiced, in the south - fallow. They grew millet, wheat, barley, rye, flax and hemp. They knew garden crops: cabbage, beets, turnips. The Slavs lived in the forest and forest-steppe zones, therefore they were engaged in hunting and bee-keeping, and also fished. They also raised livestock. The Slavs made weapons, ceramics, and agricultural tools of high quality for those times.

In the early stages of development, the Slavs existed which gradually evolved into a neighboring one. As a result of military campaigns, nobility emerged from the community members; the nobility received land, and the communal system was replaced by a feudal one.

General in ancient times

In the north, the Slavs coexisted with the Baltic and in the west with the Celts, in the east with the Scythians and Sarmatians, and in the south with the ancient Macedonians, Thracians, Illyrians. At the end of the 5th century AD. NS. they reached the Baltic and Black Seas, and by the 8th century reached Lake Ladoga and mastered the Balkans. By the 10th century, the Slavs occupied lands from the Volga to the Elbe, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. This migration activity was caused by the invasions of nomads from Central Asia, attacks by German neighbors, as well as climate change in Europe: individual tribes were forced to look for new lands.

History of the Slavs of the East European Plain

Eastern Slavs (ancestors of modern Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians) by the 9th century AD NS. occupied lands from the Carpathians to the middle reaches of the Oka and the Upper Don, from Ladoga to the Middle Dnieper. They actively interacted with the local Finno-Ugrians and Balts. Already from the 6th century, small tribes began to enter into alliances with each other, which marked the birth of statehood. Each such alliance was headed by a military leader.

The names of the tribal unions are known to everyone from the school history course: these are the Drevlyans, and the Vyatichi, and the northerners, and the Krivichi. But the most famous were, perhaps, the meadows and the Ilmen Slovenes. The former lived along the middle course of the Dnieper and founded Kiev, the latter lived on the shores of Lake Ilmen and built Novgorod. The “way from the Varangians to the Greeks” that arose in the 9th century contributed to the rise and, subsequently, the unification of these cities. So in 882 the state of the Slavs of the East European Plain - Russia - arose.

Higher mythology

The Slavs cannot be named Unlike the Egyptians or Indians, they did not manage to develop a developed mythological system. It is known that the Slavs (i.e., myths about the origin of the world) have much in common with the Finno-Ugric. They also contain an egg, from which the world is “born”, and two ducks, by order of the supreme god, bringing silt from the bottom of the ocean to create the earthly firmament. At first, the Slavs worshiped the Family and Rozhanitsy, later - the personified forces of nature (Perun, Svarog, Mokoshi, Dazhdbog).

There were ideas about paradise - Iriy (Vyri), (Duba). The religious ideas of the Slavs developed in the same way as among other peoples of Europe (after all, the ancient Slav is a European!): From the deification of natural phenomena to the recognition of a single God. It is known that in the 10th century AD. NS. Prince Vladimir tried to "unify" the pantheon, making the supreme deity of Perun - the patron saint of warriors. But the reform failed, and the prince had to pay attention to Christianity. Forced Christianization, however, could not completely destroy pagan ideas: Elijah the prophet was identified with Perun, and Christ and the Mother of God began to be mentioned in the texts of magical conspiracies.

Lower mythology

Alas, the myths of the Slavs about gods and heroes were not written down. But these peoples created a developed lower mythology, the characters of which - goblin, mermaids, ghouls, hostages, banniks, barnmen and noon days - are known to us from songs, epics, proverbs. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, peasants told ethnographers about how to protect themselves from a werewolf and negotiate with a mercenary. Some remnants of paganism are still alive in the popular mind.

SLAVS, the largest group of kindred peoples in Europe. The total number of Slavs is about 300 million people. Modern Slavs are divided into three branches: eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians), southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes, Muslim Bosnians, Macedonians) and western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatians). They speak the languages ​​of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family. The origin of the ethnonym Slavs is not clear enough. Apparently, it goes back to the common Indo-European root, the semantic content of which is the concept of "man", "people", "speakers." In this sense, the ethnonym Slavs is registered in a number of Slavic languages ​​(including the ancient Polabian language, where "Slavak", "Tslavak" meant "man"). This ethnonym (middle Slovenes, Slovaks, Slovins, Novgorod Slovenes) in various modifications is most often traced on the periphery of the settlement of the Slavs.

The question of ethnogenesis and the so-called ancestral home of the Slavs remains controversial. The ethnogenesis of the Slavs probably developed in stages (Proto-Slavs, Proto-Slavs and the early Slavic ethnolinguistic community). By the end of the 1st millennium AD, separate Slavic ethnic communities (tribes and tribal unions) were formed. Ethnogenetic processes were accompanied by migration, differentiation and integration of peoples, ethnic and local groups, assimilation phenomena, in which various, both Slavic and non-Slavic, ethnic groups took part as substrates or components. Contact zones arose and changed, which were characterized by ethnic processes of different types at the epicenter and at the periphery. In modern science, the views that the Slavic ethnic community originally developed in the area either between the Oder (Oder) and the Vistula (Oder-Vistula theory), or between the Oder and the Middle Dnieper (Oder-Dnieper theory) have received the greatest recognition. Linguists believe that the speakers of the Proto-Slavic language were consolidated no later than the 2nd millennium BC.

From here began a gradual advance of the Slavs in the southwestern, western and northern directions, coinciding mainly with the final phase of the Great Migration of Nations (V-VII centuries). At the same time, the Slavs interacted with the Iranian, Thracian, Dacian, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric and other ethnic components. By the 6th century, the Slavs occupied the Danube territories that were part of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, about 577 crossed the Danube and in the middle of the 7th century settled in the Balkans (Moesia, Thrace, Macedonia, the bulk of Greece, Dalmatia, Istria), partially penetrating into the Lesser Asia. At the same time, in the 6th century, the Slavs, having mastered Dacia and Pannonia, reached the Alpine regions. Between the 6th-7th centuries (mainly at the end of the 6th century), another part of the Slavs settled between the Oder and the Elbe (Labe), partially moving to the left bank of the latter (the so-called Wendland in Germany). Since the 7th-8th centuries, there has been an intensive advance of the Slavs into the central and northern zones of Eastern Europe. As a result, in the IX-X centuries. formed a vast area of ​​Slavic settlement: from the North-East of Europe and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Volga to the Elbe. Along with this, there was a disintegration of the Proto-Slavic ethnolinguistic community and the formation, on the basis of local pra-dialects, of Slavic language groups and later - the languages ​​of separate Slavic ethnosocial communities.

The ancient authors of the 1st-2nd centuries and the Byzantine sources of the 6th-7th centuries mention the Slavs under different names, either calling them generically as Wends, or singling out Ants and Sklavins among them. It is possible, however, that such names (especially "Wends", "Antes") were used to designate not only the Slavs proper, but also neighboring or other peoples associated with them. In modern science, the location of the ants is usually localized in the Northern Black Sea region (between the Seversky Donets and the Carpathians), and the Sklavins are interpreted as their western neighbors. In the 6th century, the Antes, together with the Sklavins, participated in the wars against Byzantium and partially settled in the Balkans. The ethnonym "anty" disappears from written sources in the 7th century. It is possible that it was reflected in the later ethnonym of the East Slavic tribe "Vyatichi", in the generalized designation of Slavic groups on the territory of Germany - "Venda". Starting from the 6th century, Byzantine authors increasingly report the existence of "Slavinii" ("Slavii"). Their occurrence was recorded in different parts of the Slavic world - in the Balkans ("Seven Clans", Berzitia among the Berzit tribe, Draguvitia among the Draguvites, etc.), in Central Europe ("Samo State"), in the eastern and western (including the Pomor and Polabian) Slavs. These were fragile formations that arose and again disintegrated, changed territories and united various tribes. So, the state of Samo, which emerged in the 7th century to protect against the Avars, Bavarians, Lombards, Franks, united the Slavs of Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Luzhits and (partially) Croatia and Slovenia. The emergence of "Slavinia" on tribal and intertribal bases reflected the internal changes of the ancient Slavic society, in which the formation of the ruling elite was going on, and the power of the tribal princes gradually grew into hereditary.

The emergence of statehood among the Slavs dates back to the 7th-9th centuries. The foundation date of the Bulgarian state (the First Bulgarian Kingdom) is considered to be 681. Although at the end of the 10th century Bulgaria fell into dependence on Byzantium, as further development showed, the Bulgarian nationality had already acquired a stable identity by that time. In the second half of the VIII - the first half of the IX centuries. there is a formation of statehood among the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes. In the 9th century, the Old Russian statehood was formed with the centers in Staraya Ladoga, Novgorod and Kiev (Kievan Rus). By the 9th - early 10th centuries. The existence of the Great Moravian state, which was of great importance for the development of common Slavic culture, belongs here - here in 863 the educational activities of the creators of Slavic writing, Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius, began, continued by their students (after the defeat of Orthodoxy in Great Moravia) in Bulgaria. At the time of its highest prosperity, the Great Moravian state included Moravia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, as well as Lusatia, part of Pannonia and Slovenian lands and, apparently, Lesser Poland. In the 9th century, the Old Polish state emerged. At the same time, the process of Christianization proceeded, with most of the southern Slavs and all Eastern Slavs in the sphere of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Western Slavs (including Croats and Slovenes) - in the Roman Catholic Church. Reformation movements (Hussism, the community of Czech brothers, etc. in the Czech Kingdom, Arianism in Poland, Calvinism among Slovaks, Protestantism in Slovenia, etc.), which were largely suppressed during the Counter-Reformation period, arose among a part of the Western Slavs in the 15th-16th centuries.

The transition to state formations reflected a qualitatively new stage in the ethnosocial development of the Slavs - the beginning of the formation of nationalities.

Social factors (the presence of “complete” or “incomplete” ethnosocial structures) and political (the presence or absence of their own state and legal institutions, stability or mobility of the boundaries of early state formations, etc.) ). Political factors in a number of cases, especially at the initial stages of ethnic history, acquired a decisive importance. So, the further process of development of the Great Moravian ethnic community on the basis of the Moravian-Czech, Slovak, Pannonian and Lusatian tribes of the Slavs that were part of Great Moravia turned out to be impossible after the fall of this state under the blows of the Hungarians in 906. There was a break in the economic and political ties of this part of the Slavic ethnos and its administrative-territorial division, which created a new ethnic situation. On the contrary, the emergence and consolidation of the Old Russian state in the east of Europe was the most important factor in the further consolidation of the East Slavic tribes into a relatively single Old Russian nationality.

In the 9th century, the lands inhabited by the tribes - the ancestors of the Slovenes, were captured by the Germans and from 962 became part of the Holy Roman Empire, and at the beginning of the 10th century, the ancestors of the Slovaks, after the fall of the Great Moravian state, were included in the Hungarian state. Despite the long resistance to German expansion, the bulk of the Polabian and Pomor Slavs lost their independence and underwent forced assimilation. Despite the disappearance of this group of Western Slavs of their own ethnopolitical base, their separate groups in different regions of Germany persisted for a long time - until the 18th century, and in Brandenburg and near Luneburg even until the 19th century. The only exceptions were the Lusatians, as well as the Kashubians (the latter later became part of the Polish nation).

Around the XIII-XIV centuries, the Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Czech and Polish peoples began to move to a new phase of their development. However, this process among the Bulgarians and Serbs was interrupted at the end of the XIV century by the Ottoman invasion, as a result of which they lost independence for five centuries, and the ethnosocial structures of these peoples were deformed. Croatia, in view of the danger from the outside in 1102, recognized the rule of the Hungarian kings, but retained autonomy and an ethnically Croatian ruling class. This had a positive impact on the further development of the Croatian people, although the territorial division of the Croatian lands led to the preservation of ethnic regionalism. By the beginning of the 17th century, the Polish and Czech peoples had reached a high degree of consolidation. But in the Czech lands, included in the Hapsburg Austrian monarchy in 1620, as a result of the events of the Thirty Years' War and the counter-reformation policy in the 17th century, significant changes took place in the ethnic composition of the ruling strata and townspeople. Although Poland remained independent until the partitions of the end of the 18th century, the general unfavorable internal and foreign policy situation and the lag in economic development slowed down the process of nation formation.

The ethnic history of the Slavs in Eastern Europe had its own specific features. The consolidation of the Old Russian nationality was influenced not only by the proximity of culture and the affinity of dialects used by the Eastern Slavs, but also by the similarity of their socio-economic development. The originality of the process of the formation of individual nationalities, and later - ethnic groups among the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) was that they survived the stage of the Old Russian nationality and general statehood. Their further formation was a consequence of the differentiation of the Old Russian nationality into three independent closely related ethnic groups (XIV-XVI centuries). In the 17th-18th centuries, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians again found themselves in the composition of one state - Russia, now as three independent ethnic groups.

In the 18th-19th centuries, East Slavic peoples grow into modern nations. This process took place among Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians at different rates (the most intense - among the Russians, the slowest - among the Belarusians), which was due to the peculiar historical, ethno-political and ethnocultural situations that each of the three peoples experienced. So, for Belarusians and Ukrainians, an important role was played by the need to resist Polonization and Magyarization, the incompleteness of their ethnosocial structure, formed as a result of the merger of their own upper social strata with the upper social strata of Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, etc.

Among the Western and Southern Slavs, the formation of nations, with some asynchrony in the initial boundaries of this process, begins in the second half of the 18th century. With the formation of a community, in the stadial relationship between the regions of Central and Southeastern Europe, there were differences: if among the Western Slavs this process basically ends in the 60s of the XIX century, then among the South Slavs - after the liberation Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78.

Until 1918, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks were part of multinational empires, and the task of creating a national statehood remained unresolved. At the same time, the political factor retained its significance in the process of the formation of the Slavic nations. The consolidation of the independence of Montenegro in 1878 created the basis for the subsequent formation of the Montenegrin nation. After the decisions of the Berlin Congress of 1878 and the change in the borders in the Balkans, most of Macedonia was outside Bulgaria, which subsequently led to the formation of the Macedonian nation. At the beginning of the 20th century, and especially in the period between the first and second world wars, when the western and southern Slavs gained state independence, this process, however, was contradictory.

After the February Revolution of 1917, attempts were made to create the Ukrainian and Belarusian statehood. In 1922, Ukraine and Belarus, together with other Soviet republics, were the founders of the USSR (in 1991 they declared themselves sovereign states). The totalitarian regimes established in the Slavic countries of Europe in the second half of the 1940s with the dominance of the administrative-command system had a deforming effect on ethnic processes (violation of the rights of ethnic minorities in Bulgaria, ignorance of the autonomous status of Slovakia by the leadership of Czechoslovakia, aggravation of interethnic contradictions in Yugoslavia, etc.) .). This was one of the most important reasons for the national crisis in the Slavic countries of Europe, which led here, starting from 1989-1990, to significant changes in the socio-economic and ethnopolitical situation. Modern processes of democratization of the socio-economic, political and spiritual life of the Slavic peoples create qualitatively new opportunities for expanding interethnic contacts and cultural cooperation, which have strong traditions.