Social and philosophical aspect of problems of origin and substance of a nation and national identity

The purpose of this paper is theoretical analysis of causes and conditions of genesis of historical ethnic communities as important subjects in the historical process. The topicality of this work is determined by the fact that ethnic processes play an essential role in the life of modern mankind, so you need to understand these processes with a view to reduce its negative effects as much as possible. The author makes the following conclusions: 1) whereas formation of ethnic groups in the past mainly depended on the material conditions of social groups, nowadays it is defined by social and political factors; 2) in many regions of the modern world various socio-po-litical reasons lead to formation of nations and nationalities, the higher mode of ethnicity; 3) subjective factor plays an important role in the ethnic movements; 4) in this regard, it is shown that constructivist approach in understanding the essence of ethnic phenomena becomes increasingly popular in the scientific literature. One of the substantial characteristics of a nation is existence of a state. After acquiring the public formalisation, nationality receives relative independence as a political subject within a common federal state and becomes a nation. An ethnicity at the same time re-cedes into the background and stores mainly in language and culture. Practice of formation of multinational states and their disintegration in the XX th century raises some theoretical questions about the role of ethnic processes in the world history. On the one hand, the presence of several ethnic groups within the boundaries of a state is a factor that weakens its integrity and strength on to withstand the “historical powers”. On the other hand, watching the nature itself shows that their diversity is an important factor in the stability and integrity of living systems. Variety and diversity are essential and internal sources of maintenance of stability of a system and at the same time it is a possibility of its development.