Territory as a factor of ethnogenesis and principles of territorial disunity and reunification of an ethnic group

The article presents the author's approach to interpreting the territorial factor in the context of ethnic identity formation. The analysis is based on the author's concept of treating an ethnic group as an object of historical and social construction, initially determined by the social instinct. From this position, the initially essential attitudes of ethnicity, including the idea of one's own territory as a place of exodus and a place of permanent existence, are subject to rethinking and reconstructing within the framework of the ethnogenesis process. The factor of territory is presented as the most significant and stable, as well as the most material of all the attributes of ethnic identity, but it also undergoes changes in perception. Thus, territory becomes an element of the myth of the origin of an ethnic group and a factor in community cohesion. At the same time, the division of the original territory of an ethnic group can become a factor in ethnic separation and the emergence of a new ethnic community with its own self-identification. In this context, the factor of the division boundary of an ethnic community takes on special significance.