Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1982, 357 p. In modern conditions, there is a widespread growth of ethnic and national identity. In the world of socialism, this phenomenon is closely linked to the economic, social and cultural progress of nations, which causes each of them a legitimate national pride. If we take into account that the most important component of the ethnic and national identity of each nation is the idea of the common historical past, then it becomes clear why the problems of ethnic history of peoples are now of such acute interest. Most of these problems relate to the distant past, but they are very complex. Being connected with various aspects of the life of society, they are in a certain sense dualistic, manifesting themselves not only in the objective properties of peoples, but also in their self-consciousness. Meanwhile, when studying the problems of ethnogenesis, the main attention is usually paid to the analysis of objective properties of emerging peoples, primarily objectified in culture. The processes of the emergence of their ethnic identity remain in the shadows. But this is an indispensable component of every ethnic group. It is no accident that when only objectified forms of culture are studied in order to develop ethnogenetic problems, the question of its ethnicity is often open. This largely determines the importance of studying the formation of the peoples of the world of their ethnic identity, which is a kind of resultant of ethnogenetic processes. In addition, it should be borne in mind that most Western scientists do not consider this issue to be scientific at all: since there were no nations (this is a phenomenon of modern times), they argue, there was no ethnic identity (of any level); there was only religious unity and consciousness of state affiliation, citizenship. * Authors ' team: L. A. Gindin, V. V. Ivanov, Ya. D. Isaevich, V. D. Korolyuk, G. G. Litavrin, E. P. Naumov, V. E. Orel, A. I. Rogov, G. E. Sanchuk, N. I. Tolstoy, B. N. Flory ... Read more