ETHNIC GROUPS OF ODESA REGION

Let’s first define the terms in simple language

René Descartes said:

“People would rid themselves of half their troubles if they could agree on the meanings of words”

That’s why let’s delve a bit into Latin and Greek, the languages that gave us the foundation for most popular terms. When referring to the citizens of a country, politicians often use the words: “Ethnos“; “People“; “Nationality“; “Nation“.

Ethnos

Today, “ethnos” refers to a group of people who identify with one another based on shared characteristics: common traditions, origin, language, history, culture, and religion. The term comes from the Greek word “ἔθνος,” more precisely from the adjective “ἐθνικός.” It translates from Greek as “tribal,” “pagan.” In ancient times, this Greek term could refer to any large group of people, even a herd of animals. Later, it took on a meaning comparable to “people.” However, in Hellenistic Greek, it was used to refer to “foreigners” or “barbarians.” By the mid-19th century, the term “ethnic” was used to describe non-Christians or nations that hadn’t accepted Christianity. In a broader sense, the concept of “ethnos” is applied to describe the evolutionary chain of the emergence and development of an ethnic group (ethnogenesis). An important point to consider for a deeper understanding of the term is its true nature. Language, religion, and traditions are all about the individual’s culture and the environment in which they grew up. Therefore, when speaking of ethnic communities, we understand that it refers to cultural kinship.

People

The term “people” – “narod” (ukr) comes from the Slavic root “rod,” which is directly connected to the nature of a person’s origin, their parents, their birth, their clan, their tribe, their living organic family. A person born into a specific people cannot choose or change it, just as one cannot change their surname, family, or parents.
In the modern world, the term “people” can have the following meanings:

• A large group of people, a multitude;
• Communities of people with the same culture, language, religion;
• The population, residents of a country, region, or city;
• A synonym for “nation”.

One of the greatest Christian theologians of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, Augustine of Hippo, brought clarity to the deep political understanding of the term when he said: “A people is a multitude united around the object of their love“. In other words, both in political and religious contexts, the term “people” was used to denote dependency and belonging to the father church or state, to its father-patriarch or father-emperor. The people could love only their father-emperor-patriarch, sent from above. In return, the father took care of his people.

Nationality

It is extremely difficult to explain to a normal person how “people” differs from “nationality” and why we need words that hold no real meaning for them. To an ordinary person, it’s pointless, but for empire-builders, this new word in the lexicon is highly useful, as it justifies aggression and legitimizes wars for neighboring territories. When in 1833, Russian Empire’s Minister of Public Education, Count Sergei Uvarov, formulated the ideological slogan “Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality,” he not only wrote a new motto for the country but also laid the “legitimate” foundation for Russia’s endless territorial ambitions. The idea was that Russia would now not only protect the “Russian” people but also its numerous nationalities! A concept was created that supposedly a super-ethnos existed in nature, with sub-ethnic groups orbiting around it. The idea of “nationality” was further developed by Lev Gumilyov, who introduced the term “sub-ethnos.” In his understanding, the main feature of an ethnos is the presence of various sub-ethnoses that share functions, existing in a symbiotic relationship. Through non-antagonistic competition, sub-ethnoses make the internal structure of the ethnos more flexible, without disrupting its unity. In other words, there is a Slavic “super-ethnos” – “Russians,” and to serve its purposes, there are sub-ethnoses – nationalities: Little Russians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, and others, who are created to serve the super-ethnos.

Nation

The word “nation” comes from the Latin word “natio”, which literally means “birth”. In Latin, “natio” also refers to children of the same origin or a group of people of the same origin. A nation, like a people, is a community of individuals with a shared ancestry, bloodline, common origin, culture, and value system, sometimes referred to as identity or national consciousness.
There are:

• Ethnic nations – formed independently, emerging from a tribe or a union of tribes.
• Political nations – the result of an artificial, sometimes forced unification of several similar ethnic groups into a single political nation.

It’s hard to say that “nation” and “people” have significant differences because the semantics of the Latin and Slavic terms are essentially the same. There are no formal distinctions between the Latin term natio and the Slavic people. Political vocabulary, however, adds its nuances, elevating the concept of a nation above that of a people, arguing that a nation is a consciously united people. It is united not just by kinship and blood but by an idea.

In summary, in slightly different words:

ПThe patriarchal family model with a father, mother, and children was transferred to political and religious institutions, which continue to exploit this simple and understandable model today.

• Family – tribe – surname, clan – family is the oldest and most fundamental institution that unites people.
• Ethnos is primarily a cultural community of people. A people is simply a very large family.
• A people is simply a very large family.
• Nationality is a simulacrum of a people, a term for enslaved and oppressed nations. A people who have lost their right to independence, becoming a sub-ethnos of the Empire’s super-ethnos.
• A people that has matured politically, a people who have understood political self-identification, consciously united by an idea, territory, goal, and task – this is a nation.

Today, a nation is a community of people capable of expressing their opinion and self-organizing, united by common ancestors and a common idea.
A people, on the other hand, is a community incapable of articulation or self-organization, and for its passivity, it is punished by negligent leadership that leads it to ruin.

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based on the materials of:
Олег Чеславський, the resource “Spilno“

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