Earlier in the Eastern Slavs this conceptwas associated with blood kinship and derived from the old verb "to be born." Rooted words: gender, relative. But in modern Russian, the people are a much broader term. Thus, this word can be used to determine the population of a particular country or a historically formed human community. And also a large number of people gathered together, or working masses. All this is successfully applied in the definition of "people - this", used in the socio-political sense, and in the general cultural ethnic.
In the political sense, the word people sometimesis identified with the concept of a nation, being something of a synonym for it. However, this is not quite true. A nation is a socio-cultural community that has developed in the formation of a single state. And the people are also a community of people, but united by corresponding global signs (culture and language, origin and faith and the like). In this context, a nation is a broader concept that exists within the country and statehood. The people are something less extensive, but often existing outside the boundaries and social laws. So, several nations can represent the nation. And different ethnic groups, for example, can be united into one people.
The nature of the description, like science, is calledethnography. Here, by the people means an ethnos (a human group), a common origin - related by the ties of blood relationship. Later, describing the ethnos, they began to use secondary signs that promote unification: language and territory, religion and historical past, culture and customs.
In political science and political economy, people often oppose the elite, which has power. This concept denotes the mass of the population that does not have privileges, in terms of number - the main (basis).
Some believe that this is just one of theThe most used terms of the Soviet past. Does the friendship of peoples really exist as a phenomenon, or is it still a notion of the ideological policy of the state of the USSR? Undoubtedly, there has been no ideology here. And the friendship of peoples is a segment of interethnic politics, methodically conducted in the Union from the time of Leninism and Stalinism, by the most, to no, Brezhnev era of stagnation. Then, according to historian scholars, this policy was replaced by the idea of the multinationality of the Russian Federation (roughly from the late 1980s). The very concept, which includes the concept of "friendship of peoples", and the solution of the national question in a young Soviet country, did not emerge immediately. It is known that Lenin spoke only of the oppression of certain peoples (not Russians) in the former imperialist Russia and of the urgent need to solve, finally, the questions of nationality. But under Stalin in 1935 it was stated that the trust between the peoples of the USSR had grown, and that the national question could be considered already solved. And the Russian people themselves took the honorable place of "elder brother" in relation to others living in the state.
It is interesting that today the friendship of peoplesit can be said, even constitutionally. The Constitution of the Russian Federation speaks of the multinational people of Russia, making it clear that this phenomenon is not just empty words, but the unity and good attitude of peoples to each other is the norm of social life.
In this context, however, one should not forget,that every nation has its own unique culture, heritage, language, customs. All this together, called a common word - the culture of the people, should be kept as much as possible and transferred to the descendants. For these purposes, there are folk museums, and the true keepers of traditions preserve and multiply the cultural heritage of this or that (sometimes very few) people.
