(narodnost’), a historically formed linguistic, territorial, economic, and cultural community of people that precedes the formation of a nation.
A nationality emerges as tribal alliances are consolidated, and is expressed in the gradual blending of tribes and the substitution of territorial bonds for ties of kinship. The earliest nationalities were formed during the slaveholding period; among these were the ancient Egyptians and Hellenes. In Europe the formation of nationalities was basically completed in the feudal period; examples include the old (Kievan) Russians, Poles, and French. In other parts of the world, this process continued into still later historical periods.
Nationalities were ordinarily formed from several tribes of close common origin and language, as the Poles developed from such Slavic tribes as the Polanians, Vistulans, and Mazovians. Tribes with different languages that became intermingled as the result of conquest could also give rise to a single nationality, as the French developed from Gallic tribes, Roman colonists, and German tribes that included the Franks, Visigoths, and Burgundians. As ties among the ethnically separate elements of an emerging nationality grow stronger, the language of one of them, often the most numerous or best developed one, becomes the common language of the nationality. The remaining tribal languages are reduced to dialects and sometimes disappear entirely. A territorial, cultural, and economic community is formed under a common name. The establishment of a state may aid the consolidation of a nationality, but in the process of historical development, nationality need not coincide with the state either territorially or linguistically.
As capitalist relations develop and as economic and cultural ties are strengthened, the nationality is transformed into a nation. Nationalities that were divided by state boundaries may provide the basis of several national formations, as has been the case with the Portuguese and Galicians and with the Germans and Luxembourgers. The old Russian nationality became the common root of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian nationalities, each of which subsequently became a nation. No less frequently, several nationalities have come to constitute a single nation. In the USSR, nationalities such as the Turkmen and Kirghiz have become nations while bypassing the capitalist stage of development. Many nationalities, particularly smaller ones, fall behind in their development for a number of reasons and do not emerge as nations. With time, they form close bonds with more developed nationalities and nations whose culture and language they assimilate, and gradually they merge with them.
The collapse of the colonial system of imperialism and the achievement of independence by many countries of Asia and Africa have accelerated the processes of ethnic consolidation and the growth of national self-awareness. New nationalities and nations are being formed from tribal-territorial ethnic groups in these countries.
S. I. BRUK