Disappearing peoples is a global problem, but it has not appeared now. This is a natural historical process. Over the entire history, up to the 19th century, more than 500 peoples disappeared, and for the remaining period to the present, more than a thousand, which indicates its acceleration. This is a natural process. It is connected with many factors in the development of mankind, and it is impossible to stop it.
What is a people?
It should be noted that the very term "people" can include many ethnic groups that are united by historical, cultural ties, way of life. Speaking of the British, they often unite the Welsh, Scots, Irish and other peoples living in this country. Residents of Germany call themselves Germans, but do not forget that they are Bavarians, Saxons, and so on. The same can be said about the French, Italians, Russians and residents of any other country.
A people can consist of many ethnic groups - groups of people who are united by common characteristics. This is the territoryresidence, language, common historical past, religion and culture, which includes customs, traditions, folklore. Therefore, speaking of disappearing peoples, most likely, one must mean the disappearance of a certain ethnic group, its language, writing and culture. According to UNESCO, up to 25 languages disappear in the world every year, and up to 40% of the world's languages are endangered.
Why do nations disappear?
There is nothing eternal in this world. This also applies to peoples. This issue has been well studied. The reasons due to which the disappearance of peoples occurs are determined. A lot of them. Today, scientists talk about three important ones. It was they who accelerated the natural historical process. And over time it will go faster. There is no way to stop him.
Another historian Lev Gumilyov emphasized that disappearing peoples are a natural process. Like a person, a people is born, develops, reaches the phase of its heyday, after which a long period of peaceful life follows and obscuration sets in - a process of slow extinction. Scientists have even established the age of life of peoples. It is between 500 and 1000 years old.
At all times, the main reason for the disappearance of entire peoples was war, the conquest of a stronger nation, when the non-exterminated part of the population gradually assimilated, forgot their customs and language. Let's name the modern reasons for the disappearance of peoples: the conquest of colonies, the emergence of cities, globalization. Let's look at these reasons one by one.
Colonization
It is connected with heracceleration of assimilation, the penetration of an alien culture, language, customs into the life of the conquered country. There is no need to talk about the interpenetration of cultures here. The colonizers, being a more economically and culturally developed nation, as conquerors, created the dominant conditions for planting their own language and their cultural values. The extermination of indigenous people contributed to the increase in the number of disappearing peoples of Asia, Africa, Australia and America.
Urbanization
The emergence of big cities has significantly reduced the rural population. But it was on rural life that all important traditions, culture, and language were based. Rural communities were their center. If we take Russia, then it was in it that the peasant communities played the most important role. These were a kind of self-governing organizations that owned the land of the village itself, settlements, and often arable land. The development of cities, where the rural population went for a better life, destroyed these ties, which contributed to the loss of a sense of community. This has led to a significant increase in the number of disappearing peoples in the world.
Globalization
In the age of the Internet there is a unification of culture, when all diversity and originality are cut off. Here the humanitarian expansion of the West prevails, the imposition of models of "correct" cultures. As a result of imitation, they pass into other cultures, which leads to a loss of identity. This has been called the "cultural diffusion effect". It is unification that leads to completeerasing the boundaries between the ways of life of people of different nationalities, forcing them to completely renounce their roots.
Four ways to disappear
There are no nations that would exist forever. We know nothing at all about many ancient disappeared peoples. How many there were, where they lived, what they were called. Those that we know about have their own fate. Some were transformed (Greeks, Jews, Armenians). Others merged, forming completely different peoples (Turkmen, Uzbeks). Still others disintegrated, sometimes forming several dozen nationalities (ancient Germans). The fourth are the disappeared peoples: Franks, Etruscans, Sumerians and thousands of others.
How many peoples in Russia are on the verge of extinction?
According to statistics, there are about 50 small peoples in Russia who are threatened with complete dissolution, that is, complete assimilation. But in fact there are more of them. It is impossible to calculate the exact number, since there is no single agreement among scientists studying this issue about what a people is, what an ethnic group is.
As a rule, a people is considered extinct with the death of the last native speaker. As long as there are people who speak their native language, it is considered a disappearing people, that is, on the verge of extinction. In 1989, the northern Kamasin people ceased to exist, as the last native speaker of this language died.
In Russia there are peoples whose languages are on the verge of extinction. For the most part they live in the North, the Far East, and also in the Caucasus, inin particular, Dagestan, where four peoples live, whose native speakers are a little more than 10 people.
Which peoples of Russia are threatened with extinction?
An interesting pattern, small nations are not always on the verge of extinction, and not always large nations manage to avoid this. For example, there are only about 16 thousand Chukchi people, but they have always been few, and not one of the researchers would think of classifying them as endangered. The Chukchi language is actively used, slowly, but there is a natural increase in the population.
Russia is sometimes called the country of disappearing peoples, but this is not so. This problem concerns every country today. Now the question is being raised about the disappearance of peoples in the countries of Europe, where one or more peoples live, the so-called mono-national states.
The problem of disappearance is also acute for representatives of a large ethnic group, for example, Finno-Ugric. No, its representatives continue to live and there are not a small number of them, but over the past 100 years the number of people speaking their native languages has decreased tenfold. According to the 2010 census, the disappearing peoples of Russia include:
- Archintsy. They live in Dagestan, as an ethnic group, they are classified as Avars. There are 12 people.
- Botlikhs and Galalals. They live in Dagestan, they are classified as Avars. There are 16 people each.
- Vod. They live in the Leningrad region. There are 83 people.
- Kaitag people. They live in Dagestan, assimilated by the Dargins. Only 5 left.
- Kereki. They live on the coast of the Bering Sea. There are 8 people.
- Nganasany. They live in Taimyr. The number is 862 people.
- Tofalars. They live in the Irkutsk region. Their number is 762 people.
- Chulyms. Disappearing people living in the Tomsk region. There are 332 people in total.
Scientists believe that if an ethnic group has 300 people or less, then it can be classified as disappearing, since the recovery process is no longer feasible. This list can be continued with peoples and tribes living in other countries of the world, these are Asian pygmies, Guaja living in the Amazon, Okieki from Tanzania, Huli Papuans, Asaro, Yali from New Guinea, Tibetans, Argentine Gauchos, Loba from China and many others.
What peoples lived in Europe?
If you think that the ancient peoples of Europe were Franks, Celts, Britons and others, then you are mistaken. These territories were inhabited by peoples unknown to us with their own culture, worshiping unknown gods. After the glacier came down, a large area of the mainland was overgrown with dense forests, since the climate was rather mild. The settlement of Europe took place from South Africa and the southern parts of Europe.
The list of the disappeared peoples of Europe begins with the ancient Europeans, who were short, swarthy, dark-haired, with an elongated head and elongated faces. The exception was the Europeans of the Caucasus and the Balkans, who were quite tall. According to historians,they were matriarchy, the level of development was rather low, they did not know the wheel, iron, did not use horses.
The ancient Europeans were subdued by the Aryans who swept through Europe in horned helmets and chariots. Historians refer them to the Indo-European group. Ancient Europeans survived only in the mountains of the Caucasus, the Balkans and the Pyrenees. Scientists consider Basques, Iberians, Picts, Bosnians, Albanians and Georgians to be the descendants of ancient Europeans. In addition to them, there were Hittites, Etruscans, Minoans, Pelasgians, Ligures - these are disappeared peoples of non-Indo-European origin.
Which peoples of Europe may disappear in the next hundred years?
According to statistics, the number of peoples in Europe is steadily growing. Therefore, there are no alarming questions in this regard, but in fact they are not. The problem is that population growth is due to migrants, who, according to statistics, amounted to 929 thousand people in 2014, and not due to natural population growth, which amounted to 161 thousand people in the same year.
This leads to the assimilation of the European population by more aggressive migrants who do not want to speak European languages, do not follow the traditions of the countries in which they live their lives, according to their customs, speak their languages.
Another acute problem in Europe is a sharp decline in the population in the mono-ethnic countries of Europe. They are classified as "demographic outsiders". Most of them belong to the Eastern European post-Soviet bloc. These are Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia, Ukraine,Serbia.
The reason is the emigration of the population to the more developed countries of Europe. If such rates continue, then in 50 years in Lithuania and Latvia the number of inhabitants will be reduced by half, in other countries by a third. With a small population, some of them can be classified as endangered.
