First, it can construct (through its loyalties and affiliations) the basis for the social consciousness of a new type. Then the substantially transformed and developed ethnic consciousness becomes a national one. Second, and more likely, ethnic consciousness mostly or totally disappears and dissolves into other identities of the new era.
On this subject the difference between “primordialist” and “modernist” is how they estimate the role of ethnic consciousness in nation-building. For the latter, ethnic consciousness is only an occasional substrate for the creation of the new identity needed for industrial society. For the former, ethnic identity is an active agent of new national identity as well as a new important element for the consolidation of national unity.
In this sense, the Soviet Ethnography approach, and the predominant current views of the Ukrainian scholars, is definitely in agreement with “primordialists.” First, ethnic consciousness (using the wider meaning of term) is considered to be an attribute of ethnos. Second, ethnic consciousness (in a narrow meaning) is not imagined to be excluded from a national one. According to Bromley, ethnic consciousness, as the other modern form of social consciousness, possesses its reflexive level not only on an individual, but also on a social level. This means that ethnic consciousness not only does not dissolve but actually develops. This statement is determined by a vision of ethnos as a dynamic system, i.e., a process, which was common for the Soviet tradition and is preserved by contemporary Russian scholars.8 An individual ethnic self-consciousness is believed to have its expression in reflexive ethnic affiliation and awareness of one’s own actions, motives and interests in this context. Collective imaginations about typical characteristics and achievements of the community represent the self-consciousness of ethnos. The latter can be fixed not only through personal expressions but also in impersonal ones, i.e., in other objective forms of social consciousness—language, folklore, art, scientific literature, norms of morality and law (Chesnokov 1991; Ionin 1996, chs. 4-6). The most formal expression of self-consciousness on the social level is considered to be a common ethnic name.
Ukrainian scholars consider ethnic consciousness on the individual level as a multitude of knowledges, attitudes and aspirations about the culture, tradition, values and self-identification with a group and within the context of other groups. The individual acquires this consciousness during the process of “ethnization,” i.e., personal or group experience. The structure of ethnic consciousness includes ethnic or national character, customs, ethnocentrism, ethnic feelings, ethnic self-consciousness, self-identity, and so on. Each of the elements is considered to be “quite a complicated psychological phenomenon with its own structural forms of expression, principles of functioning” (Mala 1996, 41). It seems that such a reference to a “psychological phenomenal nature” is an attempt to avoid further explanation of what all these concepts consist of, and in a way this is a common “escape” used by sociologists in general, not only Ukrainian scholars. Billig stressed the opposite tendency of social psychologists to explain the nature of human consciousness by reference to “sociological and cultural factors,” which can lead to a situation where there is a mutual and agreed misunderstanding between both sociologists and social psychologists (Billig 1995).
Ethnic identity is defined in the context of “Social Identity Theory,” i.e. as a form of self-categorization by individuals (Mala 1996, 35) or as a result of a set of similar identification processes (Boldetskaya 1996, 53). Ethnic identification is considered an important component of ethnic consciousness. It is understood as self-affiliation or acceptance of likeness to some ethnic group. This process develops by way of the individual adapting himself to the roots and fundamentals of an ethnic group (Mala 1996, 41). In this way, the differentiation of the two terms “ethnic identity” and “ethnic identification” is incomplete and not fully convincing, since social psychologists argue that individual ethnic identity does not always imply identification with a group in a cultural sense. Psychologists differentiate therefore between ethnicity as interrelation between ethnic groups and ethnic identity as a part of an individual’s wider identity process (Liebkind 1989, 28). This lack of coherence was partially admitted by another Ukrainian scholar, Olena Donchenko, who agreed that the “process of mass identification is a social phenomenon which is not entirely understood by sociologists” (Donchenko 1994, 167).
Summary
We can draw at least two synthetic conclusions from the discussion so far. First, authors generally agree that changes of national consciousness should be considered as dynamic processes. However, “modernists” recognize this only indirectly as, for instance, Gellner does when writing that changes of symbols within national consciousness are national processes (Gellner 1983, 58). Second, the “primordialist” tradition, as well as Soviet Ethnography and contemporary Russian and Ukrainian scholars, recognize the substantially important role of ethnic consciousness for the creation of national consciousness and of the nation as a whole. “Modernists” insist that ethnic consciousness has a random role, if any, for national phenomena and stress “objective” social and economic determinants.
From the analysis above we can sum up the similarities and differences of the main Western and Eastern European approaches to the concepts of nation, ethnic communities, national and ethnic consciousness. Although, on the one hand, synthesis is possible, it is important to stress that the common concerns expressed by different traditions do not imply a similarity of conceptual approach: often different authors reached similar conclusions as a result of different methods and means of enquiry.
Although “primordialists,” Soviet and post-Soviet scholars in Russia and Ukraine generally agree on the ethnic origins of nations and the crucial role of consciousness in their genesis, in fact their primary assumptions were substantially different. “Primordialists” developed their conclusions as a result of the assumption that consciousness is an immanent and inseparable condition of the appearance of nations, which was illustrated by the studies of world ethnic history and concrete historical and contemporary identities. Within Soviet and post-Soviet traditions, such an assumption would be unacceptable because of the materialistic paradigm in which they developed. Nevertheless, historical analysis of concrete national identities led both schools of thought to agreement, in principle, as to the role and functions of ethnic and national consciousness for the existence of national phenomena.
At the same time, although “modernists” and Soviet/post-Soviet ethno-sociologists based their theories on historical materialism, they disagree on several important issues. The former argue for the importance and functionally occasional role of national/ethnic consciousness in the appearance of national-social units during the foundation of industrialism. They claim that national consciousness is a consequence of nationalism and therefore originally initiated by the new socio-economic conditions which created the concrete boundaries of nations. The real causes of the nations’ genesis, then, lie in the development of the productive forces. In this scheme, ethnic consciousness is not necessary, so “modernists” logically conclude that substantially it is unimportant. The climax of such logic is the recognition of the fact that the appearance of “national” units itself was accidental in the development of human society during the industrial epoch (Gellner 1994).
The materialistic concept of Soviet Ethnography also states that the creation of nations is strongly bound up with the socio-economic development of human society at the stage of industrialism or “capitalism.” Consciousness here is a consequence of social reality. However, unlike “modernists,” Soviet scholars believed that national consciousness is a reflection of its nation. In this case, national consciousness is not a “creator” of the boundaries of national unity (as Gellner claimed), and is not an immanent condition of a nation’s appearance (as Smith argued), but is an internal attribute of the nation that serves an important function. It is striking that the description of these functions is quite similar within all concepts. What is difficult to harmonize is the correspondence between national and ethnic consciousness. “Primordialists,” Soviet and most of post-Soviet ethno-sociologists are together in their sense that national consciousness inherited, naturally and evolutionarily, ethnic consciousness, whereas “modernists” insist on the accidental relationship between ethnic and national consciousness.
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