In modern science, thanks to a number of prominent scholars (such as Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson, Anthony Smith, Ernest Gellner and others), the causes of ethnic conflict and nationalist sentiment studied adequately.The fundamental basis for the emergence of any nation is the so-called collective national consciousness.This phenomenon is enough awareness of a large group of people and the blood of his spiritual closeness: common language, traditions, origins, historical past, the unity of views on the heroic and tragic moments of history, common aspirations for the future.In modern science, there are different views on the phenomenon of the nation, however, according to the most reasonable of them, the nation as such occurs only in the modern era of European history, the era of industrialization and urbanization, when breaking the archaic local identification of rural communities (and they lived in the vast majority of the population) and the limited world of medieval peasant suddenly expanded to the limits of the country's borders.
American historian Eugene Joseph Weber aptly described this process in his book "From the peasants in the French."That's what happens identification with a particular nation and, consequently, the opposition of others.Already this fact laid the causes of ethnic conflicts.The fact that a nation can not be selected, creates a sacred image of her, as if sent by Providence.The image, for which, as history shows, millions are ready to die.Interestingly, no one is not giving up his life for the honor of associations, trade unions and so on.Deserve only that, according to the person, you can not change what is given initially to the end.The next layer in the foundation, which lays the cause of ethnic conflict, is the fact that every nation has a peculiar only to her distinctive characteristics.They have a completely different nature: mental, religious, language, related to historical memory and others.Causes of international conflicts lie in the fact that representatives of at least one of the nations there is a feeling of anxiety for the preservation of their national attributes: an attack on the memory of national heroes, language impairment, and so on.
interesting that are particularly susceptible to the protection of national dignity and interests of those nations that have long been subjected to some kind of harassment that were not able to implement the relevant requirements of a long time.For example, in Europe such modern communities are Basque in Spain and Flemings in Belgium.The reasons for ethnic conflicts in these regions are in the long domination of foreign countries for their communities: the Castilians and the Walloons, respectively.Another striking example is the Soviet state.Ethnic conflicts in the Soviet Union came to the surface during the restructuring.And interestingly, their commitment to the national implementation of the said first of all, those who for a long time did not have their own state: Balts, Ukrainians, Georgians.In turn, people who had at one time the state, today is not so sensitive to national issues.The British, French, Italians in Europe for a long time found a common language, "played enough" with the idea of the nation and to take other values.
