The existence of ethnic groups

Ethnic development, unlike social, is discrete, that is, intermittent. This is due to internal and external processes that affect the functioning of ethnic groups, and therefore their existence. In the special literature, the following ways of existence of ethnic groups are distinguished:
• birth;
• expansion;
• decrease in the level of activity, or decay;
• transition to homeostasis, that is, the static state of ethnos.

Under birth is the process of formation of ethnos during secession, or assimilation. This is the primary stage of the formation of ethnic community, if we consider it in time.
The second stage of the existence and development of the ethnos is expansion. By this is meant the strengthening of ties within the ethnos, as well as an increase in the number of its members due to the assimilation of neighboring ethnic groups. In the course of expansion, the ethnic group is constantly progressing, since within this ethnos there are internal psychological processes that determine its continuous development. At this stage, the level of ethnic (and national) self-awareness grows, resulting in the harmonization of the ethnic group and its development. However, this process takes place until the members of the ethnic community are allocated on separate grounds into new ethnic groups. The striving towards isolation may be due to the fact that as a result of the assimilation of neighboring ethnic groups, differentiation occurs within a given ethnic community according to some criteria (economic, cultural, social, religious).

The emergence of discriminatory processes within the ethnic group contributes accordingly to a drop in the level of ethnic consciousness, national ideas are devalued, as personal motives begin to prevail over national ones. As a result, we observe a decrease in the level of activity of the ethnos. At this stage, the ethnos becomes the most vulnerable, which can lead to external aggression from other ethnic communities or to its assimilation by neighboring communities and to subsequent disintegration due to the loss of territory, culture, language and unity. For example, A.M. Volkonsky notes that “the cohabitation of the Russians with the Finns almost led to the complete Russification of the latter and to a certain change in the anthropological type among the northern Russians: wide cheekbones, a wide nose is a legacy of Finnish blood.”

The process of decay or decrease in the activity of an ethnos can be transformed into homeostasis, in which the ethnos is in a static state. Homeostasis is a mobile equilibrium state of an ethnic community, maintained by its resistance to disturbing equilibrium between external and internal factors. The concept of homeostasis was formed initially in physiology to explain the constancy of the internal environment of the body and the stability of its basic physiological functions.