To the question of the term of «ethnic public associations»

Nowadays, public associations exercise significant influence on the world. Most popular of them, such as Green-peace, LGBT, WJC (World Jewish Congress) could even be serious players in political mainstream. Some of associations were established as organizations that should protect interests of certain cultures, ethnic groups or nations, e.g. WJC or NCAI (National Congress of American Indians). Despite the fact that such organizations are not political parties, they remain key stakeholders in global sociopolitical processes. Contemporary national and foreign science has no equal term that could define and unify such terms as national association (in the meaning of the community uniting representatives of certain ethnic group), ethnic organization, national movement, hometown association, expatriate community (diaspora), national cultural autonomy. The first part of this research is focused on the definition of terms “nation”, “nationality”, “ethnos”. Studying different scientific attitudes such as primordialism, constructivism, instrumentalism approaches and theory of ethnos the author draws the conclusion that “ethnos” is the main classification unit. On the other hand, the terms “nation” and “nationality” are more abstract and general. These terms are often used to identify the affiliation with the state, not with a certain ethnic group. The second part of the article is devoted to differentiation of such terms as: association, organization and movement. The author concludes that “association” is the most inclusive term which is based on the Federal Law of the Russian Federation “About public associations” and opinions of modern experts in law, ethnology, history and sociology. At the same time “movement” and “organization” are types of association, while hometown association, expatriate community, national cultural autonomy are types of organizations. The author examines this scheme in the final part of the paper on the case of ethnic public associations of the Republic of Khakassia introducing the example of the Congress of Khakas People (the CKP). This organization has contributed much to shaping of political and social structure of the Republic. The author also focuses on the activities of other ethnic public associations like Khakass national movement "Tun", the League of Khakass Women “Altynay” and the group of national cultural centers: the Russian-German society “Widergeburt”, Ukrainians society “Vatra”, Poles center “Polonia”, “Center of Azerbaijani Culture”, “Georgia”, Center of Tajik and Uzbek Culture “Sogdiana”, Armenian National Cultural Center “Nairi”, Jewish National Cultural Center “Ha-Tikva”, “Kyrgyzstan” center, “Association of the Korean Diaspora”. The author emphasizes in the conclusion that the most correct term to identify the association responsible for promoting interests of different ethnic groups is “ethnic public association”.

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