The national composition of the population of foreign Europe is heterogeneous, there are mono-national states and states with a complex structure in ethnic terms. What are these countries? What are the main groups distinguished by ethnic composition? What factors influenced the formation of the ethnic composition of European countries? This and much more will be discussed in the article.
Factors influencing the national composition of foreign Europe
Currently, more than 62 peoples live in Europe. Such a motley national mosaic was formed on this territory for several millennia under the influence of historical and natural factors.
Plain territories were convenient for the resettlement of people and the emergence of ethnic groups. So, for example, the French nation was formed on the territory of the Paris Basin, the German people formed on the North German Lowland.
Mountainous territories complicated relations between ethnic groups; in such territories, as a rule, a motley ethnic composition was formed, for example, the Balkans and the Alps.
A significant impact on the national composition of Europe had migration processes. From the 16th century and until the beginning of the 20th century. Europe was mainly a region of emigration, and from the second half of the 20th century. became a region of immigration.
After the 1917 revolution, a flood of migrants poured from Russia into countries of foreign Europe, the number of which amounted to about 2 million people. They formed ethnic diasporas in France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Italy, Yugoslavia.
They had a tremendous influence on the national composition of foreign Europe and numerous internecine wars and conquests, as a result of which many nations developed a very complex gene pool. So, for example, the Spanish people were formed as a result of mixing for several centuries Arab, Celtic, Roman, Jewish blood. The Turkish ethnos was influenced by Turkish rule for 4 centuries.
Since the mid-20th century, migration to Europe from former European colonies has intensified. Thus, millions of Asians, Africans, Arabs, Latinos permanently settled in foreign Europe. In the 70-90s there were several waves of political and labor migration from Yugoslavia and Turkey. Many of them were assimilated in Great Britain, France and Germany, which led to a change in the modern appearance of the French, British and Germans.
The most acute ethnic problems in Europe are national separatism and ethnic conflicts. As an example, we can recall the confrontation between the Walloons and the Flemings in the 80s in Belgium, which almost split the country. For decades, the radical organization ETA has been operating, which requires the creation of a Basque state in southwestern France and northern Spain. Recently, relations between Catalonia and Spain have worsened, in October 2017, a referendum was held in Catalonia for independence, the turnout was 43 percent, 90% voted for independence, but it was declared illegal and not legally binding.
Types of countries of foreign Europe by ethnic composition
In this regard, the countries of Europe are divided into:
- Mono-ethnic, when in the proportion of the country's population the main nation is about 90% or more. These include Norway, Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria, Italy, Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Ireland, Slovenia.
- With the predominance of one nation, but with a significant percentage in the structure of the population of the country of national minorities. This, for example, France, Finland, Great Britain, Romania, Spain.
- Binational, that is, in the national composition of the country two nations prevail. An example is Belgium.
- Multinational - Latvia, Switzerland.
The predominant are three types of countries of foreign Europe in ethnic composition - uninational, with the predominance of one nation and bi-national.
In many countries of Europe, very complex inter-ethnic relations have developed: Spain (Basques and Catalans), France (Corsica), Cyprus, Great Britain (Scotland), Belgium.
Language groups of foreign Europe
In language, the vast majority of the population of Europe belongs to the Indo-European language family. It includes:
- Slavic branch, which is divided into two groups: southern and western. Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Serbs, Macedonians, Bosnians speak South Slavic languages, and Czechs, Poles, Slovaks speak West Slavic languages.
- Germanic branch, which is divided into western and northern groups. The West German group includes German, Flemish, Frisian, English. To the North German group are Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish.
- The Romanesque branch, its basis was the Latin language. The following languages belong to this branch : Romanian, French, Italian, Provencal, Portuguese, Spanish.
- The Celtic branch is currently represented in only 4 languages: Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, Breton. About 6.2 million people speak the languages of the Celtic language group.
The Indo-European language family includes Greek (more than 8 million people speak) and Albanian (2.5 million people) languages. Gypsy is also Indo-European. Before World War II, there were about 1 million gypsies in Europe; today, about 600 thousand of them live in countries of foreign Europe.
In foreign Europe they speak the following languages:
- Ural language family - its Finno-Ugric branches - Finns, Hungarians, Sami.
- Altai language family - Turkic branch - Tatars, Turks, Gagauz.
The Basque language occupies a special place, it does not belong to any language family, this is the so-called isolated language, whose historical relations have not been established, about 800 thousand people are native speakers.
National and religious composition of foreign Europe
The dominant religion in Europe is Christianity, only Jews profess Judaism, and Albanians and Croats - Islam.
Catholicism is practiced by the Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, French, Irish, Austrians and Belgians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks.
It should be noted that among the Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians there are many Protestants.
In Switzerland and Germany, Catholics are approximately 50%.
Protestantism is professed by Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, Germans. Moreover, Lutheranism is widespread.
Orthodox Christianity is widespread in the countries of the southeast and east of Europe - in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria.
However, according to the religious principle, it is impossible to judge the nationality of a person. Many peoples accepted the religion of the state in which they lived. For example, many gypsies profess Christianity, but there are whole camps who consider Islam their religion.
The history of statistical accounting of the national composition of the population of Europe
About 500 million people live in Europe, the predominant part of the population according to anthropological characteristics is the Caucasoid race. Europe can rightfully be considered the ancestral home of national self-awareness of peoples. It was here that national groups began to arise, the relationship between which created the history of Europe and beyond. Here, population statistics began to develop taking into account national composition. But the principles for determining this or that nationality in different countries of Europe were different.
Initially, the nationality of the people was associated with linguistic affiliation. One of the first countries in foreign Europe that carried out statistical accounting of the national composition of their citizens depending on their knowledge of the language was Belgium in 1846 and Switzerland in 1850 (during the census the question was: “What is your main spoken language?”). Prussia picked up this initiative, and in the 1856 census the question of the "mother" (native) language was used.
In 1872, at the Statistical Congress in St. Petersburg, it was decided to introduce the direct question of nationality into the list of issues of statistical accounting of citizens of the country. However, until the 20s of the 20th century, this decision was never implemented.
All this time, they kept statistics of citizens on religious or linguistic grounds. This situation in the census persisted almost until the outbreak of World War II.
The complexity of ethnic statistics now
In the post-war period, many countries of foreign Europe either did not set the task of taking into account the national composition of the population at all or too limited it.
More reliable information is based on the account of nationality in five European countries: Albania (census of 1945, 1950, 1960), Bulgaria (census of 1946, 1956), Romania (census of 1948, 1956), Czechoslovakia (census of 1950) and Yugoslavia (census of 1948, 1953, 1961). The question of nationality and mother tongue was included in all censuses.
In countries where only the linguistic affiliation of the population was recorded, the ability to determine the ethnic composition is becoming more complicated. These are Belgium, Greece, Finland, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Liechtenstein. Nationality does not always coincide with the linguistic one, many peoples speak the same language, for example, Swiss, Germans, Austrians speak German. In addition, many peoples were completely assimilated in the territory into which they moved, and the concept of “native language” as a determinant of ethnicity does not work in this case.
Countries such as Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, France did not set themselves the task of determining the national composition of the population during the census. First, in these countries the concept of “nationality” is synonymous with “citizenship”; secondly, in some countries a relatively uniform national composition (Iceland, Portugal, Denmark, Ireland); thirdly, in some countries relatively accurate information is available only for individual peoples, for example, for the Welsh in the UK.
Thus, the weak development of statistics on the national question and the repeated change in the political borders of states have created significant problems in the formation of reliable data on the national composition of the population of foreign Europe.
The dynamics of the number of peoples in foreign Europe
The dynamics of the number of peoples of foreign Europe has not been exactly the same throughout centuries of history.
In the Middle Ages, the number of Romanesque peoples increased the fastest, since they were more developed culturally and economically. In modern times, the championship was seized by the German and Slavic peoples.
The normal natural development of some peoples of Europe was disrupted by world wars. Significant losses during the last world war were among the Jewish people, whose number decreased by more than 3 times, among the Gypsies 2 times.
As for forecasts for the future, an increase in the percentage of Slavic peoples and a decrease in the percentage of Germanic peoples is possible in the national composition of European countries.
Factors affecting the dynamics of the number of peoples of foreign Europe
One of the main factors affecting the number of individual peoples in the national structure of countries of foreign Europe is migration, which results in a decrease in the number of people. For example, after the resettlement of Jews in Israel, their numbers in Europe sharply decreased. But there were exceptions. For example, the Greeks, whose number increased sharply due to the resettlement of Greeks from Turkey to Europe.
The dynamics of the population of a particular nation is affected by the level of fertility and mortality, but most of all it depends on the degree of assimilation in the country of residence. Many immigrants of the second and third generation lose their national identity, having almost completely assimilated. For example, in France, the Spaniards and Italians are gradually becoming French.
Instead of output
The national composition of foreign Europe is characterized by comparative homogeneity. In Europe, mono-ethnic countries and countries dominate, where the vast majority are representatives of a particular nation. Countries that are nationally complex are very few, but national issues are very acute in them.