Like other social sciences, the study of world nationalities has experienced a long process of data accumulation. From the historical records at home and abroad, people of all ethnic groups began to pay attention to and understand the neighboring ethnic groups long ago for the needs of peaceful exchange and war defense. Aside from the mythical oral legends, the ancient works that were first seen in literature and historical materials and recorded a large number of ethnic situations in detail and have been handed down to this day include Herodotus's History of Persian War in the 5th century BC, G.J. Caesar's Gaul War in 1 century BC, and C. Tacitus's Germania in 1 century BC. In China, there are Historical Records written by Sima Qian in 1 century BC, Hanshu written by Ban Gu in 1 century BC, The History of the Three Kingdoms written by Chen Shou in the 3rd century, and official history, official history and local chronicles.
Because the ancient people's concepts of geography and time and space were narrow, the breadth and depth of their understanding of the surrounding ethnic groups were limited. With the development of production and social progress, the range of communication between people and the outside world has gradually expanded from near to far, thus making the records of ethnic situations in various places increasingly rich and informative. For example, Faxian, a monk in the Eastern Jin Dynasty in China, and Xuanzang, a monk in the Tang Dynasty, traveled to Tianzhu, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, and wrote the Story of the Buddha Country and the Story of the Western Regions in the Tang Dynasty; Zhufanzhi written by Zhao in Song Dynasty and Dailing Waidai written by Zhou Qufei: On Island Yi written by Wang Dayuan in Yuan Dynasty and Zhenla Tuji written by Zhou Daguan: Ma Huan and Fei Xinhe in Ming Dynasty. For another example, the Italian traveler M Poirot (that is, Kyle Poirot) traveled to China in the13rd century, and the Travels of Marco Polo left by other Asian countries opened the eyes of Europeans and attracted them deeply by the national customs and prosperity of the eastern countries. 15 ~ 17 century, navigators, explorers, missionaries, businessmen and colonists from all over Europe arrived in America, Africa, Oceania and Southeast Asia. Their reports on the lifestyle and cultural characteristics of the people of all ethnic groups they contacted further broadened people's horizons and greatly enriched people's knowledge and understanding of all ethnic groups in the world. Although these reports are somewhat biased, on the whole, they are of epoch-making significance in the accumulation of world ethnic data. Modern countries' research on the world's nationalities is gradually developed on the basis of a large amount of data accumulated in the above period.
By the middle of19th century, a large number of research works based on world ethnic data appeared, which aroused the interest and concern of the founders of Marxism. In order to demonstrate their historical materialism and the social conditions before the recorded history of mankind, Marx and Engels carefully read the ethnologists Bachofen, Maclennan, Main, lubbock, Taylor, Morgan and μ. They quoted the data of American Indians, Asian Indians, Polynesians and Australians in Oceania, Celts, Germans and Slavs in Europe, and fully demonstrated their speculation on the early stage of human history. At the same time, Marx and Engels personally studied the history and present situation of many ethnic groups in Europe and Asia for the needs of the revolutionary struggle at that time, and wrote a lot of works. For example, the ancient history of the Germans (188 1 ~ 1882), the Frankish era (188 1 ~ 1882), and the history of Ireland (1872) Outline of the Report of the Society of Productive Education on Irish Issues (1867), Chronicle of Indian History (188 1), Indian Uprising (1857), and the opposition to ethnic oppression in China, Central Asia, Persia, Poland and Hungary. The basic viewpoints on nationalities and ethnic issues put forward in these discourses are of great guiding significance to the study of nationalities in the world. Many countries in the world are studying the nations of the world. Countries with relatively developed economy and culture have set up specialized research institutions, with a large number of researchers, some as many as thousands. However, due to the different nature of each country, its purpose, task, scope and scale of world ethnic studies are also different, and the scientific system including world ethnic studies is also different.
In European and American countries, the study of the world's nationalities is not carried out as a whole, but in different categories. First of all, they divide the nationalities in the world into two categories: one is civilized nationality, or advanced nationality, historical nationality and cultural nationality; The other kind is barbaric ethnic groups, or backward ethnic groups, natural ethnic groups, illiterate ethnic groups and so on. In fact, their so-called "civilized nation" only refers to themselves, and all former colonial and semi-colonial people are classified as "barbaric peoples". They have always strictly distinguished between the two in their research activities. The study of civilized nations in Europe is carried out by social science or humanities formed after the Renaissance. The national concepts, national principles and nationalist ideas arising from the rise of European national movements are generally studied by political science; The origin, formation and development of the nation are studied by history; About national consciousness and national character, it is a psychological study; Sociology studies social structure and social contradictions; About lifestyle and customs, folklore is used to study. However, in the face of the vast number of non-European nationalities contacted by the "geographical discovery", these disciplines are unfamiliar and do nothing. Thus, in the middle of19th century, a special discipline ── ethnology was formed, which took the backward nationalities in America, Africa, Oceania and Southeast Asia as the research objects (called ethnology in Europe, cultural anthropology in America and social anthropology in Britain), making ethnology the main department of ethnology research in Europe and America for a long time. Until the Second World War, due to the development of the national liberation movement and the collapse of the colonial system, some people advocated expanding the research scope of ethnology to developed nations in Europe and America, and extending the theories, methods and experiences gained from the study of "simple society" to the study of "complex society". Some people even advocate turning ethnology into an all-encompassing super-discipline to replace all social sciences or humanities. However, this is only an idea or trend of some scholars. But in fact, the research object of ethnology in Europe and America is mainly in the third world.
The Soviet Union started before the Second World War, but the scale was not large. After the war, with the strengthening of national strength and the increase of international influence, the scale of world ethnic studies has expanded rapidly. From 1954 to 1966, the series of World Ethnography was edited and published one after another, with 18 volumes and120,000 words. Since the 1970s, the series "Country and Nation" has been published, with 20 volumes and more than 8 million words. In addition, there are World Ethnic Atlas, World Ethnic Encyclopedia Manual (Volume 1), World Ethnic Encyclopedia (Volume 2), World Ethnic Art Encyclopedia (Volume 5) and various monographs. They are different from the west in subject system. They believe that ethnology is a department of historical science, and expand ethnology into a subject that studies all nationalities in the world, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign.
Japan also attaches great importance to the study of countries around the world. In the past, they focused their research on East Asia and Southeast Asia. After World War II, the scope of research gradually expanded and a lot of manpower and material resources were invested. Edited and published two sets of large picture books: Grand View of World Nationalities (8 volumes) and World Nationalities (20 volumes); In 1977, the world's largest ethnology museum was built in Sakata, Osaka, with a construction area of over 40,000 square meters and a collection of about 50,000 national cultural relics. However, influenced by European and American countries in the discipline system, they take a compromise attitude towards the views of scholars from various countries.
After the Second World War, Eastern European countries and some emerging countries in the Third World have also carried out research on the world's ethnic groups to varying degrees, generally focusing on the ethnic groups in neighboring areas. For example, Yugoslavia focuses on the Balkans, Poland focuses on Slavs, and India focuses on the South Asian subcontinent. Czechoslovakia has a wide range of research, and has published many works on the peoples of America, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, New Guinea and Siberia. Romania attaches great importance to the translation of world national works, and often compiles popular books to introduce the culture and life of all nationalities in the world. The ancient documents in China contain rich information about the world's nationalities. The Chronicles of Four Continents edited by Lin Zexu in modern times, as well as Yang Bingnan's Overseas Travels, Wei Yuan's Atlas of Seas and Xu Songkan's Introduction to World Nationalities; During the Reform Movement of 1898 and the Revolution of 1911, there were also many articles and works introducing the nationalities and ethnic issues in the world. From 1930s to 1940s, many scholars did some useful work in this field.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, we began to pay attention to the understanding and research of foreign nationalities while carrying out domestic ethnic studies. However, limited by the international environment and human and material resources at that time, we could only translate and introduce some world ethnic situations, and carry out research and teaching on world ethnic issues on a small scale. For example, 1954 founded a series of ethnic translation; 1956, the history department of Minzu University of China opened ethnology and systematically taught the course of world ethnography; 196 1 Since then, the Institute of Ethnology of the China Academy of Sciences has set up the World Ethnography Research Group to conduct a preliminary study on the Soviet Union and Asian, African and Latin American peoples. During this period, some units engaged in the study of international issues paid attention to the study of foreign ethnic issues while discussing the political, economic, historical and social issues of various countries. Through the above activities, we have accumulated a number of information about the world's nationalities and trained a number of talents who are interested in the study of the world's nationalities.
During the ten-year turmoil of the "Cultural Revolution", China's study of world nationalities was once interrupted. 1978 After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the China Production Party, the research work in this field has been restored and developed rapidly. 1979 In May, at the National Ethnic Studies Planning Conference, the principles and tasks of world ethnic studies were: to study and introduce ethnic situations and ethnic issues in various countries under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, to serve the socialist modernization of agriculture, industry, national defense and science and technology in China, to serve the ethnic work in China, and to promote mutual understanding and friendly exchanges among people of all countries. At the same time, the China World Ethnic Studies Association was established and two national academic seminars were held. The World Ethnic Research Office was established in the Institute of Ethnic Studies of China Academy of Social Sciences and the Central Institute of Ethnic Studies. In addition, some works and collections of various nationalities in the world have been published.
The study of ethnic groups in the New China world is a comprehensive academic field, with three main research contents: ① Ethnic status. That is, the ethnic composition of each country, as well as the population distribution, ethnic types, languages, religious beliefs, ethnic origins, historical contours, social forms, economic activities, cultural traditions, lifestyles and customs of each ethnic group. ② Ethnic issues (including racial issues). That is, ethnic relations, ethnic contradictions, ethnic struggles and their manifestations, social roots and development trends in various multi-ethnic countries; Theories and principles, policies and measures adopted by the governments concerned to solve these problems; Major events such as international disputes and border conflicts caused by ethnic issues in some areas; The struggle of the people of the Third World against hegemonism, imperialism and colonialism, racial discrimination and national oppression. ③ Ethnic theory. That is, to explore the process and laws of the formation, development, differentiation, assimilation, prosperity and integration of nationalities in different regions and countries in the world; This paper studies the process and law of the rise, development and evolution of nationalist thoughts and nationalist movements, as well as their different historical functions in different historical periods. At the same time, pay attention to the study of the theories and doctrines on nationalities and ethnic issues put forward by scholars from various countries and factions.
At present, the tasks faced by ethnic researchers in the new China world are mainly to collect a large amount of data in a planned way, systematically introduce the ethnic situation in the world, pay attention to ethnic issues in relevant regions, train professionals engaged in ethnic studies in the world, and make greater contributions to enhancing mutual understanding and friendly exchanges among people of all countries.