ABSTRACT
This article is an attempt to analyse some of the current elements of nationalism and ethnicity as they are seen in ethnographic thinking in contemporary Russia. The old term, 'ethnography', inherited from the nineteenth century had been used in the Soviet Union for studying both European and nonEuropean peoples. What in Western countries is 'anthropology' is in Russia called 'physical anthropology.' Nowadays the terms 'ethnology' and 'cultural anthropology' can also be seen in Russia. Ethnography in the Soviet Union was tightly connected with national politics and in this way its practical meaning was significant.
