- published: 27 Jun 2015
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Russians (Russian: русские, russkiye) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, who speak the Russian language and primarily live in Russia. They are the most numerous ethnic group in Russia constituting more than 80% of the country's population according to the census of 2010, and the most numerous ethnic group in Europe.
There are two Russian words which are commonly translated into English as "Russians". One is "русские" (russkiye), which most often means "ethnic Russians". Another is "россияне" (rossiyane), which means "citizens of Russia". The former word refers to ethnic Russians, regardless of what country they live in and irrespective of whether or not they hold Russian citizenship. Under certain circumstances this term may or may not extend to denote members of other Russian-speaking ethnic groups from Russia, or from the former Soviet Union. The latter word refers to all people holding citizenship of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity, and does not include ethnic Russians living outside of Russia. Translations into other languages often do not distinguish these two groups.
British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies; and their descendants.British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, by descent from British nationals. When used in a historical context, British people refers to the ancient Britons, the indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain south of the Forth.
Although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era. The complex history of the formation of the United Kingdom created a "particular sense of nationhood and belonging" in Great Britain and Ireland; Britishness became "superimposed on much older identities", of English, Scots, Welsh and Irish cultures, whose distinctiveness still resists notions of a homogenised British identity. Because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists.