Every person possesses a whole set of identities, revealing in different moments of his social life. These include personal, gender, racial, ethnic, religious, local, regional, national, civil and other ones. One part is based on biological and genetic determinants, the other is formatting with the process of socialization, as a result of inclusion in a certain community. Each identity, except for the personal one, fixes person’s belonging to a certain group. E.g. a woman realizing herself in this quality defines her group belonging to the gender. A representative of the yellow race correlates himself as a part of a huge group of people carrying the same racial features. A representative of the ethnic group Han relates himself with other Han. An inhabitant of the Chinese city Kunming of Yunnan Province makes a generality with the people occupying 3-million population city, or of the entire province. A Buddhist ranks himself with everyone who shares his Faith. A citizen of Peoples Republic of China feels direct involvement in the life of his co-citizens, accepting the common ideology and basic values. All of these identities, natural or imposed from above can be combined in one person, e.g. an ordinary yellow woman, ethnic Han, Buddhist, an inhabitant of the Chinese city Kunming of Yunnan Province. This is, so to say, an ideal example of multiple systemized identities combined in one person. But the reality is much more complicated. E.g. if this abstract woman does belong to Tibetan minority, or if she is a member of a group of political dissidents, opposite to the communist regime, or, if she, as the second, "spare" child in the family, is deprived of the rights of a citizen, the inevitable antagonism between her personal self-identification and imposed official identities, would reveal. Such an antagonism a priori contains a threat to the vernacular forms of belongings.

In a person’s everyday life, the majority of the expressions of his identities not be claimed, or express itself seldom. As a rule, a man waking up in the morning would not remember he is Catholic, or, that he is a citizen of Japan. The actualization of different identities is often manifested when something threatens to them. In such a case, the threatened identity manifests itself, as the other ones fade. In the early '90s, at the times of the so-called "Parade of the sovereignties" in the Russian Federation, tension between Moscow and Tatarstan concerning the problem of allowable limits of the republic’s independence from the Federal center, took place. Several attempts to make pressure on from Kremlin side have resulted in sharp strengthening of regional self-identification, becoming predominant to a lot of republican citizens, much more essential, than the national one. The tragic events of the 9/11 strongly consolidated the feeling of national unity among the Americans, forcing away other forms of their self-identification, including rather important ones.

In multinational Russian Empire, with its enormous diversity of cultural archetypes, multiple identities did coexist rather peacefully, but more often—in opposition to one another. Certain specificity existed in different parts of the country, among different peoples and social groups. Confessional (Orthodox) identity was dominating, among Russians, but the imperial (state) identity also strongly manifested itself because it was the Russians particularly identified themselves with the Empire. The upper class was consolidated on a basis of dynastic belonging, while peasants—mainly on the premise of local origins. The imperial identity imposed from above united to some extent certain oppressed minorities (even alien or small ethnic groups found the empire to be a kind of higher belonging, which gave them an illusion of being a part of an outstanding greatness, and also a solid guarantee of their own safety.). Tribal and regional (in geographical sense) self-identification was to the greatest degree extend common among the peoples of the Central Asia. Some peoples of the Northern Caucasus, for example, Chechens, were united largely by their clan and in weaker expression, by confessional identity. Mainly local self-identification was characteristic of small and isolated peoples of the Far North. Ethnic identity prevailed among Poles, Finns and Baltic peoples while the state one (for certain historical and political reasons) was moved to the background. Self-identification on the ethnic basis did not actually exist in the Russian Empire. It was developed in the Soviet Union, in a course of policy for "korenizatsiya", after the General Census (1926), and during the following "pasportizatsiya" campaign (1932). At the same time, practically all kinds of religious identity were destroyed by the 70-years’ imposition of atheism.

Leaning on the powerful repression machine, communist leaders managed to rebuild (in a new political and ideological paradigm) the neoimperial state identity, dominating the other types of group belonging, also established and strictly controlled by the totalitarian regime. The hierarchy of identities is defined from above and changing in the framework of the regime. The action of any integrators from below was accepted unless it affected the predominant identities status.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has caused the loss of the imperial identity, painfully affecting the Russians as the empire-building people, for whom regional, local and even ethnic self-identifications were always less important than the imperial one. This crisis gave a certain impact to the process of cementing Russian ethnic identity and its dominating role. Now it is often manifesting itself on a confrontation basis, in an aggressive-xenophobia expressions, such as caucasophobia, jewdophobia, americanophbia. The additional impulse was given with the revitalization of Orthodox confessional identity. The destruction of former Soviet identities let to a certain atomization of country’s peoples. Some groups consider themselves to be the citizens of their republic, others—of the whole country; finally, self-identification of somebody doesn’t go beyond a small town or village. Russian Federation is a highly disintegrated country, without any sign of civic society. The immaturity or complete absence of any institutional systems, common for multiethnic policonfessional population, shared basic values and spiritual-ideological aims, is the present-day reality with the deep economic crisis and mass impoverishing as a background. The ongoing process of ethnic granulation (e.g. among Tatars, where Siberian Tatars and Kryashens, baptized Tatars, with the ethnic group of Nogaybaks, the successors of Tatar Cossaks, insisting on their separate ethnic identity), added to this phenomenon, it’s easy to understand why national identity is so weak in Russian Federation. For the Russian-populated administrative units the domination of the regional identity is characteristic, and for the people of national republics—it’s mainly the ethnic one, often leading to the ethnonationalism, as a challenge to the Federal Center’s russocentrizm. Confessional forms of identity are becoming more and more urgent for the majority of regions—besides Orthodox, there are Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and others. The new identities formatting all over the Russian space often contradict each other. The national identity has been rising parallel with the ethno-confessional one, in case with the Russians. These two identities often merge in mass consciousness. This process is encouraged by the Authorities. However, a collision hides here. The national identity means (according to the Constitution), a co-citizenship, not blood-brotherhood. Today, in the Russian Federation with Russians who are still state-forming ethnic group, comprising 80% of the total population the process of strengthening ethno-confessional identity keeps growing. As a matter of immanent features of the process itself, and under negative influence of the social and political background, costs become evident. E.g., an attempt to introduce the obligatory Orthodox Canon course at schools (in the state where 20% of the population do not attribute themselves either to Russian, or to Orthodox. The identification of the Russian ethnic and confessional belonging with national identity by the overwhelming majority can deform the Russian idea of citizenship.

Ten years after Soviet Union’s collapse, so called phantom imperial identity is still strong on the post-soviet space. It widely manifests itself in the horizontal level, especially in political sphere (interstate mutual relations of the countries of CIS) and extremely harms to harmonize these relations.

In stable and relatively prospering society there exists a complicated multistage system of self-identifications. Different identities coexist without interfering each other. They often support each other, giving the individual a feeling of multiple belongings. For the unstable state, shattered by internal contradictions, full of social and economical problems, there is another situation. A disbalance of identities, the lack of their hierarchy, with all levels in confrontation, is evident in such a state. A weak degree of national self-identification promotes the growing of regional identities, which in turn, can be weakened by the local ones. In crisis states the identification processes have a stable character overtaking different political, social, ethnic, language, confessional and other groups. Not only a complicated identification processes, but also a deep crisis of identities is a feature of the Russian Federation. It is shown in that certain people unable to associate themselves with the values of modern social life, offering them a new individualist determinants instead of the old "comfortable" traditionalist model. Besides the personal sphere, the crisis appears in the choice of priority group belongings. E.g. today mostly every Chechen correlates himself only and exclusively with the Chechen people, because the ethnic solidarity provides him, let even of a hypothetical degree, a feeling of maintaining his ethnic identity in the circumstances of a bloody war, in which not only terrorists and partisans, but also the peaceful Chechens dying. But at the same time his national and civic identity is almost completely destroyed. The beginning was done by D. Dudaev’s nationalist regime with it’s ethno-separatist claims, leaning the Chechen people to the venturesome idea of the "Great Ichkeriya". Then awful mistakes of the Federal Center’s "Chechen" policy followed, leading to the war of 1994-96. Having failed to stabilize the situation in the republic, got out of control, the state turned to the power of coercion once again, undertaking a sanctioned anti-terrorist operation, which has turned back to even more severe and bloody war, than before. No wonder, that in Chechen’s consciousness the state became an aggressor, trampling their civil rights. Regional self-identification (in case of Chechnya, it is the belonging to a wider, than the ethnic one, generality, e.g. to the population of the Northern Caucasus) also is washed away because the interests of the fighting people come in contradiction with those who not fighting, staying in more or less favorable conditions of peace time. It is inevitable even in case of genetically related neighboring people or the co-believers (Muslims). The absence of common interests and values destroys group identity. Many examples can be given to illustrate this complicated conflictogenic problem of self-identification of the Russian citizens.

With the globalization and the universalizing of the spiritual and material values we can observe the larger planetary forms of identities drive off or even absorb the local ones. As a result of globalization, ethnic, confessional, language identities fade, and the process of washing out of vernacular identities goes on. This process is mainly the characteristic for the developed states with hi-fi technologies, taking leading positions in the world.

The counter process for the lagging states does exist: individuals and small groups fear of being consumed and disappeared strengthens their local, regional and confessional identities. The threat, real or imaginary, consolidates the most active traditionalist groups, rejecting changes and progress. As the answer to threat cultural fundamentalism arises, cultivating cultural differences, often speculating on ideas of sacrifice and messianism.

Affected by fundamentalism, the archaization of interpersonal and intergroup connections and relations takes place: imaginary identities are being artificially cultivated. E.g. the Chechens are being given, substantially from the outside, archaic, reconstructed from a historic and ethnographic heritage the so called form of group belonging—a teip (clan) identity. It is not the extreme archaism of such forms of solidarity, that presents a serious problem, but the fact that being inadequate to a modern reality, they are nevertheless requested. Apparently, the maximal splitting of the group consolidation forms is being dictated to the biased mass consciousness by the primitive instinct of survival.

The parallel processes of globalization and localization (or "Tribalization", which, according to the Italian scientist A.B. Oliva, is "the answer in the framework of peasant civilizations" in case the trials by time, when self-identification is carried through "the right of blood to definition of divergences") possess a considerable dangerous potential. The more evident is intention to globalization, the tighter get the shackles of traditional group belongings. The evasion of these two opposing processes clashing is the aim of the politicians and the intellectuals. With both these processes getting stronger, the only way is in applying efforts in maintaining ethnic and national cultures, religions and traditions, spiritual potentials of any local groups, at the same time protecting the right of mankind to achieving an alignment, "integral" world-outlook, some planetary identity.