A combination of positive and negative attitude towards socially meaningful phenomena and concepts can be confidently called one of the most important patterns of science and policy. The concept «patriotism» is not an exception, and the analysis of various approaches and their dynamics can reveal intriguing peculiarities and details of both current attitude to it, and practical implementation. G. Plekhanov pointed out that due to economic factors the idea of a tribe gave way to the idea of a motherland, and the idea of a motherland in its turn should give place to an incomparably wide idea of mankind. These ideas were prevalent with internationalists and in Soviet period. Breakup of the Soviet Union into several national states each of them sought to adhere to «its own» patriotism, and the last decade of the XX century made a great change in the formerly common semantics. This concept came to be ambiguously interpreted in Russia as well. At the behest of some post-soviet politicians «patriotism» and the related terms turned out to be not only vague but at times convey negative meaning. Nowadays this paradigm must be changed: economic and ethno-psychological resources grow in importance contributing to integration of benchmarks and messages of pride for the nation and interethnic consent.