The paper examines theoretical discourses of ethnicity and has three main objectives: (1) to categorize and compare three academic approaches to-wards ethnicity, nation and nationalism, (2) to identify the core distinction between ethnic and national identity, and (3) to analyze the differences between approaches through activity and objectivity of ethnicity. The traditional distinction between primordialist and modernist/situationist approaches is enhanced by adding the ethicist approach to the interjacent boundary. There are three core lines of distinctions between these approaches. Firstly, it is, more or less, the dis-tinction between primordiality of ethnicity and modernity of nation, not primordiality and modernity itself, which divides the discussed approaches. Secondly, most academic theories, regardless of their background, interpret the ethnicity (nation) as situational rather than objective or subjective phenomenon. Lastly, it is the scale of activity of ethnicity (activity of individuals - components - systems) which differs among the theories.