The paper is devoted to the study of a topical issue in modern socio-humanitarian knowledge: verbal ethnic and linguistic self-identification of ethnically non-Russian authors in Russian-language poetic discourse. Namely, we will analyze the work of a unique Russian-speaking poet of Buryat origin Namzhil Nimbuev from the point of view of the author’s verbal demonstration of his belonging to a certain ethnicity in linguistic and ethnic aspects. This article examines the poet’s only collection “Hobbled Lightning”, published in 1972. The article has a brief theoretical introduction: the concepts of identity, self-identification, ethnic and linguistic self-identification are considered, the classification of self-identification is chosen. The main part of the article presents an analysis of N. Nimbuev’s poems on the topic of interest to us. The words of the Buryat language, national nominatives, direct descriptions of self-identification (“I am a Buryat”), indirect ones based on comparisons and others were singled out. The poet’s attitude to the Russian and Buryat languages is considered. At the end of the work conclusions are made that the author self-identifies himself with a modern Buryat, expressing the national picture of the world through the Russian language.