SLAVIC IDENTITY OF THE XIXth CENTURY UKRAINIAN HISTORIANS: CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE IMAGE OF “NATIVE” CIVILIZATON

Abstract

Abstract Background: Despite a significant interest of the Ukrainian scientists to the intellectual phenomena of the XIX th century, such an important worldview issue as Slavic identity was left beyond the researchers’ attention. This identity was represented by the majority of the Ukrainian intellectuals of the Romanticism (first half and middle of the XIXth century), mainly historians. Formation of the Ukrainian national movement as well as modern Ukrainian culture was in process under the conditions of spreading of this very form of civilizational self identification. This determines the actuality of our research. Purpose: The main aim of the paper is to outline the conceptual background of the Slavic identity and to analyze its genesis using the XIXth century Ukrainian historians’ scientific heritage as an example. Results: Slavic identity has been interpreted in the paper as identification of Ukraine and its historical past with the Slavic civilization, which was most often represented in the XIXth century historical texts by the notions Slavic world or Slovianshchyna. It meant to estimate historical and cultural phenomena applying the estimating scale “Slavic-nonslavic”. Anything in the Ukrainian cultural tradition estimated as “nonslavic” was automatically classified as “alien”. The Slavic identity was mainly formed as reaction to Eurocentrism of modern worldview principles. It was also an attempt of the intellectuals to overcome the cultural and civilizational inferiority complex of the Slavs. The intellectual and psychological paradox of the Slavic identity representatives’ was that they failed to completely overcome the Eurocentrism of their own worldview. The explanation of advantages of the Slavic nature was limited by the phrase “We are’nt any worse than Europe”. Being ideologically antieuropean, these intellectuals viewed Europe as a certain pattern or criterion for self estimation. Thus this identity failed to overcome the inferiority complex. Its opponents, the representatives of the European identity, were actively searching for an alternative formula for overcoming this complex. So this formula in the XXth century sounded already as following: “We, the Slavs, also belong to Europe”. The Slavic identity of the Ukrainian intellectuals of “the long XIXth century” as an intellectual and psychological phenomenon hasn’t been adequately studied, understood or popularized so far. Key words: Slavs, Slavic world, identity, historiography, civilization, orthodoxy, Europe.