«SLAVIC MUTUALITY»: INTERSECTION OF IMPERIAL IDEAS IN UKRAINIAN-SLAVIC-EUROPEAN RECEPTIONS

Abstract

The purpose of the study is the reconstruction of one, although definitely not primary, factor in the ideologization of the national movement of the Western Slavs (we are talking about Ukrainian relations with the Western Slavs), which allows for a more accurate understanding of both the circumstances of the Slavic revival and the ideological syncretism of the revivalists. Accordingly, Slavic interethnic relations and spiritual receptions were "sanctified" for many years by the idea of "Slavic reciprocity," a cultural or linguistic-literary community. In the absence of their own statehood, romantic national idealism was not only a component of the ideology of ethnocultural preservation, for example, among the Lusatians, but also became an additional factor in the national movement of the Ukrainian, Czech, and Slovak peoples for their national liberation. We will focus on only some aspects of Ukrainian-Slavic relations. Accordingly, it would certainly be an exaggeration to attribute to the connections of the Western Slavs with the Ukrainians, as well as with the Russian environment, the significance of the exclusive catalyst of national movements. But the information about connections and exchanges that have reached us testify to the establishment of mostly direct contacts between active representatives of the Slavic peoples, which, of course, expanded the worldview of national leaders and strengthened the feeling of the all-Slavic community. In our opinion, external Slavic factors, including Ukrainian ones, supplemented the ideology of the Slavs not so much with a national content but mainly emphasized that ethnic revival is not a local or regional phenomenon but a process that is genetically connected with the generality of similar phenomena. It is significant that at the activation stage in the 1930s and 1940s, cultural and national aspirations of Ukrainians and Western Slavic peoples, the European policy of the Russian Empire was one of the reasons for the politicization of national ideologies. However, the study of international communication is impossible without clarifying the content of typology and patterns of the appearance of inter-imperial contradictions and interests as fairly typical phenomena in the context of the formation and development of national ideologies in Central and Central-Eastern Europe in the first half of the 19th century.