THE FORMATION OF BASES OF THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY AFFIRMATION WITH THE PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

Russian military invasion of Ukraine has caused life-threatening danger to over 7.5 million of Ukrainian children. As a result of the war there are 3 million children-refugees in Ukraine and over 2.2 million children are seeking shelter in other Ukraine friendly countries. Young generation needs urgent humanitarian help. Every two children of three are refugees inside or outside of Ukraine. Children who suffered from injuries, physical, sexual or psychological assaults, kidnepped children or forced to move out of the country or captives must be granted the status of children affected by hostilities and armed conflict. In the reality of martial law in Ukraine the most important aim for Ukrainian educators is to unite the efforts of teachers and communities on their way to protect children's rights and freedoms, teach the young generation, providing them with values and behaviour models they need nowadays. Under the condition of the russian-Ukrainian war, the path to the freedom and independence of Ukraine runs through the formation of the defense-oriented consciousness of the society, education of the younger generation based on the values of Ukraine-centrism, historical truth, and national dignity. The issue of affirmation of the Ukrainian national identity and the spiritual safety of the nation becomes particularly topical. This is because the development of the national culture was detrimentally affected by the long-lasting period of statelessness, restrictions, repressions, negative mythologization of the image of a Ukrainian, rewriting of history, and diminishing the role of Ukrainians in the life of the countries and empires to which they belonged. The educational process shall be in the context of new challenges based on the new historical achievements and moral values produced by the Ukrainian people within the centuries and nowadays realities which conditioned the choice of the topic of this Article. The author partially grounded the pedagogical conditions of affirmation of the bases of national identity of the primary school children, namely, through the formation of the national positive I-concept of the child (the image of I-Ukrainian). The methods of the reinforcement of the educative potential of the extra-class activity are determined through the creation and application of the person-oriented methodology of the formation of all components of the national cultural identity of the children, the ways and directions of further elaboration of this topic are defined. Keywords: national identity, spiritual safety of the nation, defense consciousness, moral values, strategy, education, pedagogical interaction, children of war.