The principle of creative self-activity
Authors: Rubinstein Sergei 
Published: November 2021

The article reveals the main milestones of the 90-year life and scientific work of Petro Petrovich Kononenko - Doctor of Philology, Professor, prominent Ukrainian scholar, literary critic, writer and playwright, initiator of the Ukrainian National Lyceum, founder and director of the National Research Institute of Ukraine. The often mentioned village of Markivtsi, Bobrovytsia district, Chernihiv region, where P. Kononenko was born on May 31, 1931, is the cradle, the first sounds, the first words of the Ukrainian language, and the first knowledge of Ukraine in native people - all for the first time and all native. Milestones in life are graduating from high school in his native village, Faculty of Philology of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State University, obtaining the degrees of candidate, doctor of philology, academic titles of associate professor and professor, work as head of the Department of History of Ukrainian Literature, dean of the Faculty of Philology. Research Institute of Ukrainian Studies. Researchers of his work M. Velychko and M. Slavynsky define the creative mission and works of PP Kononenko as follows: poet, prose writer, playwright, literary critic and literary critic, whose works have been translated into English, Bulgarian, Spanish, German, Polish, Croatian, Georgian. Tatar and other languages. Author of almost 1000 scientific publications and 50 monographs, including: “In Search of the Essence”, “Village in Ukrainian Literature”, “Ukrainian Literature: Problems of Development”, textbook for higher education institutions “Ukrainian Studies”, “Love Your Ukraine…”, “ Mykhailo Hrushevsky ”,“ The Phenomenon of the Ukrainian Language ”,“ Ukrainian Ethnos: Genesis and Perspectives ”,“ National Idea, Nation, Nationalism ”,“ We ??Have One Ukraine ”(books I, II, III) - co-authored with Taras Kononenko, “Ukrainian land and people in world civilization and culture” (books I, II), “Ukrainians in world civilization and culture. The historical phenomenon of Stepan Bandera “. The works of the recognized master of the word include the tragedy “Mary on Calvary”, selected “Voices in the Desert”, a collection of poems “Sunny Phoenix”. On the eve of P. Kononenko’s 90th birthday, his large-format four-volume memoir and reflections “One Hundred Years - One Hundred Roads… Ukraine and Ukrainian Studies: Origin - Executions - Resurrection” were published. In addressing the readers of the four-volume book, the content of which is reviewed in the article, P. Kononenko calls his work a reflection on Ukraine and the science of Ukrainian studies in intellectual, mental, experiential and mental perception, and thus interpretation, predictability and planning of the future. The personal perception of Ukraine by the author of the four-volume book, world Ukrainians, Ukrainian studies, the fate of Ukraine as the fate of everyone, its role and mission in intellectual-logical and emotional-emotional phenomenality, interdependence of historical and psychological perspectives, philosophical-ideological and psychological-cultural assessment and opportunities for human progress. Among the real characters of the four-volume book, the article reveals the psychology of “residents of profit and career, adapters”, who grew in the tragic circumstances of foreign colonization of Ukraine, the beginning in January 1972 in Kiev and other cities of Ukraine mass arrests of Ukrainian KGB poets, artists, students, to whom P. Kononenko is almost the first among other authors. The origin of the idea and foundation of the Institute of Ukrainian Studies, an example of which was created by Omelyan Prytsak for the preservation and development of Ukrainian cultural heritage “Institute of Ukrainian Studies” at Harvard University, “School Board” in the US and Canada, which manages schools of Ukrainian studies, development of the Center 1988 at the Faculty of Philology of the Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, and with it the Institute of Ukrainian Studies and its state status. The chronology of the transformation of this scientific institution into the Research Institute of Ukrainian Studies in the sphere of management of the Ministry of Education and Science and the transfer of the building at 18 Isaakyana Street in Kyiv for its placement are given. The reasons for counteracting the institutional development of Ukrainian studies in modern Ukraine, which still preserves the Soviet system of organization of communist-style science, further strengthened by its communist and post-communist functionaries, are analyzed. P. Kononenko’s reasoning that the phenomenon of synthesis of Ukrainian studies should be anthropology, and the generator of knowledge - the Institute of Man. The conclusions consider the achievements of the future, which include the causal conditionality of Ukrainian authenticity at each stage of the favorable historical development of the Ukrainian nation, determined by the functioning of statehood in the exercise of its protective function.