ETHNOCULTURAL STUDIES OF L. ZALIZNYAK (1991-2018)
Authors: Fihurnyi Yuriy , Shakurova Olga 
Published: June 2020

The article analyzes the ethnocultural problems in the scientific works of L. Zalizniak, published by them in 1991-2018. The methodological basis of the study was the principles of historicism and historical retrospective. Also, the researchers applied comparative-analytical, systemic-structural, objective-subjective, biographical, concrete-generalization, chronological, concrete-historical, retrospective and other methods of research. The researcher was interested in the problem of the origin of the Ukrainian people with the arrival to the Institute of Ukrainian Studies in 1992. The fruitful cooperation with the Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the Kyiv University named after Taras Shevchenko and other scientific institutions helped the scientist to form his own vision of the Ukrainian ethnogenetic process. For a quarter century of work on the topic in the conditions of the Ukrainian state, L. Zaliznyak creatively substantiated and developed the early-medieval conception of the origin of the Ukrainian people founded by M. Hrushevsky. During this long time, L. Zalizniak's ethno-cultural studios have become a solid, stable and reliable ground for the modern concept of ethnogenesis of Ukrainians. The scholar highlights the following basic provisions of this ethnogenetic theory: 1) The peoples are ethnocultural organisms that pass through the life cycle from birth through childhood, maturity, old age to ethnic disintegration and assimilation by other ethnic groups; 2) The age of ethnos determines the ethno-cultural continuity of its development, which is established with the help of a complex of sources and methods of various paleo-historical disciplines (archeology, historical sources, linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, etc.); 3) The birth of large ethnic groups in the middle of Europe occurred in the early Middle Ages; 4) The tribal stage of the development of European ethnic groups began at the dawn of the Middle Ages and ended in the IX-X centuries the emergence of their first states - English, French, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, Polish, Russian; 5) The state-owned people of the empire may generate daughters in the provinces of the empire controlled by them. They arose as a result of the synthesis of local traditions with the culture and language of the imperial people-conqueror, and began their own historical existence from the moment of separation from the empire. They arose as a result of the synthesis of local traditions with the culture and language of the imperial people-conqueror, and began their own historical existence from the moment of separation from the empire. So the Romans gave rise to the Romanesque group of peoples, and the ancient Ukrainian (Russian) princely Kievan group of Eastern Slavs (Belarusians, Pskov-Novgorod, Russians). According to L. Zalizniak, in Eastern Europe there really existed a cradle of three fraternal peoples. Newborn Belarussians, Pskov-Novgorodians and Russians sat there, and their father, a pro-Ukrainian from Prince Kiev, sheds it. L. Zaliznyak substantiates the coherence of the early medieval conception of the origin of Ukrainians with the universal scheme of ethnogenesis of the great European ethnic groups and the scheme of the ethnogenesis of the eastern Slavs M. Hrushevsky. If M. Hrushevsky considered the antitates to be direct ancestors of the Ukrainian people, then L. Zaliznyak is convinced that they were the most slobins. According to L. Zaliznyak, Ukrainian ethnogenetic periodization has the following form: ethnogenesis of Ukrainians begins at the end of the fifth century; further - slobins and partially anti (V-VІІ st.); annalistic tribes of Volynians, Derevlyans, Polyan, White Croats, Ulychi, Tiverts (VIII-IX); Ruthenian people (proukrainians) (X-XIV centuries); Rusyns-Ukrainians of the Cossack Age (XV-XVIII centuries); Ukrainians since the emergence of a modern nation (nineteenth and twentieth centuries). Actively criticizing the modern exotic concepts of prehistoric origin of Ukrainians, the scientist emphasizes: 1) Ukrainian people are born only when their basic ethno-cultural complex is formed, which includes language, culture, temperament, character, anthropological type, self-consciousness and specific forms of management; 2) the main defining feature of the age of the Ukrainian ethnos is the continuity of its ethno-cultural development, that is, the presence of a holistic complex of ethno-cultural elements for a sufficiently long time.

Consequently, the ethno-cultural studios of L. Zaliznyak in post-Soviet Ukraine, deprived of totalitarian ideology, acquired the finality and systematic comprehension, due to this, they became a solid and reliable ground for the construction of scientifically sound models of Ukrainian ethnogenesis.