Existential Manifestations of Ethnic Culture in the Context of the Retrospective of the Ukrainian State Building
Authors:   Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy, Prysiazhniuk Yuriy , Vovkochyn Lyudmyla ,   Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy
Published: May 2022

The merit of the British political scientist Andrew Wilson and other intellectuals is that at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries the democratic world learned about the existence in Eastern Europe of an «unexpected» nation – the Ukrainians. Even today, few people think about the fact that this community remains little known in the ethnic context. At the same time, attempts by some culturologists, historians, ethnologists, psychologists, and religious scholars to emphasize its uniqueness have repeatedly met with systemic resistance from the humanities themselves. Moreover, while Soviet historians denied Ukrainian cultural identity because of their obligation to give priority to the «advanced Russian people», modern proponents of the postmodern history of historiography do not treat them as an ethnos with due respect for their dislike of «harmful» ethnocentrism as such. The aim of the research is to try to find out the existential properties of the inner world of Ukrainians on the basis of the historical retrospective of state formation. Noting on occasion that they may suddenly «emerge» not only as a nation but also as an ethnic group. The basis of the research methodology is a holonomic approach. This means that «cause» and «consequence» can be characteristic features from different fields and even historical epochs. Such an analysis is possible within the theoretical synthesis, when it is based on the mental rootedness of social constructs, ideas, experiences that are inherent in people as carriers of the collective unknown (archetypes). The existential order of the ethnos is best represented by the mentality. It is the integral-syncretic formation in which the meanings of life are the modeling dominant of worldview, world perception and world understanding. In an effort to understand the existential manifestations of ethnic culture (in the context of the retrospective of state formation), it is important to take into account: the vocation of the «Ukrainian» collective principle to put pressure on the individual. And to bring this into the ethnic not only eclectic mix of Western and Eastern cultures, but also the original mental traits inherent only in its characteristics – natural spontaneity, biopsychological orientation and etc. The authors have proved that the reproaches that are often addressed to the people have another addressee – the elite, which is firmly «attached» to the ethnic group. The low quality of state elites in Ukraine, which was especially acute during periods of historical crises, receives a logical explanation and even «justification» at the mental level of life. Another thing is that for centuries it has prevented the solution of fateful state tasks, and limited its role to the banal seizure of power. Changing the situation requires political «geniuses» who are able to think and act strategically more broadly. They must understand the values, the mentality of their people, the imperatives of its ethnic culture. The history of Ukrainian state-building in the period of early modernism and modernism still amazes European readers, sometimes even the closest neighbors. The research showed that if their acquaintance with this began with a detailed study of the existential manifestations of the ethnic culture of Ukrainians, it would be much easier to reach mutual understanding.