ICON AS ONE OF THE FACTORS FOR THE FORMATION OF UKRAINIAN ETHNIC IDENTITY

Main Article Content

Natalia KRYVDA

Abstract

Introduction. In today's intellectual discourse, the problem of individual and collective identity has gained significant relevance in connection with the fact that the contemporary world blurs the outlines and boundaries that have determined human life for a long period of time. These changes are accompanied by the preservation of traditional social institutions, which are radically transformed from within while preserving external invariableness. The fundamental changes in the socio-cultural space of the contemporary world are accompanied by a number of significant exceptions, which are manifested through the organic combination of the main tendencies of the globalized world, and the preservation of ethno-cultural traditions. An illustrative example in this context may be the Ukrainian identity, which was largely formed on the background of the religious factor. The purpose of the research is to disclose the elements of religious culture, which formed the basis for the formation of Ukrainian ethnocultural identity and the definition of the role of the icon in this process. Methods. In the course of the research, such general scientific methods as analysis and synthesis, retrospective and problem-solving have been used. The basic principles of philosophical hermeneutics, in particular, the principle of inexhaustibility of the authentic text, which was combined with the methods of content-historical and sociological interpretation played an important methodological role in the process of investigation. Results. The ambivalent influence of religion on the process of Ukrainian ethnicity creation was due to the two religions origin character of Ukrainian religiosity, which in the end results in the world's representation of Ukrainians that the bipolar mythological model of the world continued to exist with its sharp contrast between «Our» and «Their», which was based on differences in language and customary and ritual practice. This feature determined the originality of the Ukrainian variant of the hierarchy of identities, in which the dominant role was played not by confessional affiliation, but by the ritual practice, which eventually led to the same two religions origin character of Ukrainian religiosity, and acquired a Christianized form, due to the involvement of certain elements of the Orthodox culture, among which the icon played a leading role. Originality. It has been shown that the icon remained one of the key factors of the collective identity dispersed in small local groups up to the nineteenth century, i.e., the time when the cultural elite isolated individual elements of culture from the existing cultural diversity and brought them to the level of universal. Conclusion. The explication of the characteristics and collisions of the formation of Ukrainian identity refutes the expediency of using the approaches to the problem of consolidation of society proposed by thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, because in today's socio-cultural conditions, they can play, and often play deconcentrating role and radical rethinking is required in accordance with the challenges of time.

Article Details

Section
PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

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