PUBLIC PROTEST AS A SYMBOLIC ACT: PHILOSOPHICAL AND CULTURAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The objective of the given research is to study the phenomenon of hybrid symbolism as both heuristic and counterproductive factor of a person’s self-identification in a transitional society. The article studies Ukrainian experience of national self-identification reconstruction taking place in the times of profound socio-cultural transformation and the phenomenon of hybrid symbols as an ambivalent factor of person’s self-identification. Complexity and variety of national self- identification realization in the space of the innovative symbols of the epoch is a relevant and not enough studied problem, which exists rather as a subject matter of publicistic writing than of scientific research. The research methodology is based on the use of analytical, comparative and hypothetical-deductive methods for revealing and explaining the symbolic nature of public protest. Scientific novelty of the results obtained in the course of the research consists in the use of the phenomenon of public protest as a problem field of formation of new cultural symbols of the era. Public protest as a reaction to social troubles, corruption dominance and dependence on other states becomes a powerful factor of making the process of national and ethnic self-identification more active. The symbols accompaning public protest remind an insight, and a certain public enlightenment that appears unconsciously, by impulse, and partly unwillingly. New symbols are not developed purposefully; they are a result of social crises and transformations. Conclusions. The creation of new national symbols is a long and complicated process, as the development of modern Ukrainian society itself, which cannot be based only on ethnic or national self-identification. Public protest is a ritual action, which presupposes national and ethnic self-identification, multicultural and multiethnic national character realization and political nation development. Ukrainian protest phenomenon has demonstrated that it is a symbolic action and an act of transgression, when the doer is being transformed and changed and when the transitional ritual, accompanied by the process of making its own history and modern identity, is taking place.