Ukrainian cultural studies of Antoni Marcinkowski: search for sources of nation-building

Abstract

Purpose of the study is to analyze cultural studies Antoni Marcinkowski – a Polish folklorist and writer born in the Kyiv region – from the point of view of the existing Ukrainian studies and nation-building components. A methodology of the research: methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization and use of modern tools for studying the process of nation-building are applied. This made it possible to reveal the peculiarities of the interpretation of Ukrainian folklore as an element of folk culture in the time of Marcinkowski when a scientifically grounded idea of the distinctness and originality of the Ukrainian ethnos arose. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that in the national cultural studies, for the first time, an attempt was made to outline a portrait of a Pole who felt and proclaimed the ethnocultural sovereignty of Ukrainians. Characterized by a grid of coordinates, which formed the basis of its ethnocultural searches, among which: knowledge of the people, his customs and everyday life; an analysis of the system of beliefs and the place of man in this system, the declaration of dignity and humanity; a combination of moral, religious and social components in the process of formation of personality, ethnic group, nation. Conclusion. It is proved that he, as one of the first researchers, put forward a scientifically grounded thesis about ethnocultural isolation and identity of Ukrainians; pointed to its features, relying on the research of contemporary famous scientists, both Ukrainian and foreign. It is substantiated that the elements of this originality are the integrity and endemic nature of the Ukrainian nation-and cultural-process processes, the content of their native tradition in the village and organic unity with nature; «Internal» freedom and freedom of love; an identity based on being among «their» and «in oneself», communicating with their «own» language