To the Question of Political Mythology as a Component of Ukrainian Political Culture on the Modern Stage

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyse a myth-symbolic dimension of the Ukrainian political culture as a semantic catalyst of social-political discourses and an important means of political identity designing in the conditions of today’s challenges. Methodology of the research. We have applied a culturological approach that establishes a connection between political processes and organisations with the original cultural context, while we interpret political culture as a part of social culture that keeps its noticeable signs. Moreover, this approach, in the connection between structural-functional and problematic-diagnostic approaches, helps to understand the role and peculiarities of applying political myths and symbols in the context of the Ukrainian political culture including current challenges. Scientific novelty of the research. For the first time, the very cultural aspects of the Ukrainian political mythology and symbolic functioning in the XXI century have been revealed in the article. Conclusions. We have demonstrated how the narratives, values, and archetypes connected with a mythological worldview, work on a non-reflective level of collective and individual political consciousness. Constructive and destructive political myths have been highlighted and specifics of its realization in the frames of symbolic politics has been considered. The connection between different modern political practices of symbolic and cognitive-communicative structures of national memory has been proven, especially through the dynamics of symbolic schemes of projects and interactions in political culture. The detection and disclosure of the potential of political myth-symbolic activity through the prism of cultural analysis allows considering it as an instrument of social design of political identity and the manifestation of the civilised choice of Ukraine.

Key words: Ukraine, political culture, political mythology and symbolism, mythological narrative, archetype, pseudomyths, culturological approach.