EARLY MODERN UKRAINE IN HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE (CONTEMPORARY NON-UKRAINIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY)

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EARLY MODERN UKRAINE IN HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE (CONTEMPORARY NON-UKRAINIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY)

Journal Title: Наукові праці. Серія "Історія" - Year 2018, Vol 310, Issue 298

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to analyze the works of contemporary western researchers of the Ukrainian history of the early modern period and to define the part of the country in history of Central and Eastern Europe. The problem is important for producing a new Ukrainian historical narrative, which is aimed both at understanding peculiarities of the country’s social, cultural and political development and for integrating Ukraine into the European history. The International project of integrated history of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is an evidence of successful coordination of efforts of representatives of different national historical schools in developing a new regional narrative of the European history. The researchers emphasize the part of the Great Lithuanian Principality and Rzeczpospolita in historiography of Central and Eastern Europe as multinational states, which provided all necessary conditions for creating classical European political culture and fruitful development of Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Polish cultures. At the same time, in the contemporary historiography one can find critical reevaluation of the most recent narrative of the political history of Rzeczpospolita (1569–1795) as a model of the European democracy, civic culture and friendship of nations and cultures in Central and Eastern Europe. The Lithuanian and European participants of the international project of history of Central and Eastern Europe recognize positive features of the social and political system of Rzeczpospolita as a federal state (constitutional and parliamentary systems) but they do not idealize the part of political legacy of Rzeczpospolita in the history of the Great Lithuanian Principality and Ukraine. Western scholars of the Slavic Studies (P. Vandych. N. Daveis, A. Kaminski, A. Kappeler, S. Plokhy, G. Litvin) stress that Rzeczpospolita as a federative state, which consisted of many regions with status of autonomies, faced problems with its regional policy and had to solve political conflicts among Polish, Lithuanian and Polish elites. The researchers tried to construct a new image of history of Ukraine of the early modern period and suggested considering it as an integral part of Central and European states, such as the Great Lithuanian Principality and Rzeczpospolita. At the same time, the researchers look upon Ukraine as a region with its peculiarities – it is a civilizational and cultural frontier of Europe, which produced its own frontier liminal identity (S. Plokhy The Gates of Europe. A History of Ukraine (2015). Ukraine was a demarcation line, a border (Gateway, which protected Europe against invasions from East and West) and a bridge of exchange of people, commodities and ideas due to its geopolitical location on the crossroad of not only between Central and Eastern Europe but also between Central Europe and the Balkans and the Mediterranean area and the steppes of Eurasia. In the opinion of the above-mentioned scholars, Ukraine began to play an important part in the international arena of Europe at the end of the XVI century. It happened as a result of the involvement of the Cossacks into the anti-Ottoman coalition of Christian states and the powerful Cossack’s rebellion of 1648, which had features of the European revolution of the XVII century.

Authors and Affiliations

N. Shevchenko

Keywords

regional narrative of Central and Eastern Europe; the Great Lithuanian Principality; Rzeczpospolita; Ukrainian lands within the Great Lithuanian Principality and Rzeczpospolita; western historiography about the European dimension of history of Ukraine; concept of Ukraine as a Gates of Europe

EP ID EP504782
DOI -
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