MANIFESTATIONS OF THE INFLUENCE OF HISTORICAL REALITY OF THE 20S AND 30S OF THE 20TH CENTURY ON THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF UKRAINIANS

Abstract

Literature, periodicals, and archival sources highlight the impact of the anti-religious campaign, the so-called complete collectivization, and the Holodomor as well as political repression on the national character of Ukrainians. The author notes that in the early 1920s it was possible to speak of the Ukrainian nation as deeply religious, sincerely believing in Christian doctrine. However, the religiosity of the nation degraded as a result of insane atheistic propaganda, which grew in the 1930s into an anti-religious war with total mobilization of the authorities, the use of shameless lies, the destruction of fortresses of faith, i.e., churches. Most of the nation either believed in the attractive ideas of the Bolsheviks or carefully concealed their religious beliefs, which led to a dramatic change in the national character because unlike Christianity the new ‘faith’ promoted not love but class hatred with all its consequences. The article states that the new economic system imposed on the peasantry and the Holodomor eventually led to the loss of such a feature of the Ukrainian people as absolute intolerance of theft. The new economic system encouraged the peasants to look at agriculture as a forced action, which could not help but weaken the well-known Ukrainian diligence. Although, the paper states that eventually this feature of the national character was not significantly affected. The author emphasizes that the ruin of the village as the main custodian of the national values, the destruction of much of the national intelligentsia not only impeded the development of Ukrainian culture but also created conditions for rooting in the national character such a trait as conformism, which gave Ukrainians a sense of inferiority. It is noted that the authorities supported the tendency to develop this trait in the national character and actually officially proclaimed the inferiority of the Ukrainian people compared to the Russians.