RELIGIOUS POLICY OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS OF 1917–1921: CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of contemporary Ukrainian historiography of the religious policy of national governments during 1917–1921. It is indicated that during the existence of the Marxist-Leninist approach to the interpretation of the events of the Ukrainian Revolution, it was impossible to investigate the religious policy of national governments objectively. Ukraine’s restoration of independence in 1991 contributed to qualitative changes in the historiographical discourse. The main body of works on the topic of religious policy of the national governments of the Ukrainian Revolution period was made up of studies that directly investigated the spiritual area and religious policy of the period of the Ukrainian Central Rada, the Hetmanate of P. Skoropadskyi, and the Directorate of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. They were supplemented by works that revealed issue comprehensively with the analysisof certain cultural and religious phenomena and events in Ukraine during 1917–1921. The author notes that the researchers evaluated the effectiveness of the policies of the governments of the Central Rada, the Hetmanate of P. Skoropadskyi, and the Directorate of the Ukrainian National People’s Republic in the ecclesiastical sphere differently. Conceptual approaches to the religious policy of the national governments of the era of the Ukrainian Revolution were often opposed. At the same time, Ukrainian researchers agreed on the existence of a interrelation between the development of the church movement and a consistent and structured religious policy. The author of the article concluded that the attention in scientific works is primarily devoted to the issue of the rapport between state structures and the Orthodox Church, as well as the development of the Ukrainian autocephalous Orthodox Church. In modern Ukrainian historiography, the study of state-church relations during the period of the Ukrainian Revolution in the context of interaction with other religious groups, the study of the local implementation of religious policy remains relevant.