8.4. Ukrainian Philosophy in XIX –First Third of XX Centuries

Ukrainian Philosophical thought in the XIX - the first third of the XX century was marked by the acknowledgement of West European philosophy and the beginning of the Ukrainian idea development. This choice was influenced by the Enlightenment, German classical philosophy and Romanticism culture. Yakiv Kelsky, Peter Lodij, Johannes Shad, Mykola Gogol, Taras Shevchenko and Lesya.Ukrainka promoted main ideas of that time trying to determine the place of philosophy in the system of science.

T. G. Shevchenko (1814 - 1861) made nvaluable contribution in the development of philosophical thought in Ukraine. Shevchenko was born in a family of a serf. He studied at the priest’s school, later served as a “cossack” in the manor-house of landowner Engelgardt. In 1831 he moved to St. Petersburg where Ukrainian artist I. Soshenko and writer E. Grebinka acquainted him with outstanding cultural workers K. Bryullov, V. Grigorovich, O. Venetsianov. In 1838 Shevchenko was redeemed and entered the Academy of Arts which he successfully graduated from as the student of K. Bryullov in 1845. He began to write poems early in 1837 and in 1840 his first collection of poems “Kobzar” was published. In 1846 Shevchenko joined the “Ciryl and Methodius Brotherhood”. The organization was disbanded, he was imprisoned in Petropavlovskaya fortress, and then sent to the Orenburg corps with the strict interdiction to write and to draw. He was discharged from Orenburg corps with the help of L. Tolstoy, the vice-president of the Academy of Arts. Shevchenko died in 1861.

The poet-creator, public figure T. Shevchenko did not belong to the circle of theoretic philosophers; he did not develop ontological, gnosiological or other philosophical problems. His philosophy belonged to the type that was sometimes characterized as “the philosophy of tragedy” in our spiritual tradition, which did not mean theoretical meditation about a tragedy of man who made it as a topic of his research and who felt it from the outside. It was the philosophy as a state of soul of a suffering man, the philosophy of the revealing and understanding of the tragedy of Ukrainian people, of Ukraine.

For him the Ukrainian world consisted of two main components – the world of the Ukrainian Cossacks and the world of the Ukrainian village. The correlation of these components is not equal. The world of village clearly surpasses the second value - the world of Cossacks. It is caused by unequal value that they are given. The world of Cossacks, in the poet‘s writings, represents Ukrainian past, but the world of village is timeless, connected with nature, with its eternal cyclical life. The world of village is primarily a sacred ideal world, which reproduces the model of Ukraine as perfect integrity.

Ukraine in Shevchenko’s works is the world of existent being, which is full of disharmony and conflicts in its basis. He considered Ukraine as a nation full of contradictions, which determined the impossibility of a normal existence of man in the land where the poet lived, where “they take a patched skirt off a cripple, they take it with skin together, as the prince’s children have no shoes to put on.”, where “people exchange their shackles, sell the truth, deny God”. His own life was not less tragic: “I cry when I remember the unforgettable deeds of our grandfathers. They were the hard deeds”. Shevchenko’s poetry is full of pain for the past of our land. “Oh my beautiful, my reach land! Is there anybody who did not torment you? If it was possible to tell the truth about any baron, the Hades then would have been scared”.

In Shevchenko’s works the past does not conflict with the modern, and is "now and here" as its fatal consequences. If modern is tragic, no less tragic was the past of Ukraine. Shevchenko’s feeling that damnation and evil fate hang over Ukraine was one of the main themes of his poetry. The conditions in Ukraine, on the one hand, were the result of external enemies, on the other, of insidious and evil children of their own country. The poet came to a bitter conclusion that the roots of evil lie inside – they reflect the loss of national memory and national dignity.

Shevchenko did not see the "golden age" either in the past or in contemporary Ukraine. He transferred to the desirable future which supports the central thesis of his poetry - the idea of transforming native land, which was traditional for Ukrainian spirituality. To achieve a happy future is possible, according to the poet only by internal transformation that will give space to ideal forces laid down in the depths of the Ukrainian world flourishing.Прослушать

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Ukraine is also the existential statement of being, where the ideal existence can be achieved only by “living together, understanding the full truth with a brother, and not sharing it”. For him Ukraine was a source of folk culture, which nourished his works with its motives, whose development expressed his own philosophy of life. At first, they were the motives of fate, good and evil, the motives of truth, the themes of orphanage, loneliness, foreign land, nostalgia and sorrow for his native land, and he foreboded his death being away from it.

One can state that Shevchenko’s philosophical views were revealed in his works and in his own way of life; they were a result of folk culture of Ukrainian people and its present quintessention.

Actually, thinkers, philosophers reveal the culture of the nation; they belong to in their works. But it is hard to find in the history of Ukrainian culture such an organic and realistic unification of a spiritual world with the fate of the nation as Shevchenko’s philosophy illustrated.Прослушать

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Romantic type of culture of the XIX century influenced greatly the development of professional and philosophical knowledge. That period is brightly represented in philosophy of Pamfil Yurkevych. (1827 - 1874). P. Yurkevych’s philosophy is multifaceted and not subjected to any one of the established definitions. It traces deep and original thoughts about the history of philosophy, philosophical anthropology, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of religion etc. But the central problem is the problem of man which is intertwined with the problem of the "philosophy of the heart." Yurkevych gave a theoretical grounding of the “philosophy of heart” in his work "Heart and its significance in the spiritual life of man by teaching the word of God".

The philosopher justified and developed the doctrine of the heart on the basis of Plato’s philosophy, the Holy Scriptures, the works of the Church Fathers, Kant’s philosophy and Skovoroda’s metaphysics of love and heart.

P. Yurkewich was well acquainted with the history of philosophical ideas in the spiritual culture of Ukraine. This explains the originality of the "philosophy of heart, which is remarcable by its genetic relationship with the Ukrainian national-cultural tradition in which the emotional and moral elements prevail over rational and which is focused on comprehension of individual" Ego ".

The whole philosophy, according to P. Yurkevych, aimed at understanding the soul. Since the soul is organically connected with the body, the question of the corporal body of spiritual activity raises. This organ, he believes, is the heart. To substantiate the symbol of the heart P. Yurkewich used two logically independent and different in scientific value theses: one is the base, the authority of the Bible (the heart - the integrity of the spiritual life - is multifaceted and inexhaustible, it covers not only thinking but also desires and feelings and is not accessible to knowledge), the second is based on scientific arguments (the heart as a physical body, organ which is the center of bodily and spiritual life).

Yurkewich, characterized heart as a principle that defines individuality and uniqueness of man. The philosopher strongly rejected the wide-spread point of view that the mind and thoughts lay the foundation for all spiritual. His work "The Heart and its Significance in the Spiritual Life of Man ..."is aimed against attempts to bring soul essence, the whole spiritual world of man to rational thinking. In this case the problem of human individuality was eliminated but an abstract man who has never and nowhere existed left; some collective "we" instead of individual “ego”. If mental life were limited only by thinking, the world would seem to us some mathematical value, but in fact it is "alive".

P. Yurkewich thought that it was just the religious experience to reveal that the heart was the basis for deeper spiritual life than reason. It is because he has in himself all the spontaneity of life, originally bestowed by God. Heart is supposedly ahead of our mind in gaining knowledge, especially in difficult moments. Mind governs, controls, dominates, but the heart generates. Therefore, the heart is the basis of human religious consciousness and the religion itself is not something external to the spiritual nature of man.

In this regard, Yurkewych made two fundamental conclusions to understand his "philosophy of heart":

1. The heart can express, discover and understand in rather a peculiar manner such mental states, which by their gentleness, spirituality and prevailing life activity are not available to understanding and abstract knowledge,.

2. Understanding and abstract knowledge open or give a chance to notice and to feel not in the head but in the heart; it must penetrate into this depth to become an active power and driving force of our spiritual life. Прослушать

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Yurkevych, as well as Skovoroda, gave a multiple meaning to the symbol of heart. One of them was heart as a spiritual state of a human being. The soul contained its meanings only, the latter lived as a part of world outlook of man, they were mysterious and they defined the contents of man’s soul. “The heart”, Yurkevytch said, “is the output point of everything that is good or evil in words, thoughts and actions, it is a good or evil treasure-house of man”.

The outstanding representatives of “Ciryl and Methodius Brotherhood” were Panteleimon Kulish, a writer, critic and historian, one of the representatives of the so-called “philosophy of heart”, and M. Kostomarov, a historian and writer. P. Kulish (1819-1897) defended the idea of world creation by God. The nature, as he thought, was “arranged by God’s wisdom”, and consciousness existed independently of matter, that was why the immortality of soul and heavenly life were possible. Concerning the national spirit as the basis of national development, Kulish created the theory about the peculiarities of Ukrainian soul, which had two sides: internal – heart (feeling), and external – thought (reason). With his internal side man is connected only with Ukraine and with external side with other nations. The Ukrainian was distinguished from other nations by the internal side, the essence of which was the national spirit. This side mainly, including national feelings and national spirit, united rich and poor men together. The external side, reason, telling the Ukrainian people about the necessity to have the relations with other nations and perceive the best sides of their life, bothered the internal side. Kulish thought that Ukrainian people should develop in their own way, store the conservative (khutor) way of life that was the sign of higher morality and integrity of soul.

Another outstanding representative of Ukrainian and Russian romanticism was M. Gogol. His search for the truth was self-immersion (the immersion of his own soul), because the road to the world passed through the soul. According to Gogol, the real truth could be realized only by means of a soul. The world uncovered its truth to a man only with his spiritual awareness, his activity, but not with the rational cognition. For Gogol, man’s soul was not merely the way of cognition, but its deep source. Like Skovoroda and Yurkevytch, Gogol spoke of the soul as of the “heart”. Man’s heart was unknown abyss, and every moment we made mistakes there. The only way of self-perfection, that would help to rectify the mistakes, was that of the favorite work, which took much of man’s time. Gogol’s thoughts were very similar to Skovoroda’s idea of a ”congenial work”. The statement about man’s attitude to his congenial work stressed the uniqueness of man, his unsimilarity to others, and the right to his own moral way in life and his own freedom. The significance of Gogol’s personality and his work for Ukrainian spirituality and culture, is that he was one of the founders of the idea of love to the Ukrainian nation, at least because the man, who took the honorable place in literature together with Pushkin, spoke much about Ukraine.

The second half of the XIX century was characterized in Ukraine by the interest to the development of the Ukrainian idea of philosophy as a theoretical self-consciousness of the Ukrainian national revival. These ideas became the basis in “Ciryl and Methodius Brotherhood”–a secret political organization that was established in Kyiv in 1845 and existed until March 1847 when it was destroyed by the tsarist government. To understand the depth and breadth of the cohort of world-view thinkers means just to give names of famous members of the community: Mykola Kostomarov, Panteleimon Kulish, Mykola Hulak, Taras Shevchenko.

The next stage in the development of the national idea of philosophy was connected with the activity of "Hromada" movement which continued the efforts of Ciryl and Methodius Brotherhood, "Gromad’s" members called for separation of Ukraine as a subject of the historical process with its sovereign cultural needs at the level of philosophical reflection. "Gromada"' movement gave an impulse to a new pleiad of brilliant Ukrainian original thinkers of the European caliber, who greatly enriched creative philosophy of Ukraine. They were: V.B. Antonovich, a professor of Kiev University, M.P. Drahomanov, a scientist and public figure, O.O. Potebnya, a scientist, philosopher and public figure.

O.O. Potebnia (1835-1891) made a thorough scientific and philosophical researching and understanding of language. All Potebnia’s philologist researches acquired a philosophical meaning. Having learnt creatively ideas of German scientists W. von Humboldt and G. Shteyntal, he became the founder of "psychological stream" in domestic linguistics and the first of Ukrainian philosophers who gave a profound and comprehensive analysis of the relationship between language and thought. Using historical approach in his research Potebnia showed that thinking is formed by means of language, it is based on language; he opened the language communication not only with thinking but also with psychology in general. He believed that the opinion is expressed through language and a speaking act is a creative process that does not ready to repeat the truth, but every time gives birth to a new one.

Potebnia fully supported the opinion of V. Gumboldt, that language was not a lifeless creation, but an activity, that is, the process of production, where the language was constant effort of spirit to make the articulate sound to reflect thought.

Potebnia stated that a language is a kind of activity and a continuous living process of people’s creativity. Yet a nation living in the flood of his language is both its creator and also the subject of backwards interaction. A language forms ethnicity and is an important means of spiritual development of the nation.

In 80 years of the XIX century in Galichina representatives of "Youth of Ukraine" began their work. Philosophical and ideological heritage of this trend representatives demonstrated a new level in the development of the national idea philosophy, when in a stateless existence circomstances Ukrainian nation had to understand itself as an independent subject of historical development. Activity of "Youth of Ukraine" generation has provided the creative impetus to further development of the Ukrainian culture – not only artistic, but also scientific, philosophical, religious and political.

Ivan Franko was the most significant representative and the leader of "Youth of Ukraine".Прослушать

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Ivan Franko (1856-1916), a writer, scientist philosopher, economist, poet and public figure greatly influenced the development of Ukrainian culture. Supporting materialism in philosophy, he, as well as another outstanding cultural figure M. Drahomanov, did not accept the idea of dictatorship of proletariat, which had got a great support at the end of the XIX century among the ideologists of proletarian movement.

The basis of Franko’s social and political views is the idea of progress. The basis of this progress is a social productive activity, a fruitful source that fills human life with sense, binds them into a single family. Sharing the Marxist position that the economic conditions of the people are the foundations of their life and progressive development, Franko came to the conclusion that the conditions of historical life are prepared by economy and politics, but spiritual and literary revolution comes through economic upheaval. In labor division of labor, Franko like Kant, saw the main means of society progress in division of labor.

Correlating historical ascending development and social progress with economic ideal and spiritual factors, Franko argued that any social movement must have a purpose, a clear and distinct ideal. The notion of "ideal" was very multiple: an ideal in material, spiritual and in political spheres; an ideal for future development of society, nations and nationalities. In developing this ideal Franko recommended to apply to reality, not to abstract patterns; and the achievement of the ideal connected with the intellectual and cultural work, what brought on the understanding of the ideal in public and political life. The highest ideal he believed is the struggle for human happiness, freedom of man and the development of society.

Franko considered the fate of Ukraine in the context of global historical process where it becomes obvious that a nation, that is mature enough to separate from other peoples, aspires to self-affirmation; and denial of this right to Ukrainian people leads to a loss of integrity of world history. Philosophical views of Franko have their independency, value and significance; they can be credited neither to Marxism nor to idealism. In fact, he was a rationalist who tried to synthesize new forms and living conditions through combination of conscious and unconscious, ideas of romanticism, positivism and materialism and their critical analysis.

Franko thought a trained critical mind, the development of which is conditioned by science and education, man’s physical and spiritual needs to be prerequisite of creative knowledge; hence knowledge is the universal process of labor.

He divided science in society into natural (mathematics, physics, biology), which allow you to know the outside world, and anthropological (logic, psychology, history, ethnology, social economy and others) that are claimed to learn man. Franko considered ethics the highest among sciences, as in forms high moral ideals and helps man to live his life with dignity. In general Franko’s philosophical outlook is characterized by combinations of ontological, gnosiological and ethical problems in the analysis of human society and individual development.

Outstanding scientists and naturalists of the late XIX - early XX centuries made a significant contribution to the philosophy of Ukraine Prominent academic institutions such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Novorossiysk (Odessa) Universities were centers of progressive world view ideas in the natural science. Distinguished scientists M.P. Avenarius, M.S. Vashchenko-Zakharchenko, D.A. Grave, G. De Metz, V.P. Ermakov, Y.Y. Kostonohov, T.F. Osypovskyi, M.V. Ostrogradskyi, S.M. Reformatskyi, O.M. Syeverov and other concentrated ideological and philosophical attention on substantiation of the statement about objective existence of the world, independent of human consciousness. They supported the progressive views on motion, space and time as forms of existence of matter.

One of the central in the writings of naturalists is the statement that the world is not a product of human consciousness. On the contrary, man is the product of this world. Hence the belief in the infinite creative power of man is claimed, the necessity for realizing laws of nature as one of the better conditions of man’s and mankind’s life as a whole. Regarding life as the highest value on the Earth, scientists have unanimously proved dependence of this value on social factors. Especially important in this regard is the study of humanistic naturalists of man’s humanistic nature and a need for his creative emancipation.

V.I. Vernadskyi (1863 - 1945) occupies a special place in the history of scientific and philosophical thought in Ukraine. His name was among the founders of geochemistry, cosmochemistry, hydrochemistry, radiochemistry and radiogeology. Vernadskyi’s contribution to mineralogy, crystallography and the science of genetic soil is universally recognized; he is the creator of a new science - biogeochemistry.

He was among the founders of antropocosmism as a worldview system, an integral philosophy of the universe, philosophy of social life that unites the tendencies in science in harmonious integrity: natural - historical and social – humanitarian. Philosophy of cosmism is one of the achievements of the XIX century. It was substantially developed in the works of M. Fedorov, E. Tsiolkovsky and V. Vernadskyi.

V. Vernadskyi considered the Universe totality of living matter, biosphere and mankind. With the emergence of man, according to him, a new stage of the Universe formation began, where mind and reason would favor the development of nature. As a result the biosphere would be transformed into a new environment of life, which he called the sphere of reason, or noosphere.  The teaching of noosphere by Vernadskyi helped form noospheric thinking which was not only a response to the challenge of time, but a new approach to understanding of the objective necessity for man to transfer to a new relationship with the biosphere and the development of a civilized cultural mankind. Estimating the role of human reason as a planetary phenomenon, V.I. Vernadskyi formulated the following conclusions:

1. Creative mind is able to represent self-organizing principles of the Universe on the Earth and in this sense to continue a constructive function of the biosphere.

2. The mind directs and inspires culture and biogeochemical energy.

3. Due to Mind cultural biochemical energy is realized not only through reproduction of organisms, but also through informational and productive power of science and labor.

4. Consequently, Mind is not only social but also a natural force of the world, a factor in the transition of biosphere into noosphere.

V. Vernadskyi advocated preservation of Ukrainian culture and cultural identity of the Ukrainian people. He believed the revival of the Ukrainian language to be a great positive phenomenon, though he was afraid of the possibility of violent "ukrainization” with the proclamation of the Ukrainian People's Republic. He saw the future of Ukraine in alliance with Russia within a single federal state.

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