Allegorical protests of the national elite in Ukraine against the destruction of Cossack state-hood as a manifestation of the Ukrainian state-legal tradition

Abstract

Issues of allegorical protests of the Ukrainian national elite in the last quarter of the 18th century are highlighted. against the destruction of the Cossack Hetmanship. There is an opinion that such protests were a manifestation of the Ukrainian national state-legal tradition, Ukrainian intellectuals defended the rights of Ukrainians to their own statehood and historical system in accordance with their inner world and values.
 Allegorical protests in iconic works of the then Ukrainian national elite ‑ I. Kotlyarevskyi, V. Kapnist, Ya. Kozelskyi, M. Kozachynskyi, G. Skovoroda - were analyzed. It was concluded that the protests of Ukrainian intellectuals were consonant with the main moods of the time - "competition for the truth" and "knowledge of the truth", imbued with a liberating meaning, and especially the declaration of "freedom" as the highest value.
 It is emphasized that the most prominent philosophers of the era of the destruction of the Cossack Hetmanship, M. Kozachynskyi and H. Skovoroda, focused their attention on the justification of the need to preserve national identity. The first is through the idea of the dominant culture ("Spiritual Home") in national life, and the second is the ideal of freedom, equality and fraternity, which was expressed in the formula of the so-called "Mountain Republic". It is substantiated that the specified thinkers in their works shifted attention from social factors to individual factors - they saw the nation not in the "crowd", but in the self-preservation of its chosen, conscious representatives. It is emphasized that the effectiveness of establishing healthy public views on the socio-political system, work, and happiness of people objectively depends on the number of nationally conscious members of society. It was emphasized that education, self-knowledge and moral self-improvement of each person should be the basis for the growth of the number of such chosen people.
 As a result, it was recognized that the allegorical protests of the national intelligentsia against the incorporation policy of imperial Russia still focused on a too narrow, however, precisely the need to preserve national identity through the idea of a dominant national culture and the ideal of freedom, equality and fraternity.