HISTORY OF THE UKRAINIAN STATEHOOD: SLAVIC PROTO-STATE

Abstract

The article highlights and analyzes the conditions of historical forms of formation and development of Slavic proto-states. The period of formation and functioning of the pre-state (proto-state) Slavic formations is particularly difficult to analyze. This is objectively caused by a frankly small number of written sources, unreliability of the links on folk art, a relatively small amount of material evidence by which one could trace the development of a state. Recent historical, archaeological, ethnographic and other data strongly suggest that the early state formations do not occur on the basis of class rule, but are formed spontaneously in the natural development of a communal system of upper-community complex structures. In the analysis of the origin of Ukrainian statehood a neo-evolutionary approach was used, in which local groups that had egalitarian social structure, amorphous leadership of the most influential people were the first form of the unity of people. With the transition to a producing economy, communities and nations emerge, institute of communal leadership appears. The next stage is chiefdoms (Eng. Chief – leader and dom – ownership). At this stage s social stratification arises and the exclusion from public decision-making. Rulers’ positions of the chiefdoms are based on the control of resources and redistribution of surplus products. Central government with the maturation of a state receives monopoly on the legalized use of force. Literature, civilization, cities emerge. Based on the theory of «chiefdoms», we come to a conclusion that since the moment of appearing in the historical arena (early AD) the Slavs were at a level of development that is characterized as proto-state. Chiefdoms passed a long way of development from the early simple forms to more complex ones. Chiefdoms in the same area emerged, evolved, reached their peak of prosperity and disintegrated through various unfavorable factors many times before the state occurred. A significant chronological gap separating the first Slavic proto-states from the rise of the Kyiv State indicates what a long way the Slavic society had to pass before it reached the level of a completed state. This process was significantly influenced by such factors as the constant movement of nomadic hordes through the territory of Ukraine, and the invasion of Germanic tribes in the first centuries of our era. Similar phenomena are traced in the all-European scale. It was exactly at this time that the number of countries, including France and Germany, arose on the European continent because of the collapse of Charlemagne's empire, the British Kingdom and others.