Native language in the system of spiritual values of the Ukrainian intelligentsia

Abstract

The article characterizes the ideologically thematic content and means of literary expression of the appeals of the representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia of the late XIX – early XX century, in particular Naddnipryanska (P. Kulish “A letter of appeal to the Ukrainian intelligentsia”, 1882) and Galician (I. Franko “A sincere letter to the Galician Ukrainian youth”, 1905, A. Sheptytsky’s pastoral letter “To the Russian intelligentsia”, 1901), as well as the beginning of the XXI century – the initiative group of the “The First of December” (“Declaration”, 2011) to the youth “gifted with consciousness and a gift of thought”, “to all classes of our society”, to the “free people of Ukraine”. We believe that these texts have become vivid examples of expressing the civic position of this or that author, calls to preserve the national identity of a personality and society, whereas the isolated lexicon of the intelligentsia, its conceptual picture of the world, embodied in language, enable us to trace the paradigm of Ukrainian epistolary works, in which a special form of messages and letters is used, depending on the laws of literary conventionality. The comparison of appeals by criteria: the idea of appeal and its purpose, the place and role of the intelligentsia in the spiritual revival of the nation, state and society creation in the concept of the author (authors) is embodied in the language, in particular in the lexicon of the intelligentsia, its conceptual picture of the world. It makes it possible to state that the role of the intelligentsia in the late XIX – early XX century, as well as late XX – early XXI century remained unchanged. Its tasks are to promote enlightenment and education of the general public (people), to care for the spiritual growth of people in order to build the Ukrainian state as an integral body on the basis of Christian morality, to promote the formation of the Ukrainian nation, which would be capable of preserving and increasing cultural and material wealth, of developing independent political life, economy and social welfare so that every citizen of the Ukrainian state could feel comfortable on their native land. Keywords: language, intelligentsia, appeals, national values, P. Kulish, I. Franko, A. Sheptytsky, initiative group “The First of December”.