Questions of geopolitics and national ideas in the journalism of Hnat Khotkevich (for the materials of the dilogy «Two hetmans»)

Abstract

The article attempts to outline the issues of geopolitics and the national idea in the journalistic dilogy of H. Khotkevich «Two hetmans». It is proved that the images of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and Ivan Mazepa interested the author, first of all, as carriers of a certain amount of individual psychological and individual national traits. Khotkevich saw the failures of the Ukrainian state in the absence of an internal core (stable mono-ethnic consciousness) in Ukrainians, which led to the emergence of an inferiority complex and left a fatal imprint on the fateful actions of not only B. Khmelnytsky and I. Mazepa, but also many of their successors. It was precisely in the absence of national stability that H. Khotkevich saw the main reason for the internal contradictions of Ukrainians, the lack of realization of their national idea, the stateless existence of the Ukrainian people. A characteristic feature of the dilogy was H. Khotkevych’s attempt to trace the inner path of the main characters to their awareness of geopolitics and the national idea as a guarantee of the Ukrainian nation and its desire to move to the highest stage of its development. Khotkevych first described the history of his people and the process of formation of the Ukrainian national character through relations with historically and culturally closest neighbors — Poles and Russians — as a deep psychological drama. The concept that, according to the author’s conviction, was supposed to form a space for the national movement of the early 20th century: Ukraine is capable of independent historical development without outside support, has become a cross-cutting concept in H. Khotkevich’s worldview journalism.