Statehood – the basis of political and legal being of the Ukrainian people: history and modernity

Abstract

The article highlights the doctrinal and applied political and legal problems of the genesis and development of Ukrainian statehood in the context of today’s challenges. It is proven that Ukrainian statehood is an inviolable requirement of the existence of the Ukrainian people and their sovereign will, the entire centuries-old history of Ukrainian statehood and the right to self-determination exercised by the Ukrainian nation, the entire Ukrainian people. This is a determining factor in strengthening civil harmony on the land of Ukraine and the foundation of the national identity of the Ukrainian people, national patriotic consciousness and spirituality. Preservation of the foundations of national statehood, protection of the state sovereignty of Ukraine, the integrity and inviolability of its territory determines the content and direction of the state’s foreign and domestic policy and is the object of Ukraine’s national security, the cause of the entire Ukrainian people. The problems of the history, theory and practice of Ukrainian state-building in the conditions of full-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation and the Russian-Ukrainian war are considered. It is proven that the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian state faced a number of complex systemic internal and external threats and challenges, primarily related to such fundamental constitutional values as sovereignty, independence, freedom, democracy, territorial integrity, etc. Parallels are drawn between the historical past and the present in the context of the relationship between Ukrainian statehood and Horde Muscovy. It is proven that statehood is a broad, multi-structural concept that consists of various elements, one of which is the state. At the same time, statehood and the state are concepts that do not coincide, they cannot be equated. The concept of «statehood» in the categorical apparatus of modern political and legal science performs a number of explanatory, axiological and identifying functions that reveal the substantive and formal-legal specificity of various stages of this process in the direction of the formation of a sovereign state and its institutions The conceptual issues of the human dimension of Ukrainian statehood, the strategy of its development through the prism of the realization and protection of human rights are considered. Attention is focused on the fundamental challenges of modernization of Ukrainian statehood from the standpoint of the principles of classical constitutionalism. Certain trends in the development of Ukrainian statehood in the aspect of the formation of civil society in Ukraine, institutions of a social legal state, parliamentarism and implementation of power decentralization are outlined.