The middle of the 19th century has become the age of the first ethnic renaissance of Ukrainianness after almost two centuries of domination of integration, assimilation in their content stereotypes artificially imposed by the authorities of the Russian empire. The awakening of ethnic feelings is mainly the intellectuals’ merit. They, unlike their forerunners of the eighteenth century, are no longer concerned with the search for own family roots, but with the interests of social consciousness formation. Thanks to the powerful intellectual potential of M. Drahomanov and Kyiv Old Community, the idea of decentralization of both empires, in which Ukrainians live, has matured. A few more decades turned out to be enough for these ideas to take the form of a mass political movement, to be merged into a powerful stream of their destruction. The article is dedicated to the study of the problem of comprehension of the political concepts of European liberalism and social democratism and their extrapolation on Ukrainian realities by Ukrainian intellectual thought, mainly in the person of M. Drahomanov. The version of M. Drahomanov’s political program, suggested to the Hromada representatives in the late 1880s, is considered. The national idea has acquired a form of peculiar federal democracy. The ideas of cessation of the confrontation between orthodox and catholics, the motives of ethno-conflicts minimization and the task to create the All-Slavic Radical Party are subsumed to this too broad concept. It is proved, that modelling of attractive image of Ukrainian movement in the world is considered as one of the immediate tasks of M. Drahomanov. The promulgation of the principles of people’s sovereignty is based on a strong support of the citizens, and the idea of the people as the bearer of the highest wisdom has given way to the idea of civil society. State centralization in both empires has been presented as an evil to be saved from as soon as possible. The principle of federalism formulated by him is considered as a way of progress from the imperial mode of government to democratic, European forms of statehood. As a result of M. Drahomanov’s activity and the other representatives of the defending of federative ideas the declaration of federation ideals in the state system has taken place. The ideas of political freedoms and implementation of political rights have got new interpretation, attempts to coordinate human rights and national interests are accomplished, active search for effective model of the local self-government on the base of communities and regions governing has lasted.
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