“Our Ancient Religion”: To the Question of the Confessional Factor of Identity in the Hetmanshchyna (Second Half of the Seventeenth – Eighteenth Centuries)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/uhj2022.02.017Keywords:
Hetmanshchyna, confession, religion, Orthodoxy, identityAbstract
During the period of the Hetmanshchyna as a political organism, the process of constructing identity took place on its territory, in which religion and confessional affiliation occupied a prominent place. Their role and place in nation-building were not permanent and depended on specific socio-political conditions as well as texts representing the historical memory of the Cossack era, including act and narrative ones.
The purpose of the article is to determine the place and role of the confessional factor in the process of constructing the identity of the community that lived in the Hetmanshchyna of this period.
The research methodology is based on the deconstruction of texts – act and narrative, comparison of the established topos and their interpretations.
The novelty lies in a comprehensive analysis of the corpus of textual sources of the Hetmanshchyna period, on the basis of which it was possible to trace the dynamics of the use of religion, confession as a tool for building a collective identity.
Conclusions. Ethnocultural identity, which developed in the Hetmanshchyna in the 17th – 18th centuries not based on religion only. Confessio performed several functions, including the normalization of relations with neighbors – Poles and Muscovites. For each of them in the texts built a separate scenario, the main role of which was played by religion. Orthodoxy provided an opportunity to position its equality or even superiority over them, asserting the deep historical legitimacy of “our” religion, inscribing itself, through its mediation, in the Old Rus or even early medieval past.
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