68
Paul Tereshkovich
to reconstruct, revive or invent past national greatness: it was, only too painfully, a matter
of living recollection.
So, to sum up, the new order set up in the name of the Nationalist principle had all the
weaknesses of the system it replaced, plus some additional ones of its own. Its weaknesses
were soon and rapidly demonstrated. With the consolidation of an ideocratic dictatorship
in Russia, and the establishment of an overtly nationalistic one in Germany, the entire
edifice crumbled with amazing speed. Polish military resistance was to be measured in
weeks, Yugoslav (official) and Greek resistance in days, and the other new national states
did not resist at all (with the most remarkable and successful exception of Finland)” [5,
p. 118–119].
Literature
1. Kuchma Leonid. Ukraine is not Russia. Returning to History. Moscow, 2004. The of-
fered article used the text of the reduced, popular edition of the book by L. Kuchma. The
irst edition with the volume of 560 pages was published by Moscow publishing house
“Vremya” in 2003. Many reviewers doubted L. Kuchma’s authorship. In my opinion, this
question is not very important in the given context.
2. Stati Vasile. History of Moldova. Kishinev, 2003. Vasile Stati ( born 1939) is a Moldavian
scientist, a political igure, a graduate of the Kishinev university, doctor of history and phi-
lology, deputy of Parliament in 1994-2001, the main ideologist of the Moldavian national
project (“Moldovenism”). V. Stati’s hardcover book was published in the Moldavian and
Russian languages, with an impressive edition for modern Moldova (with 15 000 cop-
ies published in the Russian language). One more remarkable book prepared by V. Stati,
“Moldavian-Romanian dictionary”, was published in 2004.
3. Levinger Matthew, Lytle Paula. Myth and mobilization: the triadic structure of national-
ist rhetoric.
Nations and Nationalism 7 (2), 2001, p.175–194.
4. Calhoun, Craig J. 1997.
Nationalism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota
Press.
5. Gellner Ernest. 1996. The Coming of Nationalism and Its Interpretation: The Myths of Na-
tion and Class. Mapping the Nation/Gopal Balakrishnan Ed. London, New York:Verso.
69
The East European Borderland is of great interest for carrying
out historical and cultural, sociopolitical, ethno-psychological re-
search. Within the borders of Europe it is quite difficult to find a
similar zone where one can so distinctly trace the civilization break
and diffusive interosculation
of cultures and traditions
1
.
This article is devoted to the study of the idea of federalism in the
Ukrainian political legal tradition as a reflection of the specificity of
the Borderland legal conscience. Historical conditions of the devel-
opment of the Ukrainian nation, peculiarities of the understanding
of the state nature and corresponding social practices led to the for-
mation of the specific understanding of federalism idea that is being
developed as a combination of two key principles of the Borderland
legal conscience: a negative attitude to the state (to the structure
limiting the freedom (liberty) of a person) and self-organization of
the population when solving major questions of economic, military
or religious nature. We can find a similar attitude to the problem of
defining state problems in the all-European context, namely English
liberalism of the XVII century. As a matter of fact, liberalism became
the basis of modern political legal theory and state practice with the
reception of liberal ideas as a natural law. Conditions of application
of liberal ideas absolutely non-standard for Europe as well as their
interpretation are quite remarkable, generating, in turn, legal forms
needed to solve the national question and the issues dealing with the
federal state system.
In the book “Korni identichnosti” by Zenon Kogut an evaluation
of the nature of “Little Russia” identity as the product of connection
of “many identities and loyalties” was presented
2
. Convincing argu-
mentation given by the author makes us agree with this estimation
and accept it as the initial thesis of our reasoning. Vision of one’s
Andrey Artemenko
characteristics of the Borderland legal conscience:
the ukrainian variant
of the idea of federalisM