Image of Europe in civilization ideas of Panteleimon Kulish: dilemma of choosing between "alien" and "civilised"

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to study the collective image of Europe (the West) as a form of manifestation of spatial and civilizational ideas in the historical works written by Panteleimon Kulish; tracing the specifics of civilizational identity of this scholar; elucidation of his ideas regarding the relationship between the historical images of Russia-Ukraine and Europe-West in Kulish’s historical texts. The methodology of the reseacrh is based on mental mapping as a strategy of cognitive reproduction of geographical objects in scholars' imagination. The basic component of the used methodology is imagology as a method of studying one’s own/another person’s images. In the research there is used deconstruction of the semi-Orientalism as a specific way of recepting and describing Eastern Europe by representatives of the “Western” intellectual thought. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the fact that it is the first attempt at a special historiographical reflection of the image of Europe-West in the historical works of Panteleimon Kulish. The Conclusion. In the research there has been summarized the specificity of the Slavic civilizational identity’s conceptualization in the historical works written by Panteleimon Kulish with his view of Europe (the West) as an “alien” civilizational space. It has been substantiated that the Germans were the main representatives of the collective image of the West for the scholar. The signs of Eurocentric worldview and the beginnings of a tolerant reception of Western attributes can be traced in his late historical texts, which was expressed in the recognition of Europe as a “civilized” and “cultural” environment and a positive interpretation of the European “enlightenment”. It has been summarized that the worldview evolution of Panteleimon Kulish illustrates defining stage of civilizational identity genesis of the Ukrainian scholars of the 19th century – the beginning of the transition from the Slavic to European identity.