Theme 1: Introduction to “History of Ukrainian Culture” course

Plan

1. Subject and tasks of “History of Ukrainian Culture” course.

2. Definition of culture. Structure of culture. Forms of culture

3. Functions culture performs

4. Place of culture in our life and society.

5. Ukrainian culture in context of world culture.

History of mankind is the history of cultural development. Any nation has the most interesting point – it is its culture. The history of Ukrainian culture is an integral part of world culture. Historical process on its territory has common patterns of mankind development. At all times, the Ukrainian people was closely linked with other states, and thus has many points of contact with the history of other countries. Culture is a qualitative characteristic of social life. History of culture is the treasure of wisdom and experience received by the mankind from previous generations. People should keep, generalize, occupy and adopt this experience. Without this social progress and self-perfection are impossible.

The subject of the course “History of Ukrainian culture” is the culture of the Ukrainian people, as well as culture of its ancestors on the main lands of their settlement. The course studies various aspects: socio-economic, political, cultural, and religious. Subject of history of culture is a complex study of big variety of spheres: history of science and technique, household activities, education and social thought, folklore and literature studies, history of arts. History of culture generalizes all these knowledge and investigates culture like system of different branches.

What does “ culture ” mean? The term “ culture ” is of Latin origin and it is etymologically connected with the word “cult” (this word from Latin “cultus”, which means adoration of Gods and ancestors). So, we could give such kind of interpretation: it is something that provides us to the top, makes our level higher. From the very beginning this term meant “till, cultivation of land according to people’s needs”. Later, it was used for defining of upbringing process, education, and development.

The first man, who put the definition of “culture” to scientific circulation, was Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 years B.C.) and it was connected with the culture of mind, cultivation of thoughts. Since the 17^th century “culture” had been understood like a level of mental abilities of some nations. Contemporary understanding of this term started to use in European social thought only from the second half of 18^th century. At that time “culture” meant the achievements of spiritual culture, scientific knowledge, arts, moral perfection, and all things related to education.

Nowadays, there are about thousand definitions of culture. World conference in cultural politics under the aegis of UNESCO in 1982 adopted the Declaration. In this document we could find an interesting definition of “culture”: “ Culture is a complex of material, spiritual, intellectual and emotional characteristics of society that includes not only big variety of arts, but also way of life, the main rules of human being, system of values, traditions and beliefs ”.

Culture represents qualitative estimation of society and each individual. All cultural things are created by human being. Sometimes you can find the specific term “artifacts” for non-material, synthetic things created by man.

So, culture transforms nature. Nature is a root, basis of culture. It has an organic unity with culture. That is why care of nature (lands, water, air, flora and fauna) means at the same time care of culture. If we ruin the nature we will limit our chances for future life. Biosphere can exist without people, but people can not exist without biosphere. We should remember that culture can not develop in opposition to nature. The first president of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences V.I. Vernads’kyi (1863-1945) underlined we should live in harmony with nature and keep the balance between culture and nature.

According to two main spheres of human activity there are two important definitions of culture: material and spiritual. Material culture comprises transportation, communication, houses, domestic appliances, clothes – everything, which is the result of productive, material activity of people. Spiritual culture includes the cognition, morality, upbringing and education, law, philosophy, ethic, aesthetic, science, arts, literature, mythology, religion – all things related to the consciousness and spiritual production. But you can understand that this division is conditional. Both material and spiritual cultures are the results of human activity, which, in their turn, have some spiritual seed: ideas, projects and intentions of a man, later embodied in a certain material form.

Structure of culture:

material culture	spiritual culture
- culture of labour (means of labour: instruments, machine tools, etc. and abilities, skills, knowledge that are used in material production); - way of life (means of individual and social consumption – food, clothes, houses, domestic things (utensils)	- values in sphere of social consciousness (outlook, moral and aesthetic culture, scientific-technical creativity, language, thinking, etc.); - social institutes and organizations that realize spiritual production, regulate and direct cultural historical process; - material-technical basis that is used for production and spread of achievements of spiritual culture in society

So, we could say that:

material production	spiritual production
is directed on satisfaction of material needs of people, on creation of “material body of culture”, material things	is the production of ideas, conceptions, experiences, scientific systems, norms and traditions of human existence

Culture differs according to the following criteria:

means of expression	direction	belonging
- material; - spiritual	- elitist (high); - folk; - mass	- national; - world

Forms of culture:

Elitist culture – is a form of culture, which products are available to a narrow circle of high society representatives (as it requires knowledge).

Mass culture – the products of this form are available to a wide range of society.

Basic culture – is a system of values, principles, ideals characteristic of the society.

Subculture – is a system of symbols, beliefs, forms of thinking, values characteristic of a particular group people (for example, medical culture).

Culture performs the following functions:

1. Adaptive (protective): Culture provides adaptation of a man and society to the environment.

2. Epistemological (cognitive): Culture contains the entire sum of human knowledge about the world and means of it practical application.

3. Informative (translational): Culture stores and transmits social experience.

4. Communicative: Culture provides the communication of people with each other (forming conditions and means of communication).

5. Normative (regulatory): Culture regulates behaviour of both social groups and individuals.

6. Integrative: Culture helps to bring people together into a state, a nation, communities etc.

7. Socializing: Culture links individuals to public life, contributes to social experience, social role, etc. assimilation by a certain society members.

8. Humanistic (man-making): Assimilating cultural standards, a man becomes more than a biological creature. In other words, only culture makes a person really a human.

Culture is a product of human creativity. Thanks to culture we could change not only the world, but our souls and behaviour. Culture includes people’s memory. Each new generation inherited previous culture of its nation. Culture is a mechanism of transmission of social experience from one generation to another, from one epoch to the next one, from one country to another. Culture has no borders. High level of civilization is characterized by active cultural exchange. In each culture there are specific features and similar points, which we could find in all cultures. Russian artist Mykola Rerih (1874-1947) underlined that “culture is a weapon of Light and salvation”. According to his interpretation of culture “cult” means “respect” and “ur” means “light”. Culture is a passport of nation. Thanks to culture we are realized like human beings, not like animals. Mankind exists like variety of national-cultural unities. So, world culture is a mosaic of national cultures. All of them are unique. Variety of cultures is the characteristic peculiarity of contemporary civilization.

Ukrainian culture is the part of world culture. Our culture has both Oriental and Occidental elements, but in spite of all influences it is deep, original and folk culture.

Scientific literature differentiates between Ukrainian culture and culture of Ukraine. These definitions are not identical. Ukrainian culture is the result of creativity of all Ukrainians (even those groups and communities that live abroad). Culture of Ukraine includes masterpieces of representatives of other nations and cultures, but they exist and were created on the territory of our state (Ukraine) or the Crimean peninsula. For example, the mosk (Djuma-djami) in Yevpatoria was designed by Haji Sinan (1490-1588).

History of Ukrainian culture is divided into some periods:

1. Culture of East Slavs of pre-Christian period (from the first people at this territory in Palaeolithic age 35-40 thousand years ago – up to the baptizing of Kyiv Rus (988).

2. Culture of Kyiv Rus (9^th-13^th centuries).

3. Ukrainian culture in 15^th-17^th centuries. Ukrainian Renaissance.

4. Culture of Ukrainian people in the second half of the 17^th – end of the 18^th c. Development of Ukrainian Baroque.

5. Development of Ukrainian culture in late 18^th – early 19^th centuries.

6. Formation of modern Ukrainian culture of the second half of the 19^th c.

7. Development of Ukrainian culture during formative period of state independence in 1917-1920.

8. Culture of Soviet Ukraine (1920-1991).

9. Peculiarities of Ukrainian formation in the second half of the 20^th c. Culture of independent Ukraine.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11