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Lecture 1. the Subject of the Course Lecture 1. The Subject of the Course "The History of Ukrainian Culture" 1. The Essence and Structure of Culture. 2. Civilization, Ethnic Culture and National Culture. 3. Specific Features of Ukrainian Culture. 1. The Essence and Structure of Culture. Culture (Latin: cultura, lit. "cultivation" of soil) is based on a term first used in classical antiquity by the Roman orator Cicero: "cultura animi" (cultivation of the soul). The non-agricultural use of the term "culture" re-appeared in modern Europe in the 17th century. It meant the betterment or refinement of individuals, especially through education. During the 18th and 19th century discussion of the term was often connected to national aspirations or ideals of whole peoples. German romanticist Jo- hann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) defined culture as that attitude towards the world that reveals the soul of the people, how a particular people maintains its own values. Other scientists used the term "culture" to refer to a universal human capacity. The British anthropologist Edward B. Tylor was the first to put the scientific sense of "culture". He defined culture as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits ac- quired by man as a member of society." Culture includes all these capabilities and habits in contrast to those numerous traits acquired otherwise, by biological heredity. UNESCO defines culture as the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, mate- rial, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group including modes of life, ways of living together, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions, beliefs and arts. Previously, there was a tendency to view cultures as essentially fixed and their content being transmitted between generations unchanged. Today cultures started to be understood as shifting entities. Culture is a process whereby societies evolve along pathways that are specific to them. Cultures are internally affected by both forces en- couraging change and forces resisting change. These forces are related to both social structures and natural events. They are involved in the perpetuation of cultural ideas and practices within current structures, which themselves are subject to change. Envi- ronmental conditions, social conflict and the development of technologies can pro- duce cultural changes. Within a society they alter social dynamics and promote new cultural models. Social shifts may accompany ideological shifts and other types of cultural change. It is through culture that person expresses himself / herself, becomes aware of himself / herself, recognizes his / her incompleteness, questions own achievements, seeks untiringly for new meanings and creates works through which person trans- cends his / her limitations. Culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is a fragile phenomenon. It is constantly changing and easily lost. Our written languages, governments, build- ings, and other man-made things are the products of culture. These things were made and used through cultural knowledge and skills. Aspects of human expression consist of both material culture and spiritual elements. The latter include: language, sci- ence, technology, cuisine, art, fashion, values, ideology, social structure, social con- ventions, norms, taboos and etiquette, gender roles, recreational activities such as fes- tivals and holidays, commercial practices, religion. The basic layer of culture consists of cultural universals – learned behavior pat- terns, traits or institutions that are shared by all of humanity collectively. No matter where people live in the world, they share these universal traits: communicating with a verbal language; using age and gender to classify people; classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships; raising children in some sort of family setting; having gender division of labor; distinguishing between good and bad behavior; making jokes and playing games; having art; having leadership roles for the implementation of community decisions. Passing from one social group to another, one discovers differences that cannot be due to anything but social convention. The significant layer of culture that may be part of your identity is a subculture. If people have come from many different parts of the world to a complex society, they often retain much of their original cultural tradi- tions. As a result, they are likely to be part of an identifiable subculture in their new society. The shared cultural traits of subcultures make them distinctive from the rest of their society. Members of each of these subcultures may share a common identity, food traditions, dialect or language, and other cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience. A subculture, which is part of a dominant culture, is distinct with its own values, folkways and mores. A counterculture, on the other hand, is considered somewhat deviant against society. This type of subculture defies at least one aspect of the dominant culture. 2. Civilization, Ethnic Culture and National Culture. The terms "culture", "civilization" and "peoples" may have different connota- tions depending on context. One may understand distinctions between civilization and culture by stating that the former refers more to material, technical, economic, and social facts while the latter refers to spiritual, intellectual and artistic phenomena. Culture is customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular county or particular group. On the other hand civilization is all people in the world and the societies they live in, considered as a whole. A culture ordinarily exists with- in a civilization in this regard each civilization can contain not only one but several cultures. Civilization can be distinguished from other cultures by their high level of complexity and organization, and by their diverse economic and cultural activities. A civilization is a complex society or culture group characterized by substan- tial economy and trade, state form of government, occupational specialization, urban- ism and class stratification. Along with this core elements, civilization is often marked by combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, formal legal system, great art style, monumental archi- tecture and science. The term "civilization" refers to cultures that affirm their values or worldviews as universal. They adopt an expansionist approach towards those that do not (or do not yet) share them. It helps to denote their set of ideas, knowledge, values, institu- tions and achievements. But civilization may be understood as work in progress, as the accommodation of each of the world’s cultures, on the basis of equality, in uni- versal project of humanity. The term civilization is widely used to indicate a high state of progress – a certain level of social, cultural, political, economic and techno- logical development of human community. There exists a wide range of distinct cultures in our world. Cultural diversity has inherent value. Ethnicity may be understood as a specific sociocultural mecha- nism of human adaptation to both natural and social conditions. Certain natural and geographic conditions (climate, flora, fauna, relief etc.) dictate corresponding mode of life to local human population. Ethnicity is a named human population with a myth of common origins and ancestry, shared historical memories, one or more elements of common culture, a common territorial association and a measure of solidarity. It is the culture above all that transforms a population into self-conscious community called people (ethnicity). Whenever someone believes that their own culture is superior over another cul- ture, this is ethnocentrism. Herder postulated that "every nation has its center of happiness within itself" and that it is not "up to us to be their judge, to evaluate or condemn their customs by our own standards". Rather than judging other societies negatively because they have different cultural beliefs one should maintain cultural relativism and tolerance. This involves neutrally noticing other culture’s practices and the differences of behaviors from the position of our own culture. One may not accept every behavior of other cultures, but one should be open to understanding why the other cultures do so. Nation is in some way interconnected with ethnicity. Whereas ethnicity is a group of people with a shared cultural identity, spoken language etc., a nation is far more self-conscious community that, being formed from one or more ethnicities, pos- sesses or claims the right to political identity and autonomy as a people, together with the control of specific territory in a world thought of as one of nation states. The emergence of nations comes along with political development of humanity. In order to protect their interests members of nation possess or seek for a government of their own. It is a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its coherence, unity, and particular interests. Not only does national identity develop out of the con- stituent elements of ethnic identity, but the latter is often defined by loyalty to com- mon culture and mythology, as well as to common political institutions. 3. Specific Features of Ukrainian Culture. The Ukrainians are an East Slavic people constituting the native population of Ukraine. Its ethnographic territory extends form
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