Pre-modern identity No. 1: characteristics of pre-modern ethnicity (12.07.2025)
The first installment of Vitaliy Dribnytsya’s original cycle “The formation of pre-modern ethnic identity” — a Ukrainian-language mini-lecture based on the first volume of the academic 6-volume “Ukraine. Essays in History” (Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2023–2024). The theme is why, before the end of the 10th century, one cannot speak of a formed ethnic identity in the Ukrainian lands: territorial, religious, and estate-based self-awareness prevailed, while the factors of a modern nation (printing, education, transport routes) emerged only in the 19th century. A source for the article on the formation of pre-modern identity.
Key moments
- 01:31 The cycle is based on the 6-volume "Ukraine. Essays in History," vol. 1 (Institute of History, NAS of Ukraine, 2023–2024)
- 05:07 The principal sign that a people's formation is complete is the appearance of a self-designation attested in the sources
- 05:40 Russian pseudo-bloggers operate with "historical statics": identity is dynamic, not eternal
- 07:39 In the Middle Ages, territorial, religious, and estate-based identity prevailed over ethnic identity
- 09:52 Factors of modern identity — printing, transport routes, state education — belong to the 19th century
- 16:09 Natalia Yakovenko: without a unified information field across the territory of princely Rus', a single identity is impossible