Understanding the multiculturalism of Eastern Europe in the folklore and ethnographic works of Volodymyr Hnatiuk about the Ugrian Rusins

According to the research, Academician Volodymyr Hnatiuk's scholarly inquiry had focused on the elements of multiculturalism long before the theory of multiculturalism was developed. Hnatiuk studied the problems of coexistence of different ethnic groups in the multicultural realm of the Eastern European area, with a partucLuar attention to the Ugrian Rusins. In his research, Hnatiuk employed basic concepts for modern multicultural studies, such as historically determined multicultural space of Eastern Europe, which combines national and ideological heterogeneity, cultural diffusion and social homogeneity. Yet the authors emphasize that Hnatiuk paid attention to the dominant concepts of ethnocultural frontiers, the contamination of ethnological and psychomental phenomena, the problems of preservation/Loss of the national identity, the political consensus in a poLyethnic society, the polyphony of national consciousness, and others. The multilevel reception of other ethnic groups by the Rusins is studied on the Materials from Ugric Rus (1897-1911) collected and processed by Hnatiuk. The primary role in this cultural topos is assigned to the Slavic nations, who are more often perceived in the plane of rapprochement rather than distance in the dichotomy of In-group/Out-group. The second level is interaction with non-Slavic European nations (Germans, Hungarians). However, the non-European influences were often a factor in the formation of Eastern European identity: the Jewish influence through the biblical books, as well as Central Asian influences from the Turkish attacks and the Ottoman rule in these lands. The authors conclude that the muLticuLturaList methodology expands the geocuLturaL context of ethnological research. The processed material convincingly proves that it can be applied to the European cultural and historical discourses of previous epochs, which contain the features provided by this theory.

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