Problems with religion have always been and remain one of the most important in the context of organization of state and public life.And today for Ukraine the issues of guaranteeing, full protection, protection of the right to freedom of conscience, religion, activities of religious organizations, including religious minorities are very relevant.This is due, above all, to those historical scales, the processes that have taken place during the last decade in all spheres of social life, including in the spiritual, (...) religious-ideological plane of it. (shrink)

Ukraine is the motherland of not only Ukrainians but also of many national minorities with different cultures and traditions. Ukraine is a Christian country in general, with non-Christian and non-Christian religions and confessional currents, along with traditional churches - Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant - rooted and actively developing non-traditional Ukrainian culture and spirituality. In Ukraine there is a complex process of spiritual revival, especially in the intellectual environment. Many are written and talk about the preservation of cultural (...) heritage. Everywhere, monuments of architecture, art, which testify to the generally recognized historical contribution of Christianity to the development of spirituality and morality of the Ukrainian people, are restored. In our eyes, there are changes in social and religious relations. (shrink)

The Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies together with the Department of Religious Studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine began writing this fundamental work. This will not only be the history of the church or denominations, but the religious process in our native lands. Thematic content of the ten-volume is as follows: 1. Religions of the pre-Christian age; 2. Ukrainian Orthodoxy; 3. Orthodoxy in Ukraine; 4. Catholicism in the Ukrainian lands; 5. (...) Ukrainian Greek Catholicism; 6-7. Protestantism in Ukraine; 8. Religions of national minorities and indigenous peoples of Ukraine; 9. Non-religion in Ukraine; 10. Religion and church in independent Ukraine. (shrink)

In Ukraine, there are now officially registered six All-Ukrainian Muslim departments and centers, a number of Islamic-based public and political organizations, associations of national minorities, the Islamic lands dominated by Islamic religion. The Islamic community of the country is replenished annually by migrants and students from countries of different Islamic orientation. It is clear that all this actualizes the problem of inter-institutional relations in the Islam of Ukraine, the search for ways and means of minimizing and preventing (...) possible confrontations and conflicts between them. (shrink)

This article analyses Ukraine’s language policies from 2002 to 2022 within a framework of liberalism, while avoiding making normative judgements or recommendations, updating the discussion raised in Kymlicka and Opalski’s Can Liberal Pluralism be Exported? The analysis takes into consideration Ukraine’s present and historic position, including the challenge that postcolonial nation building can pose for achieving liberalism and linguistic justice. The paper focuses on three main areas of language policy: education, businesses and media, and assesses if they can (...) be described as liberal orthodox, pluralist or illiberal. The article begins by defining liberalism and illiberalism, discussing the context of Ukraine’s linguistic diversity and postcolonial context, before outlining the language situation until EuroMaidan. Then, the main issue of language policy in the areas of education, business and media is analysed, before considering whether Ukrainian language laws might be considered liberal or illiberal. Finally, potential future trajectories are outlined. (shrink)

In today's conditions of Ukraine's development, strengthening its legal foundation and establishing a democratic civil society is an urgent problem of the person's ability to exercise the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution and other legislative acts. Recently, in the world, cases of human rights violations in connection with religious, racial, linguistic and other differences have become more frequent and more frequent in the world. The ambiguity, the antagonistic nature of the definitions and the relation between the concepts (...) of various social groups, such as the national, religious minority, etc., often leads to speculation and aggravation of the ethnopolitical situation. This explains the relevance of this study. (shrink)

This study combines author's experiences as an analyst of post-Soviet politics and religious liberty with personal participation in the founding and public acceptance of a new faith in independent Ukraine during a quarter- century. Theattempt here is not only to describe a specific outcome, but to propose factors that offer explanation for why Ukraine is among the few Communist successor states in which new minority faiths have been relatively successful in achieving full toleration [Biddulph: 2016]. Religious liberty has (...) been described as the “first freedom of all freedoms” [Hertzke: 2013, 4], yet it has been noticeably unachieved globally. A 2007 Pew “Global Attitudes Survey” showed that 90% of respondents world-wide said that it was important to live in a country that enabled them to practice religion freely. Yet a more recent Pew “Forum on Global Restrictions on Religion” found that 70% of the world population reside in countries which have high or very high restrictions on religion either from government actions or from major social hostilities [Grim: 2013, 86]. Religious liberty, therefore, is an almost universal human aspiration, but is one of the more unachieved rights in the world. The Soviet Union successor states have a similar record of lower achievement [Lunkin: 2013; Grim: 2013]. (shrink)

This study combines author's experiences as an analyst of post-Soviet politics and religious liberty with personal participation in the founding and public acceptance of a new faith in independent Ukraine during a quarter- century. Theattempt here is not only to describe a specific outcome, but to propose factors that offer explanation for why Ukraine is among the few Communist successor states in which new minority faiths have been relatively successful in achieving full toleration [Biddulph: 2016]. Religious liberty has (...) been described as the “first freedom of all freedoms” [Hertzke: 2013, 4], yet it has been noticeably unachieved globally. A 2007 Pew “Global Attitudes Survey” showed that 90% of respondents world-wide said that it was important to live in a country that enabled them to practice religion freely. Yet a more recent Pew “Forum on Global Restrictions on Religion” found that 70% of the world population reside in countries which have high or very high restrictions on religion either from government actions or from major social hostilities [Grim: 2013, 86]. Religious liberty, therefore, is an almost universal human aspiration, but is one of the more unachieved rights in the world. The Soviet Union successor states have a similar record of lower achievement [Lunkin: 2013; Grim: 2013]. (shrink)

Actuality of theme. On the brink of the 1950s-1960s, the Soviet state launched a massive anti-religious campaign. The attitude towards the Roman Catholics in this period is a classic example of the hard policy of the Soviet and party leadership in relation to religious associations. However, this pressure was unequal in relation to different denominations. The position of the authorities was determined by the task of preventing the integration of the religious and national life of national minorities in (...) class='Hi'>Ukraine. Under conditions where religion remained for them, perhaps the only form of manifestation of national feelings, such a policy was frankly anti-national. This period is very important for researchers, because relations between the state and the Roman Catholic associations in the 1960's explain a lot of peculiarities of the development of these communities in Ukrainian society in our time. (shrink)

Latvia presents a unique and counterintuitive case in the history of postsocialist ethnic relations. Despite the USSR's having annexed Latvia by fiat and armed force in the 1940s—and despite the population transfers of so many Russians and other Soviet peoples to the region that Latvians themselves nearly became an ethnic minority in “their own” republic—there has been no ethnic violence between Latvians and Russians in the postsocialist era. Yet the events of summer 2014 have radically shifted the political imaginary of (...) this region, raising the specter of a loss of social cohesion and an eruption of violence. The essay examines one of the factors that has supported amity in Latvia for the past two decades: late-Soviet cosmopolitanism and its legacies in present-day Latvian cultural life. Analysis focuses on public art projects in Riga during the summer of 2014, in the shadow of the war in Ukraine. (shrink)

In societies divided on ethnic and religious lines, problems of democracy are magnified – particularly where groups are mobilized into parties. With the principle of majority rule, minorities should be less willing to endorse democratic institutions where their parties persistently lose elections. While such problems should also hamper transitions to democracy, several diverse Eastern European states have formed democracies even under these conditions. In this book, Sherrill Stroschein argues that sustained protest and contention by ethnic Hungarians in Romania and (...) Slovakia brought concessions on policies that they could not achieve through the ballot box, in contrast to Transcarpathia, Ukraine. In Romania and Slovakia, contention during the 1990s made each group accustomed to each other's claims and aware of the degree to which each could push its own. Ethnic contention became a de facto deliberative process that fostered a moderation of group stances, allowing democratic consolidation to slowly and organically take root. (shrink)

Ukrainian science and its terminology in the nineteenth century experienced a number of twists and turns. Divided between two empires, it lacked institutions, scholars pursuing it, and a unified literary language. One could even say that until the late nineteenth century there was a possibility for two communities with two literary languages to emerge – Ruthenian (Habsburg Empire) and Ukrainian (Russian Empire). Eventually, both communities and languages merged. This article tracks the meanderings of this process, arguing that scholarly publications played (...) a crucial role in shaping the standard for the scientific language. The article follows the biography of the naturalist Ivan Verhrats’kyi (1846–1919), the author of the first dictionaries of naturalist terminology in Ruthenian in 1860, a translator and author of textbooks, and the head of the Mathematical–Naturalist–Medical Section of the Shevchenko Society in L’viv. He thus shaped many Ruthenian, and then Ruthenian–Ukrainian scholarly projects. Initially successful with his approach to making the Ruthenian scientific language vernacular, in the 1890s his approach was losing ground to the internationalization of vocabulary and to the growing pressure toward the unification of Ruthenian and Ukrainian. Finally, in the beginning of the twentieth century, Verhrats’kyi became marginalized within the Ukrainian scholarly community. By discussing the history of a minority language within imperial structures, I argue that the media in which scholarly work was published requires special attention. In the Ruthenin–Ukrainian case, they determined the standard for scientific language. Lacking professional journals, Ruthenian scholars published in the 1860s–late 1880s in popular newspapers and in school textbooks, requiring them to use a language that was near to the spoken tongue of the Habsburg province. Once the political situation changed, favoring Ruthenian–Ukrainian unification, and scholarly journals appeared and transgressed the imperial boundary, the favored language had to be transimperial, ousting out the vernacular. (shrink)

The urgency of the paper is to explore the impact of the latest discoveries of the exact and human sciences on the activities of higher education in its ideological perspective. There is a tendency to increasing interest of medical students not only in professional issues, but also in the general atmosphere of changes in health care and the requirements already formulated by the society of the future. The purpose of the article is to continue our study of the historical and (...) philosophical evolution of humanistic ideas and views from the ideas of the times of Antiquity up to modern theories and futuristic predictions. The problem of the study is to analyze the phenomenon of transhumanism as the result of unrealistic expectations about the easy implementation of most people's dreams of health, happiness and even immortality. The prospects of development of means and methods of "artificial intelligence" are also studied. The research methods consist of combining the achievements of classical philosophy with the successes of the youngest sciences that study human beings, operate large data, use foresight and other means of forecasting. The central new notions are noosciences and nootechnologies, which are able to save mankind from the threats to its existence. Results of the research : a philosophical analysis of the new worldview – transhumanism has been undertaken in the article. The reasons for its appearance in the second half of the twentieth century are explained. The social and scientific sources and the main stages of the consolidation of supporters of transhumanism in the world and national associations have been studied. The variety of proposals of transhumanists and their relative unity as to the need for "human perfection" have been also studied. The main variants of "Transhumanistic manifestos " have been analyzed and showed the existence of two flows of proposals - technological and those oriented on changes in human behavior. It is proved that in our time transhumanism is an option of fundraising - the collection of donations from the very rich people who strive to live longer than it is possible now. It is indicated that transhumanism is supported by the male segment of the citizens of the West, who are keen on technological progress and, above all, fear of death. The position of T-m is positive for medical research. The conclusion s of our study showed the fact that existing variants of transhumanistic studies use only a minority of modern and promising technologies. Even leading scientists from Western Europe do not notice that among the nanotechnologies, the number of environmentally friendly nootechnologies is slowly growing. A group of scholars are studying these technologies and offering an increasing number of noosciences. We have chosen for our study the notion of "noohumanism". The article proves that in worldview and educational aspects noohumanism based on the noosciences has not only significant creative advantages over transhumanism, but is also devoid of its shortcomings. Medical and other sectors of higher education in Ukraine should rely on noohumanism, not transhumanism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper deals with two cases of acquisition and construction of Van de Graaff accelerators in 1950s Latin America, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of São Paulo, respectively. A comparative approach allows us to appreciate the significance of this particular technology within scientific, cultural, commercial, and political processes. Van de Graaff accelerators appeared as an affordable technology to engage in experimental nuclear physics and to be part of the atomic age. The circumstances that motivated (...) physics communities in Brazil and Mexico to choose this specific technology took shape in close interactions with US institutions and scientists. These inter-American alliances involved precisely the main companies and groups that competed for the market of this technology around the world. These accelerators also intertwined with the building of campuses for two major Latin American universities, occupying then a singular place (physically and symbolically) within their execution. This paper engages with comparison for the common goal of going beyond frameworks and methodologies tied to the nation, while integrating the study of connections and interactions, as well as the interplay of multiple scales. (shrink)

This book makes a major contribution to the ongoing national debate on how to expand minority participation in higher education and in the social, economic, and political life of the nation. Nineteen articles, all written by leaders in the field of higher education, present a candid discussion of the issues associated with the transformation of American society and minority participation in higher education.

Modulation of visual attention in the Visual World Paradigm relies on parallel processing of linguistic and visual information. Previous studies have argued that the human linguistic capacity includes an aspect of anticipation of upcoming material. Such anticipation can be triggered by both lexical and grammatical/morphosyntactic cues. In this study, we investigated the relationship between comprehension and prediction by testing how subtle changes in visual representations can affect the processing of grammatical case cues in Russian by Russian-German bilingual children (n = (...) 49, age 8−13). The linguistic manipulation followed previous designs, contrasting SVO and OVS sentences, where the first NP (NP1) was marked with nominative or accusative case, respectively. Three types of visual displays were compared: (i) individual referents (potential agent/theme); (ii) pairs of referents (NP1 + potential agent/theme); and (iii) events (representing interactions between the referents). Participants were significantly more sensitive to the case manipulation when presented with events compared to the other two types of visual display. This suggests that they were able to quickly integrate the thematic role information signaled by grammatical case in the event representations. However, they were less likely to use the case information to anticipate upcoming arguments when the target pictures represented individual referents or pairs of noninteracting referents. We hypothesize that the process of argument anticipation is mediated by the activation of syntactic templates (SVO or OSV, depending on the case marking on NP1). The relatively weak anticipation effect observed may be attributed to the absence, or weak representation, of the noncanonical OVS template in the bilingual children's long-term memory. (shrink)

The social acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) is recently widely debated. Although some Western countries have taken a more favourable course towards these minority groups, we still see a certain level of resistance to same sex marriage and discrimination against LGBT even in normally regarded liberal societies. Islam, which is often believed to clash with so-called Western values, regards LGBT as abhorrent and even apostate. However, we see a new endeavour of LGBT people in the most Muslim populous (...) country in the world, Indonesia. This paper explores the treatment of these minorities in Islam, including the possibility of co-existence of all humans in a future. For this purpose, we consider the activities of this Islamic school in Indonesia and the life history of the students. We also examine both the pro and con of the religious standpoint of the ulamas. We especially pay attention to some of the ulama’s attempts to create a new fiqh (a legal standard for religious rituals and obligations) to accept LGBT. (shrink)

Second Life is a free, three-dimensional, multi-user, online virtual world program created in 2003 by Linden Research Inc. In this paper, I recount the Introduction to Philosophy course I taught in Second Life for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and address five areas of interest: (1) traditional vs. non-traditional learning environments, (2) communication, (3) illustrative props, (4) student feedback, and (5) and potential concerns. My conclusion is that philosophy courses can be taught online in Second Life effectively and that philosophy instructors (...) need to be more aware of the educational possibilities of Second Life as education becomes increasingly more digital. (shrink)

The state and changes in the religiosity of the population of post-Soviet Ukraine, it must be admitted, was studied too superficially by sociological methods. There were virtually no large-scale large-scale projects that purposefully investigated the religiosity of Ukrainians in its dynamics for many years by the standards generally used in modern sociology of religion. But the inclusion of Ukraine in international sociological research programs on the study of values ​​and religious and behavioral orientations, national projects aimed at obtaining (...) a socio-political, socio-demographic, socio-cultural portrait of the population of Ukraine, which would also include the study of his attitude to religion, research represented on the Ukrainian scale, nevertheless give a certain idea of ​​religiosity in Ukraine in recent years and tendencies of its development in comparison with other ymi countries. (shrink)

The article explores major milestones in reforming higher education in Ukraine, applying the methodology of case studies. It analyzes political and social conditions that influenced the process of reform. The author pays particular attention to the concept of university autonomy, its development and implementation in Ukraine, considering legal and institutional efforts. The impact and experience of some leading institutions like Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is discussed. The author concludes that the task of ensuring comprehensive university autonomy is of a political (...) nature. This is the only reliable instrument for raising of quality of Ukrainian higher education. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Abby Minor 103 JUMP ROPE CHANT: A CURE FOR ALL KINDS OF STOMACH ACHES, ca. 2000 BCE–ca. 2000 CE Abby Minor Happy are those who stand in a field at night and hear the double rainbows land, or clap the gaps that RHYTHM makes, or shout to the beat of grasses; They are like trees planted by streams of water, which (...) yield their fruit in its season, & their leaps & their leaves & their feet do not wither, they leap up in the morning singing, in all that they do they chant, and jump, and are singing: “Blood root, hair pin, lupine, clover, watermints and cinnamon, a pencil, myrrh, poplar, juniper, copper water, whiskey, cotton root, snake root, savin, wire,  Clap your hands, all you peoples. —Psalm 47.1 104 Abby Minor wallflower, gunpowder, emeralds, myrtle, tonic of geranium, lace seeds, soap, bone stay, coltsfoot, catheters, quinine, a hoop bound with oil-silk, a hat pin, oak—” I chant a long time I chant from within a hollow place I chant all colors of cohosh Instantly as dawn clips green & white, I chant to dissolve separate parts I jump backwards and I chant So that you may bathe your feet in blood, it was in the Psalms, it’s what God does it might be a rain dance it will come to you like a beautiful cigar filled with fine leaves like the fine feet of a deer cleft in gold leaves Like rhythm a hair pin, rhythm a hat pin, rhythm a knitting hook, rhythm a nail RHYTHM makes my feet like the feet of a deer. I chant rosemary so assiduous I chant pennyroyal forever most poisonous I chant intransigence and double rainbows pop on the sidewalks of the cosmos, double Abby Minor 105 Dutch ropes spin like twin rivers, there I am planted like a tree by the water, like an outrider dropping fire into the ropes: I will kick up my heels seven times there will be a noise and the seed will fall out on the ground shouting, “Date palms, dancing, anise, trillium, turpentine, scissors, silphium, rum, cundums, pomegranate, pearlash, iron, foot baths, borax, birthwort, rue, wormwood, fern root, fig leaf, sneezing, a small ball of sheep’s wool, smart weed, brass, blackberries, goldbeaters, button hooks, hawthorn, womb veil, vinegar, saffron, glass—” If you try our hearts, RHYTHM, if you visit us by night; if I forget which is my left hand and which is your right— just let it be me; psalmist, you, a trace of blood. Me, muscle, 106 Abby Minor you, myrrh. Or you jumping, me rope. Me mirrorstep, you leave your dark prints on the light. Me ambush, you flood. Me bloodthirsty, you a smaller blood. You bloodthirsty, me myrrh. Me fortress, you a tent for the sun. Me splendor, you go on and on. Me hat pin, me flood. You poetry, me a clapping tree, or me poetry and you nothing at all. I say to RHYTHM, “You are my Rhythm, I have no song apart from you and I could never tell just where the sole leaves the sidewalk and turns into the smallest lit pause popped, suspended above shoe shadow; I could never say whether I’m the jumper picking up her knees or the turner planted so still save for her hands— and what pilots her hands, pilot, if not you, if not her hands? If not the offbeat, the bows of light we pattern, Rhythm which is both the rivet and what’s held: like rhythm a hair pin, rhythm a hat pin, rhythm a knitting hook, rhythm a nail Abby Minor 107 RHYTHM makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Now I chant the bitter melon fruit who lights up darkness and my feet do not grow weary writing RHYTHM on the sidewalk lighting incense in the bathtub filled with gin in which I lay chanting like the singers in front, like the musicians last, like the girls between them playing tambourines: Rhythm make a riot Rhythm eat a bee Rhythm use a chicken feather & make a joyful noise Praise Rhythm with mint & astringents with spearmints & syringes with pipes, pen handles, mercury... (shrink)

The article analyzes the political motives of Ukrainian resistance to Russian invasion and aggression. First of all, it emphasizes the falsification of history by Russian propaganda, its use of history as a political instrument, the destruction of the traumatic memory of the recent imperial past and the glorification of the “glorious centuries-old” imperial history in modern Russia. This determines the difference in the structure of the historical memory of Russians and other former peoples of the empire, and the recent memory (...) of the tragic imperial past is the leading factor in the choice of the Ukrainian and Moldovan peoples for their political destiny. The article also shows that this choice, as well as the desire for truth, freedom and rights, determines these peoples’ slow but sure progress toward democracy. These choices and aspirations are at the same time a determining factor in the ability of the Ukrainian people to resist Russian armed aggression. Instead, the so-called “civilizational” links between the former peoples of the empire, with which Russia tries to justify its aggression, are actually a cover for its desire for political dominance. The article also outlines the importance of Ukrainian resistance for European democracies, calling for their unconditional support. The war in Ukraine is a challenge for them, because no matter what problems democracies around the world are facing today, they will remain actors of their own history only if they provide support to all those who resist the destruction of the minimum of rights and freedoms that define democracy. Using Kant’s work «Perpetual Peace» as an example, the article also shows that the cessation of war for the sake of cessation of war, which is often called for today, will not contribute to the establishment of peace. It will leave grounds for the renewal of war, which the aggressor, if he will not change its political essence, will always be able to use it again. (shrink)

Karen Barad develops a view she calls ‘posthumanism,’ or ‘agential realism,’ where the human is reconfigured away from the central place of explanation, interpretation, intelligibility, and objectivity to make room for the epistemic importance of other material agents. Barad is not alone in this kind of endeavor, but her posthumanism offers a unique epistemological position. Her aim is to take a performative rather than a representationalist approach to analyzing ‘socialnatural’ practices and challenge methodological assumptions that may go unnoticed in some (...) disciplinary fields. Yet for all the good of the challenge, Barad must support it with sound epistemological theorizing, theorizing that would apply to any methodology, whether that be sociological, historical, anthropological, or philosophical. Thus, where one might critique Barad on her assessments of sociological, historical, or anthropological incorporations of humans and the nonhuman, I critique Barad’s epistemology on its sense of objectivity and dismissal of the centrality of the human. I argue that Barad’s epistemology must retain a particular form of humanism, a humanism that stakes human subjectivity as the locus of rationality and objectivity, without which it creates intractable problems. To recuperate Barad’s challenge to contest assumptive distinctions while avoiding her epistemological problems, I offer some parting reflections. (shrink)

In the article O. Panich "Institutionalization of Evangelical Protestantism in Ukraine reveals the history of the emergence and development of Ukrainian evangelical Protestant communities, especially the evangelical-Baptist movement. The peculiarity of the faith and the way of life of Baptists and evangelical Christians is considered.

Language has traditionally been an important marker of Ukrainian identity which, due to a lack of independent statehood, has been ethnic rather than civic. The contradictory policies of the Soviet regime produced a large discrepancy between ethnocultural identity and language use. In independent Ukraine this discrepancy persisted, as increased identification with the Ukrainian nation was not accompanied by a commensurate increase in the use of the Ukrainian language, even though the latter was predominantly valued as a symbol of nationhood. (...) The Euromaidan and the subsequent Russian aggression further detached language use from national identity, as many Russian speakers came to identify strongly with the inclusive Ukrainian nation without abandoning their accustomed language or even adding Ukrainian as an active part of their communicative repertoire. The post-Maidan leadership refrained from an active promotion of Ukrainian for fear of provoking alienation among Russian speakers, but this policy exacerbates the disadvantaged position of the titular language in various domains and causes discontent among those viewing it as a crucial component of national identity. (shrink)

The article is updated by several circumstances, which the authors reflect on. In their opinion, there are 1) obvious and external threats — violations of freedom of conscience in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea, which arose as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and 2) internally hidden and potential dangers for freedom of religions of Ukrainian citizens. The well-known examples of discrimination of believers of certain faiths in the so-called DPR-LPR and Crimea given by the authors are constantly (...) updated. Relevant monitoring and analytical reports are prepared by both Ukrainian and international experts. They submitted these reports to international human rights organizations, including the rights for Freedom of Religion and Belief. Despite such convincing documented materials, separate accusations have recently appeared against Ukraine, which allegedly violates freedom of religion in the territory under its control. Some are trying to prove that Ukraine, taking advantage of the war situation and referring to the spiritual dangers for Ukraine from those religious organizations whose centers are in the aggressor country, threatens some churches, thereby violating the Constitution and the Law on Freedom of Conscience, which guarantee for all citizens, regardless of from their religious affiliation, freedom of religion. The authors refute these narratives lashed out by Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church. Such negative conclusions, which express concern about the situation in Ukraine regarding freedom of conscience and religion, influence on the world public, experts on issues of freedom of conscience, religious organizations, spoil the image of Ukraine as a country with high level of freedom of conscience even among European countries. Religious freedom, as the authors conclude, needs protection today, but they call for separating real threats from imaginary ones and clearly defining who persecutes, whom he/she persecutes and where persecutes. Ukraine is consistent in its intentions to protect the rights of people and communities, to protect the freedoms of believers and their organizations. (shrink)

The article examines the phenomenon of the domestic volunteer movement as an important element of the system of national security and stability in war conditions. The main directions of volunteer activity and the interaction of volunteer organizations with state authorities are outlined.The emphasis is on the uniqueness of Ukrainian volunteering as a phenomenon of civil society cohesion and mobilization of the social activity resource of certain population groups in response to an external threat. The features of the periods of formation (...) and functioning of the volunteering institute in the country and the main directions of work since 2014 are considered.It has been emphasized that the current period of volunteer organizations in the country can be characterized as a creative development of the experience already acquired in 2014-2017 during the anti-terrorist operation in Eastern Ukraine and the development of competencies of its participants in normalizing cooperation between volunteers and the authorities. The process of transforming the volunteer movement into a component of the national security system was facilitated by the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the Military Doctrine of Ukraine (2015) and a number of laws. These are the Law of Ukraine “On National Security of Ukraine” (2015), the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Law “On Volunteer Activities” (2015) which stabilized the legal relations of volunteers with the state and contributed to the further reassessment of the role of volunteers in strengthening national security.It has been also emphasized that the volunteering stage since 2022 has combined the experience of previous years with modern technologies and international support, creating a qualitatively new level of efficiency in providing the needs of society in the conditions of escalating hostilities.The priority areas of work of volunteer organizations during military operations, starting in 2022, have been revealed. They include active assistance to units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that are directly on the “line of fire”. Volunteers actively provide the military with the necessary equipment, including ammunition, body armor, helmets, tactical equipment, means of communication and personal protection. As for the population of the “front-line” territories, this work covers a wide range of activities aimed at meeting basic human needs – food, medicine, clothing, household repairs. Volunteers provide internally displaced persons with food, clothing, footwear, medicines, hygiene products, as well as warm things for the winter period, etc.The challenges to the activities of volunteer organizations have been analyzed, the main of which are the uneven distribution of resources, insufficient social protection of participants in the structures, lack of funding, and shortcomings in integration into national security policy programs. (shrink)

In recent years many textbooks and manuals on religious studies have been published in Ukraine. However, one of them deserves special attention because of the frank and even brazen appropriation of the author by the author of the meaningful potential not only of national scholars but also of the classics of world religious studies. It is a textbook of Ya.Chernenko's "Religious Studies: A Theoretical and Practical Course", which was published in 2005 in the Kiev publishing house "Professional" with a (...) circulation of 800 copies. I would like to point out that this guide was recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine for higher education students. (shrink)

Under this name, on November 19-20, 1998, an international scientific and practical conference devoted to the 50th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights took place in Kyiv. The organizers of the conference are the International Academy of Religious Freedom, the International Commission on the Freedom of Conscience, the Ukrainian Association of Religious Studies, the State Committee of Ukraine for Religious Affairs, the Department of Religious Studies at the Institute of Philosophy named after. G.S. Skovoroda, National Academy (...) of Sciences of Ukraine. (shrink)

In Heidi Grasswick?s response to ??Epistemological communities? and the problem of epistemic agency,? she criticizes my move to reconceptualize epistemology as an affair primarily centered on epistemic practises instead of epistemic agency. In this paper, I address some of Grasswick?s counterpoints, and I restate my argument for why epistemology should be centered on practises instead of epistemic agency. However, to advance the discussion, I urge that a more fruitful dialogue would engage looking at what consequences and advantages might follow from (...) reframing epistemology around practises. Therefore, I entertain an additional advantage this turn to practises makes regarding the danger of apriorism, the prior construction and application of theoretical structures upon groups of people and their practises without consideration for the actuality of these people and their practises. I argue that reorientating one?s epistemology around practises gives adequate grounds to avoid aprioristic tendencies, whereas an epistemology primarily centered on epistemic agency can fall into trouble. (shrink)

This article is dedicated to the philosophical legacy of Evald Ilyenkov in Soviet and post-Soviet Ukraine. The authors use the example of Ilyenkov and his legacy to show how drastically different the philosophical situation was in Soviet Ukraine in order to present a holistic viewpoint on Soviet philosophy. The authors highlight the differences between the political and philosophical circumstances in Russia and Ukraine from the 1950s to the 2010s. The Ukrainian philosophical tradition is characterized by its focus (...) on pedagogics, aesthetics, and nonacademic forms of philosophical communication. The main organizational role in Ukrainian philosophy was played by Pavel Kopnin and Valeriy Bosenko, who introduced dialectics as logic to Kyiv universities and made an effort to create philosophical circles for students. Anatoliy Kanarskiy, the prominent Soviet philosopher who specialized in aesthetics adopted the same idea of organizing students into circles. All these personalities were connected with Ilyenkov and each other, thus proving the existence of a common tendency and tradition of thinking within the discourse of Soviet philosophy. The authors highlight that this specific tradition may be called a “Socratic tradition” with its focus on free thinking, on discussions and dialectics. This tradition goes beyond academic philosophy and roots itself in cybernetical studies by Viktor Hlushkov and exists in modern Ukraine in the form of various philosophical circles and literature clubs. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of military chaplaincy service formation in the period of independence of Ukraine as one of the priority directions of relations between the state and religious organizations in Ukraine. The current state of military pastoral care is analyzed directly in the context of Catholic churches activities in Ukraine in this aspect. In particular, the institutional component of the Catholic churches is clarified, statistics demonstrating the quantitative and percentage composition of the Catholic churches (...) in the religious network of Ukraine are provided. The results of sociological surveys of the religious situation in Ukraine and the identification of religiosity of the population in the context of Catholic churches are analyzed. The opinion of the population of Ukraine regarding the trust in religious organizations, religious leaders and the military formations of Ukraine is examined. The opinion of the population on the expediency of establishing a military chaplaincy institute in Ukraine is also clarified. The organizational division of the internal structure of the Catholic churches in Ukraine is presented, and it is also clarified which structural units are responsible for coordination with the Ukrainian power structures and organization of pastoral work. Attention is drawn to the review of the cooperation of the Catholic churches in Ukraine with the military formations of Ukraine in the aspect of pastoral activity. Special attention is paid to the coverage of the various areas of pastoral work directly by the military chaplains of the Catholic churches and the coordination of this work by the relevant structural units of the Catholic churches. In particular, conferences, meetings, trainings, pilgrimages on the organization and implementation of pastoral work in the field of military chaplaincy. Also, consideration is given to the activities of the advisory body on military chaplaincy at the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and its contribution to the establishment of the Institute of Military Chaplaincy in Ukraine. The inter-denominational cooperation of the churches in Ukraine, including the Catholic ones, was considered in establishing a military chaplaincy institution in independent Ukraine through the activities of interfaith associations. It has been found that the issue of legislative securing of the Institute of Military Chaplaincy in the Armed Forces of Ukraine remains urgent. In this regard, the legislative work in this area and the involvement of Catholic churches in Ukraine are highlighted. (shrink)

War crimes are being committed in Ukraine today, but who should be held responsible? By looking at the literature on responsibility and violence by Philippa Foot and John Harris, this article argues that there are grounds for holding Vladimir Putin responsible for war crimes in Ukraine, even if he did not give the command for these crimes and other atrocities to be carried out.

Realism about the external world enjoys little philosophical support these days. I rectify this predicament by taking a relatively pragmatist line of thought to defend commonsense realism; I support commonsense realism through an interpretation and application of Donald Davidson’s notion of triangulation, the triangle composed of two communicators coordinating and correcting their responses with a shared causal stimulus. This argument is important because it has a crucial advantage over the often used abductive argument for realism. My argument avoids unwarranted conclusions, (...) whereas the abductive argument is “inflationary” because it reaches beyond the limits of evidence for its realist conclusion. To illustrate the problems of the abductive argument and motivate my Davidsonian approach, I take a brief look at the abductive argument for realism in Frederick Will’s work. (shrink)

Fifty years ago, on 12 September, 1963, the association agreement between the European Economic Community (EEC) and Turkey was signed in Ankara. However, in contrast to many other countries who applied later on, Turkey has not yet become a member of the EU. Nevertheless, Turkey’s candidacy to join the EU is still one of the most considerable and controversial topics within the European political arena. Within the accession negotiations, apart from human rights and the Kurdish and the Cypriot issues, one (...) of the greatest challenges to Turkey’s successful candidacy is the issue of respect for and protection of minorities. It might indeed represent an unsolvable problem, which will ultimately block Turkey joining the EU. Neither the EU nor Turkey has really come to terms or dealt with what the EU sees as an “unsatisfactory” protection of minorities in Turkey. What lies at the root of this disagreement is what the term “minority” actually means. Due to Turkey’s own nation state concept as being a united and undivided country and to the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923, which defined Turkey as a nation, the country only recognises non-Muslim minorities. Moreover, contrary to the wording of the minority protection clauses in the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey restricts its recognition of non-Muslim minorities only to the Greek, Armenian and Jewish religious populations. Although being a non-Muslim group as well, the Assyrians are excluded from the Turkish concept of minorities and, therefore, also from minority protection. In contrast to that, the EU’s concept of minority includes ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities, which means that according to the EU’s concept of minorities, also ethnic minorities like the Kurds, linguistic minorities like the Laz and religious minorities like the Alevis are included in the term “minority” and, therefore, these minorities should benefit from specific minority protection rights. To find a common basis for discussing the unsatisfactory issue of minority rights in Turkey, the concept of “ethnic groups” is introduced by the author as the most promising approach to deal with this unreconciled conceptual difference. According to this concept, ethnic groups could form a sub-identity of Turkishness and help build a legal basis to the treatment of minority groups founded on human rights, which would be compatible with both Turkish and EU Law. (shrink)

A series of conflicts that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union culminated in the war in Ukraine waged by Russia in 2014. The international community was taken by surprise, and its reactions to the Russian aggression were often confused and inadequate. Even more confused and inadequate were the responses from global Christianity. Russian propaganda often renders the aggression against Ukraine as a quasi-religious conflict: a “holy war” against the “godless” or “heterodox” West. It would be natural, therefore, (...) for the Christian churches worldwide to loudly condemn both propaganda and aggression. However, in most cases, their response was silence. Such reactions came from most local Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic church, and international ecumenical organizations such as the World Council of Churches. An exception was the reaction from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which decided to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The article argues that the Tomos for autocephaly was, among other reasons, a reaction to the war in Ukraine. The responses of other local Orthodox churches to the Tomos also indicate their attitude to the war in Ukraine. These reactions have demonstrated a profound crisis in inter-Orthodox solidarity and social ethics. (shrink)

The article by Liudmyla Fylypovych «Religious Identities in Ukraine: formulation of the problem» is devoted to the problem of religious identities, which were activated in modern Ukraine in connection with radical political and civilizational challenges-shifts, and therefore they require deep study.