Vitaliy (Віталій) Shcherbak (Щербак)
Vitaliy Shcherbak
History Notebooks, Issue 143 (2), 2016, pp. 287-294
https://doi.org/10.4467/20844069PH.16.007.5056The article analyzes the influence of the Renaissance humanist outlook and Reformation ideology on the development of the Ukrainian society at the end of 16th and the first half of 17th century. The Ukrainian intellectuals used traditional creative means in order to rethink the heritage of past eras. It is the most clearly manifested in the spiritual writings of polemicists. Appeal to the past became the basis for the emergence of the concept of the “Rus’ people.” Actually the question of the historical existence of the Rus’ people took on overtones of a political argument which was clearly formulated by Yov Boretskyi. The reforms in the military area of Hetman Petro Sagaydachnyi and in the confessional area of Kyiv Metropolitan Petro Mohyla were conducted in line with the establishment of the concept in social consciousness.