Mykhailo Rudnytskyi vs Dmytro Dontsov: Two Visions of Europe and the West

Abstract

The paper provides an overview of formation images “Europe” and the “West” in the texts of two prominent Ukrainian publicists in interwar Lviv – Mykhailo Rudnytskyi and Dmytro Dontsov. The article focuses on interwar discussions about the image of Europe, the West, and the East, liberalism, and nationalism. Given the fact that all these and related issues, having entered the Ukrainian public space at the beginning of the XX century remains relevant today, it appears reasonable to analyze these interwar discussions, which represent different ways of imaging European culture. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the sources of formation of these images, their content, and discussions around them. The author elaborated on the similarities and differences of these images in the texts of Rudnytskyi and Dontsov. The key element in Mykhailo Rudnytsky's worldview in the interwar period was liberalism or rather “cultural liberalism.” The three main ideological blocks for him were “freedom”, “individuality” and inclusiveness (openness) of cultures. Mykhailo Rudnytsky's image of “Europe” was rather amorphous, without clear boundaries, and took the liberal culture of the nineteenth century as examples of liberal figures. “East” occupied a very little place in the worldview of Michael, and was superimposed on the oriental axis “West (Europe) – civilization”, “East (Asia) – barbarism”. At the same time, geographical boundaries were not particularly important, and European movements, if they did not correspond to the ideal liberal model, could be considered barbaric and “Asian”. Dmytro Dontsov's image of Europe was focused not on the liberal Europe of the XIX century, but the radical right movements in interwar Europe. If Rudnytsky emphasized the ideas of liberalism of the XIX century, individual freedom and synthesis of cultures, and these ideas he wanted to see in the image of “Europe”, for Dontsov “Europe” and European thinkers had value in the context of ideas of expansion, struggle as the basis of the people's spirit. At the same time, in the worldview of Mykhailo Rudnytsky and Dmytro Dontsov, “The East” acted as a barbaric antithesis of the “West”, the personification of all the wild and backward, which made their worldview in this sense oriental. Given the above material, we can state that the images of “Europe” and “West” in the interwar period remained extremely ambivalent and heterogeneous, and their content depended on the worldview of the authors.