GEOSOPHY OF THE SLAVIC REALM

Abstract

The article is dedicated to rethinking the Slavic realm as a space and time reality which is not reduced to ideological or political models of unity. As an initial methodological position, the critics of the classical pan-Slavism interpreted as a project of unification, oriented on the centre and the normative form is taken. Contrarily, the geosophical approach which views throw the Slavhood as a polycentric field of connected land spaces, shaped as landscape, historical rhythmus, sacral spaceness and the collective memory is proposed. Due to the geosophical approach the idea of the confederativity of senses which has no political but a landscapely conditioned ethnical and cultural content is grounded. Landscape fundamentals of the Slavic realm, peculiarities of its space and time structure are analyzed in the article, and also a geosophical typology of the Polish-Czech-Slovak, Balkan-Illyrian and Ukranian-Belarusian spaces is proposed. It is accented that the compactness of the space limited for each people by natural boundaries such as mountain countries and big rivers is characterized for the Polish-Czech-Slovak realm. Such lines of the space approximate Poles, Czechs and Slovaks to the Roman-German civilization unity. The closeness of space characterizes Balkan-Illyrian peoples that populate mostly mountain territories and is marked in their mentality. The openness of space marked in present numerous frontiers characterizes the Ukranian-Belarusian realm and is reflected in perception of space as immensity. The central place is believed to the Ukrainian human space interpreted as a space of transition and tension in them the steppe openness, river connectedness, forest and steppe synthesis and Carpathian continuance of the tradition are united. It is demonstrated that the Ukrainian space is methodologically key for detection of the boundaries of Panslavism and for understanding the Slavic diversity without the empire reductionism. The principal impossibility of existing single centre of the Slavhood regarding to the geographically defined priority of horizontal systemic connections over vertical ones which characterize the Slavic peoples is proved. As a result, the thesis about geosophy of the Slavhood as an analytical alternative of ideological models which is capable to describe the coexistence of spaces in the world of regions and frontiers is grounded.