Scholastic Before and Scholarly After? Ukrainian Folklorists and Their Folklore After 1991‪.‬

Since Ukraine's independence in 1991, Ukrainian folklorists have been facing the pragmatic dilemma of reformulating the primary objectives and philosophical essence of their discipline. This presupposes a thorough revision of the subject matter of their discipline, including the concept of folklore itself, which was conceived in terms of Soviet Marxist methodology in Soviet times. One could anticipate that the disintegration of the Soviet system and the emergence of the new political order with its wide range of competing ideologies would trigger critical re-evaluation of former paradigms developed under the intellectual and political pressures from Moscow, the Soviet Center. Is this the case? Did these political changes really foster conceptually new discourses within the discipline, and new approaches towards its subject? Having posed these questions as a starting point for discussion, I examine in this paper (re)definitions of folklore suggested by Ukrainian folklore scholars in 1990-1997. Examining the historical roots of today's readings of folklore and of its principle of narodnist' (pertaining to the people), I contrast current visions of folklore with those formulated in different historical conjunctures in support of various ideologies. Analysing various publications on folklore that appeared in Ukraine in the early 1990s, and bringing in the opinions of leading folklore scholars on this issue, I explore current (re)definitions of folklore as rooted in and affected by the post-Soviet nature of Ukraine's intellectual and national projects.(2)