Modern Volunteering as a Traditional Practice of Ukrainian Folk Culture

Author

Sushko Valentyna

a Ph.D. in History, an associate professor, a senior research fellow at the Ukrainian Ethnological Centre Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, a member of Kharkiv Union of Ethnologists and Folklorysts (Kharkiv, Ukraine).

ОRCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0480-1473

Modern Volunteering as a Traditional Practice of Ukrainian Folk Culture

Abstract

Modern realities have adjusted the terms and now volunteers are unarmed free-will persons performing humanitarian missions free of charge.

Mutual assistance in traditional society was a condition for community survival. A sense of justice has demanded gratitude for a useful deed. Christianity has introduced charity absolutely without compensation. Ukrainian youth in the 17th–19th centuries has been united in youth church fraternities, the tasks of which were to clean the church after the service, change the robes on the images for the holidays and prepare the inner space of the church for the holidays, and put order in the cemeteries. The formation and support of the people’s army is another manifestation of the people’s initiative. And these ideas were so important that even Soviet times could not eradicate them.

The events on the Maidan in Kyiv in 2013 have given impetus to a powerful movement of voluntary and principled fraternal support, for which it is inappropriate to offer any financial compensation. From the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians who for some reason could not join the army, actively, without any formalities, have started to help each other in various needs: with food and medicine for the elderly and victims of Russian aggression, in the care of animals, in the analysis of rubble and much more. Over time, some of these needs were closed, and some grew into volunteer associations.

Today, volunteering as a movement of assistance is extremely broad: professional assistance on a free basis to both the military and civilians, provided by professional specialists and persons whose hobby has turned into a profession; people who allocate all their time for such help, or only a limited time and under certain conditions. Donating is an important part of volunteering. The willingness and ability to self-organize, set goals and tasks and solve them successfully is a characteristic feature of the modern Ukrainian political nation.

Communication with separate individuals and volunteer associations from Lviv, Zaporizhzhia, Lutsk and Kharkiv proves that all Ukrainians, from the beginning of the full-scale invasion, have felt an urgent need to help each other and their native army in the defense of our state.

Keywords

Ukrainian folk culture, Ukrainian political nation, mutual aid, volunteering.

References

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