SERHIY MIZETSKYI’S, THE RURAL PRIEST-INTELLECTUAL, REFLECTIONS ON THE SOCIO-POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE SOVIET UKRAINE DURING IN THE 1920-IES.

Abstract

The aim of the research is to elucidate the reflections of the parish priest Mizetskyi Serhiy Andriyovych, who lived in the countryside of Katerynoslav, according to the social and political transformations in Ukraine during the 1920-ies, based on the analysis of his epistolary heritage. The research methodology is based on the methodological techniques of the priest’s external and internal letters’ criticism; the biographical method has been applied in order to study the life path and determine the influence of events in his life on the reflections’ formulation; the comparative and historical method has been used for the comparison of the clergyman’s assessments presented in the letters with the scientific interpretations of the social and political transformations during the 1920-ies; the combination of macro- and microhistorical approaches for the priest’s assessments of the clergy place reconstruction in the Soviet society. The scientific novelty of the article is to reproduce the reflections of priest S. Mizetskyi on the social and political transformations in the Soviet Ukraine during the post-revolutionary decade, based on the analysis of the priest’s private correspondence first introduced into the scientific circulation. S. Mizetskyi’s assessments of the clergy place in the Soviet society have been characterized, and his strategies for survival have been outlined. The Conclusions. The coverage of the priest’s reflections on the socio-political and economic transformations in Ukraine during the 1920-ies suggests that centuries-old cultural and ideological stereotypes of the clergy collided with the Soviet experiments. The people with high social status faced with the new challenges became part of the world of “non-labor elements”, were deprived of the right to vote. As a result, those changes happened quite rapid for the priest, morally and physically painful. S. Mizetskyi carried on keeping to the pre-revolutionary times’ ethical norms, which did not correspond to the ideas of vulgar materialism, the new government’s policy of double standards. Hence, the ethical norms’ conflict manifested itself at various levels of communication between the priest and the authorities – from reading the monopoly press to defending their interests in the village council. Due to the letters’ analysis, which provides pieces of evidence and gives the opportunity to claim that there was a huge ideological gap between the authorities and S. Mizetskyi, a typical representative of the clergy in the south of Ukraine. It was felt more acutely than that of the former nobles and peasants, as the latter were free to perform their duties (as farmers) or, as former nobles, to adapt and seek their place in the new social structure. Because of the aloofness in the circle of people close to the church, conducting a “monologue of the heart” in letters to brother and father became almost the only strategies for survival, consolation in the new socio-political environment. In his reflections, he indirectly predicted the usurpation of power by the Bolshevik Party, the establishment of its monopoly in the socio-political life and control over human thought, pointed to the transformation of the educated intelligentsia into laborers, noting that experiments in the countryside did not meet healthy agricultural pragmatism and productivity. The priest’s reflections on the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches activities development depicted the church Ukrainianization issue, which was too harsh and uncompromising. It showed a high degree of conservatism and Russification of the clergy in southern Ukraine