Etymological meaning of the word “culture” traces back to Antiquity. Roman writer Cato the Elder (234–148 BC) derived the word “culture” from the verb “colo” (cultivate the soil) in the treatise on agriculture to denote “cultivation the soil” in contrast with the word “natura” (nature). Nature is something arising by itself, and culture is something cultivated by a human being. Roman philosopher Cicero (106–43 BC) defined a special human activity with the help of the term “culture”. He mentioned that human being also has to be cultivated, and this cultivation has to be no physical, but spiritual. The culture of the soul (in contrast to culture of the soil) is philosophy, love to wisdom, and ethics, philosophy of good life. Further European intellectual tradition developed the content of the Roman notion “culture”.

In Modernity, a synonymic term, civilization, was created. Since the XVI century the Latin word “civilitas” (connected with a civil life) meant “decency”. And it was the XVIII century when German philosopher I. Kant had proposed to distinguish between culture and civilization. Culture means spiritual improvement, and civilization means technical development and material progress. But till our days these terms are used as synonyms in everyday language.

Till the mid of the XX century, scholars had created more than 600 definitions of culture. All they can be divided into four main approaches which answer the question: what is culture? They are:

- anthropological approach, according to which culture is the world created by people, and non-biological, proper human way of life;

- social approach, according to which culture is a special system of institutions for keeping and developing society;

- activity approach outlines culture as a process and a result of human creative activity;

- axiological (Gr. axia – value; logos – knowledge) approach introduces culture as a world of values.

All these approaches in their integrity allow comprehending culture as individual and social activity directed on creating, keeping, and further developing of material and spiritual values, and as the result of this activity.

2. There are two forms of culture: material and spiritual. Material culture is a set of artificial objects which allow people to adopt themselves to natural and social life. It consists of three main elements. Thee are: 1) the world of artificial objects (buildings, works of arts, communications); 2) technology, i.e. means and tools, which are usually embodied in practical ways of activity; 3) technical culture, i.e. representation of technology in a definite person who realizes it in a form of skills and abilities. In such a way culture keeps these skills and transmits them from a person to a person, from a generation to a generation.

Spiritual culture is a sphere of ideal activity. It is connected with intellectual activity, emotions and feelings. It consists of three main components. They are: 1) ideal forms of cultural existence, which do not depend on human opinions (ex. language, scientific knowledge, law, morality); 2) integrating forms of spiritual culture, which connect separated elements of social and individual consciousness into an integral worldview (ex. mythology, religion, science); 3) subjective spirituality as a reflection of objective forms in individual consciousness of a person.

The essence of culture is expressed through the complex of its characteristics. Main characteristics of culture can be put into the next statements: 1) culture appears only in human society and only in a process of human communication; 2) culture has symbolical character, it is based on the language symbolic system; 3) culture has cumulative character, and it accumulates human experience and transmits it from one generation to another; 4) culture provides socially acceptable patterns of satisfaction of vital needs.

Basing on such characteristics, culture has the following functions: 1) directing, which defines the direction for the human development, and spiritually and materially organizes artificial space; 2) productive, which determines the content of human acts and produces the world of things and signs (culture produces material world or the “second nature”, i.e. tools, mechanisms, buildings etc; culture produces and uses spiritual symbols, signs for human communication); 3) educative, which shapes external and internal features of a human being; it organizes the world of people. They say about “humanistic” content of the latter, it means that culture cultivates proper human qualities in a human being. It develops unique human personality, shapes human inner world, and arranges one’s feelings concerning the family, community and the country.

3. The world culture is the experience, which was accumulated in the prospects of socio-cultural history of humankind. The world culture integrates all cultural units since the prehistoric times till our days, and all over the world territories, from the West to the East, and from the South to the North.

Ethnoculture (or folklore culture) is the culture of people, who are locally united by common origins (blood relations) and collectively organized economic activity. Elements of ethnoculture are: rites, customs, myths, superstitions, legends traditions, folklore, daily life standards and so on. Ethnoculture transmits them from a generation to a generation by means of collective memory, alive language, oral speeches, natural music ear, and organic plastics in an immediate communication of people. Ethnoculture has no authors, it is nameless and anonymous.

National culture is a culture of people, who inhabit a definite territory, and are not connected with blood relations, but constitute a nation. Nation is a unit more complicated than an ethnos. It is provoked by more refined level of communications and the latter is embodied in a national language, and disseminated by literature, mass media, and a system of education. National culture fastens together people at the boundaries of a nation and diminishes their regional and local differences. National culture is not primarily created by the whole ethnos (or several ethnoses which constitute a nation) but by its intellectuals – by writers, painters, philosophers, scientists. It means that national culture includes professional culture side by side with ethnocultural elements, and consists of ethnoculture plus literature, philosophy, law, science, and so on.

So, national culture is a sphere of communication of a nation, it unites individuals at the boundaries of a nation, and it really exists because a definite set of cultural phenomena acquires a general meaning irrespectively to local (regional) peculiarities. And a nation is a form of spiritual unity of people of one or several ethnoses which is provided by the existence of national culture.

Every national culture consists of such constitutional components: environment; ethnocultural heritage; historical peculiarities and relations with neighbors; external cultural influences; professional culture. Sources of national culture allow to understand the progress of formation of unique national culture. Basing on this universal scheme of components, sources of Ukrainian culture are: nature of Ukraine; Ukrainian ethnoculture based on folklore traditions and customs, pagan influences on cultural life; Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Greek-Catholic rite as traditional believes of Ukrainians, Judaism as a religion of Jews who inhabited Ukrainian lands since the ancient times, and Islam, the oppression to which for a centuries constituted Ukrainian traditions; Eastern (pre-Indo-European, Indo-European, pre-Slavic, Balkan, Iranian, and Altai) and Western (Ancient Greek and Roman, Germanic Byzantium, and Western-European) external cultural influences; professional culture which is created by professional artists, writers, poets, philosophers, musicians, scientists and is closely connected with the world cultural heritage.

Parts of national culture are its spheres in a definite historical period. It means that ethnoculture, economics, politics, religion, science, technology, philosophy, literature, arts, and crafts can be observed in their specifics in ancient, medieval, and modern periods of Ukrainian history.

Myth (Gr. mythos – story, narration) was the primal worldview based on emotional and imaginative comprehension of the world. It was generated by human fear of unknown natural phenomena, diseases, death. So far as people could not explain real causes of many phenomena they endowed them with supernatural character. Myth explained natural phenomena, the origins of the world and humans. It satisfied human urge towards cognition, defined patterns of conduct, transmitted collective experience from generation to generation and assured sustainability for society. Myths shaped models and standards of human conduct. Myths were told side by side with rituals, thus people could listen to narrations and experienc them every time as commemoration of the events from the myth. Mythological consciousness was the first integrating form of culture. Mythology as the embodiment of the integrity of human being and nature was reflected almost in all spheres of primal life: archaic consciousness did not distinguish the soul and the body, a thought and a feeling, an individual and a group. Myth was the first form of human cultural activity. It contained preliminary forms of arts, science, philosophy, and religion.

Integrating forms of religious experience were totemism – a system of beliefs in kinship with animal or plant; animism (from Lat. anima – soul) – a system of beliefs in existence of souls in animals, plants, rocks, thunder, in close link of spiritual and material worlds, and integrating of humans and non-humans; fetishism (from Lat. facticius – artificial) – a system of beliefs in supernatural powers of a man-made objects, like amulets and talismans.

Mythology of Indo-European peoples, the main population of Ukrainian lands, contained some features that were common for all of them. The World Tree was one of the most symbols of Indo-Europeans. The World Tree was an oak tree, which symbolized three levels of the universe: its crown represented the sky, the realm of heavenly deities; its roots represented the underworld, the realm of the dead; and the trunk was the mid of the universe and represented the world of people and nature. Also Indo-Europeans had the cult of Mother-Goddess and supported the idea of bilateral arrangement of the world (good-evil, black-white, beauty-ugly).

2. In 1908 the very first archeological remains at the territory of Ukraine (ca 18 000 BC) were discovered at Mazine site on Desna, near Novgorod Siverskyi. Archeological excavations exposed “Paleolithic Venues” – mammoth bone carved female torsos, which were the symbols of fertility.

The first civilization at the territory of Ukraine was Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, discovered at the Romanian village Cucuteni and at Ukrainian Trypillia near Kiev in 1884 and 1896, correspondently). It was late Neolithic archeological culture (5500 – 2750 BC) that covered the territory from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions. It was the culture of hunters and food-gatherers with elements of agriculture and domestic livestock, and rudimentary gift economy. Social hierarchy was almost absent. Archeological remains testify the existence of religious cults of totemism and fetishism. Excavated elements of two-storey houses are covered with ornaments. Archeologists found different artifacts, like clay figurines, pottery, weapons, tools, jewelry.

Cimmerians (VIII-VII BC) were the first people of Ukrainian lands with their authentic self name. Homer’s “Odyssey” mentioned “the land of Cimmerians” on the Northern coast of the Black Sea and in Crimea. Greek historian Herodotus (V BC) wrote about them. Cimmerians were nomads of Indo-European origins. They took an Iron Age to Ukrainian lands. Archeologists discovered well-arranged burials which proved the existence of religious beliefs in afterlife.

According to Herodotus, Cimmerians were expelled from the Black Sea steppes by the Scythians. “Scythians” was a Greek term for Iranian groups of nomadic pastoralist tribes who belonged to Indo-European language family. They dwelt on the Black Sea steppes in VII – III BC. Main sources of information about Scythians are Herodotus and archeological excavations, of kurgans, i.e. burial mounds. Scythians lived in confederated tribes with common military troops for defense against encroaching neighbors. Scythians controlled main slave-trade and food-supply routs of the Black Sea area. Kurgan burial rituals testify existence of well elaborated religious beliefs with horse sacrifice. Religious beliefs were the combination of zoomorphism (attribution of animal characteristics to supernatural forces) and anthropomorphism (attribution of human characteristics to supernatural forces). According to Herodotus, the Scythians worshipped to pantheon (Gr. pan – all + theos – god, i.e. all gods of a definite religious cult) of seven gods and goddesses, the highest among them was Tabiti, the goddess of light and fire place. Although nomadic lifestyle presupposed pastoral economy, Scythians developed alliances with agrarians, because they needed agricultural supply. Excavations testify that they were people of the Iron Age. Close contacts of Scythians with Greek colonies resulted in well-developed crafts, especially in gold jewelry, weapon decoration and horse-trapping. Animal and herbal motives were combined in Scythian ornaments. Clothes of Scythians were well made and covered by embroidery and in the case of wealth people – by golden plaques.

Scythians were gradually displaced by Sarmathians (IV-II BC), Iranian nomadic people who belonged to Indo-European language family. are Antique Besides archeological excavations and works of Herodotus, Roman historians Pliny the Elder, Strabo (I AD) are also the sources of information about Sarmathians and. Although archeologists discovered rich material culture, our knowledge about spiritual culture, mythology and religious believes is very poor. Ancient authors did not focuse these questions may be because of hostility of Sarmathians to Romans. Sarmathians had highly hierarchical society, consisted of military aristocracy and slaves. They were highly developed in horsemanship and warfare. Therefore the god of war was the main in their pantheon. Sarmathian female warriors inspired Greek legends about Amazons. Sarmathian crafts, especially jewelry, used widely geometrical, floral motives and were well colored.

All these cultures influenced the development of culture at the territory of Ukraine in different way. And Scythians and Sarmathians affected the development of language, and anthropological type of Ukrainians most of all. The Slavic tribe of Siverianians can be considered as descendants of Scytho-Sarmathians.

3. In the I–V AD the Chernyakhov zone was the cultural space of interaction of different peoples: Scytho-Sarmatians, Germanic, and early Slavs. People of Chernyakhov culture built semi-subterranean dwellings, which later would be typical for Slavs. Developed crafts are represented by remains of pottery, metal work. Burial goods testify the existence of well-developed religious beliefs.

In the Great Migration period the leading role of tribes of Turks, Huns, Goths, and Slavs changed seriously the map of Europe. The Slavic people belong to Indo-European language family. Since the V AD they inhabited most of Central and Eastern Europe and expanded towards Balkans, Alps and the Volga. Information about cultural life of Early Slavs is obscure as written records are few and unreliable. The Antes federation of tribes was the first unity of Eastern Slavs. One of the Antes tribes was the Polianians, who in 482 AD had founded the city of Kiev, named in honor of Kyi, the Polianian prince.

Social organization of early Slavs was based on family clans relations. Slavs built small temporary settlements because of the itinerant agriculture they practiced. Originally Slavs had polytheistic (Gr. poly – many + theos – god, i.e. belief in many gods). The pantheon of East Slavs was the most elaborated amongst all Slavic people: Svarog referred to the god of Clear Sky; Perun was the God of Thunder; Veles – the God of Earth Powers and Underworld; Mokosh – the Great Goddess, Lada – Goddess of Love etc. Dazhboh/ Yarila was the cultural hero, i.e. mythological legendary hero of a definite people who gave them inventions and discoveries (agriculture, traditions). Slavic myths were cyclical, repeating every year over a series of festivals that followed changes of nature and seasons. Fragments of ancient Slavic pre-Christian beliefs and pagan festivals survive up to nowadays in folklore.

Renaissance. Humanism in Europe.

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the term. As a cultural movement, it encompassed a resurgence of learning based on classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform. Traditionally, this intellectual transformation has resulted in the Renaissance being viewed as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era. Although the Renaissance saw revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well as social and political upheaval, it is perhaps best known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man".

Most historians agree that the ideas that characterized the Renaissance had their origin in late 13th century Florence, in particular with the writings of Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), as well as the painting of Giotto di Bondone (1267–1337). There is a general, but not unchallenged, consensus that the Renaissance began in Florence, Tuscany in the 14th century. Various theories have been proposed to account for its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of factors including the social and civic peculiarities of Florence at the time; its political structure; the patronage of its dominant family, the Medici; and the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy following the Fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence affected literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study.

In some ways Humanism was not a philosophy per se, but rather a method of learning. In contrast to the medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors, humanists would study ancient texts in the original, and appraise them through a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence. Humanist education was based on the programme of 'Studia Humanitatis', that being the study of five humanities: poetry, grammar, history, moral philosophy and rhetoric. Humanists asserted "the genius of man. the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind. As a program to revive the cultural—and particularly the literary—legacy and moral philosophy of classical antiquity, Humanism was a pervasive cultural mode.

Artists such as Masaccio strove to portray the human form realistically, developing techniques to render perspective and light more naturally. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe political life as it really was, that is to understand it rationally. A critical contribution to Italian Renaissance humanism Pico della Mirandola wrote the famous text Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486), which consists of a series of theses on philosophy, natural thought, faith and magic defended against any opponent on the grounds of reason. In addition to studying classical Latin and Greek, Renaissance authors also began increasingly to use vernacular languages; combined with the introduction of printing, this would allow many more people access to books, especially the Bible.In all, the Renaissance could be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve the secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity, and through novel approaches to thought.

The period from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth worked in favor of the general emancipation of the individual. The city-states of northern Italy had come into contact with the diverse customs of the East, and gradually permitted expression in matters of taste and dress. The writings of Dante, and particularly the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom and individual expression.

Renaissance humanists did not reject Christianity; quite the contrary, many of the Renaissance's greatest works were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works of Renaissance art. However, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were brought back from Byzantium to Western Europe and engaged Western scholars for the first time since late antiquity. This new engagement with Greek Christian works, and particularly the return to the original Greek of the New Testament promoted by humanists Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus, would help pave the way for the Protestant Reformation.

With the adoption of large-scale printing after the end of the era of incunabula (or books printed prior to 1501), Italian Humanism spread northward to France, Germany, Holland and England, where it became associated with the Protestant Reformation.

Though humanists continued to use their scholarship in the service of the church into the middle of the sixteenth century and beyond, the sharply confrontational religious atmosphere following the Protestant reformation resulted in the Counter-Reformation that sought to silence challenges to Catholic theology, with similar efforts among the Protestant churches.

CULTURAL IMPULSES OF REFORMATION AND CONTTREFORMATION IN EUROPE

The Protestant Reformation, also called the Protestant Revolt or simply The Reformation, was the European Christian reform movement that established Protestantism as a constituent branch of contemporary Christianity. It was led by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other Protestants. The self-described "reformers" (who "protested") objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, and created new national Protestant churches. The Catholics responded with a Counter Reformation, led by the Jesuit order, which reclaimed large parts of Europe, such as Poland. In general, northern Europe turned Protestant, and southern Europe remained Catholic, while fierce battles that turned into warfare took place in the center. The largest of the new denominations were the Anglicans (based in England), the Lutherans (based in Germany and Scandinavia), and the Reformed churches (based in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Scotland). There were many smaller bodies as well. The most common dating begins in 1517 when Luther published The Ninety-Five Theses, and concludes in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia that ended years of European religious wars.^[

The Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, carried out by Western European Catholics who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice — especially the teaching and the sale of indulgences or the abuses thereof, and simony, the selling and buying of clerical offices — that the reformers saw as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Church's Roman hierarchy, which included the Pope. Both issues were dealt with in an altogether different manner by the Roman Catholic Church during the Counter-Reformation.

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber first suggested that cultural values could affect economic success, arguing that the Protestant Reformation led to values that drove people toward worldly achievements, a hard work ethic, and saving to accumulate wealth for investment. The new religions (in particular, Calvinism and other more austere Protestant sects) effectively forbade wastefully using hard earned money and identified the purchase of luxuries a sin

Counter-Reformation (differs from the Catholic Reformation or Catholic Revival) denotes the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation. The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:

1. Ecclesiastical or structural reconfiguration

2. Religious orders

3. Spiritual movements

4. Political dimensions

Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life by returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focusing on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality. It also involved political activities that included the Roman Inquisition.

CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF EARLY MODERN CIVIL SOCIETY

Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system) and commercial institutions of the market.

The concept of civil society in its pre-modern classical republican understanding is usually connected to the early-modern thought of Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. However, it has much older history in the realm of political thought. Generally, civil society has been referred to as a political association governing social conflict through the imposition of rules that restrain citizens from harming one another

The public sphere is an area in social life where people can get together and freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. It is "a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment." The public sphere can be seen as a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed".

The public sphere mediates between the "private sphere" and the "Sphere of Public Authority", "The private sphere comprised civil society in the narrower sense, that is to say, the realm of commodity exchange and of social labor. Whereas the "Sphere of Public Authority" dealt with the State, or realm of the police, and the ruling class, the public sphere crossed over both these realms and "Through the vehicle of public opinion it put the state in touch with the needs of society."^]"This area is conceptually distinct from the state: it [is] a site for the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state."^] The public sphere 'is also distinct from the official economy; it is not an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations, a theater for debating and deliberating rather than for buying and selling." The people themselves came to see the public sphere as a regulatory institution against the authority of the state.

Most contemporary conceptualizations of the public sphere are based on the ideas expressed in Jürgen Habermas' book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere – An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, The work is still considered the foundation of contemporary public sphere theories, and most theorists cite it when discussing their own theories.

The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.^]

Habermas stipulates that, due to specific historical circumstances, a new civic society emerged in the eighteenth century. Driven by a need for open commercial arenas where news and matters of common concern could be freely exchanged and discussed - accompanied by growing rates of literacy, accessibility to literature, and a new kind of critical journalism - a separate domain from ruling authorities started to evolve across Europe.

In his historical analysis, Habermas points out three so-called "institutional criteria" as preconditions for the emergence of the new public sphere. The discursive arenas, such as Britain’s coffee houses, France’s salons and Germany’s Tischgesellschaften "may have differed in the size and compositions of their publics, the style of their proceedings, the climate of their debates, and their topical orientations", but "they all organized discussion among people that tended to be ongoing; hence they had a number of institutional criteria in common":^]

The emergence of bourgeois public sphere was particularly supported by the 18th century liberal democracy making resources available to this new political class to establish a network of institutions like publishing enterprises, newspapers and discussion forums, and the democratic press was a main tool to execute this. The key feature of this public sphere was its separation from the power of both the church and the government due to its access to a variety of resources, both economic and social.

THE BAROQUE STYLE IN EUROPE

Baroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century in Europe. It is most often defined as "the dominant style of art in Europe between the Mannerist and Rococo eras, a style characterized by dynamic movement, overt emotion and self-confident rhetoric".

The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of the Council of Trent, in response to the Protestant Reformation, that the arts should communicate religious themes in direct and emotional involvement. The aristocracy also saw the dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing visitors and expressing triumphant power and control. Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence.

Beginning around the year 1600, the demands for new art resulted in what is now known as the Baroque. The canon promulgated at the Council of Trent (1545–63) with which the Roman Catholic Church addressed the representational arts, rooted in the Protestant Reformation, by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed, is customarily offered^] as an inspiration of the Baroque, which appeared, however, a generation later.

The appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, and dramatic.

Some general parallels in music make the expression "Baroque music" useful. Contrasting phrase lengths, harmony and counterpoint ousted polyphony, and orchestral color made a stronger appearance. Similar fascination with simple, strong, dramatic expression in poetry, where clear, broad syncopated rhythms replaced the enknotted elaborated metaphysical similes employed by Mannerists such as John Donne and imagery that was strongly influenced by visual developments in painting, can be sensed in John Milton's Paradise Lost, a Baroque epic.

In paintings, Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures: less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of opera, a major Baroque artform. Baroque poses depend on contrapposto ("counterpoise"), the tension within the figures that moves the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. It made the sculptures almost seem like they were about to move.

A defining statement of what Baroque signifies in painting is provided by the series of paintings executed by Peter Paul Rubens for Marie de Medici at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris (now at the Louvre), in which a Catholic painter satisfied a Catholic patron: Baroque-era conceptions of monarchy, iconography, handling of paint, and compositions as well as the depiction of space and movement.

There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from Caravaggio to Cortona; both approaching emotive dynamism with different styles. Another frequently cited work of Baroque art is Bernini's Saint Theresa in Ecstasy for the Cornaro chapel in Saint Maria della Vittoria, which brings together architecture, sculpture, and theatre into one grand conceit.

The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more decorative Rococo, which, through contrast, further defines Baroque.

The intensity and immediacy of baroque art and its individualism and detail—observed in such things as the convincing rendering of cloth and skin textures—make it one of the most compelling periods of Western art.

A rather different art developed out of northern realist traditions in 17th century Dutch Golden Age painting, which had very little religious art, and little history painting, instead playing a crucial part in developing secular genres such as still life, genre paintings of everyday scenes, and landscape painting. While the Baroque nature of Rembrandt's art is clear, the label is less often used for Vermeer and many other Dutch artists. Flemish Baroque painting shared a part in this trend, while also continuing to produce the traditional categories.

The Baroque style is noted as first being developed by Seljuk Turks, according to a number of academics like John Hoag. In Baroque architecture, new emphasis was placed on bold massing, colonnades, domes, light-and-shade, 'painterly' color effects, and the bold play of volume and void. In interiors, Baroque movement around and through a void informed monumental staircases that had no parallel in previous architecture. The other Baroque innovation in worldly interiors was the state apartment, a processional sequence of increasingly rich interiors that culminated in a presence chamber or throne room or a state bedroom. The sequence of monumental stairs followed by a state apartment was copied in smaller scale everywhere in aristocratic dwellings of any pretensions.

In theatre, the elaborate conceits, multiplicity of plot turns, and variety of situations characteristic of Mannerism (Shakespeare's tragedies, for instance) were superseded by opera, which drew together all the arts into a unified whole.

Theatre evolved in the Baroque era and became a multimedia experience, starting with the actual architectural space. In fact, much of the technology used in current Broadway or commercial plays was invented and developed during this era. The stage could change from a romantic garden to the interior of a palace in a matter of seconds. The entire space became a framed selected area that only allows the users to see a specific action, hiding all the machinery and technology - mostly ropes and pulleys.

The term Baroque is also used to designate the style of music composed during a period that overlaps with that of Baroque art, but usually encompasses a slightly later period. J.S. Bach, G.F. Handel and Antonio Vivaldi are often considered its culminating figures.

It is a still-debated question as to what extent Baroque music shares aesthetic principles with the visual and literary arts of the Baroque period. A fairly clear, shared element is a love of ornamentation, and it is perhaps significant that the role of ornament was greatly diminished in both music and architecture as the Baroque gave way to the Classical period.

Many musical forms were born in that era, like the concerto and sinfonia. Forms such as the sonata, cantata and oratorio flourished. Also, opera was born out of the experimentation of the Florentine Camerata, the creators of monody, who attempted to recreate the theatrical arts of the Ancient Greeks. Indeed, it is exactly that development which is often used to denote the beginning of the musical Baroque, around 1600. An important technique used in baroque music was the use of ground bass, a repeated bass line.

Skovoroda, Hryhorii, ( 1722 in Chornukhy, Lubny regiment, - 1794 in Pan-Ivanivka, Kharkiv vicegerency) Philosopher and poet. He was educated at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy (1734–53, with two interruptions). He sang in Empress Elizabeth I's court Kapelle in Saint Petersburg (1741–4), served as music director at the Russian imperial mission in Tokai, Hungary (1745–50), and taught poetics at Pereiaslav College (1751). He resumed his studies at the Kyivan academy, but left after completing only two years of the four-year theology course to serve as tutor to V. Tomara (1753–9). He spent the next 10 years in Kharkiv, teaching poetics (1759–60), syntax and Greek (1762–4), and ethics (1768–9) at Kharkiv College. After his dismissal from the college he abandoned any hope of securing a regular position and spent the rest of his life wandering about eastern Ukraine, particularly Slobidska Ukraine. Material support from friends enabled him to devote himself to reflection and writing. Most of his works were dedicated to his friends and circulated among them in manuscript copies.

Although there is no sharp distinction between Skovoroda's literary and philosophical works, his collection of 30 verses (composed from 1753 to 1785) titled Sad bozhestvennykh pesnei (Garden of Divine Songs), his dozen or so songs, his collection of 30 fables (composed between 1760 and 1770) titled Basni Khar’kovskiia (Kharkiv Fables), his translations of Cicero, Plutarch, Horace, Ovid, and Muretus, and his letters, written mostly in Latin, are generally grouped under the former category. Some of his songs and poems became widely known and became part of Ukrainian folklore. His philosophical works consist of a treatise on Christian morality and 12 dialogues.

Skovoroda's thought has been interpreted in different ways: as an eclectic, loose collection of ideas (F. Kudrinsky); as a strict, rationalist system (Aleksandra Yefymenko, H. Tysiachenko); as a form of Christian mysticism (V. Ern, Dmytro Chyzhevsky); as a version of Christian Platonism in the patristic tradition (Dmytro Bahalii); and as a moral philosophy (Fedir Zelenohorsky, Ivan Mirchuk, I. Ivano, Volodymyr Shynkaruk). There have been disagreements about the character of his metaphysical doctrine (dualism vs monism, idealism vs ‘semi-materialism’). The debates about its nature to a large extent have arisen because of Skovoroda's style of writing, which is literary rather than philosophical. His ideas are not organized and presented in a systematic way, but are scattered throughout his dialogues, fables, letters, and poetry. Skovoroda preferred to use symbols, metaphors, or emblems instead of well-defined philosophical concepts to convey his meaning. Moreover, he delighted in contradiction and often left it to readers to find their way out of an apparent one. In the absence of explicit statements of doctrine and expected solutions to obvious problems, it is sometimes uncertain what exactly Skovoroda had in mind.

For Skovoroda the purpose of philosophy is practical—to show the way to happiness. Hence, the two central questions for him are what happiness is and how it can be attained. For him happiness is an inner state of peace, gaiety, and confidence which is attainable by all. To reach this state, some understanding of the world and oneself and an appropriate way of life are necessary. Skovoroda approaches metaphysics and anthropology not as a speculative thinker, but as a moralist: he does no more than outline those truths that are necessary for happiness. His basic metaphysical doctrine is that there are two natures in everything: the ideal, inner, invisible, eternal, and immutable; and the material, outer, sensible, temporal, and mutable. The first is higher, for it imparts being to the second. This dualism extends through all reality—the macrocosm or universe, and the two microcosms of humanity and the Bible. In the macrocosm the inner nature is God, and the outer is the physical world. Skovoroda's view on God's relation to the world is panentheist rather than pantheist. In man the inner nature is the soul; the outer, the body. In the Bible the inner truth is the symbolical meaning; the outer, the literal meaning.

From this metaphysical scheme Skovoroda drew a number of fundamental conclusions for practical life. Since the universe is ordered by a provident God, every being has been provided with all that is necessary for happiness. The assurance that what is necessary is easy and what is difficult is unnecessary (for happiness) brings peace of mind. It also serves as a criterion for the material conditions of happiness: we need only those goods that are necessary to health and are available to all people. But to dispel anxiety about material security is not enough for happiness. Active by nature, humans must also fulfill themselves in action by assuming the congenial task or vocation assigned to them by God. To pursue one's task regardless of external rewards is to be happy, while to pursue wealth, glory, or pleasure through uncongenial work is to be in despair. Furthermore, since vocations are distributed by God in such a way as to ensure a harmonious social order, to adopt an uncongenial task leads to social discord and unhappiness for others.

The doctrine of congenial work is the central doctrine in Skovoroda's moral system. Although it is not metaphysically plausible, it expresses his faith in the creative potential of human beings and the possibility of self-fulfillment in this life for everyone. Although they were never presented in a systematic fashion, Skovoroda's ideas form a remarkably coherent system. His chief authorities are the ancient philosophers (the Stoics, the Cynics, Epicurus, Plato, and Aristotle), from whom he selects the basic elements of his own teaching. Following the patristic tradition, he treats the Bible allegorically: he holds that its literal meaning (anthropomorphic God and miracles) is external and false, and that its inner, symbolic meaning coincides with the truth known to the ancient philosophers. In this way he reconciles secular learning with Christian faith.

Skovoroda's influence in the 19th century on writers such as Ivan Kotliarevsky, Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Taras Shevchenko, and Panteleimon Kulish was minimal. But his poetic style, ideas, and moral example have played an important role in the rebirth of Ukrainian culture in the 20th century.

Cultural Meaning of European Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment) is the era in intellectual, scientific and cultural life, centered upon the 18th century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source for legitimacy and authority.

Developing simultaneously in France, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the American colonies. Most of Europe was caught up, including the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia, and Scandinavia. The authors of the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791, were motivated by Enlightenment principles.

The "Enlightenment" was not a single movement or school of thought, for these philosophies were often mutually contradictory or divergent. The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it was a set of values. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science. Thus, there was still a considerable degree of similarity between competing philosophies. Some historians also include the late 17th century, which is typically known as the Age of Reason or Age of Rationalism, as part of the Enlightenment; however, most historians consider the Age of Reason to be a prelude to the ideas of the Enlightenment. Modernity, by contrast, is used to refer to the period after The Enlightenment; albeit generally emphasizing social conditions rather than specific philosophies.

In opposition to the intellectual historiographical approach of the Enlightenment, which examines the various currents, or discourses of intellectual thought within the European context during the 17th and 18th centuries, the cultural (or social) approach examines the changes that occurred in European society and culture. Under this approach, the Enlightenment is less a collection of thought than a process of changing sociabilities and cultural practices – both the “content” and the processes by which this content was spread are now important.

One of the primary elements of the cultural interpretation of the Enlightenment is the rise of the public sphere in Europe. The social conditions required for Enlightenment ideas to be spread and discussed. His response was the formation in the late 17th century and 18th century of the “bourgeois public sphere”, a “realm of communication marked by new arenas of debate, more open and accessible forms of urban public space and sociability, and an explosion of print culture". More specifically, Habermas highlights three essential elements of the public sphere: it was egalitarian; it discussed the domain of "common concern"; argument was founded on reason.

Habermas credits the creation of the bourgeois public sphere to two long-term historical trends: the rise of the modern nation state and the rise of capitalism. The modern nation state in its consolidation of public power created by counterpoint a private realm of society independent of the state – allowing for the public sphere. Capitalism likewise increased society’s autonomy and self-awareness, along with creating an increasing need for the exchange of information.

Description of the rise of the public sphere. The context of the rise of the public sphere was the economic and social change commonly grouped under the effects of the Industrial Revolution: "economic expansion, increasing urbanisation, rising population and improving communications in comparison to the stagnation of the previous century". Rising efficiency in production techniques and communication lowered the prices of consumer goods at the same time as it increased the amount and variety of goods available to consumers (including the literature essential to the public sphere). Meanwhile, the colonial experience (most European states had colonial Empires in the 18th century) began to expose European society to extremely heterogeneous cultures.

Academies

The history of Academies in France during the Enlightenment begins with the Academy of Science, founded in 1666 in Paris. From the beginning, the Academy was closely tied to the French state, acting as an extension of a government seriously lacking in scientists. Beyond serving the monarchy, the Academy had two primary purposes: it helped promote and organize new disciplines, and it trained new scientists. It also contributed to the enhancement of scientists’ social status, considered them to be the “most useful of all citizens".

L’Académie française revived a practice dating back to the Middle Ages when it revived public contests in the mid-17th century. The subject manner was generally religious and/or monarchical, and featured essays, poetry, and painting. By roughly 1725, however, this subject matter had radically expanded and diversified, including “royal propaganda, philosophical battles, and critical ruminations on the social and political institutions of the Old Regime.” The contests were open to all,

In England, the Royal Society of London also played a significant role in the public sphere and the spread of Enlightenment ideas. In particular, it played a large role in spreading Robert Boyle's experimental philosophy around Europe, and acted as a clearinghouse for intellectual correspondence and exchange. Robert Boyle was "a founder of the experimental world in which scientists now live and operate". Boyle's method based knowledge on experimentation, which had to be witnessed to provide proper empirical legitimacy.

The book industry

The increased consumption of reading materials of all sorts was one of the key features of the “social” Enlightenment. Developments in the Industrial Revolution allowed consumer goods to be produced in greater quantities at lower prices, encouraging the spread of books, pamphlets, newspapers and journals – “media of the transmission of ideas and attitudes”. Commercial development likewise increased the demand for information, along with rising populations and increased urbanisation. However, demand for reading material extended outside of the realm of the commercial, and outside the realm of the upper and middle classes, as evidenced by the Bibliothèque Bleue. Reading underwent serious changes in the 18th century. Until 1750, reading was done “intensively: people tended to own a small number of books and read them repeatedly, often to small audience. After 1750, people began to read “extensively”, finding as many books as they could, increasingly reading them alone.

Of course, the vast majority of the reading public could not afford to own a private library. And while most of the state-run “universal libraries” set up in the 17th and 18th centuries were open to the public, they were not the only sources of reading material.

On one end of the spectrum was the Bibliothèque Bleue, a collection of cheaply produced books published in Troyes, France. Intended for a largely rural and semi-literate audience these books included almanacs, retellings of medieval romances and condensed versions of popular novels, among other things.

In Europe, but in France especially, booksellers and publishers had to negotiate censorship laws of varying strictness. The Encyclopédie, for example, narrowly escaped seizure and had to be saved by Malesherbes, the man in charge of the French censure. Indeed, many publishing companies were conveniently located outside of France so as to avoid overzealous French censors.

Nevertheless, the Enlightenment was not the exclusive domain of illegal literature, as evidenced by the healthy, and mostly legal, publishing industry that existed throughout Europe. “Mostly legal” because even established publishers and book sellers occasionally ran afoul of the law. But many works were sold without running into any legal trouble at all. Borrowing records from libraries in England, Germany and North America indicate that more than 70 percent of books borrowed were novels; that less than 1 percent of the books were of a religious nature supports a general trend of declining religiosity.^[36]