Зрадники-герої або український ідеал потуреченця

Abstract

Nineteen of Ukrainian dumas (epics), more than one third of the known fifty-two, are questioned for the response of the Ukrainian society to the slave-raids, conducted by the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth through the eighteenth century. Contrary to the ideological precepts, which represent the emergence of Cossaks as one of such responses, these epics do not call for military containment of the raids. Rather than this, on the basis of precise knowledge of the Ottoman slavery they construct models of behavior for potential slaves. The main idea of dumas was to encourage Ukrainians to return back home. Conversion to Islam and adoption of the Ottoman way of life were severely reprobated, but forgiveness was granted to those renegades who would help their brethren and compatriots to flee back home, which was praised as a heroic act in itself. This ideal model supported the idea of ethnic solidarity and thus helped in crystallization of the Ukrainian national identity. It was not accidental that the duma «Marusia Bohuslavka», which developed the best character of an ideal renegade, for a long time remained a source of the nationalistic aspirations for modem Ukrainian writers and artists.