THE CONCEPT OF THE NATIONAL IN THE ALTERNATIVES OF THE PRODUCTION-PROGRESSIVE AND CULTURAL-HISTORICAL APPROACHES

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to define the national in art through the lens of an alternative progressive understanding
of national essence, focusing on the artistic significance of works created by representatives of nations that did not hold
leading economic or political positions in the world. Their creative achievements clearly served to compensate, within the
national consciousness, for the broader accomplishments of national self-identification.
The research methodology is based on a theoretical analysis of literary sources, which enabled a cultural
interpretation of art studies oriented toward the search for national self-identification. The application of methods of
systematization and generalization contributed to identifying the compensatory core of cultural and aesthetic activity
and the ideal-oriented nature of creative efforts.
The scientific novelty lies in establishing a consistent cultural focus in the study of artistic phenomena, reflected
in the emphasis on the compensatory and ideal significance of artistic achievements as expressions of national culture.
It is revealed that in this context, commemoration plays a key role as a mechanism of cultural memory through which
art preserves, reinterprets, and transmits ideal values across generations.
Conclusions. The national, primarily understood in this discourse as a phenomenon of «national character», possesses
clear advantages over industrial-economic progressivism, indicating the fundamental and even leading role of ideal cultural
indices in the existence of a nation. Artistic culture also functions as a carrier of generational memory 3 the codified experience of a community accumulated in artistic works and reproduced at critical historical moments. The compensatory role of ideal cultural achievements in relation to economic and productive factors, aimed at ensuring the completeness of the nation's historical expression, became particularly evident in the artistic sphere at the turn of the 20 th and 21 st centuries. Thus, alternative concepts of the national tend to complement one another, as development in the ideal sphere is often followed by economic and industrial reinforcement at a subsequent historical stage, when ideal «compensatory» accumulations materialize in productive activation.