Serediuk V. "The Ukrainian question" in the process of the nation-building state of the XIX – early XX century (historical and legal research).

Having defined the meaning of the concepts of «nation», «national state» and «Ukrainian question», it has been established that they interact within the framework of the state-building concepts of Ukrainians who, while deprived of their own state, emphasized the safeguarding of national rights, and, accordingly, the future state education should have been formed on the basis of a national factor. At the same time, it is noted that the idea of the revival of a «national state» does not correspond to the ideology of «nationalism». Characterizing the legal systems of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, within which the «Ukrainian question» became established, indicates their common and distinctive features. It was common ground that the «national question» was used to ensure the legal stability of individual regions. Excellent – the Romanov empire pursued a reactionary chauvinistic policy, which in practice did not eliminate the Ukrainian state idea, but rather intensified it. The constitutional norms of the Habsburg Empire contributed to the establishment of a liberal legal worldview and ideas of national-territorial autonomy. In the national political and legal thought of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The «Ukrainian question» has evolved from the ideas of federalism and autonomy to independence. The integrity of the content of the «Ukrainian question» has included its inclusion in the system of international legal relations. Legal ideas of the revival of Ukrainian statehood, from the last third of the nineteenth century. Were discussed in the political circles of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and in the early twentieth century – Great Britain, USA. Accordingly, it has been established that the «Ukrainian question» is a complex of political, cultural, social and economic requirements that were formed by Ukrainians in the absence of national statehood and envisaged the achievement of national-territorial autonomy (minimum program) or national statehood (the maximum program was formed in end of the nineteenth century.)