Based on the analysis of the theoretical and source base, the author identifies the regularities which contributed to the emergence of “autonomism” as a legal concept of the revival of the national state. The author establishes that as a worldview paradigm, “autonomism” emerged among the Cossack officers who thus tried to reach a compromise in preserving national interests and not violating the legal system of the Romanov Empire. In the 1840s, “autonomism” acquired an organizational and academic form and turned into a legal paradigm that reflected the level of legal understanding of Ukrainians in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and became the most popular concept of achieving national, political, and cultural rights. The development of “autonomism” was inextricably linked to and influenced by the ideas of nationalism, Slavophilism, and federalism. It is established that the ideologists of “federalism” V. Antonovych, M. Drahomanov, R. Lashchenko, S. Podolynskyi, and S. Shelukhin considered “autonomy” as a condition and a way to achieve political and national rights. The peculiarity of Ukrainian “federalism” was the appeal to ethnic and national factors, which were seen as identifying features of Ukrainians. In the political programs of Ukrainian parties of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, “autonomism” became clearly defined and envisaged the achievement of “national-territorial autonomy.” The establishment of such a form of revival of the national state was seen as a way to ensure the political rights of Ukrainians and simultaneously adhere to the liberal ideology that was characteristic of both the Naddniprians and Galicia. It is stated that the most consistent supporter of the ideas of autonomism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was M. Hrushevsky. “Autonomism” as a form of state organization was considered by the scientist as an alternative to autocracy and absolutism. At the same time, he denied the possibility of creating a state as an association of a separate ethnic group. It is established that during the National Democratic Revolution of 1917-1921, the autonomist-federalist and independent (sobornist) ideas of the national state developed in parallel. Defending the idea of “autonomy” in the context of the revolutionary struggle was a kind of tribute to the state and legal ideas of the nineteenth century. The legal ideas of D. Antonovych, M. Hrushevsky, D. Doroshenko, S. Yefremov, M. Porch, M. Tkachenko, and P. Fedenko traced three concepts of national-territorial, national-cultural, and national-personal autonomy. At the same time, only the first of them had clearly expressed legal features, the latter two focused on social and cultural problems. Ultimately, it was the leveling of the idea of sovereignty that caused the defeat of the liberation struggle. It is stated that the idea of “autonomy” as a condition for the revival of the national state is a rudiment of the State and legal thought of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its spread and popularity among Ukrainians was due to the historically determined peculiarities of the development of Ukrainian lands, their incorporation by foreign states which declared that they respected national, cultural and political rights.
