The Conservative Manifesto: The Fundamental Principles (Commandments) of National Conservatism (The Canon – Thirty-Three Worldview Principles of National Conservatism)

Abstract

Conservatism, as an ideology and a socio-political doctrine, is based on established defining and fundamental principles (canons) that form the foundations of its worldview and its ideological superstructure, and which determine its conceptual originality and uniqueness. Since its emergence as an ideology, conservatism has undergone several revivals, evolutions and stages of development. Ultimately, there are both its continental differences (such as American and European) and doctrinal ones, linked in part to authors’ interpretations and so on.

Conservatism possesses both everyday or social characteristics and differences, as well as philosophical, worldview-related or political ones, and so on. There are also various offshoots or even distinct strands of modern conservatism as an ideological and political doctrine, which can already be regarded as separate yet related ideologies. In particular, the most significant of these, apart from classical conservatism, are traditionalist conservatism, liberal conservatism, paleoconservatism, neoconservatism, the New Right, national conservatism, and so on.

In Ukraine, national-conservative thought dates back to the late 18th and 19th centuries, but it took shape conceptually in the first half of the 20th century. Generally speaking, Ukrainian national-conservative ideology in the first half of the 20th century developed along seven classical, closely intertwined, characteristic strands: social-statist (reformist-liberal national conservatism), moderate (democratic national conservatism), Christian-democratic (Christian national conservatism), clerical-traditionalist (clerical national conservatism), radical-traditionalist (traditionalist national conservatism), national-radical (radical national conservatism, or conservative nationalism), class-based monarchist (authoritarian national conservatism, or conservative monarchist nationalism).

Class-based monarchical national conservatism, whose chief ideologue was V. Lypynsky, gained the greatest significance and prominence, including in a political and ideological sense. In organisational terms, it was represented in exile by the Ukrainian Union of Agrarians-Statists, later by the Union of Hetmanists-Statists and, for a short time, by the Brotherhood of Ukrainian Class-Crats-Monarchists, Hetmanists, as well as by agrarian and Hetmanist organisations that based their ideology on the principles of Ukrainian historical legitimism, classocracy, elitism, traditionalism, Christianity, the primacy of private property, and monarchism in the form of a hereditary labour-based Hetmanate, etc. (the Hetmanist Movement).

However, today it is not only the times (the era) that have changed radically, but also the socio-political and socio-economic structures of Ukrainian society; and the old concepts and ideologies are clearly unable to meet the challenges not only of the present but also of the future. The author therefore presents the reader with his concept of modern Ukrainian national conservatism in its worldview and ideological-political canon (principles), which is, of course, published within the framework of political and ideological discourse.