MYROSLAW ANTONOWYCH. STAGES OF PERSONAL IDENTITY FORMATION: CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

Abstract

Each person builds up one’s individual identity (“ego-identity”) as a part of a multi-layered structure of a complex personal formation. Childhood and youth represent the stage of formation of a system of symbols and notions that make it possible to acquire identity. Our purpose is to investigate such factors as who, what and how that influenced personal self-determination of Myroslaw Antonowych, a prominent figure of Ukrainian emigrational musico-logy of postwar decades, whose intellectual biography confirms the significance of his scienti-fic interests both for Ukrainian and European cultures, in the years of his childhood and youth. Years of childhood and youth of Myroslaw Antonowych on the background of small commu-nities – his family, Ukrainian school and Polish gymnasium in Dolyna city, years of stay in Small Seminary of Lviv and study in Lviv Academic Gymnasium – are considered herein. Applying an interdisciplinary approach at the crossroads of history, cultural studies, psycho-logy, biographistics and musicology, different contexts influencing formation of personal identity of Myroslaw Antonowych are researched. This is the period when its important features such as openness to a Different, ability to be in harmony with the world, freedom of self-expression and respect to something new, are gradually formed. They become the main catalyst of personal growth of Myroslaw Antonowych and later will form his “European identity”.