Popularizing the Philosophy of Cosmology in the Ukrainian SSR in the Second Half of the 20th Century: Readers Discover the Secrets of the Micro-World and the Universe

Article
Open Access
by Heorhii Vdovychenko1 and Andrii Pohorilyi2
1 Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Kyiv, Ukraine)
2 Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Kyiv, Ukraine)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29202/phil-cosm/35/11
Received: 29 May 2025 / Accepted: 30 July 2025 / Published: 10 October 2025

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Abstract

This article continues the review of the history of the philosophy of cosmology as a science in the Ukrainian SSR during the second half of the 20th century, building on our previous article. The main focus is on the progress made by academic and university science in Ukrainian philosophical and cosmological studies after World War II. After the harsh Stalinist repressions of the 1930s–1940s, the revival of knowledge about cosmology was followed by a flourishing of science popularization in post-Stalin Ukraine, centered around the Main Astronomical Observatory and other institutions of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, universities, and the Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge of the Ukrainian SSR (1947–1963), beginning in the mid-1960s. These ideas were mainly those of scientists from the Academy, university professors – particularly from Kyiv Shevchenko State University – and their international counterparts – from M. Copernicus and Sir I. Newton to A. Einstein, J. Jeans, H. Shapley, and S. Hawking – about the Cosmos. They were widely disseminated through children’s and youth publishers like “Veselka,” “Molod,” and through publishing houses of higher education, notably “Kyiv University” and the Academy’s publishing house, “Naukova Dumka.” The development of non-classical science was initiated by S. Vsekhsviatsky, V. Tsesevych, M. Omelyanovsky, and P. Dyshlevyi, and continued by I. Klymyshyn, E. Pashytskyi, Yu. Khramov, and others, indicating a postmodern neohumanistic flowering of Ukrainian philosophy of cosmology, mainly supported by the International Society of Philosophy and Cosmology and its founder and leader, Oleg Bazaluk.

Keywords: philosophy of cosmology, Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, O. Bazaluk, S. Vsekhsviatskyi, M. Omelyanovsky, O. Bazaluk, P. Dyshlevyi, S. Vsekhsviatskyi, M. Omelyanovsky, V. Tsesevych

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Vdovychenko, Heorhii, and Andrii Pohorilyi (2025) Popularizing the Philosophy of Cosmology in the Ukrainian SSR in the Second Half of the 20th Century: Readers Discover the Secrets of the Micro-World and the Universe. Philosophy and Cosmology, Volume 35, 246-269. https://doi.org/10.29202/phil-cosm/35/11
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