Res Humanitariae

The article is aimed to clear out the cognitive significance of the concept SEA for the Ukrainian mentality, and culture. Turning to the characteristics of Ukrainian cultural concept SEA, the author identifies two main aspects of it: “external” (related to the territorial and geographical self-identification of the Ukrainians) and “internal” (cognitively associated with the “external”, representing the emotional sphere of romantic personality). The study is based on the Ukrainian dooms of the XVI–XVII centures, collected and published in 1927–1931 by Ukrainian researcher Catherine Hrushevska, and on poems about the sea written by outstanding Ukrainian poetess Lesya Ukrainka and poets of the “Executed Renaissance” (A. Vlizko, J. Pluzhnyk and others).Comparison of two dimensions of the Ukrainian concept SEA (external and internal) gives an opportunity to carry out certain parallels between their cognitive and axiological characteristics. Both in its internal and external dimensions the concept SEA reveals the duality, axiological ambivalence, correlation with the idea of primary chaos, danger and overcoming.