Nataliia Shelkovaia, Associate Professor of the Department of Political and Cultural Studies, spoke at the plenary session of the XXXI Kharkiv International Skovoroda Readings “Metaphysics of the Heart in Ukrainian and Western European Philosophy” on “The Origins of Hryhorii Skovoroda’s Philosophy of the Heart.”
In her report, based on a comparative analysis of Slavic, Ancient Egyptian, and Christian mythology, ideas about the role of the heart in human life and related symbols in Ancient Egypt, Eastern Slavs, and Christianity, the scholar puts forward and substantiates a hypothesis about the origin of ideas about the heart among the ancient Slavs and in Christianity from Ancient Egyptian mythology. Accordingly, Skovoroda’s philosophy of the heart, which grew out of ancient Slavic ideas and the teachings of Christ, has deep roots in ancient Egypt.