Ideas of Volodymyr Romenets and trends in the development of psychology in Ukraine (to the centenary of his birth)

Abstract

The article was prepared on the basis of the interdisciplinary nationwide round table dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Ukrainian philosopher and psychologist, historian and methodologist, founder of the national historical-psychological science, the theory of the deed, and canonical psychology, Volodymyr Romenets (1926-1998). The event took place online via the Zoom platform on May 20, 2026, and was hosted by the Faculty of Psychology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The article summarizes the content of the welcoming remarks and keynote presentations delivered at the plenary session by renowned scholars from Ukraine and abroad, most of whom personally knew Prof. Romenets either as a colleague, lecturer, or teacher. The ideological and thematic systematization of the diverse scholarly materials presented during the round table, together with a reconsideration of the innovative achievements of the Ukrainian thinker’s intellectual legacy, made it possible to substantiate at least six major directions of his original creative contributions, primarily within the cultural-psychological domain. First, the psychology of creativity, including, in its disciplinary format, the formation and manifestation of human creative abilities at different stages of the life course-from children’s playfulness to personal maturity, from the beginnings of spontaneous imagination to morally responsible deed-based creativity. Second, the theoretical system of the history of world psychology, developed through the methodological resources of the author’s deed approach as a complementary network of such fundamental epistemological forms as subject matter, principles, methods, approaches, and conceptual-categorical means of comprehensive historical-psychological inquiry. Third, the philosophical-psychological theory of the deed, in which the deed appears simultaneously as the most perfect mode of human existence, the canon of co-vital existence of an inspired personality, and an existential act uniting the earthly and the transcendent, the real and the ideal, the individual and the universal, the human being and the world. Fourth, canonical psychology as a promising direction and a new stage in the development of psychology as a human science, studying subjectivity in its fullest life context-in the boundless diversity of exemplary mental phenomena interpreted through the logical-structural optics of the deed. Fifth, the psychosophy of the deed as an epistemological transition of the author’s theoretical system into a methodology for investigating the sources, essence, and highest manifestations of human existence. Sixth, the methodology of humanitarian cognition, which offers humanity a deed-canonical organizational framework for reflective reasoning about any subject matter, encompassing an integrated system of forms, methods, modes, and means of thinking activity. Most participants in this scholarly event agreed that Volodymyr Andriiovych Romenets was a gifted thinker of the second half of the twentieth century whose culturally significant achievements and discoveries deserve worldwide recognition, and whose scientific works should be translated into the languages of other nations.