Issue: № 5, 2026
Doi: https://doi.org/10.37634/efp.2026.5.12p
The paper examines the psychological aspects of the formation of legal consciousness in the history of the state and law of Ukraine. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that the effectiveness of law depends not only on the quality of legal norms and institutions, but also on the way law is perceived, experienced, evaluated, and internalized by society. Legal consciousness is interpreted as a complex psychological and legal phenomenon that combines cognitive, emotional-value, and behavioral components. The cognitive component includes knowledge of law, legal procedures, rights and duties; the emotional-value component reflects trust or distrust in law, the sense of justice, dignity, freedom, and responsibility; the behavioral component reveals readiness to act lawfully, protect one’s rights, or, conversely, tolerate legal nihilism. The purpose of the paper is to identify the key psychological factors that influenced the development of legal consciousness in different periods of Ukrainian statehood. The paper applies historical-legal, systemic, structural-functional, comparative, hermeneutic, and interdisciplinary methods. It is argued that Ukrainian legal consciousness was shaped by national mentality, historical memory, customary legal traditions, collective experience of freedom and subordination, trust in state institutions, and traumatic historical experiences, including statelessness, political repression, imperial domination, Soviet ideological pressure, and war. The paper traces the evolution of legal consciousness from Kyivan Rus, where law was closely connected with custom, morality, religion, reputation, and communal authority, to the Cossack era, which strengthened ideas of freedom, dignity, self-government, collective responsibility, and participation in public life. Particular attention is paid to the imperial and Soviet periods, which caused serious deformations of legal consciousness, alienation from law, institutional distrust, double morality, conformism, and legal nihilism. The modern stage of Ukrainian legal development is characterized by a gradual restoration of law as a social value connected with human dignity, national identity, European democratic principles, civic responsibility, and resistance to aggression. The paper concludes that legal consciousness is historically conditioned and psychologically determined. Its formation requires not only legal reforms, but also the strengthening of legal culture, institutional trust, civic education, historical memory, and responsible lawful behavior in contemporary Ukrainian society.
Keywords : historical memory, legal consciousness, legal culture, legal nihilism, mentality, psychology, Ukraine
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