Issues of the History of the Greek Presence on Ukrainian Territory in Modern National Historiography

Abstract

The purpose of the study is a historiographical analysis of the works of modern Ukrainian historians on the issues of ethnic history of the Greeks of Ukraine, who belong to its oldest and most stable ethnic communities. In this regard, several tasks are set, one of which is to define main thematic areas of these studies and the degree of their analysis. The methodology is based on the scientific principles of historicism and objectivity. Specific scientific methods of historiographic analysis, synthesis, ideographic and other methods were used. Scientific novelty is determined primarily by the fact that this topic within the outlined chronological boundaries has not become the subject of a separate scientific study so far. Conclusions: Development of issues of ethnic history of the Greeks of Ukraine, which was initiated in the studies of scholars from Western European countries and the Russian Empire at the end of the XVIII – XIX centuries and has evolved significantly thanks to the scientific achievements of Soviet historians, received a new impetus in the early 1990s in the works of Ukrainian historians. The emergence of another wave of scientific interest in this topic is associated with the reset of the national historical science after the proclamation of independence of Ukraine, the imperatives of state ethnopolitics, the demands of the Ukrainian public, etc. These developments are based on a wide range of newly discovered sources and are characterized by modern research approaches, rethinking key issues of the problem, developing new theories (primarily on the ethnogenesis of Urums and Roumeans), etc. It is determined that a significant contribution to the study of the issue was made by the staff of the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in particular the Cabinet of Ukrainian-Greek Relations (since 2007 – Research Center for Ukrainian-Greek Relations) headed by N.O. Terentyeva. Against the background of a wide variety of issues on the ethnic history of Ukrainian Greeks, which have a fairly high level of development today, primarily in the history of the Greeks of Nizhyn and North Azov region, their national and cultural life in independent Ukraine is the least represented