THE CELEBRATION OF ANNIVERSARIES OF HISTORICAL SOCIETIES OF SOUTHERN UKRAINE AS A FACTOR OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHIC PROCESS OF THE END OF THE XIX – AT THE BEGINNING OF XX CENTURIES

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the phenomenon of celebrating the jubilees of historical societies operating on the territory of Southern Ukraine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, we set ourselves the task of finding out the number of such jubilees, their scale, the form of notes, the range of people involved, the overall significance of these events. We are involved with all possible sources of sources: archived and published. As for the first, it is a question of documents from the 93 State Archives of Odesa region – «Odesa Society of History and Antiquities». Published sources are predominantly published in periodicals of societies. Information of interest to us is mainly contained in the sources of the reports - the reports and reports of the companies. Narrative sources, publication of analytical articles about societies in the time magazines and newspapers are an essential addition.Thesis. The main idea of this article is that in the territory of Southern Ukraine, for a long time, there were 4 societies that directed their efforts to study history: the Odesa Society of History and Antiquities (OSHA), the Tavria Scientific Archival Commission, the Historical and Philological Society at the Odesa Novorossiysky University and the Katerynoslav Scientific Archival Commission. Actually, this duration was the main prerequisite for celebrating their anniversaries. With the exception of OSHA, all three companies chose the first meeting as the starting point for their existence. Only OSHA, having the status of the imperial, decided to choose a reference point on November 14, 1839 - from the date of the emperor’s permission. In total, 8 anniversaries were celebrated, four of which were large-scale: 50th anniversary of the OSHA in 1889, the 15th anniversary of the Historical and Philological Society at the Novorossiysk University - in 1904, the 25th anniversary of the Tauridean Scientific Archival Commission in 1912 and the 10th anniversary of the Katerynoslav Scientific Archival Commission in 1913. Of these, 14 generalized brochures and articles on the activities of these historians’ associations were published, of which 10 were devoted to the OSHA.The main thesis of this article is that designed to explore and preserve history, historical societies of the South of Ukraine themselves created a history, became a significant subject of the cultural life of a large region. Anniversaries of these societies performed several functions: 1) historiographic (analysis of the traversed path in order to outline further ways of development); 2) memorial (honoring respectable members); 3) scientific and communicative (strengthening ties between members of associations and similar institutions); 4) public (popularization of history, increasing the social significance of societies for the growth of material and moral support). Anniversaries contributed to the revival of the historiographical process, drawing attention to historical societies and, in general, the problems of the development of historical science from the press, causing the analytical reflections of historians.