WESTERN UKRAINIAN FORCED SETTLERS ON THE TERRITORY OF THE SOUTHERN UKRAINE: "THE EGO-DOCUMENTS" RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Abstract

Summary. The purpose of the article is to clarify the ego-documents representation level in order to describe how peasant communities perceived settlers from the western parts of Ukraine in 1940‒1950՚s and to find out their adaptation to each other in the environment of predominant Soviet ideological stamps and characters.Methodology is based on the principles of integrity, historicism and comprehensiveness; general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization), historical (historical-genetic, historical-typological, historical-systematic) and multidisciplinary (textual analysis) methods. This study՚s novelty is based on a complex analysis of the ego-documents informative potential as oral narratives; on description of the "local-resettle concept"; also, on extracting the cultural characters which are inherited by Southern Ukrainian peasants, distinguishing their "two-layers" nature due to the ideological and cultural factors. Summary. Oral narratives about the West Ukrainian forced settlers have a high level of informative output. They allow to reflect personal feelings or re-settlement process observations which led to specific character formation among the Southern Ukrainian peasants. These characters often combined the ideological stamps as well as the personal everyday routine and manufacturing communication. The study shows that there was a Soviet negative impact on the perception of the West Ukrainian settlers. This was even more enhanced by emphasizing on this population group՚s exemptions comparing to the local people՚s post-war impoverishment. The research confirms that Southern Ukrainian peasants often took a balanced approach toward new settlers. It potentially can be explained by the agrarian society premises (admitting new settlers՚ hard-working nature and a need to mutually overcome and cope with all challenges brought by a collective life to both).