HISTORY OF UKRAINE OF THE 19TH CENTURY: CONTENT LINES OF MODERN RESEARCH

Abstract

The article highlights the main controversial issues of modern historiography, which relate to the study of the history of Ukraine’s «long» 19th century. The concepts of the authors of generalizing works and the changes made in them during the last two decades are analyzed.It is claimed that the historiography of this historical period in Ukraine developed through the accumulation of new research topics, and conceptual rethinking took place under the infl uence of Western historiography. This allowed the authors to move away from the subordination of the material to a predetermined scheme of nation-building (or national revival) and to consider the historical process as a complex interaction of various factors. Modern historians move away from a simplistic understanding of the collective identities of the time and recognize their multiplicity, the connection with the concept of loyalty, the transition from one to another and the possibility of a comfortable combination or multiple situational changes in one lifetime. Among the main issues that Ukrainian historians continue to discuss in the «long nineteenth century» are: the formation of imaginary and real space of modern Ukraine, the criteria for periodization of this historical time, the relationship between tradition and modernization and the impact of modernization and urbanization on national movements, the relationship between the «new imperial history» and the concepts of modern nations, issues of cultural and intellectual history (history of ideas) and the possibilities and features of studying the history of the nineteenth century through «history from below», attention to the personal experience of a particular person. The ways of forming stereotypical notions due to excessive abuse of «retrospective history» are shown, which pushes researchers to make evaluative judgments about the events and phenomena of the 19th century, based on the experience of the 20th century. Methods of research and presentation of multiculturalism and interaction of diff erent cultures on the ethnic border are discussed. It is shown that due to signifi cant transformations of everyday life of the 19th century can be represented as «time of change». It is argued that the immediate prospects in the study of the history of Ukraine «long» 19th century. are to read and re-read sources that represent diff erent points of view and ways of experiencing the same processes and phenomena.