Transformation of Methodological Approaches to Study of Agrarian History in Ukraine: Main Trends (1990s – 2020s)
Abstract
The purpose of the research paper is to uncover the main trends in transformations of methodological approaches in the study of the agrarian history of Ukraine during the 1990s – 2020s and to clarify their content.
The scientific novelty is in obtaining new knowledge about the essence of the main trends of methodological transformations and agrarian historians’ usage of such modern methodological paradigms: the peasantry ‘as a natural phenomenon’, the peasantry as an ‘imaginary community’, reverse-compensatory theory, ruralism, agrarianism.
Conclusions. During the 1990s – 2020s, radical methodological transformations occurred in the methodology of studying the agrarian history of Ukraine. They were caused by qualitative socio-political and socio-economic changes of the late 1980s – early 1990s. There was a retreat of Ukrainian historians from the methodological monism of Marxist-Leninist ideology, access to previously classified historical sources stored in archival funds became free, and a dialogue between historians representing different schools and trends became possible.
Methodological transformations were not linear. We tentatively distinguish two stages. The first is the late 1980s – 1990s – ‘methodological shock’ and ‘methodological uncertainty’. The second is the 2020s – ‘methodological renaissance’.
The methodological transformations of the 1990s – 2020s demonstrate that the latest Ukrainian scientific, historical, and methodological thought presents different approaches to the understanding of the peasantry, peasant culture/peasant civilization, and the peasant world. In particular, it is comprehended as a ‘natural phenomenon’, as an ‘imaginary community’, and as a natural form of civilization, from the standpoint of ruralism and agrarianism, etc. Accordingly, in defining the main subject of the agrarian history of Ukraine, we identify the pluralism of methodological approaches. This testifies to the retreat of Ukrainian agrarian historians from methodological isolation, and their integration into the European and world historical and agrarian scientific discourse.
Funding. The study was prepared based on the results of fundamental research ‘The Socio-cultural Space of Ukraine in the Second Half of the Nineteenth – First Third of the Twentieth Century: the Peasant-centric Dimension’ (state registration number: 0123U101600) with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.
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