Velychko T. Ethnographic museum arts at the Southern Ukraine: regional and historical peculiarities, current trends.

Dissertation based on wide range of various groups of sources is focused on specific features of establishment and development of the Ethnographic Museum Arts at the Southern Ukraine in the XIX - beg. of the XXI centuries. Considerable attention is paid by the author to the analysis of current tendencies in this area of the Museum Arts. The thesis explores the foundations of the government policy implemented in the field of Ethnographic Museum Arts with the various stages of its transformation; the influence of the state-sponsored views on the activities of particular ethnography-focused groups; the scholarly, collection, education and exhibition activities and contributions made by the museums to the local lore studies and ethnology is analyzed. The history of appearing and of ethnographic activities of the museums in the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, and regions of Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Odessa are reconstructed. Significant attention is paid to the museums and collections that were destroyed during the Soviet and Nazi rule, and to the professionals in the field of ethnography who were politically repressed by the authorities. New forms and kinds of the museums appeared recently in the considered region are studied. New sources previously unexplored were collected and introduced into scholarly use by the author.