The object of study – the occupied items of three Left-bank Ukrainian province of the Russian empire (Poltava, Kharkov, Chernigov), which had the official status of city in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The purpose of study – on the basis of the complex analysis of the published documents, archival materials, periodic press, memoirs to show rates and specificity of demographic, socio economic and political changes in cities of Left-bank Ukraine in the late 19th – early 20th centuries, formation of urban self-consciousness, urban society in conditions of modernization. The methods: analytical, synthetic, logic; typological, synchronous, problem-chronological, diachronous, comparative-historical, structural-system, historical modeling; statistical and social psychology. The practical value of the work: the materials and conclusions of dissertation research can be used by preparation of scientific and popular scientific works, manuals on a history of Ukraine, Russia, of comparative researches onurban stady, ethnology, local lore stady, at teaching the appropriate general and special courses in a higher school. The ideas of the dissertation were used at a spelling of the generalizing edition “History of Kharkov city. ХХ century”, manual "Political history of Ukraine" and also in courses and special courses “History of Ukraine”, “History of Slobidsky Ukraine”, “History of the Ukrainian culture”, which are taught on ukrainian stady faculty of philosophical faculty of the V.N.Karazin Kharkiv National University. The thesis is the first complex historical study of the Ukraine Left-bank towns sinse the end of the 19th century to the First World War. On the basis of the published and archives documents, most of which are in the researches for the first time, demographic processes in the towns between 1897-1914 have been studied. The estate, professional, sexual, age, national, confessional structures of population and urbanization processes have been shown. Industrial potential quota of Left-bank towns inthe range of the regional and all-Ukraine ones has been determined. The structure of industry, handicraft, commerce, development of credit and finance institutions as well as the urban budgets in the towns of different types has been studied. The urban self-government activity for the municipal economy development and urban appearance changing has been shown. The way of living of big and small town inhabitants, character of urban society in the region, elite and common dwellers self-consciousness has been describe with taking in account the Ukrainian factor as well as political and cultural processes of the epoch. Character and content of town struggle for separation to a distinct administrative unit, the society and government relations and estimation of the newest communicative abilities have been analysed from the point of view of all-Empire and all-Europe modernization context.
