Thesis is devoted to highlighting features of tractorbuilding in Ukraine during the period 20's - 80's of 20th century. Assumptions, factors, key achievements, challenges and trends in the domestic tractorbuilding are represented in the context of world progress based on archival materials and little-known sources. History of tractorbuilding started to separate from the historical and technical research just in the second half of the 20th century. The researchers in the world and the USSR focused mainly on the technical aspects of designing and creating tractors and various types of engines for them covering the history of companies and enterprises producing tractors. But the issue of evolution and determine where domestic tractorbuilding in the context of world scientific and technical progress remained unnoticed by scholars. The revealed source base is represented mostly by archival documents. Selected methodological principles became the basis for a comprehensive study of formulated scientific problem. A world tractorbuilding started to develop in the middle of 19th century through scientific discovery and the industrial revolution in the advanced capitalist countries (Britain, France and USA). The tractorbuilding in Tsarist Russia was arising late and due to refinement and extremely enthusiastic individual inventors. Among the important prerequisites for the formation of tractorbuilding in Ukraine as a part of Tsarist Russia should be mentioned the following: creation of the first agricultural testing stations and their active functioning on Ukrainian territory, opening the science polytechnic schools in Kyiv and Kharkiv, relevant natural geographical and socio-economic conditions and desire of foreign investors to invest in the development of domestic industrial production. The development of Ukrainian tractorbuilding (as part of the tractorbuilding of USSR) was quite dynamic. There is documented that first domestically issued serial models of tractors were copied from the best foreign prototypes. The accumulation of information and experience, the first pioneering developments of home tractor designs took place in the early stages of tractorbuilding formation. However, there has been a big lag between the domestic tractor production and achievements of world scientific and technical progress in the pre-war period due to a number of objective and subjective reasons. A major step forward in design and production of agricultural machines was made due to the acquisitions of tractorbuilders in the USSR and the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century. The period from the late 1950's to the 1970's could be characterized by the following: producing universal family of cultivated and arable tractors unified release versions for different purposes, improvement of working conditions of equipment mechanics, increasing energy saturation of tractors, increasing their reliability and quality, significant deepening in research, mass production of tractors through the development of industry specialization and cooperation. From 1971 to 1980 there was further development of cultivated models and starting producing of arable tractors. The study of management experience in the field of tractorbuilding in Ukraine showed that the management of this branch of industry in the USSR was carried out according to principles that were specific for each historical period, as well as to ideological, political and economic imperatives. The thesis analyzes the main stages of the evolution of tractorbuilding in the world and in Ukraine, the role of domestic enterprises in this process, the peculiarities of management, the scientific and staffing industry supporting. The detailed life course and creative achievements of outstanding domestic tractorbuilders, engineers, designers, scientists is represented in the historical literature for the first time. Among them are the following legendary Ukrainians: A. P. Karhopolov, K. I. Marjin, O. D. Bruskin, V. T. Tsvetkov, N .S. Sidelnikov, P. I. Svystun, B. P. Kaszuba, S. L. Abdula, I. M. Medvedev, V. V. Biblik, G. V. Lebedinskyi, V. A. Myhajlovskyi, O. A. Soshnikov, V. Y. Anilovych, L. M. Hanzburh, I. S. Cherniavskyi and others. New approaches to consider the theoretical and methodological foundations of tractorbuilding as a separate branch of applied engineering science and technology, including the knowledge and patterns on tools, techniques and methods for creating machine-tractor units, especially their operation, testing, implementation, operation and production are proposed. The concept of periodization of the history of the domestic tractorbuilding was developed based on isolating the three main aspects of its review: as part of industry and national economy; as a result of scientific and technological progress objectified in technical achievements; as applied science and complex of professional knowledge.
