Platmir Y. Ukrainian peasantry in representations and interpretations of intellectual elites of the Naddniprianschyna (end of nineteenth – beginning of twentieth century)

In this dissertation the state of researched problem is analyzed, the source base is formed and qualitatively processed, the methodology is registered and general directions of the work are defined. It is found out how intellectuals imagined and interpreted Ukrainian peasantry of the Naddniprianschyna in the late nineteenth– early twentieth century. The study is based on understanding of the problem that was at that time that intelligentsia began creating images of modern society and tried to attract the peasantry that was still mostly in the «pre-modern world». In any case, the social processes of the period under study couldn’t take place without the interaction of intellectual circles and a large layer of the peasantry; they were closely interrelated by many factors – social, cultural, family, professional and etc. The author studied the historiography of the problem, systematically conducted heuristic work, applied various techniques and methods of scientific research, which together made it possible to determine and develop the novelty of the results. In general, the fragmentary coverage of the problem raised in the dissertation is scattered in a large number of scientific works, which are devoted mainly to the history of the formation of the intelligentsia and its growing role in socio-political life and national liberation movement of the late imperial period. Also, a lot of reconnaissances include analysis of intellectual achievements, prosopographic plots. The author personally identified and analyzed the layer of scientific literature, which includes articles and theses with «narrow» issues and thorough works on theoretical and methodological problems, intellectual, anthropological and social history. At the same time, during the elaboration of the source base and historiography we had to show a certain selectivity, which is explained by the «infinity» of archival materials and attempts to avoid possible dependence on myths inherent in the subjects of historical phenomena, social and intellectual practices.