"Others among ourselves and ourselves among others?: perceptions of townspeople of the Northern Pre-Azov region about peasant-resettlers, and the latter's place in the social structure of the region’s cities in the first third of the twentieth century (a project of historical-archeographic expeditions)

Center's grant recipient of 2009/10 Victoria Constantynova presented her research project. The project’s goals are to exhibit and introduce to the academic exchange new multifaceted sources from the history of cities in the Northern Pre-Azov region, which resulted from the historical-archeographic expeditions to urban settlements in this sub-region of southern Ukraine.

Materials that were realized during oral history expeditions provide the opportunity to seemingly witness the urbanization processes that occurred in the first third of the twentieth century through the eyes of the inhabitants of the Northern Pre-Azov region who lived during that period and to create an entire sequence of observations as to how deeply rooted into the consciousness of the subregion's urban dwellers are myths and stereotypes regarding peasant-resettlers and vice versa.

The following problems were considered:

• The oral history of the urbanization processes of the Northern Pre-Azov region – why should they be studied?;
• The Northern Pre-Azov region and its urban history: the state of academic study and creating the conditions for the project’s realization;
• Organizational and methodological aspects for realizing the project;
• The results of conducting oral history research;
• Informational possibilities gleaned from recorded oral history sources.