INDUSTRIAL CITIES OF THE UKRAINIAN BORDERLAND: FEATURES OF THEIR ORIGIN AND FACTORS OF FORMATION OF POPULATION IDENTITY

Abstract

The study of the phenomenon of boundary is of great interest to scientists in various fields of knowledge,in particular, these issues are important for geographers. This topic becomes especially relevant withthe intensification of geopolitical challenges facing the Ukrainian state. The search for ways to sociallytransform the Ukrainian borderland cities is urgent due to the attempts of external forces, primarilyRussia, to support movements and politicians who currently oppose the regional identity to the nationalidentity. Exactly south-eastern Ukrainian territories are distinguished by heterogeneous economic andsocial development, diverse values and dynamic processes of industrialization.The main purpose of this study is to use the prism of retrospective analysis to identify a set of factorsinfluencing the population identity of industrial cities on the southeastern borderland, including the citiesof Donbas and Azov. These cities deserve a lot of attention as a modern area of overlapping of differenttypes of frontiers: cultural, political, military.Urbogenesis on the steppe borderland as well as the development of industry was largely due to militaristicfactors and received a non-evolutionary threshold. In the period between 1770 and 1990 researchers identify four waves of urbogenesis, when most cities were reflected on the borderland areas – in the southern andeastern parts of modern Ukraine. The main goal of such rapid development of the network of cities was theneed to bring the military base as close as possible to the theater of operations at a time when the RussianEmpire was actively expanding its military presence in the Black Sea and Central Europe. Donbas with itscoal deposits and proximity to metal ore concentrations has become a priority region for this role.The dominance of monofunctional industrial cities and towns which began their existence as companytowns and still remain centers of preserved Sovietism, paternalism and nostalgia, significantly inhibits theeconomic and socio-political transformation of the region. The rapid industrialization caused a formationof specific population identity in cities of the north-eastern territories of Ukraine with blurred nationalfeatures and weak rootedness on the territory.