« 2023. # 1 (169)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2023. № 1 (169), 31—43

UDK [930.2:572](477)”1920/1930″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2023.01.031

DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINIAN ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE 20—30 YEARS OF THE XX CENTURY. ACHIEVEMENTS AND LOSSES

SEGEDA Sergij

  • ORCID ID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6772-8387
  • Doctor of Sciences in History, Lead Researcher
  • of the Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy
  • of Scienses of Ukraine,
  • in the Department of Historical Ethnology,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: sergij_segeda@ukr.net

Abstract. For the first time in historiography, the author analyzes the current state, methodological principles, and trends of the development of the Ukrainian Physical Anthropology in the 20s and 30s years of the last century, when the territory of Ukraine was a part of the different states.

The relevance of the study is determined by the lack of general studies of this issue.

The purpose of the article is a comparative analysis of the activities of anthropological institutions in Kyiv and Lviv; and a general assessment of the achievements and losses of national Anthropology in the interwar period.

Historical-cultural and comparative-typological methods of ethnological science were mainly used in the process of empirical data analysis.

As a result of the study, it was found that, during the 1920-1930s, there were 3 scientific centers in Ukraine, studying the anthropological composition of the Ukrainians, namely: the Hvedir Vovk Anthropology and Ethnology Office at the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) (Kyiv); Taras Shevchenko Scientific Society and the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology of Lviv University (Lviv). The research activities and main results of the leading scientists of these institutions are analyzed, specifically, Anatolii Nosov and Ivan Rakovskyi, who continued research initiated by the founder of Ukrainian Anthropology Hvedir Vovk; the leader of the Lviv anthropology school Jan Chekanovskyi, who, based on his own theoretical approach, developed an original concept of the anthropological composition of the peoples of Europe; Rostyslav Yendyk, who described several zones of the ethnic territory of Ukraine, the population of which differs according to the ratio of the main European anthropological types. It is noted that certain statements of the works of these scientists preserve their scientific significance to this day. Finally, it was found that as a result of repressions and persecutions by the Stalinist regime and the Nazi occupiers, national Physical Anthropology suffered heavy losses: after the Second World War, all 3 centers of this scientific discipline were eliminated, and none of active anthropologists remained on the territory of Ukraine.

Keywords: physical anthropology, anthropological composition of the Ukrainian people, individual-typological method.

Received 3.01.2023

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