La colonizzazione del Sud-est ucraino: una questione etnica ucraino-russa nella lettura di Dmytro Bahalij

Abstract

The Ukrainian-Russian ethnic question in Southeastern Ukraine has gained critical importance during the war unleashed by Moscow against Ukraine in February 2022; in this paper I analyze the question of the Ukrainian-Cossack and Muscovy colonization of this very region. I focus on the work by the Ukrainian scholar Dmytro Bahalij (1857-1932), a former member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences. Bahalij emphasizes the key difference between the Ukrainian-Cossack popular colonization of the steppe region and the Moscow administration of these territories. The paper examines some of the main writings by Bahalij and reviews critical articles about his works.