Trade and commercial activity of Nizhyn greeks in Ukrainian lands in the XVIII–XIX centuries in the XIX century researchers‘ works

Abstract

The substantive examination of the problem started in the middle years of the XIX century and was related to actualization of the interest in Nizhyn Greek community which was significantly transformed under the national reforms. While elucidating Greek center’s history the researchers emphasized its merchant specific character, examined the process of decay of the Greek commerce in Nizhyn and defined that the reasons of this event were inner discords between the settled and the newly arrived Greeks. The commercial activity intensified the Greek community’s self-organization and laid the ground for “special corporation” associated with B. Khmelnytsky’s Universal of 1657 as historians thought. However exactly since the middle years of the XIX century the substantive examination of the problem that raised the scientific interest began. Taking into account the level of the scientific knowledge of that time, the methodology of research, different trends of particular researchers, ideological bias in some issues the historians couldn’t create the objective picture of the Greek merchants element’s impact on the economic development of Ukraine.