Research
A library of articles based on research about the Bliznyuky region
Articles about the heritage of the Bliznyuky region — from Bronze Age kurgans (burial mounds) to the dialect people still speak here. We study archives, excavations and residents' memories so that the invisible heritage becomes visible.
8 articles published · 2 in progress
Articles
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Ancient sites of the Bliznyuky region
401 kurgans, burials of the Yamna, Catacomb and Srubna cultures, and finds left behind by mammoth hunters. What archaeologists have managed to learn about the region's most ancient past.
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Local legends and tales of the Bliznyuky region
Two twin kurgans, Cossack graves and a pond where children were “baptised”: where the tales come from and what they say about us.
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How people spoke in Dobrovillia and Uplatne: a dictionary of the Bliznyuky region
“Khodyu”, “sydyu”, “radyu” (dialect forms of “I walk”, “I sit”, “I advise”) and our signature “a” instead of “o”. A dictionary of the local speech that sounds like the Ukrainian east.
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The village church: grandmothers as keepers of tradition
How the generation that hid icons in their homes preserved prayers, shchedrivky (New Year carols) and paskas (Easter breads) — and carried faith through the harshest of times.
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The village’s ‘Memory Map’ — vanished buildings and landscapes
Vanished hamlets, manors, churches and ponds of the Bliznyuky region — places no longer on the map that still live in the memories of the elders.
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The Church of the Holy Spirit — a destroyed monument of Baroque church architecture
Built in the Cossack Baroque at the end of the eighteenth century, for over a century the church was the spiritual heart of the district — until it was destroyed in the 1930s.
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A day in the life of the village, 1960s–1980s
Roosters at dawn, work at the collective farm, swimming in the pond and evening dances at the club — an ordinary summer day of the village half a century ago.