TRENDS IN THE ETHNIC HISTORY DEVELOPMENT OF THE LOWER DON POPULATION AND THEIR REFLECTION IN MODERN ETHNO-CULTURAL BRANDS OF THE ROSTOV REGION

Abstract

The territory of the Lower Don developed as a polyethnic region, for the history of which migration, inter-ethnic contacts, the interaction of different cultures, the formation of mixed ethnic and anthropological groups were characterized. The ethnic development from the middle ages have been affected by the struggle of the Eastern Europe countries and the Middle East for control of the territory. Around the turn of the XV–XVI centuries a new stage of ethnic history that continues up to the beginning of the XX century begins and it is characterized by the occurrence of the region into Russia, a gradual predominance of the East Slavic population, changing cultural landscape of the territory, formation of new system of socio-economic relations. The main factor of development in this phase was the don Cossacks. The beginning of XX c. can be considered as a boundary in the evolutionary ethnic development of the region, after which political and socio-cultural transformations related to the Soviet stage of Russian history began. By this time, ethnic communities were formed on the Don, which at the present time form the basis of the Rostov Region multinational population. Some ethno-cultural realities, preserved to the present day, have turned into symbols of the territory, ethno-cultural brands, the main of which is the Don Cossacks.