The Azov-Black Sea Region as a Crossing of Cultures: Factors, Stages, Outcomes of Processes of Cultural Interinfluence

The issue of cultural interaction is highlighted, the relevance of which has increased significantly in the context of the world's growing confrontation between globalization and counter-globalization. The urgency of this problem is evident in Russia as in the multinational State. One of the regions where such interaction took place most actively is the Azov-Black Sea region. The article examines the dynamics of cultural interinfluence processes in the region. The retrospective analysis has been carried out, which makes it possible to conclude that historically the Azov-Black Sea region has been a crossing of civilizations, where the migratory flows of Western and Eastern civilizations have been directed and where representatives of these civilizations have come into contact with each other. Periodization of intercultural contacts in the region, including a number of qualitatively different stages is supposed. It has been proved that within the boundaries of various stages the cultural influence of various peoples and civilizations has prevailed: the Greeks and the Romans, the Turkicspeaking nomads, the Turks, the Cossack communities, the Russian Empire. While in the era of antiquity the leading role in intercultural interaction was played by the Greeks and then by the Romans, who had a stimulating and guiding effect on the Iranian-speaking nomads of the Scythians and the Sarmatians, in the Middle Ages the situation changed seriously, which was connected with the collapse of the Graeco-Roman colonies due to the arrival of a new wave of nomads, this time Turkic-speaking, in the region. It is noted that the brightest example of active inter-ethnic and intercultural contacts in the Azov-Black Sea region and, at the same time, the extreme importance of these contacts in giving vitality to certain communities and state entities, is the Cossacks, which arose as a result of interaction of a number of different ethnocultural communities. The valid conclusions are the following, first, the leading trends in the Azov-Black Sea region were active inter-ethnic (intercultural) contacts, which resulted not only in the mutual enrichment of cultures and lifestyles of their participants, but also in the formation of new communities, such as the Cossacks; second, these contacts have acted and continue to act as a means of cementing and stimulating the development of multi-ethnic State entities, including Russia.

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