“Dead End of Oral History” and Writing of “The History of Cities and Villages of the Ukrainian SSR” (On the Example of Dnipropetrovsk Region)

The aim of the research is to determine the place of the “dead end of oral history” in the writing of “The History of Cities and Villages of the Ukrainian SSR”The methodological foundations of the research are the principles of historicism and objectivity in combination with historical-comparative method and microhistorical approach.The scientific novelty of the research lies in the formulation of the problem and in definition of such a specific phenomenon in the development of oral history as its “dead end”. The research shows that the “dead end” appeared with the advent of sound recording technique. The “dead end” branch developed especially actively in those countries where recording equipment was not available to the researcher. When the large-scale historical project “The History of Cities and Villages of the USSR” was implemented in the USSR, the authors of historical essays were tasked to collect memories of local residents and to use this material to cover the historical gaps, created by the lack of documentary sources. As a result, during the preparation of essays on the history of small settlements, the memories of local residents were actively recorded. Conclusions. As a result of the research, it was found that “the dead end of oral history” existed in parallel with the “progressive branch” and was actively used by the researchers for (re)construction of the past. One of the largest historical projects, where this “dead end” was used, was the writing of “The History of Cities and Villages of the USSR”On the example of the Dnipropetrovsk region it was possible to determine that the authors of the historical essays turned to oral history only in cases when there was a lack of documentary sources. In order to make the handwritten memories “legal”, they were certified by the seals of the village councils. A key disadvantage of the “dead end” was the deformation of memories, which they went through when recording by ear. The deformation occurred both in thematic-semantic and presentational spheres. Thematic and semantic deformations were manifested in selective coverage of only certain topics: “revolutions of 1905-1907”, “armed struggle for Soviet power” etc. The presentation deformation can be seen in the adaptation of texts to the Soviet historical narrative