Presentation of a new book

On Thursday, May 22, in the conference hall of Berdyansk State Pedagogical University, in frame of a regional seminar “Life satisfaction in urban space: a historical and sociological aspects” a presentation of the book of Mykola Yeremenko and Igor Lyman “Military clergy in the South of Ukraine (1734-1853 years)” (Melitopol: Publishing House of Melitopol City Printing Press, 2014. 436 p.) took place.

The book, prepared during 2012-2013, published within an international project HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching “Wealth, Poverty and Life Satisfaction in Transition Societies”. The Southern Ukraine is the base of this project (host institution: Odessa National University named after I.I. Mechnikov). This region, which includes the Crimean peninsula, recently has located in the center of world attention, being a place of concentration of almost all the challenges facing the transition societies of Eastern Europe. Therefore, one of the objectives of the publication is to provide participants of the project with opportunities to get to know about an important stage of the past of the Southern Ukraine, in which everybody may search for the origins of numerous current problems. Furthermore, it is extremely important in the context of the subject of the project that the book allows to look at the problems of wealth, poverty and life satisfaction from the point of view of such peculiar segment of society as the Orthodox clergy which satisfied the spiritual needs of the military.

History of military clergy of the Southern Ukrainian region of the second third of XVIII - the middle of XIX century is studied taking into account heterogeneity of this group. Emphasis have made on the transformations of the management system and the nature of dependence of the clergy from parishioners, military and spiritual authorities, on the order of formation, activities of military clergy and their material security.

Publishing is an important component of complex sources on the history of military clergy in the region, as a result of heuristics found in dozens of archives and library collections in Ukraine and Russia. Published factual material, theoretical interpretations, generalizations and conditions may be useful to all those who are interested in Church history, military history, the last of the Russian Empire, Ukraine and its southern region.
Complex of primary sources about the history of military clergy of the region detected as a result of heuristics in dozens of archives and library collections in Ukraine and Russia, is an important component of the book. Published factual material, theoretical interpretations and generalizations may be useful to everybody who are interested in Church history, military history, the past of the Russian Empire, Ukraine and its Southern region.
The presentation has been attended, in addition to the regional seminar participants, by teachers and students of BSPU, members of Research Institute of Urban History (the monograph has been published under auspices of this Institute) and staff of Berdyansk schools.