Ukrainian Roots of the Theory of Ethnos

Abstract

The article analyses ideological, political and scientific contexts of the appearance of the idea of “ethnos” as a subject matter of ethnography, suggested by N.M. Mogilianskii. Drawing on archival materials, the author considers Mogilianskii’s museum and field researches, his activity in emigration, and the dispute between Volkov and Anuchin about physical anthropology of Ukrainians. The article concludes that the idea of ethnos appeared in the course of ethnography’s university institutionalization and relied on the concept of ethnography as a subfield of the natural science of anthropology.