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Dichotomy of Methodology Between the American and the French Approach in Frontier/Border Studies: Sloboda-Ukraine in the 18th Century

By Yuliia Koniva

Historical geography as an interdisciplinary discipline offers many of the conceptions for studying space and territory. In this essay, I want to address that there is no common ground on how to apply these conceptions[1].

In every national historiography we can find plenty of historians who utilize the approaches of studying space or territory according to the research goals which were put forward in front of each scholar. Most academics use the definition of “space” to analyze vast regions without fixed borders (or: loosely defined borders) and the definition of “territory” to study the regions with fixed borders. Also, the definition of “frontier” can be applied differently to the territories; this can lead to misunderstandings depending on which concept the research is based on. We can observe this tendency in the way it is used for the different regions in Eastern Europe. For example, there are obvious differences between the American and the French approaches of studying the frontiers, which we can see on the example of Sloboda Ukraine.

Sloboda Ukraine or Slobozhanschyna is a historical borderland region that fits into the context of border and frontiers studies as well. This region was formed in the middle of the seventeenth century and does not match modern borders, it’s located now in northeastern Ukraine and southwestern Russia, which includes  oblasts (provinces) such as Kharkiv, Sumy, and parts of Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine and parts of Belgorod, Kursk, and Voronezh in the Russian Federation.

Sloboda-Ukraine in the 18th Century, map created by the author and F. Delisle.

When we talk about the historical regions in Ukraine in the early modern period, for example Sloboda Ukraine, scholars tend to apply the American approach of frontier studies. However, it is feasible to use the French understanding of frontiers for studying of Sloboda-Ukraine, particularly, when we study its borders.

Frontiers Studies and Ukranian Lands

In Ukrainian historiography, borderland studies have evolved throughout the years. One of its most productive applications is the use of Frederick Turner’s frontier thesis, who argued that the frontier between the settlement and colonisation was pivotal in the formation of the American nation.[2] The study of the history of Ukraine as a frontier zone by historians date back to the early twentieth century.[3] Moreover, Ukraine has been mentioned in the works of scholars who studied frontiers such as W. McNeill[4], and Owen Lattimore[5]. The definition of “frontier” has been transformed with the times, and it is seen differently in American as it is in Western European scholarly works. Lucien Febvre drew his fellow historians’ attention to the etymology of the term frontier for the first time in 1928.[6] Today, French geo-historians continue to come up with new visions to study the history of space.[7] In French, “frontière” means a borderland or border region (zone) and in American English “frontier” is “a moving zone of settlement”.[8] Accordingly, in studying the early-modern Ukrainian lands, the American frontier thesis is much better suited to understand the colonisation of eastern Ukraine because there was a geographical frontier between the forest (settled population) and the steppe (pastoralists). On the other hand, to study particular historical regions of Ukraine such as Sloboda-Ukraine in the eighteenth century, it is more appropriate to apply the French idea of the ‘frontier – i.e. as a borderland region, because this region in the eighteenth century had already formed, as it had an administrative-territorial division with formed borders, and shared a border with other states.

As an example, Volodymyr Kravchenko and Volodymyr Masliychuk were the first to study Sloboda-Ukraine as a borderland region in the context of regional studies.  While Kravchenko focused on the intellectual development of this region and its capital, Kharkiv, as a contact territory whose borders were defined not just politically but also because of its special cultural essence.[9] Masliychuk studied the socio-political history of [10]-Ukraine as a borderland region on the crossing of cultures.[11]

Sloboda-Ukraine on the modern map, created by the author and F. Delisle.

The recently developed concept of “phantom borders” offers a way to study East Central Europe’s historical regions, by providing a new interpretation of regional research today.[12] Taking into consideration that Ukraine had a long historical development, and its regions are located in different countries, makes it a case in point for the concept of phantom borders[13]. The notion of phantom borders is commonly used to explain the influence of borders of empires on modern states. However, the concept of phantom borders doesn’t fit into the context of Sloboda-Ukraine in the eighteenth century, because this region was settled in the middle of seventeenth century, and it didn’t belong to any state before. Hence, the political changes on the Step Border of Europe played a role in defining this region as well as its landscape features.

Sloboda-Ukraine in the Eighteenth Century

The location of Sloboda-Ukraine at the crossroads of three frontiers -Ruthenians (Ukrainians), Russians and Nomads (Crimea Khanate) – during the early-modern period) led to several administrative and territorial changes during the eighteenth century. These changes were brought by the movement of the frontiers. Sloboda-Ukraine went from an autonomous status to becoming an administrative part of the Russian empire during the eigtheenth century: the external frontiers of Sloboda-Ukraine became an internal demarcation in the Russian empire. Such territorial changes influenced the development of road networks, which were also determined by three frontiers in the region.

The intensive economic development of new settled lands by Ruthenians and Cossacks led to the development of a network of communication routes of the settled population in this region. Moreover, in the early eighteenth century, a network of roads began to form between the Sloboda Regiments, and along the traditional paths of the Steppe people, which were still present in Sloboda-Ukraine. To a large extent, the communication routes of the nomads were used from north to south, and roads from Sloboda-Ukraine connected this region with the Cossack Regiments of the Hetmanate – from west to east. The Russian administrative reforms in Sloboda-Ukraine during the second half of the eighteenth century were part of the policy of centralisation in the empire and heralded the suppression of traditional administrative divisions created by Cossacks. The administrative changes also led to changes in the local system of routes. In Sloboda-Ukraine, state and provincial roads were established. According to historical maps, the local system of land roads of communication was connected to the empire’s system only in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

  As the example of Sloboda Ukraine show us, questions such as “Do we need to have a united conception of ‘space’ or of ‘territory’, or even “Is it possible to create one?” remain unanswered by historians. Maybe we don’t need one united concept to study spaces and territories, but the different concepts could be fruitful for different historical periods.


The part of material represented here was published in French: Yuliia Koniva, “Le rôle des frontières dans la formation des routes et voies de communication dans l’Ukraine Sloboda au XVIIIe siècle”, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, no 71–4 (2024): 7–27.


Notes

[1]Nicolas Verdier, “Espace et Histoire en France : entre tensions disciplinaires et pratiques transdisciplinaires”, Histoires d’espaces. Territoires et limites. Autour de Daniel Nordman, edited Blais H., Fredj C., Messaoudi A., Surun I. (Bouchène, 2018), 17–31.

[2] Liliya Berezhnaya, “A view from the Edge: Borderland Studies and Ukraine, 1991–2013”, The future of the past: new perspectives on Ukrainian history, edited by Serhii Plokhy (Cambridge, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2016), 49.

[3]Berezhnaya, “A view from the Edge: Borderland Studies and Ukraine, 1991–2013”, 45; Ігор Чорновол, Компаративні фронтири: світовий і вітчизняний вимір (Критика, 2015), 376.

[4] William. McNeill, Europe’s Steppe Frontier, 1500–1800 (University of Chicago Press, 2011), 264.

[5] Owen Lattimore, Studies in frontier history: Collected papers 1928–1958 (Mouton&Co, 1962), 63, 67, 486, 489.

[6] Lucien Febvre, “Frontière: le mot et la notion”, Pour une Histoire à part entière, (S.E.V.P.E.N., 1962), 11–24.

[7] Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier, “Le territoire : représentations géographiques et pratiques politiques: Postface”, Histoires d’espaces. Territoires et limites. Autour de Daniel Nordman, ed. Blais H., Fredj C., Messaoudi A., Surun I. (Bouchène, 2018), 341–354.

[8] Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, “The State of Borders and Borderlands Studies 2009: A Historical View and a View from the Journal of Borderlands Studies”, Eurasia Border Review, volume 1, no 1 (2010): 1–15, The State of Borders and Borderlands Studies 2009 : A Historical View and a View from the Journal of Borderlands Studies.

[9] Владимир Кравченко, Харьков/Харків: столица Пограничья (ЕГУ, 2010), 358.

[11] Володимир Маслійчук, Провінція на перехресті культур: дослідження з історії Слобідської України XVII–ХІХ ст. (Харківський приватний музей міської садиби, 2008), 399.

[12] Béatrice von Hirschhausen, Hannes Grandits, Claudia Kraft, Dietmar Müller and Thomas Serrier, “Phantom borders in Eastern Europe: a new concept for regional research”, Slavic Review, volume 78, issue 2 (2019): 368–389, Phantom Borders in Eastern Europe: A New Concept for Regional Research.

[13] Vladimir Kolosov, “Phantom borders: the role in territorial identity and the impact on society”, Belgeo. Revue belge de géographie, no 2 (2020): 8, https://doi.org/10.4000/belgeo.38812; Sabine von Löwis, “Phantom borders and ambivalent spaces of identification in Ukraine”, L’Espace géographique, volume 46, issue 2 (2017): 126–142, Phantom Borders and Ambivalent Spaces of Identification in Ukraine | Cairn.info.


About the Author

Dr. Yuliia Koniva is an Ukranian historian who is affiliated with Université de Rouen’s Groupe de Recherche d’Histoire (GRHis, UR 3831) in France as a post-doctoral researcher. She was laureate of the PAUSE programme for the three years. She specializes in early modern Eastern European history, with a particular focus on the development of roads networks and borders in Eastern Ukraine during the 17th and the 18th centuries. Her book entitled ”The roads of Sloboda Ukraine in the 1700s-early 1800s” [Шляхи сполучення Слобідської України (XVIII – на початку ХІХ ст.)] was published in 2020. Her primary research interest is the history of Eastern Europe in the early modern period. Specific areas of interest include history of roads, border studies, historical cartography and historical geography.

Her professional inquiries, she can be reached at yuliia.koniva@univ-rouen.fr. // LinkedIn // Bluesky


Other recent articles in the TRAFO series Rethinking East European Studies in Times of Upheaval:

Svitlana Pidoprygora, Ukraine and Ukrainians in the Panels: Global Comics Perspectives on the War, 10.06.2025.

Hanna Rudyk, Liminality and Museums in Ukraine: the Khanenkos’ Case, 27.05.2025.

Olena Komar, ‘Fight your Emotions’: Affective Injustice in Wartime, 06.05.2025.


Citation: Yuliia Koniva, Dichotomy of Methodology Between the American and the French Approach in Frontier/Border Studies: Sloboda-Ukraine in the 18th Century, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 19.06.2025, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/59710


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Forum Transregionale Studien (June 19, 2025). Dichotomy of Methodology Between the American and the French Approach in Frontier/Border Studies: Sloboda-Ukraine in the 18th Century. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. Retrieved July 8, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/145l0


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