On an Attempt to Revive an Outdated Historical Concept: Chersonesus and the Tauri
Zubar V. М.
Some recent publications tend to idealize the relations between the Greeks and the Tauri during the early period of the development of Chersonesus Taurica. Using new approach to the problem and re-analysing various archaeological and other evidence, the author shows that, as the sources witness, armed conflicts between the Greeks and the Tauri began at the very moment of the foundation of Chersonesus and recurred during a long period of time. The fact, on the one side, agrees with well-known historical parallels and theories having to do with contacts between societies standing on different levels of development, and, on the other, gives the author grounds to assert that the Tauric element was absent from this ancient Greek centre or, at least, did not affect the ethnic structure of its population. He invites the scholars to discard the stereotype view of «co-operation» or «peaceful convergence» of the Tauri and Chersonesian Greeks, this view being a survival of the 20th century political conjuncture. To study more productively the relations between the ethnic groups in question, one must use more actively comparative data and new approaches, taking into consideration peculiarities of historical and cultural development of Chersonesus' Doric population as compared with other North Pontic centres.