The European factor in the modernization of the Donetsk region at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries

The article reveals the European influence on the modernization of the Donetsk region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This approach refutes the Russian-Soviet myths about the region’s exclusively Russian/Communist development as a powerful industrial center. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of European entrepreneurs on the socioeconomic modernization of the Donetsk region at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To achieve this goal, the latest research and sources, primarily memoirs, were processed using analytical and synthetic, historical and comparative, and historical and typological methods. It has been shown that while coal mines started to emerge in the first half of the 19th century, the Donetsk region continued to be sparsely populated until mid-century. Its mineral-rich subsoil became attractive to the Russian government as a means to overcome its own economic backwardness. However, domestic entrepreneurs failed to cope with this task due to a lack of experience, available capital, and talent. The contributions of Belgian, French, English, and German entrepreneurs to not only the modernization of industry but also the transformation of the entire way of life in the region have been traced. While the role of Western European capital was ambiguous, including the exploitation of workers and capital flight, the arrival of European entrepreneurs with their experience, financial opportunities, and business psychology contributed to job creation, the formation of largescale industry, technological progress, and the development of education, culture, and medicine. Under the influence of foreign capital, the steppe, rich in natural resources, transformed into an industrial giant, a status it maintained for the next hundred years.