Ukrainian Studies in the Academic Heritage of Blaže Ristovski

The submitted paper is one more opportunity to pay attention to Ukrainian Studies in the great academic heritage of Blaže Ristovski (1931–2018) who was well known and highly appreciated in Ukraine as the prominent Macedonian scientist, public and cultural figure. Scientific activity of Blaže Ristovski was connected with M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology (IASFE) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine for many years. He was one of the initiators of the scientific cooperation between the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts and National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine as well as the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian-Macedonian Collections (vol. 1–6). B. Ristovski has been engaged in various issues dealing with Macedonian and Ukrainian parallels of formation and development of the historical and national consciousness as the Head of the Committee on the Macedonian-Ukrainian cooperation formed at the beginning of 2000s in the frame of the Agreement about friendship and cooperation between Ukraine and Republic of Macedonia, as well as the Agreement about cooperation between two our Academies. The years of scientific and organizational activity of B. Ristovski are connected with M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He was well-aware of the collections dedicated to Macedonian studies stored at V. Vernadskyi National Library of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Blaže Ristovski was a coordinator and author of a special issue of the Folk Art and Ethnology journal (no. 3, 2009), dedicated to Macedonian folkloristics and ethnology. The scholar has devoted his entire life to studying problems of Macedonian historical consciousness in historical and contemporary contexts, thus repeatedly emphasized parallels and analogies in the development and formation of the historical consciousness of the Ukrainian and Macedonian people. We consider the main works of Blaže Ristovski on this topic in the submitted article.