Towards the Preservation and Promotion of the Cultural (Linguistic) Heritage of the North Azovian Greeks in Independent Ukraine

The purpose of the paper is to research the issue of preservation and promotion of the linguistic heritage of the North Azovian Greeks – Urum and Roumean languages, to investigate the request of Ukrainian Greeks to learn Modern Greek, which is the official language of the metropolis of representatives of this ethnic community, as well as to analyze the general linguistic situation in the mentioned environment, etc. The research methodology is based on the scientific principles of historicism, objectivity and social approach using general scientific and special historical methods. The scientific research carried out allows us to state that for more than a quarter of a century of its activity (starting in 1995), thanks to the support of domestic and foreign government and public institutions, the Federation of greek communities of Ukraine worked hard towards the realization of one of its fundamental statutory tasks - popularization/preservation of linguistic heritage of the North Azovian Greeks, meeting the requests of the Greek community of Ukraine to learn the language of the metropolis, etc. The Federation of greek communities of Ukraine tried to create a favorable basis for their further functioning, and, therefore, preservation. At the same time, the request of Ukrainian Greeks to study these languages remains insignificant to this day, especially regarding the Urum and Roumean languages. The analysis of the dynamics of the request of Ukrainian Greeks for their study shows that in recent years, it was possible to observe a certain increase in the number of people willing to study the Modern Greek, and this is quite logical. It should also be noted that the original Urum and Roumean languages are currently on the verge of extinction, which was recorded in 2018 in the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, becoming more and more limited exclusively to the sphere of everyday communication of the older generation of the North Azovian Greeks