Provincial town in the context of the humanities

The paper examines a provincial town as a cultural phenomenon within an interdisciplinary approach. The research seeks to address the main trends in defining the term ‘provincial town', namely philosophical, historical and typological, sociological, ethnographic, psychological, semiotic, cultural ones, as well as review this term from the standpoint of ethnography and urbanism. The author analyzes the various concepts of the city as a cultural phenomenon. The consideration of a provincial town allows one to explicate the problem of coordination between global and local (provincial) elements. The research shows the need to preserve the local identity, which is caused by overcoming the crisis of cultural identity generated by heterogeneous cultural space of modern society. Based on the analysis of the concepts of a provincial town, the author reveals that every town has its unique and distinctive cultural space.