Intellectual elite of Western Ukraine in the 1920s - 1930s in modern historical and biographical research

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to elucidate achievements of modern Ukrainian biographical research on life activities of people who dealt with creative work in the western region of Ukraine during the interwar period*. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, systematicity, objectivity, as well as methods of historiographical analysis and synthesis. The scientific novelty consistsin the fact that, on the basis of a wide range of prosopographical sources, there has been analysed accumulation and dissemination process of historical knowledge about the activities of Western Ukraine intellectual elite during the interwar period; contribution of researchers to the issue study has been personified; the range of insufficiently studied issues and promising directions for further scientific research have been outlined. The Conclusion. Modern rapid increase in biographical research, growth of general interest in biographical studies became possible owing to Ukraine’s independence. Researchers focused on representatives of the creative minority of Western Ukrainians, who had a direct impact on the cultural and intellectual development of citizenship, participated in the formation or design of new ethical and behavioral models, scientific views, worldview formation of people. The peculiarity of the Western Ukrainian elite consisted in the fact that its spokesmen were closely connected with social and political movement, national life. Historical portraits of M. Vozniak, M. Halushchynskyi, V. Hnatiuk, S. Dnistrianskyi, M. Korduba, I. Krevetskyi, I. Krypiakevych, K. Levytskyi, M. Lozynskyi, V. Mudry, Yu. Romanchuk, K. Studynskyi, S. Rudnytskyi, V. Starosolskyi, S. Tomashivskyi are well presented relatively. At the same time, there is a need to continue research using the prosopographic method in order to replenish the information base on the individual activities of famous teachers, scholars, public figures – I. Bryk, I. Halushchynsky, F. Kolessa, D. Korenets, O. Terletsky, V. Shchurat, Ya. Voytiuk, K. Soshynsky, and the others. Topical is the issue of taking into consideration the entire complex of facts of a personal, professional, situational and bibliographic nature, without which it is impossible to write scientific biographies of intellectual and cultural figures