P. Kulish’s epistolar contacts (based on archival sources)

Abstract

The chosen topic is determined by an urgent necessity to look into Panteleimon Kulish’s achievements as a piece of the Ukrainian society’s history, especially in the field of humanities, with the archival science occupying an important place within. It is an important factor combining past, present and future through epistolary work. National revival in Ukrainian society is impossible without an objective reception of P. Kulish’s creative heritage. At present, the letters of famous people are put at the level with other archival documents: protocols, notes, petitions, orders, diaries, and memoirs, notes of party and state bodies. Nowadays, in general use and open access there are huge archival collections, among which one can find many unprintable handwritten materials. Therefore, through a systemic and scrupulous scientific research, we are to find out the mysterious figure of P. Kulish, full of contradictions and contrasts, as state the scientists who have been studying his activities and work for more than a hundred years. However, the present stage of studying P. Kulish’s activities raises a necessity of carrying out a more complete, deeper and more thorough development of documentary sources, including correspondence. The Kulish letters provide his researchers with reliable facts about the artist's biography and work, and allow them to study and analyze in detail the cultural space of that time, that is, one way or another, represented in today's reality, as history repeats itself. The modern researcher is attracted to P. Kulish’s personality by the infinity of handwritten material, now awaiting its publication. With the involvement of archival material, the proposed publication considers various aspects of P. Kulish's relationship with his surroundings, analyzes his epistolary heritage as Kulish's correspondence is of a literary-scientific and cultural-social nature. Covering the views and ideas of P. Kulish, based on historical archival sources, the research addresses to documentary materials while working with epistolary sources, as well as introduces the writer's correspondence into scientific circulation.