«University departments and Professor berets grow up on the base of this self-taught’s work»: informative possibilities of obituaries for the study of Lviv archaeology of the late XIX – first half of the XX century

Abstract

Obituaries as a source for prosopographic research are considered. They are usually a kind of summary of a person's life, clearly tied to the place of someone's activity, focus on achievements, show the best features, and describe mostly not private life, but public benefit and contribution to a particular field of work. It is noted that obituaries provide an opportunity to explore professional activities, but working with them requires a rather critical approach, as the dead are usually said/written as «good or nothing». In addition, they were mostly written by mates, close friends, and colleagues but not enemies or scientific opponents, so this type of source lacked critical evaluation. There are cases when the author of obituaries written on the day of death and dedicated to the anniversary, gave a completely different estimation of scientific activity (example – V. Antoniewicz about K. Hadaczek). Obituaries provide an opportunity to recreate the circle of communication, personal relationships, joint projects, and scientific outlook – it can be clearly seen in the numerous ones published in Ukrainian and Polish newspapers and scientific journals. It is noted that texts dedicated to the first, fifth, or tenth anniversary are more critical than «fresh» ones written on the day of death. Texts dedicated to the anniversaries of death can be used to obtain the estimation of scientific activity from contemporaries, but those written directly on the day of death or funeral are often the only source where the burial place, traits of character, slight moments of communication with colleagues, and so on are displayed. It has been stated that in any case, the obituary's task is to preserve the memory of a person in a certain environment. In general, obituaries are a little-studied and promising source, contain useful information on various aspects of the professional and everyday life of archaeologists, and at the stage when the history of archeology is formed as a separate area of research, many names are known only to a very narrow circle, archives scattered in different cities, countries, continents and exactly they serve as the source that pushes to further research. It is concluded that further analysis of the available obituaries of archaeologists of the XIX – first half of the XX century will allow the reconstruction of the history of the archaeological community of Lviv and Halychyna. Key words: obituary, Karol Hadaczek, Bohdan Janusz, Lviv archaeology, memorial paper.