SHEVCHENKO STUDIES DISCOURSE OF LETTERS FROM LITERARY CRITIC M. I. STOROZHENKO TO HISTORIAN M. V. STOROZHENKO

Abstract

The goal of the research. The purpose of the article is to analyze the letters of the famous literary critic Mykola Illich Storozhenko (1836—1906) to his cousin, historian, and teacher Mykola Volodymyrovych Storozhenko (1862—1942 (1944?), which concern his work on the biography and works of Taras Shevchenko and his publications on this topic. The methodology of the work is based on the use of biographical, descriptive, chronological methods of research, analysis, and synthesis, which make it possible to systematize and generalize the material and exhaustively characterize it. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time a significant number of letters of Mykola Illich Storozhenko to Mykola Volodymyrovych Storozhenko, which are stored in the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv, are brought into scientific circulation, the main problems concerning the Shevchenko studies of Professor Mykola Illich Storozhenko, which he discussed in epistolary communication, are highlighted. He is the author of 11  articles and notes on Shevchenko studies based on archival materials and published in journals and collections of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Conclusion. The analysis of the epistolary made it possible to highlight the preparatory stages of M. I.  Storozhenko’s work on the study of Taras Shevchenko’s biography and works, his reception of the works of other researchers in this field of science. The letters of scholar characterize the professional and moral qualities of its author, his relations with contemporaries, including communication with relatives, his Ukraine-centered position, and reproduce the laboratory of creative search, achievements, and mistakes in the field of Shevchenko studies. This epistolary is a valuable source that shows the development of Shevchenko studies in Ukraine, the communication of scholars, and demonstrates the involvement of new researchers in the study of the life and work of the genius poet in the late nineteenth century, including the famous literary critic Mykola Ilyich Storozhenko, and reveals new facts about his biography and activities.