Memoirs of Vasyl Nahirnyi as a Historical Source

Abstract

The article aims to investigate the information capacity of Vasyl Nahirnyi's memoirs based on their comprehensive study, reproduction of the history of their formation, analysis of content and semantic connotations. The research methodology is determined by the specifics of working with ego documents and consists in the complex, complementary use of analytical-synthetic, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, biographical, chronological methods of scientific knowledge. When working on the problem, the principles of historicism, objectivity, and complexity were followed, making it possible to comprehensively consider the problem chosen for the study. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the integrated study of “From My Memoirs” by Vasyl Nahirnyi as a historical source. Its information potential is determined, which goes beyond the coverage of the biography and social activities of the author and has theoretical and practical significance for the study of the history of Ukraine in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries. Conclusions. Analysis of the source, based on the specified research tools, has allowed to form and substantiate a number of conceptual provisions related to the time of its creation, determined by the 1914–1919 period, to determine its information potential, which consists in reproducing the life path of Vasil Nahirnyi, his social and public initiatives, the activities of the Narodovtsi and the development of the Ukrainian national revival in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries on Western Ukrainian lands, the general socio-political situation in the region, permits us to reconstruct certain aspects of everyday life in Lviv during the First World War.