«Materials for the Correspondence Autobiography» by Oleksa Varavva as an Original Type of Ego-Sources (According to the Documents of the Writer’s Archive)

The purpose of the work is to study the correspondence autobiography of the writer, editor, translator and public figure Oleksa Petrovych Varavva (1882–1967) and determine its factual potential for studying not only the activities of Ukrainian postwar emigration in the USA and Canada, but also in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s–1930s years. The methodological basis of the research is the general principles of objectivity, systemic analysis, historicism, as well as the special-historical method of epistolary discourse. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the article examines the previously unknown source of «Materials for the Correspondence Autobiography» by O. Varavva. Conclusions. «Materials for the Correspondence Autobiography» of O. Varavva, compiled by his son O. Voronin in the Diaspora, is an unusual source for Ukrainian historical and literary science. They have great factual potential given their poor preservation of the writer's biographical documents. In particular, they are rich in information about the life and creative work, connections in the literary circles of O. Varavva in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s–1930s. There are valuable references in postwar letters about his litrrary and editorial work in Kyiv in the 1920s, living in the «Slovo» writer's house in Kharkiv. No less important are the materials of his epistolary about the activities of the Ukrainian Diaspora in the USA, Canada and Australia, because he was in contact with leading emigration figures such as H. Kostyuk, D. Nytchenko, H. Vashchenko, the future patriarch Mstyslav (Skrypnyk) and many others. Unlike the materials about the Soviet period, which are presented mainly in the form of memoirs, the events in emigration period in Western Europe and the USA are relevant at the time of writing the letters and reflect a real picture of the life of the Ukrainian emigration with its material, organizational problems and political confrontation. In general, despite the subjectivism inherent in ego-sources, the correspondence autobiography of O. Varavva is a valuable source for studying Ukrainian culture of the 1920s–1960s.