Biography in publications of scientific and cultural centers of Western Ukrainian diaspora

The goal of the research is to analyze the contribution made to the development of national biography by scientific and publishing centers of the Ukrainian diaspora, and their significance in the rise of culture and humanities in modern Ukraine. The research methodology is based on joint application of the principles of historical and scientific objectivity, source criticism, historiography and bibliography approaches. Scientific novelty consists in purposefully separating of issues related to biographical research and publishing done by the Ukrainian diaspora from its other areas of activity, thus highlighting its important features, problems, achievements, experiences and lessons. The main stages of development of biographical research in the main scientific centers of the diaspora during the 20th century, their main problem-thematic directions, issues of raising the methodological level, expanding the chronological and genre range are analyzed. Conclusions. Ukrainian diaspora's scientific and publishing centers have to their credit a significant contribution to the collection, systematization and publication of biographical and biobibliographic materials on prominent figures in Ukrainian history and culture, the liberation movement, and on numerous representatives of political and labor emigration in different countries. The merit of diaspora scientists is preserving the memory and dissemination of information about the honored national figures, whose names were forbidden to be mentioned in Ukraine during the Soviet era, to acquaint the general public of Ukrainians in their settlements, as well as the world community with Ukraine as an independent subject of world civilization process and its enormous creative human potential through the ages. The adoption by educators and scientists in the Homeland of historical and biographical achievements of their diasporic counterparts contributed to the rapid growth of biographical research in the first decades of Ukraine's independence.