The heritage of a creative individual as a factor in shaping the style and form of biographical research

Abstract

The article focuses on the study of the heritage of a creative individual as a factor in shaping the style and form of biographical research in the context of Culture Studies. Using the life and work of film director Renita A. Grigorieva as a case study, the article reveals the conceptual foundations of writing a biography based on diary entries, letters, manuscripts and other ego documents employing the field anthropology methods (videos, audio recordings, conversations). Subjective human experience is considered as an internal form of the biographical structure — that in which a person lives, in which his integral life and inner activity of comprehending experience manifest themselves. The author considers the following methodological positions in the work on the biography of a creative individual, which helps to move towards a voluminous, vivid and deep understanding of the phenomenon. These positions are the following: relying on the stylistics of life, activity, spoken and written word of the individual; taking into account the distinctive intonation structure of their diary and autobiographical notes, conversations, oral speech; taking into account the special worldview and attitude of the creative individual to life. In structuring biographical material, it seems appropriate to use a non-linear approach. It means dividing a biography into chapters and paragraphs not by the number of years lived, but by the semantic stages of a person’s inner activity, by the eventfulness, the depth and intensity of their comprehension in diaries; taking into account the periods of life that the author of the ego documents highlights, as well as his semantic accents in understanding facts; the way a creative individual’s work is integrated into the annual cycle of the cultural tradition to which they belong; the value of the “sound” of a historical epoch in the study of ego documents. Special attention is paid to ethical issues in working with personal diaries, letters and manuscripts, which can be solved by: the moral code of the researcher and internal questioning in making a decision towards publication or non-publication of materials; the principle of co-authorship, collegiality and unanimity in writing a biography to preserve respect for the inner life of the individual. A necessary condition for achieving the integrity of the study of creative individual is to look at them through the prism of the qualities of a mythological hero that they inherits in culture. In this context it is important for the scholar to search for the “testament” or the “last word” as the result of a life path before passing into eternity. The considered vectors of building a biography of a creative individual can enrich the approaches available in this field and get further development in examining the cultural foundations of this phenomenon.

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