Collection of autographs at Institute of Manuscript of V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine: history of creation, research, and usage

The aim of the work. The research has been prepared on the occasion of centenary jubilee of V. I. Vernadskyi National Library of Ukraine and includes the study of foundation history of the Library in general, as well as its separate departments and collections. The objectives of the current paper are studying the history of autograph collection formation at the Institute of Manuscript of VNLU, determining the principles of its establishing, registering and creation of scientific cataloguing. The methodology of the research is based on historicism and scientific objectivity principles, as well as on general historical methods, such as chronological, retrospective, problem and topical, statistic and analytical. The scientific novelty of the work is in research of history of autograph collection formation in the Institute of Manuscript of V. I. National Library of Ukraine on the basis of archival sources. The sources and ways of the autograph collection during one hundred year period are researched and analysed. The paper demonstrates the activity of officers of the Department (now - Institute) of Manuscript, that is work in establishing, processing and researching autographs of prominent historical figures. The current contents of the autograph collection is sketched, and a method of scientific cataloguing of autograph prints from the Institute of Manuscript is proposed. Conclusions. The main principles of creation manuscript collections in the Library, shaped in 1920s, caused a necessity to extract the autographs of prominent personalities of Ukrainian and world history, culture, science into a separate collection. The autograph collection, which includes the period from 1826 up to the present, is a constituent part of the manuscript heritage of Ukraine and a valuable historical and biographical source that is actively used by scholars in the research work.