Memoir

The memoir (recollections) is a documentary-artistic genre in which the author narrates real events of the past that he witnessed or took part in, and famous people and the era, relying on his own memory. The memoir combines the reliability of historical testimony with the subjectivity of a personal view and artistic exposition; it is an important source for history and literary studies. The world tradition of memoir writing is rich: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, the recollections of many writers and statesmen. In Ukrainian literature outstanding examples of the genre are Oleksandr Dovzhenko's Diary (on the border of memoir and confession), Yurii Smolych's recollections A Tale of Unrest about the literary life of the 1920s, the memoirs of Dokiia Humenna and Ulas Samchuk (On a White Horse), and numerous testimonies about the era of the Executed Renaissance and the repressions.