Biographical writing as archaeology of ruins

Abstract

The article is devoted to biographical writing, which by the methodologies of the 20th century was thrown out of the field of humanities research. It returns in the new century with cultural anthropology, gender studies and – above all – memory studies. However, it raises a lot of questions, including doubts about the representation (author of the biography) and witnesses of events. The author of the article compares the work of a biographer with the work of an archaeologist who verifies the sources and reconstructs the whole on the basis of the background and contexts of time and place. In the biographer’s work, however, he notices one more element: research subjectivity, which in a world filled with nostalgia, we are not able to negate or eliminate.