Gonchar O. Problems of Ukraine's history and culture M.I.Kostomarov's epistolerie legacy.

The theses for the research time first in a complex way the problems of Ukraine's history and culture in the epistoleric legacy of M.I.Kostomarov - a well-known historian, publicist and publie figure. They analyse both published and unpublished legacy of the scolar which makes up nearly 600 units in 2 archival fuds and collections of manuscripts from 3 libraries and 1 museum. Much of the epistolerie souces have been represeted for the first time. The sources are systematized according to several criteria; their archeographie peculiarities as well as those of the corrspondents epistoleric style are determintd. By making a source sciece analysis a thematie differention of contens of the correspondence has been made; according to the problem - chronological principle the main problems of Ukraine's history and culture have been determined including: M.Kostomarov's scientific dispute with M.Pogodin on the origin of Rus; his creatin oh the historical image of B.Khmelnytsky and I.Mazepa; the scholar's struggle hor establishing the Ukrainian language and culture onthe etnically Ukrainian lands under the Russian Empire's conditions in the 40-80-ies of the XIX century$ the historian's and his correspondents' attitude to the sociopolitical events of the second half of the XIX century. All these plots are analyzed in relevant chapters. The appendixes systematize the number of the letters, the place they are kept in, periods of correspondence, biographic data on the addressors and correspondents. The epistolerium is defined as a multy-strata and exclusively informative source for researching comprehensively the important problems of Ukraine's history and culture.