O biografii jako przedmiocie i rezultacie badań psychospołecznych

Biographies are one of the earliest literary forms, bringing together informative, academic, documentary and didactic functions. For ages the most famous of them have been presenting lives of celebrated and holy men to give example and shape deserved personality traits of the whole generations of readers. The times changed but biographies still form a separate genre and carry on to popularise certain manners. Various scientific disciplines took a keen interest in them due to their specific content. By social and humanistic sciences biography studies is treated as a subdiscipline defining important and original research trends. This article presents biographies as a subject and result of academic research.