Long-term developments in autobiographical writing in the Netherlands since 1500

Abstract

The text of the opening lecture delivered by a well-known Dutch historian at the International Conference "Autobiographical Сompositions in an International Research field: people, texts, practices" is presented. The author used an example of his own researches of the corpus of diaries and autobiographies texts by Dutch authors of XVI-early XX centuries to consider some basic aspects of investigation of autobiographical texts as a line of historical studies as well as the role of that material in comprehension of the history of the society and personality.