The phenomenon of business memoirs in the English-language sociocultural context of the late 20th – early 21st centuries

The purpose of the study is to identify the cultural specificity of memoir texts of entrepreneurs of the late 20th – early 21st centuries. The article defines the cultural and historical prerequisites for the formation of business memoirs as a modification of the memoir text. The main attention is paid to the description of the cultural and historical events that influenced the formation of the typology and periodization of the memoir text in Western Europe and the United States. In addition, a descriptive analysis of the structural and substantive characteristics in modern memoir texts of entrepreneurs is presented, through which the reasons for the increased demand for entrepreneurial memoirs were identified. The scientific novelty of the study consists in determining the genesis of business memoirs as a type of memoir text and systematizing the structural and substantive characteristics of English-speaking entrepreneurs’ memoirs based on their cultural context. As a result of the study, it was found that the current popularity of business memoirs in Western countries is explained by their technical development, as well as the cultural tradition of doing business and the tradition of writing memoirs. It was also established that the above-described traditions are a consequence of the development in the United States of ideas and images of Puritanism as a branch of Christianity.