КНИГА ЯК ЗБЕРЕЖЕННЯ ДУХОВНОЇ ТА ІСТОРИЧНОЇ ПАМ'ЯТІ ЕТНОСУ

Documentary ethnoheritage (heritage of foreign Ukrainians) is primarily a national heritage that needs protection and preservation. The purpose of the article is to find ways to preserve the spiritual and intellectual resources of Ukrainians in the diaspora, the publishing heritage of the Ukrainian emigration, which may turn into a lost, little-known not only to the general public, but also to scientists, the heritage of Ukrainians abroad, the preservation of a book created in the diaspora, which is equal to the preservation “paternal past” (according to V. Isayev), as historical monuments, because the printed word is a symbol of the development of ethnic identity. An attempt is being made to propose a definition of a book of ethnic Ukrainians that is valuable for the general culture of Ukraine, which represents the historical and cultural heritage of communities, published outside the territory of the historical homeland, a kind of “certificate of protection” similar to the currently existing and widely used concept of “book monuments” and thereby expanding the scope of this concept; to introduce a new definition into the cultural and scientific circulation: book monuments of Ukrainian abroad, thereby protecting against unforced extraction, from separation from the general Ukrainian culture of the intellectual and spiritual heritage of the ethnic group living outside the borders of the historical homeland, and underestimation of the weight of this powerful spiritual resource. Of extraordinary historical value are, in particular, the printed books published by the first Ukrainian printing houses of the diaspora, with great difficulty, thanks to the efforts of extraordinary patriotic enthusiasts, for money collected, most often by communities, as a rule, they were printed on not very highquality paper, had simple (whence gold, silver, precious stones, leather on the cover, when the settlers lived, often, even in dugouts, they had one pair of shoes for the whole family), but still artistically designed covers. Behind these first prints of immigrants – the history of Ukrainian abroad through the prism of publishing monuments. This is not only a repertoire of Ukrainian books, but also a reflection of the richness and peculiarities of the language of immigrants who represented different regions of Ukraine. That is why this literature, which describes the fate of hundreds of thousands of living people, forced exiles, is so valuable for the history of Ukraine. The introduction of a new definition will make it impossible, in a way, to disperse Ukrainian book monuments abroad into the categories of such concepts as “valuable book”, “rare book”; will contribute to improving the culture of user service; their awareness of the true perception of the reality of Ukrainian immigrants, will take its place in library ethnology. For the type of documents that we offer, it is necessary to develop elements of their formalized description. The type of documents “book monuments of Ukraine abroad” should become part of the comprehensive information resource of the NBUV, which will be a reliable guarantor of their preservation, which is especially important today, during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Keywords: book monuments of the Ukrainian diaspora; historical and cultural heritage of Ukrainians abroad.