Contemporaries’ memoirs about N.V. Charykov’s diplomatic activity

The article focuses on N.V. Charykov, who was an outstanding Russian diplomat who played an important role in Russia’s foreign policy. His activity is reflected in many official documents. However, they not fully represent his interaction with other civil servants of the Russian empire, and, consequently, do not reflect in full the atmosphere in which the diplomat worked. At the same time, autobiographical sources containing a subjective approach by definition are not capable of giving objective characteristic of his activity. We do not consider the memoirs of the diplomat himself, as our objective is to find out his contemporaries’s opinion of him. The considered memoirs can be classified in two basic types – diaries and memoirs. Diaries can be divided into two types – business and personal. The latter are much less informative than the former. A personal diary has an advantage over a business one from the point of view of the emotional colouring and to a certain degree reproduces attitudes of the individuals described. The memoirist’s line of activity is important. Diplomats’ memoirs contain a better weighed appraisal of the diplomat’s activity. The authors, who were not diplomats themselves, display their incompetence. The memoirs contain different, sometimes opposite assessment of the diplomat’s activity, that is another proof of their subjectivity. At the same time, they help to better understand the motives of N.V. Charykov’s activity and the attitude of the milieu to him.