Diplomatic Service of Maria Dontsova: Little-Known Facets of a Famous Figure (Personal Story to the Collective Portrait of Ukrainian Women Diplomats)

The purpose of the article is to highlight the activities of Maria Bachynska-Dontsova in the field of diplomatic service during its formation as a state institution in the closest to modern form. The research methodology is based on the principles of scientificity, historicism, and systematicity. To identify and classify sources, the methods of archival heuristics and source study criticism were used; to study the activities of M. Dontsova as a representative of women in Ukrainian diplomacy, methods of prosopography were used. The relevance of the study stems from the lack of scientific research on the role of women in the formation of the Ukrainian diplomatic service during the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921, and in particular the lack of coverage in the scientific literature of M. Dontsova’s activity as a member of Ukrainian diplomatic missions. The scientific novelty of the research results lies in the reconstruction based on the identified archival sources of M. Dontsova's activity as an employee of the Ukrainian diplomatic service and the reflection of her personal history in the collective portrait of Ukrainian female diplomats. M. Bachynska-Dontsova went down into the history of the Ukrainian diplomatic service as the wife of the head of the press bureau of the EDM UPR in Switzerland, prominent statesman and politician D. Dontsov, whom she helped with information and publishing activities, translations, and maintaining contacts with readers. Through her tireless work, she had demonstrated the essential role of a diplomat's wife in the diplomatic service. At the same time, she became one of the representatives of women in the Ukrainian diplomatic service. Like the vast majority of women in diplomatic missions, she did not have leadership authority but was a “universal government official” as an accountant, translator, clerk, and government commissioner. Noteworthy is her activity in the field of public and cultural diplomacy after completing diplomatic service in women’s NGOs to form a positive image of Ukraine abroad, to tell the truth about Ukrainian problems, to develop tools for cultural diplomacy