Biographers Day is a professional holiday for writers, historians, and museum staff.

The profession of a biographer is known for many centuries. Ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch, who lived in the first century AD, is considered to be the first prominent representative of this profession. He started to write about actual people in his early days. He wrote the biographies of many historical persons: the first legislators - Lycurgus of Sparta and Numa Pompilius, the greatest military commanders - Alexander the Great, Gaius Julius Caesar and others.

The genre of biography originated in the Antiquity era, it was permanently developing, "adjusting" to the requirements of each era. Due to its flexibility, the genre managed not only to survive, but to meliorate as well. Currently, it is customary to distinguish fiction, scientific, popular and academic biographies, depending on the tasks facing the author.

The profession of a biographer is very painstaking and rather difficult. It is required to put a person's entire life in one book, and at the same time to write it in such a way that it ought to grab readers from the first pages. It is generally accepted that James Boswell succeeded it brilliantly. It is with his book about the poet Samuel Johnson that the date of this annual holiday is associated.

Reading of the biographies of drawers, craftsmen, watchmakers, jewelers, composers, performers, writers, musicians, etc helps us to understand their creative work, if not completely, then at least a little deeper. This particular quality distinguishes the genre of life history from other literary forms.

Is it possible that attention to details of personal life can bring something innovative for better understanding of the artist's work? Indeed, when musical piece or painting are created, they acquire outwardness; all of its most important narratives can be found directly within it. Hence, why do certain images prevail and vary in the works of an artist or a sculptor? How can one explain unexpected changes in style, long time gaps in create work, how does this or that author combine his vocation, mission and abilities? To get an answer,  one cannot avoid turning to the details of everyday life and an artist personality traits, his intellectual evolution, his communication environment and leisure activity.

Nonetheless, the fantasy of a writer-biographer should be strictly disciplined. Not every writer can become a proper biographer. It is not enough just to wield a skillful pen, one needs to be a historian, ethnographer, psychologist, and analyst. To write a reliable biography, an author has to spend months, and sometimes years, in archives and libraries, spend sleepless nights analyzing and methodizing the collected data, turning it in the truthful and logical artistic material.

The word Biography resulted from two ancient Greek words – “life” and “write”. In other words, a biography is a story about life of a person created by another person or several ones. While compiling a biography, a person's life is depicted in all colors and shades, starting from birth and gradually tracing all fateful milestones and events. Due to biographers, the future generations have the opportunity to learn all the details and bright moments of the life of artists of the bygone era, to feel its spirit and atmosphere.

Today is a professional holiday for those people to whom we should always be grateful for the opportunity to learn the life story of this or that author; the people, who selected a challenging profession, that constantly requires an answer to various questions: what are the boundaries of an acceptable immersion in the life of another person, what is a scientific biography, and what are its differences from the artistic one? Moreover, an answer to the most complicated issue - how biography and creativity are related?

Today is the day when it is worth re-reading the biography of a famous composer or singer, to get acquainted with the biography of a talented jeweler or inventor-innovator in the section "Authors/Producers".