EN
This paper deals with the life stories and with their research in ethnology and history. The author at first defines the term life story and refers to other possible terms which are used in the relevant scientific disciplines. He endeavors to point out characteristic features of this source - oral tradition, emergence on the researcher’s instigation, and describes the impact of those features on the ways how the life stories are utilized in ethnology and history with an accent on interdisciplinarity which is inherent in the study of those sources. Attention is paid to the research of narration and to performance studies which influenced the research of the life stories. The author means that concerns of ethnology and history often blend together, as proved e. g. by the researches of the ethnologist A. Lehmann.