Abstract: The purpose of this article is to study the history of collecting and researching the folklore of the Bashkirs of the Russian Federation, which occupies an important place in the spiritual heritage of the people. In Bashkirology, a number of articles are devoted to the historiography of Bashkir folklore, there are observations on the collection and study of folklore of a particular region in review articles about materials collected during expeditions, but there is no special study on the history of the collection and study of folklore of the Bashkirs of the Russian Federation. The subject of this research is information about the collection and research of folklore of Bashkirs compactly living in different regions away from the mother ethnic group, various studies that mention the folklore of Bashkirs of a particular region, as well as field studies of modern folklorists in the studied regions. At the stage of data collection and initial evaluation of the material, the bibliographic method was used. The methodology of end-to-end research of essay literature, journals covering the time period of the XIX and the first quarter of the XXI century was used. The methodological basis of the article is the works of domestic, including Bashkir, researchers-predecessors in the field of the history of folklore studies. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time in one study, information was collected about the collection and study of folklore of Bashkirs compactly living in seven regions of the Russian Federation. The chronological sequence traces the history of the recording of Bashkir folklore outside the Republic of Bashkortostan. It is noted that the collection and study of Bashkir folklore acquires a relatively noticeable scope and in Soviet times becomes a matter of state from the case of individual enthusiasts-amateurs, put on a solid scientific basis; the great importance of academic expeditions is emphasized. The study showed that the richness of Bashkir folklore is distinguished by the Orenburg, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk regions, that the folklore of the Chelyabinsk Bashkirs turned out to be the most studied.

Keywords: Orenburg Territory, Bashkirs, records, archive, regions, expeditions, study, collection, folklore, epic