A. A. Ivanov Regional studies of Mari in the  1920–1930s: towards the preservation  of a historical-documentary heritage  of a region

Abstract: The article examines the main phases in the history of the regional study movement in the Mari Autonomous Oblast during the pre-war period. The author discusses the contribution of the local regional study organizations (1926–1937) to the study of the history, ethnography, and culture of this region’s peoples, including through the development of questionnaire programs and survey sheets for the collection of primary data directly from the population or with its help. The author also describes the contents and the information potential of the main document bodies, compiled as a result of a regional study of this area in archives, and through periodicals and historical-regional publications of the 1920– 1930s. The research was conducted on the basis of the fullest possible elicitation of the historical sources, in this case of the original historical-ethnographical material stored in archives (federal, regional, departmental, scientific) and contained in contemporaneous and later publications. The author also conducted a textual and archaeographical analysis of the source contents, a source criticism and a determination of their informational elaboration. The contribution of the multi-sided efforts of the Mari regional studies societies and their affiliations are evident in the primary source collections of the Mari El Republic State Archives and of the local pre-war periodicals, especially in the monographs describing rural settlements and in the surveys on peasant daily life of the given region on the eve and during the years of mass collectivization, which are unique sources for the history of the said region in the 1920–1930s.

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