The Development of Ukrainian Local Monographic Studies in the Context of World Humanities in the First Half of the 20th Century

Abstract

Monographic studies at the local level (of the street, village, town, district) are gaining popularity in the conditions of deep social transformations in the Ukrainian village. The Ukrainian village of the early 21st century is going through a period of changes. The social and common features and their household specific character have not been formed yet. That’s why the local studies are relevant and effective at this stage. As a result of this fact the study of the experience of previous generations of Ukrainian and European scientists (representatives of various social disciplines and humanities) can be useful in shaping the program and methodological approaches for modern researchers of the Ukrainian countryside. It is emphasized in the article that during the 1920s and 1930s versatile local monographic studies have been conducted independently in various countries (the USA, Poland, Hungary, Romania). Ukrainian ethnologists have faced the urgent problem of studying and understanding the cultural and everyday features of various local groups of population and identifying complex links between them at the regional and national levels. Peculiar attention is paid to the activities of ethnographic centers of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (Ethnographic Commission, Khvedir Vovk Museum (Cabinet) of Anthropology and Ethnology, etc.). These are just its members who have substantiated and used the method of stationary study of the local areas as the leading one in their research work. The permanent method of field ethnography, being the main one in the process of collection and systematization of factual material for monographic study, is analyzed. It is proved that the local monographic studies have become especially popular in the 1920s and 1930s, in the period of social and political changes of a global scale. The local monograph is especially important and effective in the critical periods or after them. Permanent ethnography allows to determine the qualitative characteristics of the object of study, to develop the main parameters of subsequent mass research. The micro-approach program in choosing the object of study and identifying the relationships between different phenomena (nature, economy, culture, etc.), the confidence that the local approach will enable better understanding of the features of such relationships are common for the researchers of the local groups.