Archive of V.N. Chernetsov as a creative laboratory of a researcher (1920s)

The article is devoted to the problem of the anthropological factor in science. The archive of the famous Russian ethnographer V.N. Chernetsov who studied the Ugric peoples, was the base for personally related field research reconstruction. Using the graphological examination of the texts, three types of the fieldnotes were distinguished: diaries and "ethnographic notes" as "fair" copies and a draft version of fixing material obtained by observation and in-depth interviewing. In addition, the archive contains reports on the expeditions of V.N. Chernetsov, including a much more substantial component of analytics and generalizations. They are written as the fair copies.For a versatile approach to the field laboratory of V.N. Chernetsov, the initial period of his ethnographic collections at the Mansi - the 1920s is distinguished. It is established that the story and the poetic exposition of the myth closely related to it refer to the first ethnographic expedition of the scientist on the river Lozjva in 1925. The subject of expeditionary gatherings was localized mainly in the tangible heritage; information on traditional beliefs is extremely rare. Perhaps, this was partly due to the fact that a proper measure of trust between the researcher and informants still had not been established. A report on this expedition, demonstrating a good command of the basics of the material culture analysis methodology, suggests that it was made after V.N. Chernetsov s entering Leningrad University. In the second expedition, the adjustment of thematic priorities is clearly visible: much more attention is paid to the traditional worldview and the interest in the Mansi social order. Perhaps the evolution of V.N. Chernetsov s views as a second-year ethnographer student was influenced by V.G. Bogoraz, who taught a course on intangible heritage.In relation to field research of V.N. Chernetsov in the 1920s it could obviously said about the included observation and the method of empathy, that is, empathy with current events, the desire to share the same scale of assessments and values as the ethnos under study. The desire of V.N. Chernetsov in the first expedition to merge with the Mansi, become like them, is clear from his fieldnotes. Based on this, primary attention was paid to the regular study of the Mansi language in the context of ethnographic everyday life. The methodology of field research, in turn, was determined by the general humanistic attitude of V.N. Chernetsov to the indigenous peoples of Siberia, which also appears from the fieldnotes. Among field materials in the 1920s "ethnographic notes" prevailed as a fixation of the directly observed realities of ethnic culture. Based on them, generalizing texts were written characterizing the culture of the studied Mansi group as a whole. The appeal to the diary format was occasional.