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Abstract
The present article describes the forms and directions of activity in the field of ethnographic knowledge of the Podillia Laboratory, which was established in early 1924 at the Vinnytsia branch of the National Library of Ukraine of the VUAN (The Ukrainian Academy of Sciences). The Laboratory in every way contributed to the preservation of ethnographic artefacts, folklore and ethnographic monuments. Its task was to hold together local researchers and to collect and popularize regional knowledge. In other words, the Laboratory was primarily engaged in library, bibliographic, monument protection, publishing, and political education activities.
The Laboratory was composed of about 30 experts specialized in various sciences and led by V. Atamanovsky. The Laboratory carried out a large-scale research into the region, which resulted in 26 separate publications of research papers. Taken together, the research papers issued in 1924 to 1929 should have been a kind of an encyclopaedia of the Podillia.
The programmatic exploration of V. Atamanovsky is of methodological significance as it reflects his views on the role and place of area studies in the comprehensive solution of ethnography problems, "Area study in the Podillia, its immediate tasks, needs and roles from a perspective of area studies of the Podillia Laboratory," the main provisions of which are relevant to the Ukrainian regional studies and, of course, have considerable exploratory interest.