On the History of the Scientific Justification of the Belarusian-Russian Dialect Boundary: West – East

Nikolai Pavlovich Antropov (Minsk, Belarus)

The geographical fate of the western-eastern part of the Belarusian-Russian borderland appears at least dramatic. Indeed, it is enough to look at the famous “Ethnographic Map of the Belarusian Tribe” compiled by E.F. Karski (1903; 1917) to confirm the significant shift to the west of the eastern border of the Belarusian ethnos that occurred in just 100 years, and, naturally, the narrowing of the territory of the Belarusian language in its dialects. It has already been noted that the indicated border largely coincides with the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, see, in particular, [1]. Of course, Karski was referring to the linguo-genetic status of the predominantly rural population at that time, whose share in the total population subsequently decreased constantly and steadily – for well-known reasons. The classic of Belarusian linguistics correctly noted that his map was compiled not only with consideration of the main dialectal features of the Belarusian language – specifically phonetic and morphological – but also using relevant data from practically exhaustive literature on ethnography and population statistics of the Russian Empire 1.

In fact, the same picture of geographical distribution to the east of the current state border of the “Belarusian dialect of the Russian language” (in the terminology of that time), namely its northeastern (mainly) and southwestern dialects, is provided by the well-known “Experience of the Dialectological Map of the Russian Language in Europe,” published in 1915 by the leaders of the Moscow Dialectological Commission (MDC) N.N. Durnovo, N.N. Sokolov, and D.N. Ushakov. Compared to Karski’s map, a sector extending to the west is drawn here with a horizontal line along the line of Pochinki – Spas-Demyanskoye. However, a rather significant territorial segment appears, manifesting a diffuse zone – “dialects transitional from Belarusian to Southern Great Russian.” The MDC map, as is known, was compiled exclusively according to linguistic/dialectal facts, yet here too, it is hardly anything but phonetic and morphological.

Library in the village of Sereda (Smolensk region)

Until the early 1960s, i.e., until the publication of the “Dialectological Atlas of the Belarusian Language” (DABM) in 1963 and the preparation in the late 1950s – 1960s of separate volumes of the “Dialectological Atlas of the Russian Language” (DARY), namely the remaining regional volumes (in particular, by this time two directly related to our topic were ready: “Atlas of Russian Dialects of the Northwestern Regions of the USSR” and “Atlas of Russian Dialects of the Central Regions to the West of Moscow”), which were later compiled into the now widely known and actively used three-volume corpus, the dialectal division of the East Slavic language continuum presented in the “Experience” of the MDC was generally accepted and reproduced on maps in monographs and textbooks – it is sufficient to refer to the maps in the first part of “Essays on Russian Dialectology” by R.I. Avanesov from 1949 and the textbook “for Teacher Training Institutes” “Russian Dialectology” by P.S. Kuznetsov from 1954, but with a number of clarifying changes in accordance with “Introduction to the History of the Russian Language” by N.N. Durnovo from 1927, published in Brno (or even direct borrowings of the material from the attached maps).

However, the content of this seemingly old map changes significantly. Thus, the Pskov group of Middle Great Russian dialects, according to the definition of the MDC map, becomes on Avanesov’s 1949 map a group of Middle Great Russian dialects (it “can be conditionally called Pskov”), transitional to Belarusian on a North Great Russian basis, which “formed, apparently, through the mixing of South-West Russian dialects of Novgorod type with Belarusian dialects.” Thus, the trend of transition actually appears directed along the line from north to south, which cannot fail to raise justified questions in connection with the exactly opposite vector of the ethnogenesis of the Polotsk Krivichs. Indeed, in a number of later works, this process is presented as secondary and motivated by the mutual influence of speakers of various dialects of incoming/resettled populations, predominantly from the Rostov and Suzdal lands, but also other eastern regions, with the dialects of the autochthonous population after the capture (actually, the destruction) of Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible and the extermination of the Novgorodians.

The same applies to the group of dialects (on the MDC map), transitional from Belarusian to Southern Great Russian. Firstly, it narrows, changes configuration, stretching vertically, and secondly, which is certainly even more important – it changes its name: dialects transitional to Southern Great Russian on a Belarusian basis. Interestingly, in the characterization of the Southern Great Russian dialect in Avanesov’s “Essays,” not a word is said about these transitional dialects, i.e., such crucial questions as the history of their emergence and the nature of the Belarusian basis, the mechanism of transition, its stages, etc., are left aside.

Even more advanced towards the Russian language is the characterization of the Russian dialects adjacent to the Belarusian in Kuznetsov’s textbook, where in the section “Main Dialects of the Russian Language and Grouping of Russian Dialects,” an interesting chapter “Russian Dialects with Belarusian Features” appears, in which the status of the transitional dialects according to the MDC maps of 1915 and Avanesov’s of 1949 changes radically, because it is one thing – the dialects of one language with a few features of another (although it would be appropriate to explain where these features come from) and quite another – transitional dialects. Thus, while formally accepting the East Slavic dialectal differentiation of the MDC map of 1915, its legend and conclusions contained in the commentary to it are subjected to obvious revision by Avanesov and Kuznetsov. However, we should also point out the obvious merit of the new/old map: there are still no – for now! – state (republican within the USSR) borders. However, this “for now” was already to some extent leveled in a number of works by Belarusian dialectologists of the mid-1950s dedicated to the creation of the DABM (primarily, Y.F. Matskevich and N.V. Birillo), where it was reported each time about the collection of dialect material only and exclusively “in the populated areas of the BSSR,” and was ultimately removed precisely by the publication of the Belarusian atlas in 1963, in which the Belarusian language in its dialects ended exactly at the border between the BSSR and the RSFSR. (I remind you that one of the three editors of the DABM, along with K.K. Krapiva and Y.F. Matskevich, was R.I. Avanesov, who, as indicated in the preface to the comments of the DABM, “carried out general scientific guidance of the works on the Atlas, prepared the staff of the compilers of the Atlas, and did an exceptionally large amount of work on editing the maps and comments”). It was at that time that Belarusian dialectology completely abandoned the study of the eastern part of its dialects 2. Therefore, it is not surprising that in the chapter “From the History of the Development of Linguistic Geography of the Belarusian Language” in the comments of the DABM, E.F. Karski’s “Ethnographic Map of the Belarusian Tribe” is not even mentioned, although the authors of the atlas are certainly aware of it, since, firstly, as auxiliary in the DABM, the map VII “Belarusian Dialects of the Early 20th Century According to the ‘Ethnographic Map of the Belarusian Tribe Compiled by Y.F. Karski’ [in 1903 – N.A.]” from the first volume of his fundamental “Belarusians” is presented (in the comments of the DABM, it is briefly characterized as follows: “the map has a schematic nature,” but “is a certain stage in the development of the linguistic geography of the Belarusian language”), and secondly, in a very complete (although not without some major works, namely [4; 8]) bibliographic section for that time, it is present under No. 277 (description of the 1917 edition) with a remarkable annotation: “The boundaries of the distribution of Belarusians and their language by provinces are determined. A map of the Belarusian (italics mine. – N.A.) territory is provided.”

Map of the Northern Belarusian Dialect (P. Rastorguev)

In this context, it is worth recalling that in the 1920s and 1930s, P.A. Rastorguev drew attention to the special nature of the dialects in the territory of what is now Bryansk and Smolensk regions. Thus, in the conclusion of the brochure “Dialects of the Eastern Districts of Gomel Province in Their Current State,” published in Minsk in 1927, he wrote: “The comparison of the eastern Gomel dialects with neighboring Belarusian ones shows that the eastern Gomel dialects, being in their basis just as Belarusian as the others (italics mine. – N.A.), represent a special dialectical phenomenon of the Belarusian language.” However, in a later monograph “Dialects in the Territory of Smolensk,” published, of course, in Moscow in 1960 (here in the “Conclusion,” it is indicated that the study, the field material for which was collected in 1929–1931, was completed in July 1944), he already defines the dialects of this territory (“most of the territory of Smolensk”) as m i x e d, which, in our opinion, is evidence of a clearly forced drift in the scholar’s views, conditioned by the difficult vicissitudes of his own fate and the socio-political discourse of the 1940s and 1950s, marked by the special status of “Russianness” in all areas of life in the USSR without exception.

But this was not yet the end of the verification process of the nature of the border dialects: later, in a number of works by S.M. Prokhorova, their Russian-Belarusian t r a n s i t i o n a l i t y is proven (however, as strange as it may seem from a methodological perspective – in the context of the Baltic substrate and the overall Baltic-Slavic language relations), but only concerning phenomena of dialect syntax. However, in one later generalizing monograph, the author of the concept goes much further, see: “By comparing the materials of the dialects of Western Smolensk with Belarusian and Ukrainian material, with data from other Slavic as well as Baltic languages, we concluded that due to historical reasons, the dialects of the territory in question and at the syntactic level (as well as others) formed as transitional Russian-Belarusian” [3, 32]. How the formation, in other words, the emergence of genetically t r a n s i t i o n a l dialects (the clarification “as well as others” indicates all linguistic levels) – again from the perspective of linguistic methodology – is not explained at all.

But there were still Russian dialectologists, also led by R.I. Avanesov. Being the author of almost all (except one, prepared by V.G. Orlova) methodological notes of the first (Yaroslavl 1945) edition of the “Program for Collecting Information for the Compilation of the Dialectological Atlas of the Russian Language,” he writes in the section “On the Construction of the ‘Program…’: “Regarding closely related (as in the text. – N.A.) Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, to establish the real boundaries existing between them and the Russian language, the collectors of material for the atlas of the Russian language must reach the territory of the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages (italics mine. – N.A.).” The highlighted phrase, although somewhat vague, could still imply a fairly objective analysis of the linguistic (dialectal) situation in the territories of the RSFSR adjacent to the republican borders of Belarus and Ukraine, which was expected in connection with the collection, generalization, analysis, and cartography of the materials collected in the late 1940s – mid-1950s for the DARY. Unfortunately, this did not happen, which was evidenced by several very interesting trial maps presented in the academic (prepared at the Institute of the Russian Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences), essentially programmatic collective monograph of 1962 “Questions of the Theory of Linguistic Geography” edited by R.I. Avanesov, on which “the territories of the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages” began immediately beyond the borders of the Russian Federation, which a priori introduced the border territories into the sphere of Russian dialects and the concerns of Russian dialectology. But even here, in the fourth chapter “Questions of the Interpretation of Data of Linguistic Geography,” authored by V.G. Orlova, there is a map “Transitional Zone between the Western and Eastern Groups of Russian Dialects,” where the main part of the boundary of this zone (northern and central) actually reproduces the eastern border of Karski’s map or is at least close to it.

Pokrovskaya Church in Stayki (Nevel District)

The rethinking in academic Russian dialectology of the Belarusian-Russian linguistic borderland is mainly associated with the works of K.F. Zakharova and V.G. Orlova from 1961 to 1970. In one of the first and hardly immediately, it is reported about the authors of the “Experience…” of the MDC “exaggerating the role of the ‘Belarusian’ element in the division of dialects in the western part of the territory of the distribution of the Russian language (according to the patterns of distribution of some features presented there, these dialects can be considered equally Belarusian and Russian)” [2, 20]. The conclusion from this postulate seems more than obvious, although incredible: in less than half a century, the vast dialectal mass underwent a transformation from the dialects of one language (Belarusian) through stages of mixing and/or transition to the dialects of another (Russian). This seems to be a unique case for the dialectal paradigms of the languages of the world.

Soon there followed a continuation. In the monograph by the authors “Dialectal Division of the Russian Language” from 1970, published following the academic “Russian Dialectology” from 1964 and directly related to it, the Russian-Belarusian dialect question is raised again, and it is indicated that “when limiting the territory of the distribution of the Russian language in the west, the most complex (italics mine. – N.A.) is the question of the boundary between the Russian and Belarusian languages.” After presenting a series of arguments in seven paragraphs, most of which are a brilliant example of verbal acrobatics and scientific cunning, since only a few remarks relate to the linguistic texture (there are 6: 3 from the field of dialect phonetics, 1 – morphology, and two lexical; see the fundamentally different number in the aforementioned monograph by N.N. Durnovo from 1927), the following conclusions are made: “The presented facts indicate that throughout the national period of existence of the East Slavic languages, features common to the two neighboring languages <…> entered into an organic combination with elements of the language systems of each of these languages and cannot be considered <…> characteristic predominantly for one of these languages. This explains the possibility of conducting the linguistic boundary p o l i n y i and g r a n i t s y g o s u d a r s t v e n n o y (my emphasis. – N.A.) in this work.” And here, the new dialectological map of the Russian language, first presented in the academic “Russian Dialectology” of 1964, outlines the linguistic boundary between Belarusian and Russian dialects in this way – strictly scientifically! – However, it is more or less obvious that if we combine the highlighted western, upper Dnieper, upper Desna, and interzonal groups of dialects, we will again see Karski’s map, which, in full accordance with the statement of N.I. Tolstoy made in Minsk at the conference in 1973 dedicated to Belarusian-Russian isolects, “in general, has not been seriously refuted by anyone, but only replaced by another (or others),” while “almost all of Smolensk, and then western Bryansk and southern Pskov will turn out to be Belarusian” [5, 82].

The fate of the southwestern protrusion along the diagonal vertical Klintsy – Starodub is indicative in connection with the 1964 map, which, on the one hand, seems to relate to Russian dialects, while on the other, is separated from the western group by a double line, which, according to the legend of the map, is a conditional boundary of early-formed Russian dialects. This obvious linguogeographical nonsense is resolved in the first volume of the DARY, where the specified area in the form of an empty spot of pink color is already attributed to the territory of the distribution of Belarusian dialects, but in the DABM it is absent by definition, as it lies beyond the borders of the BSSR.

Unfortunately, the administrative division, conditioned by the scientific-political conjuncture rather than the real dialectal division of the Belarusian-Russian language borderland, has caused serious damage to East Slavic dialectology 3, see, in particular, the presentation of Smolensk and Bryansk dialect materials in the “Dictionary of Russian Folk Dialects,” the project of the Smolensk dictionary from Leningrad that essentially failed (and remains unfinished), and so on, which is proposed to be examined in detail in the report.

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1 Half a century after the first presentation of Karski’s map, Y. Stankevich published an article in New York (also with an attached map, the eastern border of which essentially repeats Karski’s) with a very thorough analysis of the linguo-ethnic character, as well as the historical fates of the Belarusian-Russian borderland, see [4], which either remained unknown to Soviet scholars or (more likely) was ignored due to the well-known attitude towards émigré science and its figures at that time. See also the published in New York fundamental study by Y.V. Shevelev from 1953 [8], especially Chapter VI, dedicated to the problem of the eastern border of the Belarusian language.

2 With a few exceptions of relatively recent times, see [6; 7], and both works are written not by “pure” dialectologists, and the latter – long no longer by a Belarusian linguist.

3 And the well-known series of publications “East Slavic Isoglosses” could not eliminate it, of course.

Literature in the text:

1. Vitkovski V. Testimonies of Dialectologists about the Ancient Border between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Moscow State // Belarusica = Albaruthenica. Issue 1. Minsk 1993.

2. Zakharova K.F., Orlova V.G. Grouping of Russian Dialects According to Linguistic Geography // Questions of Linguistics. No. 6. Moscow 1963.

3. Prokhorova S.M. Selected Works. Minsk 2009.

4. Stankevich Y. Ethnographic and Historical Territories and Borders of Belarus // Stankevich Y. Historical Works. Minsk 2003.

5. Tolstoy N.I. Belarusian-Russian Isolates (Responses to Questionnaire) // Belarusian-Russian Isolates (Materials for Discussion). Minsk 1973.

6. Tsykhun G.A. Notes on Dialects and Dialectal Features of the Belarusian-Russian Borderland // Tsykhun G.A. Selected Works. Minsk 2012.

7. Chekmonas V. From the History of the Formation of Belarusian Dialects // Belarusian Language: Paths of Development, Contacts, Prospects: Materials of the III International Congress of Belarusian Studies “Belarusian Culture in the Dialogue of Civilizations” (Minsk, May 21–25, December 4–7, 2000). Minsk 2001.

8. Šerech J. Problems in the Formation of Belorussian // Supplement to Word. Vol. 9 (Monograph series; No 2). New York 1953; translation into Belarusian: Šerech Yuri (Shavyalyev). Problems of the Formation of the Belarusian Language // ARCHE Beginning. No. 6 (93). Minsk 2010.

Dialects in Synchrony and Diachrony: General Slavic Context [theses of the reports of the international conference] / Ed. P.Y. Hrytsenko. Institute of the Ukrainian Language of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Kyiv: KMM, 2014. // Antropov N.P. On the History of the Scientific Justification of the Belarusian-Russian Dialect Boundary: West – East. P. 16-24.