У статті висвітлюється походження східнослов’янських племен кривичів та новгородських словенів на підставі лінгвістичних, археологічних, історичних, антропологічних, етнографічних та інших свідчень. Комплексне використання сучасних досягнень суспільних наук підтверджує давню гіпотезу вчених про те, що предками зазначених племен були не наддніпрянські, а західні слов’яни з Південної Балтики.
In the studies of ethno- and glottogenesis of the East Slavs, the traditional opinion still prevails
which considers the ethnic base of the East Slavonic area homogeneous. According to this view, the
East Slavonic tribes settled in this area, gradually migrating in one direction alone, from the south
(i.e. from the Polissia and the Dnieper region) to die north, moving as far as the Novgorod and Pskov
regions. The marked resemblance between some local features of both the material and spiritual culture
of the Krivichi and the Ilmen Slavs as well as their dialects, on one hand, and those of the Baltic
Western Slavs, on the other, are generally assessed as resulting from trade and cultural links. As to
the possible participtation of the West Slavs in populating the nothem part of the present-day European
Russia and north-western Byelorussia, it is refuted by most linguists as well as some archaeologists.
This theory leaves not quite accounted for the dialectal differentiation of the East Slavonic
area, in particular the reasons underlying the emergence of the North Russian dialect and also the partition
of the Byelorussian dialectal area into two dialects, the Northeast and the Southwest ones, with
the transition dialects’ belt extending from the north-east to the south-west. However, results of newest
archaeological research furnish a sufficient evidence to consider the West Slavs of the South Baltic
region the ancestors of the Krivichi and the Ilmen Slavs. And yet, archaeological data are
«speechless», i. e. they cannot be interpreted in linguistic terms, and therefore are regarded as inconclusive
by linguists. In his paper the author for the first time employs an integrated approach to
ethnogenetic problems of this region, drawing on archaeological, linguistic, historical, anthropological
and other sources which complement each other, compensating in this way for their insufficiency.
Using results obtained by modem researchers from various branches of humanities, this integrated
approach corroborates the old hypothesis that the ancestors of the said tribes were the Western Slavs
of the South Baltic region rather than the Dnieper region Slavs.
