«Утрата языка – это утрата народности». Из архивного наследия академика А.А. Шахматова

The article gives an overview of the forgotten ideas of academician A.A. Shakhmatov concerning the problems of language policy and cultural and
historical ties of the Slavic peoples. The scientist talks about the commonality of the «little Russian», «great Russian» and «Belarusian» tribes, about their
ethnological roots. The article highlights the issues of sociolinguistics formation in the late 1910s and the role of A.A. Shakhmatov in solving the problems of
geo-linguistics.