The Slovenian language played an important role in the history of Russian-Slovenian scholarly contact. The unique linguistic material of Slovenian attractedthe research of important nineteenth-century Russian linguists. Thisarticle discusses in greater detail how complex issues were resolved with regardto studying Slovenian dialects, their scholarly description and classification,and the borders between them. It is interesting that an important contributionto solving these issues was made by the Russian scholar Izmail Sreznevskyand somewhat later by his student Jan Baudouin de Courtenay.V zgodovini rusko-slovenskih znanstvenih stikov je pomembno vlogo odigralslovenski jezik, ki je s svojim enkratnim jezikovnim gradivom raziskovalnopritegnil pomembne ruske jezikoslovce 19. stoletja. Pričujoče delo naj bi podrobjenepokazalo, na kateri način so se reševala zapletena vprašanja raziskovanjaslovenskih narečij, njihovega znanstvenega opisa, sestavljanja znanstveneklasifikacije in določanja zemljepisnih mej slovenskih narečij. Zanimivoje, da sta pri reševanju navedenih vprašanj pomembno prispevala ravno ruskiraziskovalec Izmail Sreznjevski in nekoliko pozneje njegov učenec Jan Baudouinde Courtenay
