Critical and etymological sketches: examples of misunderstandings, inaccuracies,
and falsification in Russian dialectal etymology and lexicology

The paper is devoted to some negative phenomena in Russian lexicology and etymology. They are illustrated by some examples. The cases in point are: usage of non-existent words, incorrect statement of the other authors’ etymologies, distortion of dialectal words. Particular attention is paid to L. E. Eliasov’s «Dictionary of Russian dialects of Transbaikalia», which contains falsified
data. The consequences of the uncritical use of Eliasov’s dictionary are highly undesirable. Meanwhile, his data are widely used in other dialect dictionaries of the Russian language («Dictionary of Russian folk dialects», «Dictionary of Russian dialects of Siberia»), quoted and analyzed in Proto-Slavic dictionaries, as well as in many other dialectological, and historicolinguistic
publications, concerning different languages, not only Slavonic.