Based on the variants spoken in the Minsk region, an ethnographer Pavel Špileŭski [be] developed a Belarusian grammar using the Cyrillic alphabet in 1846.

A need for a dictionary of the Belarusian language has arisen during the publication of the “Acts Related to the History of Western Russia, compiled and published by the Archaeographical Commission” (“Акты, относящиеся к истории Западной России, собранные и изданные Археографическою комиссиею”) in 1843–53.

In his historical and linguistic study "About the Tribes Who Inhabited the Area of Belarus before the Time of Rurik" he explains the origins of ancient tribal names derived from native Belarusian words.

In its editorial introduction, it is noted that:The Belarusian local tongue, which dominates a vast area from the Nioman and the Narew to the Upper Volga and from the Western Dvina to the Prypiac and the Ipuc and which is spoken by inhabitants of the North-Western and certain adjacent provinces, or those lands that were in the past settled by the Kryvic tribe, has long attracted the attention of our philologists because of those precious remains of the ancient [Ruthenian] language that survived in that tongue.

[4]With over 30 thousand words the Dictionary was described as "an unsurpassed collection of the lexicon of a living language"[7][8] and as being "[a]mong the principal landmarks of the Belarusian national revival after January Uprising of 1863".