Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/95

Rh ETHNOGRAPHY.] RUSSIA 79 relatively high degree of purity, so as to assimilate foreign elements and make them reinforce or improve the ethnical type, without giving rise to half-breed races. The maintenance of the very same North-Russian type from Novgorod to the Pacific, with but minor differentiations on the outskirts and this notwithstanding the great variety of races with which the Russians came in contact cannot but strike the observer. But a closer observation of what is going on even now on the recently colonized confines of the empire where whole villages live, and will continue to live, without mixing with natives, but very slowly bringing them over to the Russian manner of life, and then very slowly taking in a few female elements from them gives the key to this prominent feature of Russian life, which is a colonization on an immense scale, and assimilation of foreigners, without in turn losing the primary ethnical features. Not so with the national customs. There are features the wooden house, the oven, the bath which the Russian never abandons though lost amidst alien populations. But when settled among these the Russian the North-Russian readily adapts him- self to many other differences. He speaks Finnish with Finns, Mongolian with Buriats, Ostiak with Ostiaks ; he shows remarkable facility in adapting his agricultural practices to new conditions, without, however, abandoning the village community ; he becomes hunter, cattle-breeder, or fisherman, and carries on these occupa- tions according to local usage ; he modifies his dress and adapts his religious beliefs to the locality he inhabits. In consequence of all this, the Russian peasant (not, be it noted, the trader) must be recognized as the best colonizer among the Aryans ; he lives on the best terms with Ostiaks, Tartars, Buriats, and even with Red Indians when lost in the prairies of the American Far- West, jub- Three different branches, which may become three separate livisions nationalities, can be distinguished among the Russians since the >f Rus- dawn of their history : the Great Russians, the Little Russians ians. (Malorusses or Ukrainians), and the White Russians (the Bielo- russes). These correspond to the two currents of immigration mentioned above, the northern and southern, with perhaps an inter- mediate one, the proper place of the White Russians not having as yet been exactly determined. The primary distinctions between these branches have been increased during the last nine centuries by their contact with different nationalities, the Great Russians taking in Finnish elements, the Little Russians undergoing an admixture of Turkish blood, and the White Russians submitting to Lithuanian influence. Moreover, notwithstanding the unity of lan- guage, it is easy to detect among the Great Russians themselves two separate branches, differing from one another by slight divergences of language and type and deep diversities of national character, the Central Russians and the Novgorodians ; the latter extend throughout northern Russia into Siberia. They correspond, perhaps, to subdivisions mentioned by Nestor. It is worthy of notice, more- over, that many minor anthropological features can be distinguished both among the Great and Little Russians, depending probably on the assimilation of various minor subdivisions of the Ural- Altaians. The Great Russians number about 42,000,000, and occupy in one block the space enclosed by a line drawn from the White Sea to the sources of the western Diina, the Dneiper, and the Donetz, and thence, through the mouth of the Sura, by the Vettuga, to Mezen. To the east of this boundary they are mixed with Turco- Finns, but in the Ural Mountains they reappear in a compact body, and extend thence through southern Siberia and along the courses of the Lena and Amur. Great Russian nonconformists are dissemi- nated among Little Russians in Tchernigoff and Moghileff, and they reappear in greater masses in Novorossia, as also in northern Caucasia. The Little Russians, who number about 17,000,000, occupy the Steppes of southern Russia, the south-western slopes of the central plateau and those of the Carpathian and Lublin mountains, and the Carpathian plateau. The Sitch of the Zaporog Cossacks colonized the Steppes farther east, towards the Don, where they met with a large population of Great Russian runaways, constituting the ? resent Don Cossacks. The Zaporog Cossacks, sent by Catherine I. to colonize the east coast of the Sea of Azoff, constituted there the Black Sea and later the Kuban Cossacks (part of whom, the Nckrasovtsy, migrated to Turkey). They have also peopled large parts of Stavropol and northern Caucasia. The White Russians, mixed to some extent with Great and Little Russians, Poles, and Lithuanians, now occupy the upper parts of the western slope of the central plateau. They number about 4, 300, 000. The Finnish stems, which in prehistoric times extended from the Obi all over northern Russia, even then were subdivided into Ugrians, Permians, Bulgarians, and Finns proper, who drove back the previous Lapp population from what is now Finland, and about the t th century penetrated to the south of the Gulf of Finland, in the region of the Lives and Kurs, where they mixed to some extent with Lithuanians and Letts. At present the stems of Finnish origin are represented in Russia by the following : (a) the Western Finns ; the Ta vasts in central Finland; the Kvanes, in north-western Finland; the Karelians, m the east, who also occupy the lake-regions of Olonetz and Archangel, and have settlements in separate villages in Novgorod and Tver ; the Izhora and Yod, which are local names for the Finns on the Neva and the south-eastern coast of the Gulf of Finland ; theEsthes in Esthonia and northern portion of Livonia; the Lives on the Gulf of Riga ; and the Kors, mixed with the Letts ; (b) the Northern Finns, or Lapps, in northern Finland and on the Kola peninsula, and the Samoyedes in Archangel ; (c) the Volga Finns, or rather the old Bulgarian branch, to which belong the MORDVINIANS (q.v.) and perhaps the Tcheremisses in Kazan, Kostroma, and Vyatka, who are also classified by some authors with the following ; (d) the Permians, or Cis-Uralian Finns, in- cluding the Votiaks on the east of Vyatka, the Permians in Perm, the Zyrians in Vologda, Archangel, Vyatka, and Perm, and the Tcheremisses ; (c] the Ugriaus, or Trans-Uralian Finns, including the Voguls on both slopes of the Urals, the Ostiaks in Tobolsk and partly in Tomsk, and the Madjares, or Ugrians. The Turco-Tartars in European Russia number about 3,600,000. The following are their chief subdivisions. (1) The Tartars, of whom three different stems must be distinguished : (a) the Kazan Tartars on both banks of the Volga, below the mouth of the Oka, and on the lower Kama, penetrating also farther south in Ryazan, Tainboff, Samara, Simbirsk, and Penza ; (&) the Tartars of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga ; and (c) those of the Crimea, a great many of whom have recently emigrated to Turkey. There are, besides, a certain number of Tartars from the south-east in Minsk, Grodno, and Vilna. (2) The Bashkirs, who inhabit the slopes of the southern Urals, that is, the Steppes of Ufa and Orenburg, extending also into Perm and Samara. (3) The Tchuvashes, on the right bank of the Volga, in Kazan and Simbirsk. (4) The Mescheriaks, a tribe of Finnish origin which formerly inhabited the basin of the Oka, and, driven thence during the 15th century by the Eussian colonizers, immigrated into Ufa and Perm, where they now live among Bash- kirs, having adopted their religion and customs. (5) The Tepters, also of Finnish origin, settled among Tartars and Bashkirs, together with the Mescheriaks, also in Samara and Vyatka. They have adopted the religion and customs of the Bashkirs, from whom they can hardly be distinguished. The Bashkirs, Mescheriaks, and Tepters have rendered able service to the Russian Government against the Kirghizes, and until 1863 they constituted a separate Bashkir and Mescheriak Cossacks army, employed for service in the Kirghiz Steppe. (6) The Kirghizes, whoso true abodes were in Asia, in the Ishim and Kirghiz Steppe ; but one section of them crossed the Urals and occupied the Steppes between the Urals and the Volga. Only the Horde of Bukeeff inhabits European Russia, north-east of Astrakhan, the remainder belonging to Turkestan and Siberia. The Mongolian race is represented in Russia by the Lamaite Kalmuks, who inhabit the Steppes of Astrakhan between the A r olga, the Don, and the Kuma. They immigrated to the mouth of the Volga from Dzungaria, in the 17th century, driving out the Tartars and Nogais, and after many wars with the Don Cossacks, followed by treaties of mutual assistance for military excursions, one part of them was taken in by the Don Cossacks, so that even now there are among these Cossacks several Kalmuk sotnias or squadrons. They live for the most part in tents, supporting themselves by cattle-breeding, and partly by agriculture. The Semitic race is represented in Russia by upwards of 3,000,000 Jews and 3000 Karaites. The Jews first entered Poland from Ger- many during the crusades, and soon spread through Lithuania, Courland, the Ukraine, and, in the 18th century, Bessarabia. The rapidity with which they peopled certain towns and whole pro- vinces was really prodigious. Thus, from having been but a few dozens at Odessa some eighty years since, they make now one-third of its population (73,400, out of 207,000). The law of Russia prohibits them from entering Great Russia, only the wealthiest and most educated enjoying this privilege ; nevertheless they are met with everywhere, even on the Urals. Their chief abodes, however, continue to be Poland, the western provinces of Lithuania, White and Little Russia, and Bessarabia. In Russian Poland they are in the proportion of 1 to 7 inhabitants. In Kovno, Vilna, Moghileff, Grodno, Volhynia, Podolia, and probably also in Bessarabia and Kherson, they constitute, on the average, 10 to 16 per cent, of the population, while in separate districts the proportion reaches 30 to 36 per cent. (50 - 5 in Tchaussy). Organized as they are into a kind of community for mutual protection and mutual help (the Kahal), they soon become masters of the trade wherever they penetrate. In the villages they are mostly innkeepers, interme- diaries in trade, and pawnbrokers. In many towns most of the skilled labourers and a great many of the unskilled (for instance, the grain-porters at Odessa and elsewhere) are Jews. In the 16 western provinces of Russia they numbered 2,843,400 in 1883, and about 432,000 in five Polish provinces. Less than 600,000 of them inhabit villages, the remainder being concentrated in towns. The Karaites differ entirely from the Jews both in worship and in mode of life. They, too, are inclined to trade, but also success-