Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/154

 School has filled me with deep admiration. During the past week I have seen you, ladies and gentlemen, taking in a knowledge of Russia in rapid deep breaths, and the keen interest you are displaying in a country to which I am deeply attached has touched me enormously. I may say the same on behalf of my Russian friends who have come here to lecture to you. Still the task I have before me is very difficult, and the number and variety of the nationalities of Russia is so great, that I cannot hope to do more now than to note some of the leading features in a few typical national questions.

Look first of all at the Russians, of whom there are nearly one hundred millions in all, of all types, the Great Russian, the Little Russian, and the White Russian, the three great divisions of the Russian people. You have heard in other lectures the history of the elements that made up the Russian people, of the wandering Slav tribes which gradually assimilated a great many of the peoples of the plain. Thus in the north and centre, in Great Russia, there is a very large admixture of Finnish blood, whilst in the south, among the Little Russians, there is a large admixture of Turkish blood. The White Russians of the West are considered by many scholars to be the purest specimens of the Slav race now living. I shall not dwell at length on the Great Russians, of whom a great deal has been written and been said, but I should like to say something about the Little Russians. You have perhaps heard something of the Ukraine movement. You know that the Austrian Government, during this war and before it, has published maps indicating that