Page:The Position of the Slavonic Languages at the present day.djvu/35

 predominance of the Russian language throughout the Empire on the other, complicate the appearance of any linguistic map; Great Russian is to-day the language of 65 millions in Russia and Siberia, and is spoken by over 99 per cent, of the population in the seven central governments; in the government of Moscow the proportion of Great Russians to other nationalities is 97 per cent., and in that of Petersburg 81 per cent.

White Russian is spoken by nearly seven millions in four of the western governments, which roughly include the basin of the Upper Dnieper; Little Russian by thirty-seven millions distributed over the whole of Southern and South-West Russia, with Kiev as their centre, and by four millions in Austrian Galicia, who are sometimes termed Ruthenians, from the Polish name for that part of the country, Red Russia.

It is noticeable that while the Russian nationality and language have expanded to the north and east and south, its western boundary conterminous with those of the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Letts, and the Finnish Esthonians is almost identical with that existing in the ninth century.

The differentiation of Russian into three groups, Great Russian, White Russian, and Little Russian, has occurred within historical times; and these designations themselves, of purely literary origin, and even now seldom used popularly, do not date back further than the fourteenth century, and would seem to have come into use when Western Russia formed a part of Lithuania and Poland. In the colloquial language of the people, the only name by which the Great Russians call the Little Russians is Hohlí, while the Little Russians call the Great Russians Kacapi— both names originate in the peculiarities of coiffure characteristic of the two peoples, which seem to have inspired mutual derision. Hohlí means 'tufts', and Kacapi probably means 'goat-beards'.

Like Bulgaria and Servia, Russia received Christianity from Byzantium, and like them has shared all the cultural profits and losses connoted by this fact. Amongst these