R. G. Latham

RUSSIAN POPULATIONS, SARMATIAN AND TURANIAN.—SAMOEIDS TURANIAN.—UGRIANS.—LAPPS.—KWAINS.—ESTHONIANS.—LIEFS.—PERMIANS.—SIRANIANS.—VOTIAKS.—TSHEREMISS, TSHUVATSH, MORDUIN.—LITHUANIANS.—MALORUSSIANS AND MUSCOVITES.—THEIR RECENT INTRODUCTION.—THE SKOLOTI.—EARLY DISPLACEMENTS.—UGRIAN GLOSSES.—INDIAN AFFINITIES OF THE LITHUANIC—RUSSIAN POLAND.—ANALYTICAL VIEW OF THE PRESENT POPULATIONS OF RUSSIA.—ARKHANGEL.—FINLAND.—ESTHONIA.—LIVONIA.—PERM.—SIMBIRSK, PENZA.—LITHUANIA.—VOLHYNIA.—KHARKHOV.—KOSAKS.—KHERSON.—TAURIDA.

WITHOUT asking too minutely what are the real boundaries of Europe on its eastern side, we shall find it convenient to carry them as far as the Volga and the Ural Mountains; by doing which we include the Government of the Don Kosaks, Astrakan, Orenburg, Perm, Vologda, and the whole of Arkhangel. This is being inordinately liberal; but it is as well to be so, because three divisions of the population of European Russia are common to the two continents; and hence the history of more than one of the areas under consideration will be incomplete unless we trace its occupants to their original home on the other side of the Ural Mountains. One of these areas is the important country of Hungary; so far, at least, as it is possessed by the Asiatic Majiars.

The great primary divisions of the human species to which the population of European Russia is referable, are only two in number; but then each of them is a class of great extent and generality; falling into divisions and subdivisions. These are the Sarmatian and the Turanian; Sarmatian meaning the Slavonian and Lithuanian families collectively, and Turanian the Ugrian and Turk. A few months ago a third class would have been requisite, the Samoeid; in order to include the occupants of the Valley of the Lower Petshora and the coasts of the Arctic Sea, in the eastern parts of the government of Arkhangel. But it has been shown by Gabelentz, from an analysis of the Samoeid language that it belongs to the same class with the Fin, Lapp, Permian, Siranian, Votiak, and other Ugrian tongues.

The present distribution of the Ugrian populations is not only a point of importance for its own sake, but is an indispensable preliminary for the inquiry into the earlier ethnology of Russia.

The Lapp branch of the Ugrian stock is common to Russia and Scandinavia, so that it will be noticed again when Norway and Sweden come under consideration. It is chiefly in their dialect and creed that the two divisions differ; the imperfect Christianity of the Russian Lapps being that of the Greek Church, and their speech, although, I believe, intelligible to a Norwegian Lapp, being stamped with several well-marked peculiarities. It is the structure of their language that shows them to belong to the same stock as the Kwains of Finland, the difference of their complexion and stature being considerable; for the Lapp is dark-haired, dark-eyed, swarthy-skinned, under-sized, and weak-built, as is the Samoeid also. The Lapp chiefly occupies the country to the west, the Samoeid that to the east of the White Sea.

Finland is the country of a people whom it is best to call Kwains; since Kwain is the native name, and Fin is a term which, from being often applied to the Lapps of Finmark, creates confusion. If this designation be too strange, Finlander should be strictly adhered to. Viborg and Olonetz are parts of the Kwain area, with but little variation on the part of their occupants. St. Petersburg was a part of Finland until the time of Peter the Great, and Esthonia is Ugrian at the present time. No new inhabitants of Esthonia, but, on the contrary, its oldest occupants, the Rahwas, closely allied to the proper Finlanders of Finland, form the third section of the great Ugrian stock. Livonia, or Lief-land, takes its name from an Ugrian tribe, the Liefs, a tribe which from being pressed upon by the Lithuanians of Courland, is nearly extinct as a separate substantive population.

In Courland the most western Ugrians came in contact with the Lithuanians; not, as is reasonably believed, exactly on the banks of the Dwina, but within the Province; in other words, the ancient Ugrians of these parts extended over the whole of Livonia, and also a little beyond it. Courland, however, is, upon the whole, essentially a Lithuanic area.

In Vologda and Perm, two closely allied members of a fresh branch of Ugrians present themselves, the Siranians and the Permians; the latter greatly reduced and Russianized. Perm is bounded by the Ural Mountains, along the ridge of which are the Voguls, and, east of the Voguls, the Ostiaks of the Obi. But as these belong to Asia, it is sufficient to say that they are Ugrian. The Votiaks take their name from the river Viatka, as does the government they inhabit.

Kazan, Novgorod, Simbirsk, and Saratov, like Viatka and Perm, are truly Ugrian areas, though the intrusion of both Turk and Russian elements has left the original populations in a fragmentary state. They are represented, however, by the Tsheremiss, the Tshuvatsh and the Morduin; the Tshuvatsh being a problematical population from the extent to which their language presents a mixture of Turk elements, and the Morduins falling into three divisions—the Mokshad, the Ersad, and the Karatai. The absolute and undoubted area, then, of the Ugrians of Russia, as it exists at the present moment, notwithstanding encroachments from both the Turks of the east, and the Russians of the south and west, reaches as far south as the government of Saratov.

The present distribution of the Lithuanian populations, is second only in importance to that of the Ugrians. Livonia is the most convenient starting-point. Here it is spoken at present; though not aboriginal to the province. The Polish, German, and Russian languages have encroached on the Lithuanian, the Lithuanian on the Ugrian. It is the Lett branch of the Lithuanian which is spoken by the Letts of Livonia (Liefland) but not by the Liefs. The same is the case in Courland. East Prussia lies beyond the Russian empire, but it is not unnecessary to state that, as late as the sixteenth century, a Lithuanian tongue was spoken there. Vilna, Grodno, and Vitepsk are the proper Lithuanian provinces. There, the original proper Lithuanic tongue still survives; uncultivated, and day by day suffering from the encroachment of the Russian, but, withal, in the eyes of the ethnologist, the most important language in Europe.

The Tartar provinces come next, or, to speak more correctly, the Turk. Tartar, however, is the usual term, and as Tartary is the recognised name of the country to the east of the Caspian, it is not likely to be got rid of; nor yet to be changed into the more correct form Tahtah. The stock, however, is that to which the Ottoman Turks of Turkey, along with numerous other powerful and important populations, belong. Kasan, Oremberg, and Astrakhan are the chief Turk provinces. A portion, too, of New Russia is Turk. The date of their introduction is the thirteenth century; the empire to which they belonged being that of the successors of Zengis Khan.

The peculiarities of the distribution of the Turks of Russia is explained by their history. Of Southern Russia, as well as of the south-eastern provinces, they were once the exclusive masters. This makes the Russian population of Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, the Don Kosak country, and the greater part of Taurida, of recent origin; indeed, it is not only recent but mixed, and it is called New Russian.

Podolia, Kiev, Pultava, Kharkhov, are what is called Malorussian, or Little Russian. The dialect differs notably from that of the Muscovite of the central governments, and has its affinities in a different direction, since it very closely resembles the Russniak of Gallicia. And in Gallicia it probably originated. At the same time the three dialects, the Russniak, the Maloruss, and the Muscovite (or Great Russian) are mutually intelligible. Between these two branches of the Russian family a strong national antipathy exists.

In Volhynia the dialect is the White Russian, and so it is in those parts of Lithuania where the Lithuanian is out of use.

The true and proper Russian of Great Russia, or Muscovy, the language of the capitals, and the language which the conquests of Russia have extended over all Northern Asia, and even into North-western America, circumscribed, as it has been shown to be, by the languages and dialects which have just been enumerated, is still spoken over a vast area—over all the central provinces of Russia, as well as on the Baltic and the Euxine, at St. Petersburg and at Odessa. It is generally, too, the language of the towns. But, for a language of so vast an area, it falls into a remarkably small number of dialects. In Olonetz it is mixed with the Fin, since the Fin is the original language of that government; and, in Vladimir, the Suzdal dialect exhibits certain peculiarities; but, with these, and, perhaps, a few other exceptions, the uniformity is complete.

This is prim facie evidence of its introduction being recent; a fact which the whole history of ancient Russia confirms; indeed, it is highly probable that no truly Slavonic nation (not even the Malorussians) occupied any portion of their present possessions anterior to the fourth century of the Christian era. If so, how was the area first filled? By the Lithuanians and the Ugrians; by the Lithuanians extending from the west eastwards, and by the Ugrians extending from the east westwards. By this hypothesis the two populations met in some of the central provinces, though it is difficult to fix the absolute points of contact.

Nor were the Slavonians even the first invaders who disturbed this distribution; since Turk populations different from and earlier than the Turks of the thirteenth century were settled in Southern Russia in the fifth century B.C., i.e., at the very beginning of the historical period. Neither do I press the absolute exclusion of stocks other than the Lithuanian and the Ugrian so strongly as to deny the likelihood of the aborigines of the Crimea and some of the neighbouring districts having been members of the same stock as the Circassians and the other tribes of Caucasus. Little, however, depends on this.

Upon the early exclusion of the Slavonians a great deal depends; a great deal affecting not only the ethnology of Russia itself, but that of the whole area, real or imaginary, of the Slavonic stock; that of the parts west of the Elbe, that of Bohemia and Dalmatia, that of Wallachia and Hungary, that of Northern Greece, that of North-eastern Italy, that of even the Tyrol, Bavaria, and Switzerland. And the original extent of the Lithuanic area is more important still. Armenian, Persian, and Indian archÆology are involved in it. It is not difficult to see how this happens. There are vast tracts of country along the Elbe, the Oder, the Vistula, and the Danube that good authorities deny to have been originally Slavonic. “They were German,” it is said, “or if not German, Keltic, or, perhaps, they belonged to some extinct stock.” “If so,” it is reasonably asked, “whence came the Slavonians, and where is the cradle of so vast a family?”

A common answer is “Russia.” But what if Russia be Ugrian, or if not Ugrian, Lithuanic? Surely the question is important.

Then as to the Lithuanians. They and the Slavonians are branches of the same Sarmatian family; so, of course, their languages, though different, are allied. But next to the Slavonic what tongues are nearest the Lithuanic? Not the speech of the Fin, the German, or the Kelt, though these are the nearest in geography. The Latin is liker than any of these; but the likest of all is the ancient sacred language of India—the Sanskrit of the Vedas, Puranas, the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana. And what tongue is the nearest to the Sanskrit? Not those of Tibet and Armenia, not even those of Southern India. Its nearest parallel is the obscure and almost unlettered languages of Grodno, Wilna, Vitepsk, Courland, Livonia, and East Prussia. There is a difficult problem here; a problem which every fact which brings the Lithuanic and Sanskrit areas nearer to each other, advances towards its solution.

One of the presumptions in favour of the view in question has been noticed, viz., the uniformity of the Russian dialects. Another is derived from the fact of both the Lithuanians and Ugrians having suffered from the encroachment of the Russians ever since the beginning of the historical era. The advance has always been on one side. The Russ has pressed northward, westward, and eastward; the Ugrians and Lithuanians have retreated. But, better than mere presumptions there is evidence—historical and internal.

In Herodotus’s account of Scythia, the governments of Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, with parts of Kiev, Poltava, and Kharkhov, are occupied by a nation called the Skoloti. The informants of Herodotus, it is true, called them ScythÆ, but Skolotoi was what they called themselves; and Skolotoi is the name that is most conveniently used when we wish to be specific. Their area coincides nearly with that of New Russia; nearly also with the Steppe district, as opposed to the fat black soils of the Middle Dneiper, if we consider it in respect to its physical geography. And this seems to determine the ethnology; since the Skoloti fall in two or more divisions, one nomadic, the other agricultural; the latter lying to the north of the former, just as is the case with the fertile lands as opposed to the bleak Steppes. The Royal Skoloti occupy the Crimea. The names of this family in detail are Alazones, KallipidÆ, SkythÆ (Skoloti) ArotÊres, SkythÆ Georgi, and SkythÆ Basileioi. But besides there is in the separate and disconnected population, viz., the SkythÆ Apostantes, or the Seceding Skythians.

For the Skoloti a Slavonic origin has been claimed, and there is undoubtedly one decided fact in favour of their being so. But there is certainly no more. On the other hand, their Asiatic origin and their distribution connect them with the great Turk stock of Independent Tartary and a vast portion of Central Asia besides.

Furthermore, their eponymus is Targ-itaus, whose three sons are Leipoxais, Arpoxais, and Koloxais. The tradition concerning these as given by Herodotus is a tradition current among the Kherghis Turks at the present time. Lastly, the only word of the few glosses of the Skolotic language that can be explained by any known tongue in a plain straightforward manner, and without an undue amount of philological manipulation is the word oior=man, which is Turk throughout all the dialects of the Turk stock. The one decided fact in favour of a Sarmatian origin is the statement that certain SauromatÆ beyond the Don spoke the Skythian language. It should be added, however, that they spoke it with solecisms (s???????te?). Now it will readily be admitted that a Sarmatian population protruded as it were from the Lower Danube to the parts beyond the Donetz (TanaÏs), and thus isolated from its fellows, was just in the position to speak the language of the dominant occupants, and to speak it badly. Isolated, such Sarmatians undoubtedly were.

They were also mixed. The special statement of Herodotus is that they were descended, on one side, from the SkythÆ of the country, on the other, from an invading body of Amazons. An explanation of this will be offered when the ethnology of Thrace comes under notice.

A second argument of far less value lies in the names of two Skoloti of rank—Aria-pithes, and Sparga-pithes. They are evidently compounds, whilst the latter name occurs in Persian, and the element -pith- (bed) in Armenian. This is a complication, since it suggests another class of affinities. Valeat quantum. The gloss oior, the descent from Targitaus, the legends of Koloxais, and the Asiatic origin stand against it. Besides which, a little ingenuity will explain away the root -pith. It may have been a title, as it actually is in Armenian, and, if so, a word belonging to the language of Herodotus’s informant, rather than to the Skolotic. Or the same class of Turk intrusions which introduced it into Europe, may have done the same in Persia; and this is not unlikely. It was just as much a proper name amongst the MassagetÆ as it was amongst the Skoloti.

Turk invasion is the rule in Russia, and that of the Skoloti is the earliest on record. And it is in the very earliest records that it appears. The reasons for making it Turk have been considered; and it cannot have been Turk without having been comparatively recent. Consequently, there was a displacement of an earlier population, as is shown by the existence of an isolated population of SauromatÆ beyond the Donetz—in the country of the Don Kosaks.

But what are the reasons for supposing the Skolotic area of Herodotus to have been originally either Ugrian or Lithuanic, or, if not either exclusively, divided between the two? In the first place there are Ugrians as far south as the governments of Astrakhan and Simbirsk at the present moment; and that in situ, so to say, or in the position of indigenous occupants of their present localities rather than that of a newly introduced population. In the next place, there is more than one geographical term in the Skythian geography of the early writers which seems to belong to the Ugrian class of tongues; from which we may infer that, even if the informants of Herodotus did not take their geographical terms from the Ugrians themselves, they took them from a population with which the Ugrian area was conterminous.

1. The name Rhox-olani, occurring in Strabo, has long been considered Ugrian. No other class of languages forms the plural in -laine; several of the Ugrians do so.

2. The term RhipÆan, as applied to the RhipÆan Mountains, is Ugrian. Rhip=mountain in Ostiak.

3. The country of the Neuri was bounded by a lake, at the head of the river Tyras. There are certain geographical difficulties here, which this is no time to investigate. A swamp or fen is a more likely explanation. With this meaning, the word is Ugrian; and, at the present moment, the town of Narym in Siberia means, in Ostiak, the Fens.

Then comes the Lithuanian question; upon which the reasoning is far more elaborate; consisting chiefly in the exposition of an undoubted fact, and the suggestion of a new interpretation of it. No two parts of the world are so distant but what they may illustrate each other’s ethnology; and, in the present case, the ancient geography of Kherson and the Crimea is explained by that of Persia, Cabul, and Hindostan.

It has long been known that the ancient, sacred, and literary language of Northern India has its closest grammatical affinities in Europe. With none of the tongues of the neighbouring countries, with no form of the Tibetan of the Himalayas, of the Burmese dialects of the north-east, with no Tamul dialect of the southern part of the Peninsula itself, has it half such close resemblances as it has with a distant and disconnected language spoken on the Baltic—the Lithuanian.

As to the Lithuanian, it has, of course, its closest affinities with the Slavonic tongues of Russia, Bohemia, Poland, and Servia, since the Slavonic and Lithuanic are two branches of the same Sarmatian stock. But when we go beyond the Sarmatian stock, and bring into the field of comparison the other tongues of Europe, the Latin, the Greek, the German, and the Keltic, we find that, though the Lithuanic is more or less clearly connected with all of them, it is, beyond comparison, far liker the old Indian or Sanskrit.

Such is the undoubted fact, for which there are many doubtful explanations. Of these, the most unscientific is the most current.

1. The area of Asiatic languages in Asia allied to the Sanskrit is smaller than the area of European languages allied to the Lithuanic; and—

2. The class or genus to which the two tongues equally belong, is represented in Asia by the Sanskritic division only; whereas in Europe it falls into three divisions, each of, at least, equal value with the single Asiatic one—the Gothic, the Sarmatian, the Classical (Latin and Greek)—to which, if we extend the value of the term “Indo-European,” the Keltic may be added.

The botanist who, finding in Asia, extended over a comparatively small area, a single species, belonging to a genus which covered two-thirds of Europe, should pronounce the genus to be Asiatic, would be in the same position as an ethnologist who should derive the Indo-European stock of languages from India. Except so far as he might urge that everything came from the East, and so convert the specific question into an hypothesis as to the origin of vegetation in general, he would forfeit his character as a botanical logician. Neither would the zoologist who, mutatis mutandis, deduced the larger from the smaller, the complex from the simple, fare much better. Now it is a sad truth, that what no naturalist could attempt, philologists and ethnologists do with complacency; for so general is the acquiescence in the Eastern origin of the Indo-European tongues, that the possibility of every phenomenon connected with the Sanskrit and its allied dialects in Asia being explicable by means of a simple Sarmatian conquest from Southern Russia seems never to have been entertained.

The only part, however, of this complicated question which requires further consideration in a work like the present, is the necessity of bringing the Lithuanic and Indian areas as near each other as possible; a necessity which, by itself, justifies the assumption of a southward extension of the former. Hence, in addition to their present districts, the governments of Volhynia, Podolia, Kiev, Kherson, and the Taurida, are assigned to it. From these, either as indigenÆ, or as the invaders of a country originally Ugrian, they conquered certain portions of Asia, just as the Majiars conquered Hungary, and just as the Greeks, some centuries later, conquered Hindostan. Their language was what afterwards became known as the Sanskrit, the Zend, the Persepolitan, and the Pali. Their occupancy ended when that of the Skoloti began; and it began some time anterior to the date of the earliest Sanskrit record. Such is the hypothesis; one which will, probably, find more favour with the naturalist than with the scholar. A subordinate reason for bringing the Lithuanians beyond their present area, will be given when the ethnology of Gallicia comes under notice.

Russian Poland.—When domestic faction and foreign intrigue succeeded in effecting the partition of the ancient and powerful kingdom of Poland, it disturbed a hitherto natural division, by dividing the Lekh division of the Slavonic branch of the Sarmatian stock between Russia, Austria, and Prussia.

Lekh is the name best suited for ethnological purposes, because it connects the modern kingdom of Poland with the country of the ancient and powerful Lygii, a name “widely spread over numerous states. It will be sufficient to name the most powerful, the Arii, the Manimi, the Helvecones, the Elysii, the Naharvali.”[14]

The religion of the first, and the warlike customs of the last of these nations, are noticed somewhat in detail; for the Naharvali celebrated certain rites within a holy grove, and with a priest in a woman’s dress. One of their deities was named Alcis; two others were the analogues of Castor and Pollux.

The fierce and powerful Arii stained their bodies, and with black shields chose the darkest nights for their terrible attacks.

That Tshekh and Lekh were the respective leaders of the Bohemians and Poles, is, with each nation, a native tradition. It is also under the name of Lekh that the latter are noticed by the oldest Slavonic historian—the monk Nestor.

The Naharvali were probably Lithuanians of East Prussia, rather than true Poles.

The Arii, according to the Lithuanic hypothesis of the Sanskrit language, may have been something much more important, viz., the Median Arii of the Asiatic invasion; in which case they were themselves either Lithuanian rather than Polish, or else (as is likely) the migration was Slavono-Lithuanic, instead of exclusively Lithuanic.

Upon the Lekh origin of the Helvecones, Manimi, and Elysii, there are no refinements.

Of the Polish area the eastern and northeastern parts seem to be the most recent, since, within the historical period, it has encroached upon that of the Lithuanians of Grodno and the Baltic provinces, and upon that of the Russniaks of Gallicia. In character, the language approaches the Tshekh of Bohemia, and the Sorabian of Lusatia and Saxony in the south and west. It was extended in the direction of the Elbe, as will be seen in the chapter on Prussia.

Unless it can be shown that the text of Tacitus is conclusive as to the Lygii having been Germans rather than what the name, place, and the belief of the Poles themselves suggest, the Poles of south-western Poland (at least) form the purest population which has been met with since we left the Basques; so that as far as it has been mixed at all, it has been through elements superadded to the original Lekh stock rather than through those of anything anterior to it. The Mongol invasions touched it; but that is all. The Roman and German conquests never reached it. Upon Russia, until the last century, it encroached. Hence, the elements of admixture that remain are Jewish, German, and others even less important still.

The language is a separate substantive tongue; the most cultivated of all the Slavonic forms of speech. From the Lithuanian it is broadly separated; less so from the Muscovite and Malorussian; but less still from the Bohemian and Sorabian.

A short analytical sketch of the component parts of the Russian populations will now be given.

The western half of the government of Arkhangel is Lapp, the eastern, Samoeid.

The Russian Lapps are all more or less Christianized. Reindeer and fish are their chief aliments, their habits being migratory.

Except in language, the Samoeid of the Arctic Circle differs but little from the Lapp, and even this difference has lately been shown to be less than was previously supposed. In manners they are somewhat ruder; whilst their Christianity is far more incomplete. Indeed, the old Shamanistic Paganism is their dominant religion. This they share with the Ostiaks, their neighbours on the south. But the most important fact connected with the Samoeids is their distribution and affinities. Along with populations more or less closely allied to them, they originally covered the whole of the vast region of Siberia; a region even at present occupied by them partially, and in detached localities, though the greater part of it is in possession of Mongol, Turk, and Tungusian populations—populations whose primary homes were in Central, rather than Northern Asia, but who have in all cases pressed northwards, and, in some, reached as far as the shores of the Arctic Sea. But as their occupation is incomplete, isolated fragments of the original populations still remain. Some of these are absolutely Samoeid, i.e., belonging to the same division of the same branch of the Ugrian stock. Others belong to different divisions. All, however, agree in speaking a language more akin to each other than to the Turks, Mongols, and Tungusians, by whom they are surrounded or separated.

The particular affinities of the Samoeids are with the Koibal, Kamash, and other tribes of Southern Siberia on the upper part of the Yenesey and on the very frontier of the Chinese empire.

Between these and the Samoeids of Arkhangel the population belongs to the class called Yeneseian. Now the language of the Yeneseians, though less like that of either of the Samoeid branches, than they are to each other, is still Ugrian rather than Turk, Mongol, or Tungusian. The same remark applies to a population as far east as the Kolyma, the Jukahiri. It is more Ugrian than Turk; yet the Yakut Turk of the Lena, rather than any Ugrian tongue, is the language with which it is in geographical contact. Lastly, it should be added that, according to a table of Ermann’s, the language of the Ugrian Ostiaks of the Obi, is more like that of the Kamskadales of Kamskatka than it is to the Turk tongues by which it is most immediately bounded. The inferences from all this are enormous extension and subsequent displacement of the Ugrian family.

The Lapps and Samoeids alone, of all the European populations, have been considered savages. They, too, only have been classed amongst the so-called inferior races. And it is undoubtedly true, that if we look to Europe alone, the line of demarcation which separates them from the Finlander (Ugrian as he is), and a fortiori from the Scandinavian and Slavonian is clear and trenchant. But Europe alone must not be looked to; neither must the Lapp and Samoeid be considered to cover the whole of their original area. Encroachment has taken place from the south, whereby the transitional varieties have become either extinct or amalgamate.

This is what we infer from the broken-up character of the Ugrian area in Siberia, as well as from the fact of the southern Samoeids, the Yeneseians, the Ostiaks, and several other populations being transitional in form and manner to the Ugrian of the Arctic and the Ugrian of the Southern, or Danubian, types.

The true Kwain of Finland, as contrasted with the Lapp, is light-haired, grey-eyed, and well-grown. The admixture of Swedish blood is considerable. A poem, approaching the character of the epic, and, at any rate, national and heroic, favourably represents the early capacity of the Kwain for appreciating song and music; and, in confirmation of the doctrine of a considerable displacement of the more southern members of the Lapp and Samoeid families, its subject is the conquest of Finland by the ancestors of its present occupants. The later civilizational influences are Swedish. So, too, is their Protestant and Lutheran Christianity. A sturdy tenacity of temper, combined with considerable bravery and power of endurance, has fairly been attributed to the Kwains. In Karelia the Swedish elements diminish. In Olonetz the Russian increase.

Of the government of St. Petersburg the original inhabitants were the Kwains of Ingria. In Esthonia the type changes. The population calls itself Rahwas, speaks a language akin to, but different from, the Kwain, a language, too, which from falling in, at least, two well-marked varieties, the Esthonian proper and the Esthonian of Dorpat, presents internal evidence of being no newly introduced form of speech, but, on the contrary, an old and original tongue.

In Livonia, or Lief-land, the oldest population was Lief; and the Liefs were Ugrians. A few only now remain. The first displacement was at the hands of the Lithuanian Letts, who are, at present, the chief population; themselves becoming, day by day, more and more Germanized—and, when not German, Slavonic.

Here, as in Finland, though in a less degree, there is a Swedish intermixture; indeed in one of the small islands of the Oesel Archipelago, the Isle of Worms, the population is Swede. In the Isle of Aaland it is Swedish, with a Ugrian basis.

Courland is Lithuanian, having once, in its eastern parts at least, been Ugrian; as was the whole of Liefland (Livonia). The river Salis runs across Liefland, and divides the northern half from the southern. This (there or thereabouts) constitutes the frontier. At Dorpat—which is a town of Liefland—the proper Esthonian changes its character, and so do several of the legends and traditions. Now, as the Dorpatians and the Liefs agree in those points wherein the Esthonians of the coast and Dorpatians differ, the following hypothesis has been suggested, viz.:—that when the Letts of Courland first pressed upon the Liefs of Livonia, these latter moved northwards towards Dorpat, then occupied by the typical Esthonians. These being displaced by the immigrant Liefs pressed the other Esthonians into South Finland.

Such displacements, however, of a population already settled and at peace, by some other weaker than itself, in consequence of aggressions from a third body of invaders, are commoner upon paper than in reality. The real fact seems to be that the country about Dorpat is intermediate in character to the Lief and Esthonian areas. From the mouth of the river Salis to Pabask, the present Liefs are the occupants of the sea-coast; probable descendants of the ancient Lemovii, the m being changed into v. That the -ov- is no part of the original word is shown by the forms Lami, and Lam-otina, LÆm-onii, and Lam-methin. Nestor’s form more closely approaches the present, and is Lib’.

Judging from geographical names, as we find them on the common maps, Courland, as compared with Liefland, seems the more Germanized country of the two.

Courland and Liefland are the areas of the Lett, or Lettonian division of the Lithuanic stock; Vilna and Grodno are Proper Lithuanian—Lithuanian Proper and Samogitian. The later intrusions are from Poland. The Russian elements, too, of Vilna and Grodno have been Polonized; unless we prefer to say that the Pole elements have been Russianized. This means that when the language of Lithuania is neither the true Polish nor the true Lithuanic, it is what is called White Russian, a Poloniform dialect of the Russ. The geographical names in Vilna are easily distinguished from the Muscovite. The derivatives in -skaja, so common in St. Petersburg and Novogorod, are replaced by forms in -ichki.

The Lithuanian nations of the Jaczwingi and Pollexiani extended, at the beginning of the historical period, as far south as the Marsh of Pinsk, at the head-waters of the Pripecz, so that the northern part of Minsk was Lithuanic in the tenth century. All prolongations beyond this are ethnological rather than historical, i.e., they rest on inference rather than testimony.

The eastern part of Minsk, on the strength of the word Narym[15] is considered to have been Ugrian. The whole government is at present Russian, with (as is supposed) a Lithuanic and Ugrian basis; the Neuri, whether Ugrians, Lithuanians, or Ugro-Lithuanians having formed a portion of its oldest population.

Volhynia is considered to have been originally Lithuanic, for two reasons—the necessity of bringing down the early Lithuanic area as far in one direction as Gallicia, and as far in another as the Lower Don.

Podolia is Maloruss, or Russniak, its present population having been an extension of the Gallician Russniaks. It is considered to have been originally Lithuanic, from the necessity of bringing that area towards the Lower Don.

Kherson and Ekaterinoslav are eminently heterogeneous. Ugrian, perhaps, at first: they then became Lithuanic, then Skolotic, Hun, Avar, Alan, Khazar, Mongol, and Russian, not to mention recent colonies of Germans and Armenians. The extent to which the heterogeneous population of these parts differs from that of the more Slavonic governments of Russia, and approaches that of the true Turk areas is shown by the name Little Tartary, and New Russia, by which they are often designated.

Taurida is a study of itself. It may have been Ugrian at first. The points of resemblance between the ancient Tauri and Thracians of Thrace I refer to a common Sarmatian origin. But what does this mean? Sarmatian blood from the Lower Danube, or Sarmatian blood from Lithuania? or both? Then there were displacements effected by the tribes of Caucasus—Abasgi, in the classical times, Circassians under the Byzantine Empire. Then Greek colonies. Then Skolotic conquests. Then the other varieties of Turk occupancy. Besides this, comes that of the Goths of Lower Danube, and lastly, the Greeks of Byzantium, the Genoese of Kaffa, and the Mongols.

In Bessarabia, Turks and Moldavians are the predominant population. Divided between GetÆ and Skoloti, at the beginning of the historical period, it has since had its full share of foreign invasion. The particular Turk population, however, is that of the Budziaks; such being the name of the so-called Tartars of Bessarabia. The date of their introduction is probably that of the Crimean Turks. Another variety consists in a more recent colony of Nogays, from the government of Astrakhan.

The Russians Proper, like those of New Russia, are the latest elements of all. Hence, the view of the Bessarabian population is that it is Turk on the eastern, and Moldavian on the western frontier, with Slavonic and German superadditions.

Kosak is a word which is now generally admitted to be of Turk origin. In its present signification it has a military or political rather than an ethnological sense. It means a horse-soldier owing military service to the Russian Empire.

His locality, his semi-feudal duties, and his blood, all vary. The Kosaks of the Don are chiefly Malorussian, with considerable Turk, some Circassian, and also some Mongol, intermixture.

But besides the true Kosak of the Don there is a Kalmuk colony in the country as well; an offset from the greater settlement on the Volga. These are true Mongols in manners, in physiognomy, and, to a great extent, in creed. They are also the most south-western members of the family to which they belong. Their introduction is recent; for it must be remembered that the so-called Mongol conquest of Russia, although effected by the successors of Zingis-Khan, was Turk rather than true Mongolian, the previously conquered Turks of Tartary and Siberia being the chief agents.

Voronej is the country of the ancient Budini and Geloni, the country of the forest rather than the steppe, both in the days of Herodotus and at the present time. The Geloni, I think, like the proper Skoloti, were Turks, intrusive upon a previously Ugrian population—a Ugrian population continued southwards from the governments of Penza, Simbirsk, and Saratov.

North and east of Tambov the original Ugrian population is no longer a matter of inference. In Penza the geographical names betray the recent occupancy of Ugrians of the Morduin branch. In Nizhni Novogorod, Simbirsk, and Kasan, the Morduins still exist; falling into three divisions, and speaking a peculiar language. On the Oka they call themselves Ersad, on the Sura Mokshad. In the neighbourhood of Kasan they are called by the Turks Karatai. Imperfectly Christianized they still retain much of their original Shamanism; are well-grown, in respect to size and stature, thin-bearded, and with brown rather than either black or flaxen hair. In A.D. 1837, their numbers were about 92,000.

The next Ugrian family in the same governments is that of the Tsheremiss, on the left bank of the Volga. Smaller in stature than the Morduins, they have but little beard, smooth skins, light hair, and flat faces. Imperfectly Christianized, and imperfectly agricultural: they still retain much of their original Paganism as well as of their nomadic habits. Their language belongs to the second class of Ugrian tongues spoken in these south-western portions of the Ugrian area. On the right bank of the Volga, and opposite the Tsheremiss are the Tshuvatsh also in the governments of Simbirsk, Kasan, and Saratov. Of the three families they are the most numerous, exceeding 300,000. Their hair is often black, and somewhat curly; and if the Morduin recede from the proper Ugrian type and approach the Slavonians, the Tshuvatsh do the same in respect to the Turks. Their language, too, contains an inordinate proportion of Turk words: indeed, by several good authorities, it has been considered an intermediate or transitional form of speech.

The Ugrians are the oldest occupants of the government of Kasan, the Turks the most numerous.

Of the same date with those of the Crimea, they represent the Mongol conquerors of the thirteenth century. Mixed in blood, Mahometan in creed, the Tartars of Kasan are “of middle stature and muscular, but not fat. Their heads are of an oval shape; their countenances of fresh complexion, and fine regular features; their eyes, mostly black, are small and lively; their noses arched and thin as well as their lips. Their hair is generally dark, and their teeth strong; their gesture full of dignity and grace. The same remarks apply to the females, but the expression of their countenances is lost through their manner of life, and the natural attractiveness of their persons is lessened by ornament and paint.”[16]

Their civilization is on a level with that of the Osmanli.

The Turk area extends eastwards, the Ugrian is continued north and north-west. The Udmart, or Udy of the river Viatka, are the Votiaks of the Russians and the Ari of the Turks, imperfect Christians, agriculturalists rather than nomades, and with more red-haired individuals amongst them than any other population. Eminently unmixed, they live not only in separate houses but in separate villages.

The Uralian range itself is the occupancy of the Vogul, and here the type changes. The flatness of feature increases; the stature diminishes; the habits are ruder. Hunting is the chief means of subsistence. Both in this respect and in language, the affinities of the Voguls are, with the Asiatic rather than the European Ugrians—the Ostiaks rather than the Permians.

The Votiaks, on the other hand, lead through the Permians and Siranians to the Finlanders. The former of these give their name to the government of Perm, the Biarmaland of the old Norse Sagas. They are now nearly Russianized; but tumuli, Arabic coins, an ancient alphabet, and an early Christianity, attest their capacity for civilization. The Siranians of the government of Vologda are closely allied to the Permians, and not very far removed from the Kwains.

Two other populations require notice. The Bashkirs of Orenburg deeply indent the southern part of Perm. Imperfect Mahometans, they speak Turkish, but depart widely in their physiognomy from the Turks of Kasan; so much so that Klaproth and others consider them to be Ugrians who have changed their language. They are, more probably, Ugrian on the mother’s side only, the Turks having intruded. During summer they wander either to hunt or to tend their herds and flocks; in winter they unwillingly fix themselves to some locality under the covert of a forest, and reside in houses. The Metsheriak, the Teptiar, and some other tribes, are Turks belonging to the same group. They belong, however, to Orenburg and Siberia rather than to European Russia.

The Ostiaks occupy part of the government of Perm, the part that lies beyond the Uralian range, and which is, consequently, Asiatic. They are hunters and fishers, less in size and more imperfectly Christianized than the Voguls. I believe them to have been the gold-keeping griffins (Gryphes) of Herodotus; though, to do this, the story of their relations to the Arimaspi must be supposed to have arisen in Armenia—no unlikely quarter, considering the probable line of the gold trade. A curious passage in Moses of Chorene tells us that the root Astyag, in the Old Armenian, signifies a dragon: and that Astyages, the Mede, was, in the eyes of an Armenian, Astyages Draco. Now, the locality of the Ostiaks is nearly that of the Uralian gold-mines, while just below them were the Tsheremiss, whose name in the mouths, first of a Skolotian and then of a Greek, might easily become Arimasp. The Greek could not pronounce the tsh; and as numerous Turkish words end in -asp, the -p might have been added on the principle which in English converts asparagus into sparrowgrass.

We have thus been brought round to the Finlanders of Finland.

With the reasons already given for considering the Russian in general to be a population of comparatively recent introduction, with the evidence in favour of the Skoloti having been intrusive Turks; and with the necessity of bringing the Lithuanians as far south as the Asiatic frontier, it is, surely, not too much to assert the doctrine that the original Russia was divided between two populations—one akin to the Permian, one to the Lithuanian. The line which divided them is, perhaps, an insoluble problem. Pskov and Smolensko, at least, may be given to the latter; Vladimir, Kostroma, Yaroslav, Moskow, and Tambov, to the former—Tula, Orlov, Koursk, Riazan, Tshernigov, Kharkhov, and Poltava, being left undistributed.

Further details respecting the Turk intrusions into Eastern Europe still stand over.

So do certain further questions respecting the Asiatic conquests of the Sarmatians.

They will be considered in the ethnology of Turkey.

The origin of the name Russ, however, requires a present notice. The word itself is Ugrian, but it became attached to the empire of Russia through the conquests of the Swedes. Certain Swedes, in the ninth century, having invaded the country of the (then) Ugrian Rhoxolani, extended their conquests so far southwards as to reach the Black Sea on the one side, and the Caspian on the other. They were objects of terror to the Byzantians; and in a curious passage of Constantine Porphyrogeneta we learn that the Falls of the Dnieper had two names, one Russ, and one Slavonic—Russ meaning Swedish or Norse. So that an undetermined amount of Swedish blood must be given to the Muscovite and Malorussian areas, as well as to the Baltic Provinces; and a time must be recognized when the word Russ meant the Norse conqueror of the parts on the Dnieper and Volga, in opposition to the conquered Slavonian. At the same time the Norse Russ was Russian only as an Anglo-Saxon of Kent was a Briton. He was a settler in the land of the older Slavonians and the still older Ugrian Rhoxolani.