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. _Liv_onia, 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 _primâ 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 (σολοἱκοντες). 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_.