As late as the twelfth century the peoples of the basin of the Volga spoke purely Tatar dialects. The wide and open steppes of Siberia, extending without break into eastern Europe, poured the overflow of their populations into the valleys of the Russian rivers which flow into the Black Sea. The great Russian cities of the borderland between Europe and Asia were either founded or Slavicized after the eleventh century. About that time the Slavic dialects of the Vistula and the Dnieper began to blend with the Asiatic languages of the Oka, Kliasma and Volga valleys. Modern Russian, a mixture of Slavic and Tatar or Mongolian words, was born of this blending. In a broader sense it is the expression of the union of Europe and Asia to create a Russian nation, for Russia is the product of the ancient Russ or Ruthenian principalities and the old Muscovite states. The former were Slav and lay in Europe. The latter were Tatar and belonged physically to Asia. As a nation the Russia of our time sprang into existence at the end of the seventeenth century. Prior to that period, its western section is known to history as the land of Russ or Ruthenia. Its eastern part was Muscovy. Through the union of the eastern and western sections the Russian Empire of modern times came into being. No literary monuments antedate the birth of its nationality.
In Russia the Slav who is free from Asiatic contamination is rarely met east of the 35th meridian. A line from Lake Ladoga to Lake Ilmen and along this meridian to the mouth of the Dnieper forms the divide between the Russians of Europe and of Asia. The parting of the waters belonging respectively to the Don and the Dnieper is, from a racial standpoint, the boundary between the two groups. The Tatar in the Russian appears east of this frontier. The Oriental customs which permeate Russian life, the Tatar words of the Russian language, all begin to assume intensity east of this dividing line, while to the west the spirit of the vast stretch of north Asiatic steppes disappears. Thus the commonly accepted Ural frontier of European and Asiatic Russia is unwarranted in the light of ethnic facts. The inhabitants of the Volga lands are essentially Asiatics among whom the numerically inferior Slav element has become dominant.
Fig. 8—This group of Russian officers conveys an idea of the excessive racial mingling in Russia. Alpine and Tatar features can be recognized as dominant.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
Fig. 9—The heart of Moscow with the buildings of the Kremlin in the background.
Asia’s linguistic contribution to Europe is the gift of its unwooded steppelands. The immense tract of monotonous country extending west of the Altai Mountains to Europe is the home of a family of languages known as the Uralo-Altaic. Among these the highly vocalic branch of Finno-Ugrian traveled west with the nomadic herdsmen who used it. In Europe it acquired the polish which brought it to the forms recognized respectively as Finnish or Suomi and Hungarian. Both enjoy the distinction of being the most cultivated of the great northern Asiatic family of languages. The case of Finnish is especially remarkable owing to its high development without loss of its original agglutinative character.