It will be seen that the rather complicated pedigree of the Slavonians, is connected with gradual displacements of Asiatic populations. This then explains the fact that they possess the Caucasian type in a remarkable degree of purity, but altered by the admixture of Mongolian blood.
A certain love of separatism, and a tendency to rebel under the yoke of authority, have been the misfortune of these people. At an early period they separated into rival nationalities, possessing but little capacity for self-government. Anarchy was their political condition, and to this must be attributed the misfortunes of Poland and Hungary, nations which, at the present day, are almost effaced from the Map of Europe.
The Slavonians occupy a large portion of Eastern Europe; formerly they had advanced as far as the centre of Germany. The descendants of the German Slavonians are found in the Venedians of Lusatia, the Tchecks or inhabitants of Bohemia, and the inhabitants of Carinthia and Carniola. The purest type of the Slavonian race is to be found in the Servians, inhabitants of Servia, Herzegovina and Hungarian Slavonia. The Bosniaks and Montenegriners are also Slavonians. They formerly sent to Croatia colonists under the name of Uscoks (emigrants.)
The Croats are Slavonians who descended, about the ninth century, from the region of the Carpathians in Illyria, and who absorbed the previous original Pannonian and Dalmatian population.
A branch quite distinct from this great race, and which might be considered as forming a separate stock, is represented by the Lithuanians, a people whose mild and indolent nature would seem to imply a mixture at some remote period, with Finn, or, perhaps also, with Gothic blood.
Russia is occupied at the present day by a Slavonian race mixed with the Scandinavians and the primitive inhabitants of the soil. The Slavonians who occupied Poland spread from the banks of the Dnieper to the foot of the Oural mountains, while the immigration of the Varegians, a Scandinavian people, brought a northern influence into this country. These Varegians absorbed the Slavonians whom they found in this country, and the Tchoudans who had summoned them. Under this twofold action arose the Russian nation, which is mentioned by Greek writers for the first time in 839, and the elements of which were subsequently modified in various respects by the infusion of Turkish and Mongolian blood. Russia took its name from the country situate around Upsal, which was the native district of the Scandinavian emigrants (Rios-Lagen, the Ruotsimaa of the Finns).
42.—RUSSIAN DEVOTEES, RIGA.
The population of Russia Major appears to be chiefly composed of a Finnish-Slavonic race. Among the inhabitants of Russia Minor (Cossacks of the Ukraine), the Polish element predominates. Among these Russians we shall find the stock of those who established themselves farther north in Russia Major, the population of which eventually absorbed them. The Bielo-Russians, or inhabitants of White Russia, who occupy the greater portion of the provinces of Mohilew, Minsk, Witepsk, Grodno, and Wilna, constitute a race intermediate between the Russians and the Poles.