The Ethnology of Europe

by 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.