The Ethnology of Europe

by R. G. Latham

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.