The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

INHABITANTS. 193groups, Uralo-Fiunic in the north, Mongolo-Turkic in the south. Farther westother Finns, Tavastians and Karelians in the north, Ehstes (Esthonians) andIngrians in the south, still hold the shores of the very gulf where stands the newcapital of the empire. South of the Ehstes stretches the domain of anothernationality, that of the Aryan Letto-Lithuanians, akin to, though yet distinctfrom, the Slavs. Still farther south the Crimea is partly peopled by Tatars,while Rumanians, Latinised Dacians, occupj- the south-west corner of Russiabetween the Pruth and the Dniester, about the lower course of the latter river,and reaching in some places as far as the Bug. The Jews also have establishedtrading colonies in all the western towns of the empire.Nevertheless all the central region comprised between the Volga and Oka, thegreat northern lakes and the Euxine, is occupied by the Slavs, who have advancedin a compact mass westwards far beyond the frontiers of the empire, between theLetto-Lithuanians of the Niemen and the Rumanians of the Pruth. Those of theSlavs forming the Russian family, by far the most numerous, are themselvesdivided into three groups, which may be regarded as distinct nationalities. Theseare the "White Russians of the forest-covered lowlands stretching from the leftbank of the Dvina to the Pripet marshes ; the Little Russians, or Ukranians,occupying the vast region comprised between the Donetz in Russia, the San inGalicia, and the sources of the Theiss in Ilungary ; the Great Russians, or Muscovites,spread over the rest of Russia, and especially in the centre. From thisdiversity the Czar takes the title of "Autocrat of all the Russias."The two western branches are allied to the Polish Slavs, a sister nationalitywith whom they were for a long time politically united in one state. Thenumerous Polish communities still found between the Narev and Dnieper areevident traces of that old political union of Poland with White and Little Russia,all now absorbed in the empire of the Great Russians.Polish patriots, vanquished on the battle-field, have sought an ethnologicalrevenge by driving their conquerors from the Slav, and even from the Aryanworld. For them, as well as for their enthusiastic western friends, the two WesternRussian or Ruthenian nationalities are merely provincial varieties of the Polishstock, while the Muscovites are Mongolians, Tatars, Finns, masked under aborrowed name, since the twelfth century speaking an alien tongue, appropriatingthe name of Russian by command of Catherine II., and thus, as it were, usurpinga place amongst the peoples of Europe. Recent historical and ethnographicresearch proves that both assertions are equally erroneous. The Little Russiansare undoubtedly Slavs, distinct in speech from the Poles and the Great Russiansalike.But the White Russians are most commonly classed linguistically amongstthe subdivisions of the Great Russians, although in its phonetics their languagebetrays Polish, and in its vocabidary Little Russian influences, so that its exactposition among the sister tongues remains still undetermined. As to the differenceassumed to have existed between Russia and Muscovy, the authentic witness ofcoins, diplomas, and other documents shows that the Muscovites never ceasedto call themselves and be called Russians or Russines, or, according to one of the