The Racial Geography of Europe-1896

[Togar mah]

THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE.


A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY.


(Lowell Institute Lectures, 1896.)


By WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, Ph. D.,


ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY; LECTURER IN ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.


SUPPLEMENT.—RUSSIA AND THE SLAVS.

ON the east, the west, and the north, the boundaries of the Russian Empire are drawn with finality. Its territory ends where the land ends. The quarter of this empire which is comprised in Europe is defined with equal clearness on three sides and a half. Only along the line of contact with western Europe, shown on our map facing page 724, is debatable territory to be found. Even here a natural frontier runs for a long way on the crest of the Carpathian Mountains. To l)e sure, Galicia, for the moment, owes political allegiance to Austria- Hungary; but the Ruthenians, who constitute the major part of her population, are nowise distinguishable from the Russians, as we shall soon see. This leaves merely the two extremes of the Baltic-Black Sea frontier in question. The indefiniteness of the southern end of this line, from the Carpathians down, is one cause of that Russian itch for the control of the Bosporus which no number of international conventions can assuage. The Danube could never form a real boundary; a great river like that is rather a unifying factor in the life of nations than otherwise. Hence the great j)roblems of the Balkan Peninsula. From the Carpathians north to the Baltic Sea, likewise, no geogra])hical line of demarcation can be traced with surety. ISTo water shed, worthy of the name, between the Dnieper and Vistula exists, although the one runs east and the other w^est not far from the present boundary of Poland and Russia. The former coun- try is possessed of no sharply defined area of characterization. The State of Texas has as clear a topographical title to independent political life. The partition of Poland was in a measure a direct result of geographical circumstances. These have condemned this unhappy country, despite the devoted patriotism of her people, to a nondescript political existence in the future. By language the Poles are affiliated with Russia, not Germany; but in religion they are Occidental rather than Byzantine. Thus Poland stands to-day, ])added with millions of politically inert Jews, as a buffer between Russia and Teutonism. It is a case not unlike that of Alsace-Lorraine. In both instances the absolute inflexibility of physical environment as a factor in political life is exemplified.

From the Carpathian Mountains, where, as we have said, Russia naturally begins, a vast plain stretches away north and east to the Arctic Ocean and to the confines of Asia ; an expanse of territory, in Europe, eleven times as large as France.* I^or is it limited to Europe alone. Precisely the same formation, save for a slight interruption at the L^ral Mountains, extends on across Asia, clear to the Pacific Ocean. European Russia, only one quarter the size of Siberia, is, how- ever, the only part of immediate interest to us here. ISTowhere in all its vast expanse is there an elevation worthy the name mountain. Even the most rugged portion, the Valdiii Hills in southern !N'ov- gorod, are barely one thousand feet high; they are more like a table- land than a geological uplift.

Whatever its local character, be it great peat swamps or barren steppe, the impression of the country is ever the same. Monotony Leroy-Beaulieu, 1881-89, gives a superb description of the country. Its simple in immensity; an endless nniformity of geographical environment, hardly to be equaled in any country inhabited by European peoples. Thus is the geographical environment of the Russian people deter- mined in its first important respect. Their territory offers no obstacle whatever to expansion in any direction; the great rivers, navigable for hundreds of miles, are, in fact, a distinct invitation to such migrations. On the other hand, this plain surface and the great rivers offer the same advantages to the foreigner as to the native; there is a complete absence of those natural barriers behind v^hich a people may seek shelter from the incursions of others. The only natural protection which the region offers is in its dense forests and swamps. These, however, unlike mountains, offer no variety of conditions or natural products; they afford no stimulation to advance in culture; they retard civilization in the act of protecting it; they are better fitted to afford refuge to an exiled people than to en- courage progress in a nascent one.

The second factor in determining a geographical area of char- acterization is its relative fertility. As we have observed before, this invites or discourages the movement of populations, in armies or in peaceful migration, just as much as the configuration of the surface makes this an easy or difficult matter. Judged by this second criterion, the territory of European Russia varies considerably. Leroy-Beaulieu divides it into three strips from north to south. The half lying north of a line from Kiev to Kazan (see map on page 731), constituting the forest zone, is light soiled; it varies from heavy forest on the southern edge to the stunted growth of the arctic plains. South of the forest belt, south of a line, that is, from Kiev to Kazan, lies the prairie country. This is the flattest of all; over a territory several times the size of France, a hill of three hundred and fifty feet elevation is unknown. This prairie or woodless strip is of surpassing fertility — the so-called Black Mold belt, just south of the forests, rivaling the basin of the ]\Iississippi in its natural richness of soil. From this the country gradually becomes less and less fertile, with the decreasing rainfall, as we go south. This brings us at last to the third region, that of the barren steppes, or saline deserts, which center about the Caspian Sea. These are found also less extensively north of the Crimean Peninsula, as far Avest as the lower Dnieper. Their major part lies south and east of the Don River. As Leroy- Beaulieu observes, the real boundary between Europe and Asia, viewed not cartographically, but in respect of culture and anthro- pology, lies not at the Ural River and Mountains at all, where most of our geographies place it. Sedentary, civilized, racial Europe, roughly speaking, ends at a line, shown on our map, up the Don from its mouth to the knee of the Volga, thence up the latter and away to tlie northeast. This brings lis to Asia, with its terrific extremes o£ continental climate, with its barren steppes, its slit-eyed Mongols, and its nomadic and imperfect culture.

A word must be said, before we proceed to the physical anthro- pology of Russia, as to the languages which are spoken there. The true Russians form about one half tlie population of the Euro- pean portion of the country ; the rest are Letto-Lithuanians, of whom we shall speak in a moment, Poles, Jews, Finns, and Mongols, with a sprinkling of Germans. The true Russians are divided into three groups of very unequal size.* These are said to differ not only in language, but in temperament as well. About fifty of the seventy- odd millions of them, known as Great Russians, occupy the entire center, north, and east of the country. These are the " Muscovites," their historic center being in the ancient capital city of Moscow. ISText in numbers come the people of Little Russia, or Ukraine, which, as our maps show, inhabits the governments of the southwest, up against Galicia. They in turn center politically in Kiev, cover- ing a wedge-shaped territory, with its point lying to the east in Kharkov and Voronesh. The Cossacks, who extend down around the Sea of Azof into the Kuban, are linguistically Little Russians also. The third group, known as the White Russians, only four million souls in number, is found in the four governments shown on our maps, extending from Poland up and around Lithuania. This White Russian territory is flat, swampy, and heavily forested, in strong contrast to the fertile, open Black Mold belt of Little Russia. In topography and in the meagerness of its soil White Russia is akin to the sandy Baltic provinces from Lithuania north. Linguistically, the White and Great Russians are closely allied; the dialect of the Little Russians is considerably differentiated from them both. This is probably due to the Tatar invasions from the east across middle Russia. In face of these the Great Russians with- drew toward Moscow; the White Russians took refuge in their in- hospitable swamps and forests, while the population of the Ukraine was left to itself at the south.

Entirely distinct from the Slavs in language is the Letto-Lithu- anian people, which, to the number of three million or more, occupies the territory between the White Russians and the Baltic Sea ex- tending down into northern Prussia, f Their speech, in the com- parative isolation of this inhospitable region — an isolation which made them the last people in Europe to accept Christianity — is the most archaic member of the great Aryan or inflectional family. Standing between Slavic and Teutonic, more primitive
continued- (pics)

[Togar mah]

Finno-Teutonic Type

Lapp, Scandinavia.
Cephalic Index, 94.

Mongol Type

Kalmuck. Cephalic, 79.