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 Usc.o.ks (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).

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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, const.i.tute a race intermediate between the Russians and the Poles.

The latter first appear in history with the dynasty of the Piasts, about 860. The Slovachians, who extend to the north-west of Hungary as far as Austrian Galicia, belong, as well as the Tchecks, to this same Polish branch. The Ruthenians, settled to the north of Transylvania, proceeded from the mixture of the first Slavonians established in this country with the Poles who emigrated in the twelfth century from Galicia or Red Russia.

Such is the vast collection of populations united under the name of the Slavonian family.

It is difficult to a.n.a.lyze the habits of a race, which, for centuries, has been divided between oppression and slavery. We will, however, endeavour to do so, and shall commence with the Northern Slavonians.

The Northern Slavonian is, in general, gentle and patient. His sweet toned language caresses the ear and the mind with expressions full of tenderness. He treats his wife and children with the greatest kindness.

Like the Arab, he loves a life of wandering and adventure beneath the open sky, and, like the Arab, he can bear the greatest fatigue. On horseback he crosses plains covered with snow, as the Arab crosses the burning sands of the desert. Music has a very moving effect on the Slavonian. It forms a means of translating his tenderness and his melancholy; it responds to the vague and cloudy impressions, to the yearnings, of his swelling heart. The Slavonian peasants cultivate the voice, and men, rough and coa.r.s.e in many other respects, compose melodies full of sentiment. The auditors press around the singer, like the shepherds of ancient Arcadia, and tears of emotion and pleasure are seen rolling down the unkempt beards of these poor Danubians.

The Slavonians are less sensible to linear than to musical harmony. Thus it is that Russian architecture can do no more than imitate the monuments of France and Italy. On the other hand, the taste for colour attains with them a considerable development, a fact which is evidenced by the colours of their materials and furniture, and the decoration of their apartments. The sense of ornament is to be met with in the lowest villages of Russia, and the peasant who constructs his house with the rough-hewn trunks of trees, does not omit to paint and carve his door, window, and roof.

This explains how the serf, when taken from his plough, is able, after a very short apprenticeship, to reproduce the delicate and artistic work of the Parisian jeweller.

We see, therefore, that the artistic apt.i.tudes of the Slavonian are well developed, and that this race, in order to arrive at excellence in art, only requires the conditions of political liberty and individual independence.

From a moral aspect, the Northern Slavonian obeys, above all, the inclination of his heart, rather than of his reason. Nor must the Russian be looked to for personal initiative, or philosophical or social innovations. He does not possess the instinct of liberty, but he has, in a high degree, sympathy, collective action, and the equalizing tendencies which are its consequences.

This sentimental supremacy is manifested in the Orthodox religion which prevails in Russia, which imposes with authority its decisions, and the precepts of which are addressed less to the reason than to blind faith.

By referring to this feeling of sympathy, we are enabled to furnish an explanation of the facility with which an immense population, with bad police arrangements, bad administration, and without good means of communication, acts collectively, accepting the same faith, and obeying the same law. The minds of all in Russia seem to obey one single will and inspiration.

The Slavonian republics flourished from the sixth to the seventh century, during which time these people were happy, wealthy, and tranquil. Art and science flourished there under the shelter of munic.i.p.al liberty. But, although well formed for peace, they did not possess the element of centralization which was necessary to enable them to withstand foreign aggression. They at last became a prey to the Mongolians and Germans, who brought with them a feudal form of government, and banished all prosperity by destroying the democratic element of equality. The inhabitants of Novgorod were reduced to an actual state of slavery, and Poland, devoted to deplorable political inst.i.tutions, became, from that moment, a prey to the anarchy which was to bring about its fall.

Russia took its origin from the submission of the Slavonian populations of the north, to the despotic centralization so powerfully organized by Peter the Great and his successors.

The Slavonians of the South, that is, the inhabitants of Slavonia, Servia, Bulgaria, Carniola, &c., differ sensibly from those of the North. A dry and mountainous country, filled, nevertheless, with sweet odours, a burning sun, a clear sky, and the various products of the soil, have rendered the race of Southern Slavonians dark, wiry, active, warlike, and chivalrous. Few men are stronger, physically or morally, than the Slavonians of the Ottoman Empire.

The deplorable Turkish administration has been unable to change the precious qualifications of this people. Though continually beaten down with the sword, they always rise again; the least hope of independence nerves their hearts. The hospitality of the Southern Slavonians, their language br.i.m.m.i.n.g with poetry, and their national songs, all impart to them a fine and beautiful character. It may be safely affirmed that a brilliant civilization will arise among these people as soon as they are released from the Turkish yoke.

We will now shortly consider the princ.i.p.al populations whom we have cla.s.sed under the Slavonian family.

_Russians._--The Russians form the most important branch of this family. They may be subdivided into _Russians properly so called_, _Rousniaks_, and _Cossacks_.

The Russians, properly so called, inhabit, almost exclusively, the central portion of Russia, and are, moreover, disseminated throughout all the rest of the Russian Empire, the immense extent of which is well known. In the Asiatic and American portions of this vast empire, they form, not the majority, but the ruling section of the population.

Figs. 43 and 44 will convey an idea of the Russian physiognomy in the capital of the empire, St. Petersburg; fig. 43 represents the dress of the townspeople, and the sledge which takes the place of the carriage during the long winters of this lat.i.tude; fig. 44 represents the interior of an inn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 43.--TRAFFIC IN ST. PETERSBURG.]

In Russian, the term _isba_ is applied to the dwellings of the peasantry, which are almost always constructed of wood. A Russian village usually consists of only one street, lined with isbas, more or less ornamented, according to the taste or fortune of the proprietor.

The houses are almost always similar. Figure 45 shows the interior of this house.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 44.--A RUSSIAN TAVERN.]

In these houses everything is made of wood, except that portion which surrounds a gigantic stove kept alight during the whole winter. The furniture consists of forms placed along the walls, and which serve as beds for the whole family, who in winter however sleep upon the stove.

To the ceiling are suspended the provisions and candles. In the corner of every room is an image of the Virgin Mary. Instruments of labour, cooking utensils, and domestic animals mingle, within the isba, in picturesque disorder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 45.--INTERIOR OF AN ISBA.]

The Russian peasant is intelligent, brave, hospitable, affable, and benevolent; but he is wanting in cleanliness, and indulges to excess in malt spirit. He wears a shirt of cotton-stuff, usually red, falling over capacious trousers, which are tucked into heavy boots.

His outer clothing consists of the _touloupa_, formed of a sheep's skin with the wool on, and worn with this next the body. His low crowned hat has a broad turned up rim. The hat worn by peasants in the neighbourhood of Moscow is pointed and almost without a rim.

The women wear boots like the men: they also wear the touloupa, with a shawl and kerchief over the head and shoulders. It is only on fete days that this wretched costume gives place to ap.r.o.ns and shawls, of bright colour, and even embroidered in gold and silver. The head-dresses are elegant, and vary in the different provinces.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 46.--LIVONIAN PEASANTS.]

The pleasures of a Russian peasant are always of a serious character.

The quick and sparkling expansion and gaiety of Southern populations are unknown to the inhabitants of these frozen regions.

M. d'Hearyet, who has travelled in the Russian provinces of the Baltic, informs us, that at Riga the houses are comfortable and well appointed; that immense stoves preserve a temperature of 68 or more in vast apartments, guarded from without by double windows and double doors: that persons leaving the house envelop themselves in a fur robe, which leaves no form distinguishable, so that it is difficult to say whether the individual in question is a man or woman: that at night, the bed is small, low, furnished with one or two leathern mattresses and some sheets a little larger than napkins. They live in a hot-house atmosphere, the air of which is not often enough renewed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 47.--TARTAR OF KASAK.]

The Cossacks form in Russia rather a military caste than a distinct people. They seem to be descended from the Rousniaks mixed with other people, chiefly Circa.s.sians. They frequently have longer faces, more prominent noses, and are of greater height, than the Russians properly so called. Their princ.i.p.al settlement is upon the banks of the lower portion of the Don. They, however, rarely possess a fixed residence, since the Cossacks, spread throughout the entire Russian Empire, act as light cavalry and border troops.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 48.--TARTAR OF THE CAUCASUS.]

Figures 48 and 49 represent different types, taken from Nature, of Cossacks who live in the Caucasus, along the frontiers which bound the Southern portion of the Russian possessions.

_Finns._--The Finns form small scattered populations which extend from the Baltic sea to the east of the Obi. The Finns are regarded as the remains of people once far more numerous, who have been conquered, repressed, carried off, or driven back by Slavonians, Turks, and Mongolians. They lead the life of hunters and husbandmen, rather than that of warriors and nomads. Reddish, or, frequently red hair, a scanty beard, a complexion marked with red patches, bluish or grey eyes, sunken cheeks, prominent cheek-bones, a large occiput, and an angular frame possessing less beauty than that of the Europeans and Arameans, have been regarded as the original characteristics of the Finns: but in a large number of these people these characteristics are more or less modified. Among them are distinguished the _Ostiaks_, the _Vogouls_, the _Finns of Siberia_, the _Finns of Eastern Russia_, and the _Finns of the Baltic_.

The Finns of Siberia form two groups; one in the South, the other in the North.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 49.--TARTAR OF THE CAUCASUS.]