Ethnographical Memoir on the Nations of Slavonian Race. 2 1 



rated from Tschudish, Tartar, and Mongolian tribes, whom they in part 

 drove further towards the north, and in part subjugated j occasionally they 

 were in their turn subdued. 



At an earlier period, two principal states arose among the Russians j the 

 northern one near lake Ilmen, about Novgorod ; and the southern on the 

 Dnieper, of which Kief was the capital. The former consisted of the 

 principal and most numerous tribes, and the latter of the Little Russians, 

 or the weaker tribes ; who, from the level plains which they inhabited, were 

 named Polyaenen. The former founded the state of Novgorod, on wliich 

 occasion they became intermixed with people of Finnish race. Internal 

 quarrels brought the Slavi of Novgorod, the Tshudes and the Krivitsches, 

 near Polocz, about 862, under the dominion of Rurik and his Warjaga 

 Rossi, a Scandinavian tribe, to whom this denomination was given by the 

 Finns. Rurik gave to his new subjects the first laws and the principles of 

 civilization, as far as they were capable of receiving them at that time; and 

 from this period, the inhabitants of the state of Novgorod were termed 

 Russians. Hence we are enabled to explain the fact, that some Byzantine 

 writers, and even Nestor, distinguished the Russians from the Slavi, and 

 the Russian from the Slavonian language. The real Russians were Swedes, 

 and their idioms the Swedish language ; which, however, as belonging to 

 the least numerous party, soon gave way to the Slavonian, and was swal- 

 lowed up in it. Rurik's first successor, Oleg, conquered Kief in 884, and 

 united both states : thenceforward the name of Russians was extended 

 over the southern Slavi, in the country afterwards called the Ukraine. 

 Vladimir, between 980 and 1015, introduced the Christian religion ac- 

 cording to the doctrine of the Greek church, founded monasteries, and 

 laid thus the earliest foundations of history and ecclesiastical culture. 

 Kief remained the metropolis of the empire ; and although the seat of 

 government was removed to Susdad, and afterwards, in 457, to Vladimir, 

 yet Kief continued to be the centre of whatever learning existed in the 

 country. About 123C, the southern part of the Russian state fell under 

 the dominion of the Mongol Tartars ; and about the middle of the four- 

 teenth century, the Poles and the Tartars gained possession of nearly the 

 whole empire, which they held till Ivan Vasilievitsch restored its independ- 

 ence in the last half of the fifteenth century, and laid the foundation of its 

 subsequent greatness. That the early connection with Finns and Swedes, 

 and the adoption of Ciiristianity according to the Greek doctrine in 988, 

 and the long domination of the Mongoles, were not without influence on 

 the Russian language, we have sufficient proof; since among all the Sla- 

 vonian dialects, the Russian was most corrupted by the introduction of 

 Finnish, Greek, and Tartar words and forms. It is therefore the least 

 understood by tribes belonging to the western branch of the Slavonian 

 race. 



