380 EUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



imperial race, imposing tHeir political forms on the rest of the empire, their speech 

 acquiring corresponding predominance as the official language and literary- 

 standard. Compared with the other nationalities of Eastern Slavdom, the Great 

 Russians have the advantages flowing from material cohesion and compact 

 solidarity. Throughout their domain they everywhere present the same uniform 

 aspect as Nature herself. Towns, hamlets, cultivated lands, are everywhere alike ; 

 the people have everywhere nearly the same appearance, and even the same costume, 

 except amongst the women. Their habits of life are also the same, and their 

 speech offers but slight dialectic variations, so that the provinces are nowhere 

 marked by any decided contrasts. 



The Yeliko-R-ussians are, on the whole, somewhat shorter, but also more thick- 

 set, than the Little and White Russians. The greatest percentage of youths 

 rejected as unfit for military service occurs in the Central Muscovite provinces, 

 though this may possibly be due to a partial deterioration of the race in the 

 spinning factories and other workshops of Central Russia. AYherever the blood 

 has not been impoverished by squalor, foul air, and enforced labour, tbe mûjiks 

 are remarkable for their broad shoulders, open features, and massive brow. They 

 delight in long and thick beards, which they have succeeded in preserving in spite 

 of Peter the Great, who wanted to shave his subjects in order to make them look 

 like Dutchmen. Hence they still continue to deserve the sobriquet of katzap?, 

 or " buck-goats," applied to them by the Little Russians. But these large 

 bearded faces often beam with a lively expression, and are lit up with a 

 pleasant smile, while many are of a strikingly noble type. Under the influence 

 of education the peasantry are soon softened, their-features becoming refined and 

 animated. *'The Russians," says Michelet, speaking especially of the civilised 

 Slavs, " are not a northern race. They have neither the savage energy nor the 

 robust gravity of that type. Their quick and wiry action at once betrays their 

 southern nature." They are gifted with an astonishing natural eloquence not only 

 of words, but of gesture, and their mimicry is so far superior to that of the Italians 

 that it is readily understood by all. 



Although extremely gentle, and loving their own after their own fashion, the 

 Great Russians are still worshippers of brute force, and amongst the peasantry 

 the authority of the father and husband is never questioned. In their families 

 brutality and real kindliness are often found strangely allied. So recently as the 

 seventeenth century the father would still buy a new whip, wherewith to inflict on 

 his daughter the last stripes permitted to the paternal authority, then passing it 

 on to her new master, with the advice to use it often and unsparingly. On 

 entering the nuptial chamber the bridegroom used it accordingly, accompanying 

 the blows rained down on back and shoulders with the words, " Forget thy 

 father's will, and now do my pleasure." Yet the song recommends him "a 

 silken lash." Love matches, common in Litrle Russia, are the exception amongst 

 the Great Russians. All the terms of the contract are arranged beforehand by the 

 heads of the families interested, independently of the bride and bridegroom, nor 

 would the elders ever so far forget their dignity as to consult the young couple on 



