406 EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



munities in the neighbouring provinces of Simbirsk, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, 

 and Perm, with a total population variously estimated at from 500,000 to 700,000. 

 They are probably the Burtasses of the Arab geographers, whom many suppose to 

 have been Mordvinians driven northwards by the Mongolian invasion in the 

 thirteenth century. Their appearance, about one thousand words of their language, 

 and several of their customs have caused them to be grouped with the Finns ; but 

 a great many now speak Turki, and in their songs the Tatars g've them the name 

 of " Brothers." The national speech is still current in some districts, and even 

 taught in the schools since 1839, and an extensive religious literature had already 

 been composed and printed in it before that year. They wear the Russian dress, are 

 good husbandmen, and for over one hundred and fifty years all but a few hundred 

 have been Christians, though, like the Cheremissians, retaining some pjgan and 

 Moslem practices. They hold pork in abhorrence, and till recently sacrificed to their 

 god Tora, not live horses, but simply clay images of the animal. Of smaller stature 

 than the Tatars, and mostly a puny, half-starved race, they retire before the 

 Russians to the remotest villages and woodlands. Their songs are soft and 

 plaintive, like those of a people doomed to extinction. Till quite recently a 

 Chuvash, wishing to be revenged on an enemy, woidd often hang himself at his 

 door, in order to draw upon him what they call " dry misfortune ;" that is, a visit 

 from the Russian authorities. They are also said to cheat the Russians, not 

 through greed, but in order to injure the hereditary foe. 



The Kazan Tatars, Yotyaks, and Bashkirs. 



Or all the non-Slav peoj)les of the Middle Volga the Tatars have best preserved 

 their distinct nationality. They reside in the large towns side by side with the 

 Russians, and in many villages form with them peaceful communities, with the 

 same staroste and council, although otherwise separated from them by the 

 insuperable barrier of religion. Were the Christian and Moslem worships treated 

 with equal justice by the Government, it is probable that the Finnish peoples 

 would mostly become Mohammedans, as the Chuvashes formerly did. Tatar 

 villages, forcibly converted in the eighteenth century, have been known to leave 

 the churches in a body, or refuse to receive the priests, and their religious 

 instruction, at least on a level with that of the Orthodox missionaries, enables them 

 successfully to resist all proselytizing efforts by simply keeping on the defensive, 

 and teaching their children the precepts of the Koran. Till recently their 

 medresseh, or colleges, always adjoining the mosques, had an almost exclusively 

 religious character ; but since 1872 elementary books, composed in the current 

 Tatar dialect by M. Radlov, have been introduced into the Kazan schools. 



The " Kazan Tatars," who arrived with the Mongolian Khans in the beginning 

 of the thirteenth centur}^, descend from the Kipchaks of the Golden Horde. 

 Since then they have certainly increased in numbers, and are now estimated at 

 about 1,200,000, of whom nearly one-half are in the government of Kazan. Amongst 

 them are some of the old Bulgarians, and they often even call themselves 



