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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



THE LAPPS, THE ROUNDEST-HEADED PEOPLE IN EUROPE 



For centuries they have made their home on the permanently frozen, treeless wastes of 

 the tundra of Norway, Sweden, and Russia. As a result, they are generally dwarfed both 

 in body and mind. They do not average more than four feet seven inches in height, and 

 even the children have faces which are frequently drawn and ugly, as if with age (see p. 466). 



the White Russians and the Cossacks, all 

 Slavs, all speaking some form of Russian 

 Slavic, all members or dissidents of the Eas- 

 tern Orthodox Church, but each group of a 

 different type from the rest (see pages 450 and 

 457). 



THE GREAT RUSSIANS 



The Great Russians spread extensively from 

 Moscow as their historic center. The river 

 Moskwa gave its name, not only to the capital 

 which stands upon its banks but to the Mus- 

 covite Empire and to the Tsars of Muscovy. 

 Through the East a Russian is always called 

 a Muscov. Saint Petersburg or Petrograd, 

 always foreign, kindled no love or devotion. 

 Moscow delivered the people from two cen- 

 turies of oppression by the Tatars of the 

 Golden Horde : in 1613 crushed the Poles and 

 gave the nation a new birth : in its flames con- 

 sumed the Empire of Napoleon. It is still 

 "Holy Mother Moscow." 



Other Russians are merely accretions, added 

 by conquest or voluntary submission. The 

 Great Russians are the real Russians. Among 

 them are seen some of "the best examples of 



the Caucasian type." They are industrious, 

 unambitious, sluggish, dreamy, patient, devout, 

 disliking responsibility, indifferent rather than 

 careless, impractical, pacific. Theirs is the 

 only national hymn which breathes as its chief 

 note a prayer for peace. Yet, when the order 

 comes, no men more readily flock to the colors. 

 No soldiers are braver or endure longer. 



The Great Russians are helpless when with- 

 out an object for their devotion. Formerly 

 they had two : God and the Tsar. The Tsar 

 has been taken away, and in the present con- 

 fusion, according to the Slavic proverb, 

 "Heaven is far off." So they flounder for a 

 time in a political and religious quagmire, un- 

 able as yet to feel solid ground. 



By expansion, as the more prolific rather 

 than by fighting, they have pushed the Finns, 

 who occupied more than half the Russian 

 plain, still further north. In return their 

 physique and temperament have been pro- 

 foundly affected by constant blood intermix- 

 ture with the Finns and in less degree with the 

 Tatars. Their frames are well knit and mus- 

 cular, hair and beards thick and curly, nose 

 pronounced, eyes blue or brown, complexion 

 florid. 



