Russia

The Finnic aboriginal population, Karelians, Mordva, Marii, Votyak, Permyak, Komi, and the allied Samoyedes, were in creasingly pushed outward by Slav settlement. Finns are to be found mainly in the north and west, and also in a belt of Finnish settlement in Asiatic Russia, lying north of the main Slav belt and extending to the Yenisei, again much intermingled with the incoming Slav population. East of the Yenisei the Finns form an insignificant element in the population. The Finns have pre served their distinctive culture best among the forests and marshes lying south of the tundra zone, and along the central course of the Volga. East of the Yenisei, in the Yakutsk A.S.S.R. and in the Far Eastern Area are scattered groups of Palaeo-Asiatics and of Tungus, while a wedge of Korean and Chinese colonisation has extended northwards into the south-east of the Far Eastern Area. Remnants of early Iranian peoples exist in the Central Asiatic Republics. Scattered Cossack and trading settlements exist even in the tundra zone, and in Kamchatka. These Russian settlers have tended to amalgamate to a marked degree with the natives in a region where the difficulties of the environment made unity of human effort essential. An interesting feature of Russian settlement is the greater density of population in high latitudes in comparison with other parts of the world. This movement to wards high latitudes has been given a recent impetus by the construction of the Murmansk railway.

Colonisation of Siberia.

The first attraction of northern Asiatic Russia was its wealth of furs. Fur merchants from Novgorod penetrated as far as Tobolsk and had, in the 14th century, established settlements on the Taz; they called the country Ugra. As Novgorod decayed, the Ostyaks destroyed the settlements. From the time when the Cossack Yermak, towards the end of the 16th century, captured Sibir or Isker on the Irtish, the chief settlement of the Tatar Khan Kuchum, Russian hunters have exploited the fur bearing animals of its forests, partly directly and partly through barter with native hunters. The term Cossack under the Imperialist regime indicated a section of the Russian people liable to military service and receiving a monetary grant and arms from the government. Large stretches of land, usually on the frontiers, were reserved for them and they had a certain amount of autonomy. As an example of their formation it may be noted that Count Muraviev during his conquest of the Amur converted the Nerchinsk peasants into Cossacks in 1851. Government colonisation in early days consisted of sending parties of Cossacks to settle on the distant frontiers, of imperial guards (stryeltsy) to 'garrison the forts, and of Yamschiks, a special organisation of old Russia which arranged for the maintenance of horses at stations along the posting routes. The Cossack set tlers did not form good colonising material, their interests being military and not agricultural. Cossack ostrogs or forts could hold sway over scattered native peoples, but could not at first conquer the settled Turkic regions of the south, so that the first colonisa tion was to the north and east where also furs were most readily obtainable.

The method of progression was by portages from one river to another. The Berezovo ostrog, famous later for its princely exiles, was founded in 1593, Tomsk in 1604, Yeniseisk in 1618 and Yakutsk in 1637. The most effective native resistance was offered by the Tungus who were only subdued in 1623, and who are now demanding autonomy. In the Yenisei valley and throughout south-west Siberia the settlers found traces of a former civilisa tion, usually called Ugro-Samoyed, the Uigurs being a Turkish race supposed to have over-run the country during the wander ings of the Huns. Tumuli with monoliths and containing iron and bronze implements are numerous, especially in the Minusinsk district and traces of former irrigation canals exist and are often utilised by modern settlers. A long line of Cossack forts extended along the Irtish river from Omsk in a south-easterly direction as a protection for settlers against Kirghiz tribes throughout the eighteenth century. Another government means of colonisation was exile, which is first mentioned in 1648, the first exiles being mainly criminals, often mutilated as a punishment. By the end of the i7th century a policy of exile as a means of colonisation had set in and men were sent to Siberia for the most trifling offences, especially after the introduction of convict labour into the mines. In 1753 capital punishment was abolished and perpetual exile to hard labour in Siberian mines took its place.

Raskolniks (religious dissenters from the reforms of Nikon), rebel stryeltsy under Peter the Great, courtiers of rank during the reigns of the empresses, Polish confederates under Catherine II., the "Decembrists" under Nicholas I., nearly 5o,000 Poles of ter the insurrection of 1863, and whole generations of socialists, including 45,000 political exiles after the 1905 rebellion, were sent to Siberia. In early days they were driven in herds from one village to another and of ten starved by the way, but in the 19th century somewhat less brutal conditions were organised. Between 1823 and 1898, no fewer than 700,000 exiles with 216,000 volun tary followers entered Siberia. In 1900 exile as a means of political persecution was abolished but was restored in 1904 and is still used. Some political exiles added to the cultural develop ment of the country. The brother of Prince Kropotkin, whose researches in Siberia are well-known, arranged the remarkable archaeological museum at Minusinsk. Bogoras conducted re search in the Chukchee country and the Decembrists built the town of Chita, but others either died of the hardships to which they were exposed or developed melancholia, and suicides were common. The raskolniki as a rule made good settlers being ascetic, industrious and abstemious. The skoptsi sect introduced agriculture and better standards of living into Yakutsk. Brodyagi, or escaped convicts, were a menace to settlers and natives alike.