' Great Russia,' or Russia proper, extends from the walls of Smolensk to the neighbourhood of Viatka, from the Gulf of Onega to the Kazak settlements on the Don. It covers an empire fifteen or sixteen times as large as France, the empire of Ivan the Terrible, that Russia which lay around the four ancient capitals,—Novgorod the Great, Vladimir, Pskow, and Moscow.
South of these boundaries, in Southern Russia, is ' Little Russia,' the ancient Ukraine or border land, Kief, Chernigoff, Poltava, Charkoff ; and farther south are the provinces of 'New Russia,' Bessarabia, Kherson, Tauris, or, as the Russians call it, Taurida, comprising the Crimea and the adjoining mainland, and EkaterinosLaf. West of Little Russia, again, is the ' Black Earth country,' Podolia, Volhynia, and part of Kief.
In Great Russia, the ruling race is thoroughly modified by the admixture of at least 3,000,000 Fins (exclusive of those in Finland) in the north, and of 2,500,000 Tartars in the east, the former rapidly blending with the Slays, who have squatted among rather than invaded or conquered them ; the Latter, as Muhammadans, resisting amalgama tion with the Christians in recent ages, but have left deep traces of their features and character among the Slays at the time of their all-sweeping inroads, at the end of which the court, the army, and the nobility of the victorious Ivan the Ter rible were ran: e than half Tartarized ; when the king and his Boyars kept their wives and daughters shut up in their harams, some of which may still be seen in some odd wings of old Russian man sions, and buried them in separate cemeteries. Even in Russia proper, the population is, Scandi navia alone, perhaps, excepted, a mixture of various Slavo-Finnish-Tartaric races. But the mixing is far more obaervable in the other two divisions of European Russia : in Little Russia, the mass of the people are Ruthenes or Russines, long swayed over by the West Slays, the Poles, and Lithuanians, who still constitute the aristo cracy of the land ; and in New Russia, where the Tartars are still at home, at peace with Germans, Greeks, Roumanians, Bulgarians, and other colon ists, flourishing among them; while over both roam the Kazak, exhibiting the fe,atures and roughly adopting the habits and Manners of the various peoples among whom their lot is cast,— nomades among Tartars, wasteful husbandmen in settled districts, wild marauding soldiers whenever their old trade is allowed to them.
The Statesman's Year Book for 1872 gives the esthnated population of Russia in Europe, includ ing Finland and Poland, at 68 millions and a quarter. That empire in 1722 stood tit 14 millions ;
in 1803 at 36 millions ; in 1829, at about 50 millions ; and in 1863, at 65 millions. In the time of John rut., that is to say, in the second half of the 15th century, its area occupied only 18 million square miles. In the reign of Alexis, in 16,50, its extent had already reached 237 mil lions ; under Peter the Great, 280 millions ; under Catherine rr., 335 millions of square miles ; and now the area, of the Russian empire, including Finland, Poland, Russia, and Siberia, is very nearly 370 millions of square miles. Siberia and the Caucasus add nearly 9 millions to the popu lation of the entire empire, which thus stands, as nearly as possible, at 77 millions.
Russia in Central Asia has a population of 21 millions, including in this the Kirghiz steppes, 11- million, and Russian Turkestan, 1k millions ; Siberia has millions, Russian Caucasus, under 5 millions ; total, 12 millions.
In 1879, the entire dominion in Europe and in Asia was— Sq. kil. Pop.
European Russia, 4,883,713 74,493,809 Poland, . . : 127,310 7,104,760 Finland, . . . 378,603 2,028,021 Sq. kil. I Pop.
Sea of Azof, . . 37,496 5,427,124 83,626,590 Russia in Asia— Caucasus, . . . 472,666 5,546,550 Trans-Caspian Territory, . . 827,068 203,000 Siberia, . . . 12,495,109 3,911,200 Central Asia, . 3,017,760 5,036,000 1(3,312,604 14,696,750 I Grand total, 21,739,723 93,823,000 Russia has been conquering to the cast since the latter part of the 15th century. In A.D. 1487, Kasan was made subject to Ivan iv., who reigned from 1533 to 1584, subdued tho Tartar khanates to the south, with the exception of the Crimea. Astracan fell in 1551 ; the Bashkirs in 1556. Peter the Great, in 1727, conquered the provinces to the west of the Caspian Sea, which Russia lost again in 1734. In 1806, the great terri tory of Darbend came into her possession ; in 1813, two Caspian provinces, Daghestan and Shirwan, were restored to her. In 1828, she a,cquired Arran and by 1868 she had advanced in Central Asia till conterruinous with the Chinese empire. To secure her Asiatic conquests over a popula tion of 12 millions, she requires to keep an army of 163,759 men,—one solcher for every 70 of the population. Britain garrisons India with its 250 millions of souls by an army of 180,000, of whom 60,000 are British, being one to every 1400 souls.