II. THE HISTORICAL AND ETHNOGRAPHIC GROUND OF THE PROBLEMS OF THE SMALL NATIONS IN THE WORLD WA/i AND AT THE PEACE CONFERENC.& 1. The Finnish Peoples.— The northern most of these suppressed nations are the Finnish peoples of Finland, Esthonia and northern Livonia. Originally constituting a portion of that early Nordic stodc which 'in habited most of the great plain of Russia, and from which the Teutonic and Scandinavian peoples, as well as the Finns, Letts and Lithu atuans, have subsequently been differentiated, they have been forced north against the Lapps by the successive invasions of the Russian Slays from the south They were converted to Chris tianity by Bishop Henry, an English missionary, in the middle of the 12th century. In the 14th century Finland was annexed to Sweden and about 1350 Detunark, which had controlled Es thonia, surrendered it to the Teutonic Knights. At the beginning of the 17th century, the vigor ous Swedish monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, ob tained for Sweden both Esthonia and Livonia. While the Swedes were able to control the Finns politically for a considerable period, they were never able to impose their culture upon their Finnish subjects beyond inducing them to accept Swedish Protestantism. In 17211 by the Treaty of Nystad, Peter the Great obtained for Russia Esthonia, Livonia and part of Finland, and by 1809 Russia had secured complete politi cal control of all the Finnish peoples. For some 90 years thereafter the Finns enjoyed practical cultural autonomy, but in 1899 the advocates of the Russification policy of Pan-Slavism induced Nicholas II to extend these measures to Fin land. The Finns, however, took advantage of the weakness of the tsar in the revolution of 1905 and compelled him to restore the Finnish constitution and to consent to the many liberal political reforms proposed by the Finns. A revival of Russificanon policy by the Russian bureaucracy in 1913-14 was partially termi nated by the outbreak of the World War, but was probably instrumental in inducing the Finns to declare their independence from Rus sia in December 1915. From the racial stand point Ripley, the leading authority on the racial distribution of Europe, holds that the Finns are a branch of that primordial Nordic stock which inhabited the region now known as Russia and from which have been differentiated the Teu tonic, Letto-Lithuanian and Finnish types. The Nordics were pressed north by the invasions of the Alpine Slays from the southwest. The Finns, having been massed against the extremely broadheaded Lapps in the north and interwar ned with them, have acquired a tendency to ward broadheadedness which was quite un known in the original stodc and is practically absent among the Finns of the Baltic provinces of Esthonia and Livonia who have not been brought into proximity with the Lapps. In re cent times three languages have been used in Finland, the Swedish in commercial and inter-. eational relations, and to a considerable degree at culture and rehgion; the Russian as the offi cal speech, and the Finnish a.s the national lan guage. The Finns number about 3,500,000, of whom about 2,500,000 live in Finland. In 1910 an authoritative estimate put the proportion of Finnish-speaking peoples at 88 per cent and at least that proportion are of a definite Finnish stock. In rftion the Finns are overwhelm ingly Lutheran. The strength of the national bond between the Finns of Finland and their lensmen in the Baltic provinces can only be determined when the confusion and confficting claims growing out of the present war have subsided.
2. The Letts and Lithuanians.— Living next to the Finns of Esthonia are the Letts and the Lithuanians who inhabit the Baltic provinces of southern Livonia and Courland and their hin terland. The Letts dwell in tlue Baltic Coast region and the Lithuanians in the adjacent in land districts. While the Letts and Lithu anians are physically identical and linguisti cally and culturally closely allied, their history has been at least slightly different. That this variation began only after they had been pushed up toward the Baltic by the oncoming Slays can not be doubted. The conquest and colonization of the Letts by the Teutonic Knights was begun in the tath and iath centuries. The Letts fol lowed the order into an acceptance of Luther anism, but after the order was dissolved in 1526 the Letts were later partitioned between Poland and Sweden. It was not long, however, until the Letts were united with the Lithuanians in a common subjection to Russia. By the Treaty of Nystad, in 1721, Livonia was ceded by Sweden to Russia, and Courland was obtained by the third partition of Poland. Lithuania has had a much more distinguished history. At the opening of the 14th century it was a great non Christian duchy stretching from the Baltic provinces on the north to the Black Sea on the south. In 1386 its grand dukei Jagello, married Jadwiga, daughter of the king of Poland, ac cepted Roman Catholicism for himself and his subjects and became king of Poland as Wladys law II. This purely personal union was changed into a constitutional one by the Union of Lublin in 1569. The merger with Poland was never popular, however, with the Lithuanians, and in accordance with the principle of national self-detertnination this historical union could in no way be used as a basis for a claim to Lith uania on the part of the restored Polish state. Lithuania constituted the majority of that part of Poland which went to Russia in the parti tions from 1772 -to 1795. Until 1876 it was al lowed a large amount of cultural autonomy, but after that date the Russification policy was pur sued with the usual result of only increasing the national sentiment of the Lithuanians. Racially die Letts and Lithuanians are. identical, both being branches of the same pritnordial Nordic race from which the Teutons and Finns were also differentiated. The Lithuanian language is one of the most interesting in Europe, being the best preserved representative of the so called ((Aryan') type. It is said that the intelli gent Lithuanian peasant has little difficulty in reading Sanskrit The Lettish language dif fers but slightly from the Lithuanian. Religion is the chief point of division between the Letts and Lithuanians. While some Letts belong to the Greek Church and some Lithuanians are Protestants, the vast majority of the Letts are ardent Lutherans and the Lithuanians are over whelmingly Roman Catholic. Their Roman Catholicism is the only thing which the Lithu anians have in common with the Poles. It is generally estimated that there are something over 2,W,000 Lithuanians and 1,250,000 Letts, though in the official Russian censuses they are all lumped together as Lithuanians.