DE BOW'S

SOUTHERN AND WESTERN

REVIEW.

ESTABLISHED JANUARY 1, 1846.

NOVEMBER, 1851.

VOL. XI., O. S.]

EXTENT

ENLARGED SERIES.

ART. I.-THE EMPIRE OF RUSSIA.*

[VOL. I., No. 5.

OF THE EMPIRE-ORIGINAL INHABITANTS-PERIOD OF THE FORMATION OF THE RUSSIAN STATE-THE HOUSE OF RURIK-EXTENSION OF THE KINGDOM-THE HOUSE OF ROMANOW-THE PERIOD OF THE CONSOLIDATION AND CIVILIZATION OF THE EMPIRE-EXTENSION IN THE WEST AND IN THE EAST, ESPECIALLY UNDER KATHARINE II-RUSSIA THE LEADING POWER IN CONTINENTAL EUROPE-THE PANSLAVIC MOVEMENT, &C., &C.

We design a series of papers upon the great powers of the world. We began with TURKEY in our March No., and now present RUSSIA. The statistics of the Russian Empire must be postponed to our next.-[EDITOR.]

The Russian Empire is one of the most powerful of either ancient or modern times. In extent it surpasses every empire which has yet existed, except that of the immediate successors of the Tartar Tchingis Khan. In population it ranks next, among the European powers, to the thickly-peopled empire of Great Britain. It includes nearly one-seventh of the terrestrial part of the globe, or about 88,552,700 square miles, and is inhabited by 65,000,000 of people. Great Britain, with all its territorial possessions and colonies, includes an area of 4,686, 000 square miles, supporting a population of 139,000,000. Thus the Russian, though containing but half the number of people, occupies

1. Russia, by J. G. Kohl. London: Chapman and Hall, 1842.

2. Articles on Russia in the Edinburgh Review, (April, 1844,) and the Quarterly Review, (February, 1810).

3. Turkey and Christendom, an article in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1850, in which the relations of Russia with Turkey are briefly but wel delineated.

4. Russian Aggressions in the East, an article published in the United Service Maga zine, and reprinted in Little's Living Age for March 23, 1850.

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VOL. I.

nearly twice the area of the British empire. By far the greater portion of this immense territory, however, is nearly uninhabited and quite sterile, on account of the extreme severity of the climate in the regions contiguous to the Arctic ocean. On the other hand, Russia has the advantage of Great Britain in respect to consolidation. It comprises the entire northern portion of the eastern hemisphere, stretching without interruption from the 18th to the 190th degree of east longitude, a distance on the 60th parallel of nearly 6000 miles; and from the 38th to the 70th, and in some places to the 78th parallel of latitude, an average breadth of 1,500 miles. Besides this, Russia owns a large tract in the northwest part of North America, Nova Zembla. and other large islands in the Arctic Sea, the Aleutian islands off Kamtchatka, and the isles of Aland in the Baltic. The larger portion of this extensive territory lies in the north of Asia, and is known by the name of Siberia; the next in extent is that part which is situated in Europe, and to this the term Russia is in general understood to apply. This, the most important part of the empire, known by geographers as Russia in Europe, is separated from Asiatic Russia by the Ural Mountains on the east and the Caucasus on the south; and is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the south by the Black Sea, and on the southwest and west by Turkey in Europe, the Austrian empire, and the kingdom of Prussia. With an area of 2,099,903 miles, it contains 61,000,000 inhabitants.

The Russians belong in general to the Caucasian type of humanity, excepting, in Europe, only the Kalmucks, and in part the Baschkirs, who are Mongolians. This Mongolian element does not amount altogether to more than a sixtieth part of the population, even when including in it, as some do, the Laplanders and Samoiedes, who, however, are not Mongolians, but descendants of the ancient Finns, the Fenni of Tacitus, who are Caucasians. The remaining portion are descendants of the Scythian branch of the Indo-European stock of nations, which latter is the more important of the two main ethnographical divisions of the Caucasian variety of the human species. The ancient Scythians dwelt, or rather roamed, in that part of Europe which lies east of the Vistula and the Carpathian Mountains, and in the northern half of Asia, as far as its centre, where they were met by the Mongolians, who overspread eastern Asia to the Pacific. These Scythians are now divided, and have been from the beginning of history, into two branches, the European and the Asiatic; the former and most important branch of which is known by the appellation of Slavonians; the latter by that of Tartars, or Turks. The Slavonic race occupies to this day almost the whole of eastern Europe, numbering in all 78,691,000; of this number, 53,502,000 are inhabitants of Russia, which is, therefore, the representative, Kar' ¿žoxhy, of theS lavonians, as it is in some respects of the Tartar branch of the wide-spread Scythian hordes of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia.*

The human family is divided into three distinctly marked species, the Negro, of Afriea; the Mongolian, of eastern Asia and America; and the Caucasian, of western Asia and Europe. Of these three varieties the Caucasian has thus far shown itself to be the superior; and is in fact that to which civilization in its highest developments has been wholly