Russia

RUSSIA (Rossiya), the general name for the European and Asiatic dominions of the " Tsar of All the Russias." Although the name is thus correctly applied, both in English and Russian, to the whole area of the Russian empire, its application is often limited, no less correctly, to European Russia, or even to European Russia exclusive of Finland and Poland. The use of the name in its most comprehensive sense dates only from the expansion of the empire in the 19th century; to the historian who writes of the earlier growth of the empire, Russia means, at most, Russia in Europe, or Muscovy, as it was usually called until the 18th century, from Moscow, its ancient capital. The origin of the term " Russia " has been much disputed. It is certainly derived, through Rossiya, from Slavonic Rus or Ros (Byzantine `Pws or `Pc o-oc), a name first given to the Scandinavians who founded a principality on the Dnieper in the 9th century; and afterwards extended to the collection of Russian states of which this principality formed the nucleus. The word Rus, in former times wrongly connected with the tribal name Rhoxolani, is more probably derived from Ruotsi, a Finnish name for the Swedes, which seems to be a corruption of the Swedish rothsmenn, " rowers " or " seafarers."

Table of contents

1 The Russian Empire 2 Geology 3 Population 4 Judicial System 5 Fortresses 6 Arctic Ocean Basin 7 Baltic Basin 8 Black Sea Basin 9 The Caspian Basin 10 Authorities 11 Sources 12 General Works 13 Law and Constitution

The Russian Empire

The Russian empire stretches over a vast territory in E. Europe and N. Asia, with an area exceeding 8,660,000 sq. m., or one-sixth of the land surface of the globe (one twenty-third of its whole superficies). It is, however, but thinly peopled on the average, including only one-twelfth of the inhabitants of the earth. It is almost entirely confined to the cold and temperate zones. In Novaya Zemlya and the Taimyr peninsula, it projects within the Arctic Circle as far as 77° 6' and 77° 40' N. respectively; while its S. extremities reach 38° 50' in Armenia, 35° on the Afghan frontier, and 42° 30' on the coasts of the Pacific. To the W. it advances as far as 20° 40 E. in Lapland, 17° in Poland, and 29° 42' on the Black Sea; and its E. limit - East Cape on the Bering Strait - is in 191° E.

The White, Barents and Kara Seas of the Arctic bound it on the N., and the northern Pacific - that is, the Seas of Bering, Okhotsk and Japan - bounds it on the E.

The Baltic, with the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, limits it on the N.W.; and two sinuous lines of land frontier separate it respectively from Sweden and Norway on the N.W. and from Prussia, Austria and Rumania on the W. On the S. and E. the frontier has changed frequently according to the expansion and contraction of the empire under the pressure of political exigency and expedience. The Black Sea is the principal demarcating feature on the S. of European Russia. On the W. side of that sea the S. frontier touches the Danube for some 120 m.; on the E. side of the same sea it zigzags from the Black Sea to the Caspian, utilizing the river Aras (Araxes) for part of the distance. As the Caspian is virtually a Russian sea, Persia may be said to form the next link in the S. boundary of the Russian empire, followed by Afghanistan. On the Pamirs Russia has since 1885 been conterminous with British India (Kashmir); but the boundary then swings away N. round Chinese Turkestan and the N. side of Mongolia, and, since 1904-5, it has skirted the N. of Manchuria, being separated from it by the river Amur. As thus traced, the boundary in Central Asia includes the two khanates of Bokhara and Khiva, which, though nominally protected states, are to all intents and purposes integral parts of the Russian empire. But it excludes Manchuria, with the Liao-tung peninsula and Port Arthur, upon which Russia only placed her grasp in 1898-99, a grasp which she was compelled by Japan to release after the war of 1904-5. The total length of the frontier line of the Russian empire by land is 2800 m. in Europe, and nearly ro,000 m. in Asia, and by sea over rr,000 m. in Europe and between 19,000 and 20,000 m. in Asia.

Russia has no oceanic possessions; her islands are all appendages of the mainland to which they belong. Such. are Karlo, East Kvarken, the Aland archipelago, Dagd, and Osel or Oesel in the Baltic Sea; Novaya Zemlya, with Kolguyev and Vaigach, in the Barents Sea; the Solovetski Islands in the White Sea; the New Siberian archipelago, Wrangel Land and Bear Islands, off the Siberian coast; the Commander Islands off Kamchatka; the Shantar Islands and the N. of Sakhalin in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Aleutian archipelago was sold to the United States in 1867, together with Alaska, and in 1875 the Kurile Islands were ceded to Japan.

If the border regions, that is, two narrow belts, on the N. and S., be left out of account, a striking uniformity of physical feature prevails throughout the whole vast extent of the Russian empire. High plateaus like that of Pamir (the " Roof of the World ") and Armenia, and lofty mountain chains like the snow-clad Caucasus, the Alai, the Tian-shan, the Sayan Mountains, exist only on the outskirts of the empire.

Viewed broadly, the Russian empire may be said to occupy the territories to the N.W. of the great plateau formation of the old continent - the backbone of Asia - which stretches with decreasing altitude and width from of Asia. the high tableland of Tibet and Pamir to the lower plateaus of Mongolia, and thence N.E. through the Vitim region to the farthest extremity of Asia. Thus it consists of the immense plains and flat lands which extend between the plateau formation and the Arctic Ocean, including the series of parallel chains and hilly spurs which skirt the former region on the N.W. And it is only to the E. of Lake Baikal that it climbs up on to the plateau, from which it descends again before it reaches the Pacific.

This plateau formation - the oldest geological continent of Asia - being unfit for agriculture and for the most part unsuited for permanent settlement, while its oceanic slopes have from the dawn of history been occupied by a relatively dense population, long prevented Slav colonization from reaching the Pacific. The Russians chanced to cross it in the 17th century at its narrowest and most N. part, and thus struck the Pacific on the foggy and frozen shores of the Sea of Okhotsk; but two centuries elapsed ere, after colonizing the depressions around Lake Baikal, they crossed over the plateau in a more genial zone and descended to the Pacific by the Amur. After that they spread rapidly S., up to the nearly uninhabited valley of the Usuri, to what is now the Gulf of Peter the Great. In the S.W. higher portions of the plateau formation the empire has only comparatively recently planted its foot on the Pamir, and it was only a few years earlier that it established itself firmly on the highlands of Armenia.

A broad belt of hilly tracts - in every respect alpine in character, and displaying the same variety of climate and organic life as alpine tracts usually do - skirts the plateau formation throughout its entire length on the N. and N.W., forming an inter mediate region between the plateau and the plains. The Caucasus, the Elburz, the Kopet-dagh and Paropamisus, the intricate and imperfectly known network of mountains W. of the Pamir, the Tian-shan and the Ala-tau mountain regions, and farther N.E. the Altai, the still unnamed complex of the Minusinsk Mountains, the intricate mountain-chains of Sayan, with those of the Olekma, Vitim and Aldan all arranged en echelon - the former from N.W. to S.E., and the others from S.W. to N.E. - all these belong to the same alpine belt that borders the plateau from end to end of the series.

The flat lands which extend from the base of the Alpine foothills to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, assume the character either of dry deserts, as in the Aral-Caspian depression, or of low tablelands, as in central Russia and E. Siberia, of lacustrine regions in N.W. Russia and Finland, or of marshy prairies in W. Siberia, and of tundras in the far N. Throughout the whole of this vast area, their monotonous surfaces are diversified by only a few, and, for the most part, low, hilly tracts. Recently emerged from the Post-Pliocene sea, or freed from their mantle of ice, they persistently maintain the self-same features over immense areas; and the few portions that rise above the general elevation have more the character of broad and gentle swellings than of mountain-chains. Of this class are the swampy plateaus of the Kola peninsula, sloping gently S. to the lacustrine region of Finland and N.W. Russia; the Valdai tablelands, where all the great rivers of Russia take their rise; the broad and gently sloping meridional belt of the Ural Mountains; and lastly the Taimyr, Tunguzka and Verkhoyansk ranges in Siberia, which, notwithstanding their sub-Arctic position, do not reach the snow-line. The picturesque Bureya Mountains above the Amur, the forest-clad Sikhota-alin on the Pacific, and the volcanic chains of Kamchatka belong, however, to quite another orographical construction, being the border-ridges of the terraces by which the great plateau formation descends to the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

It is owing to these leading orographical features - divined by Carl Ritter, but only recently ascertained and established as fact by geographical research - that so many of the great Rivers. rivers of the old continent are comprised within the limits of - the Russian empire. Taking their rise on the plateau formation, or in its outskirts, they flow first along lofty longitudinal valleys formerly filled with great lakes, next they cleave their way through the rocky barriers, and finally they enter the lowlands, where they become navigable, and, describing wide curves to avoid here and there the minor plateaus and hilly tracts, they bring into watercommunication with one another places thousands of miles apart. The double river-systems of the Volga and Kama, the Ob and Irtysh, the Angara and Yenisei, the Lena and Vitim on the Arctic slope, and the Amur and Sungari on the Pacific slope, are instances. These were the obvious channels of Russian colonization.

A broad depression - the Aral-Caspian desert - has arisen where the plateau formation reaches its greatest altitude, and at the same time suddenly changes its direction from N.W. to N.E. This desert is now filled to only a small extent by the salt waters of the Caspian, Aral and Balkash inland seas; but it bears unmistakable traces of having been during Post-Pliocene times an immense inland basin. There the Volga, the Ural, the Syr-darya and the Amu-darya discharge their waters without reaching the ocean, but they bring life to the rapidly desiccating Transcaspian steppes, and link together the most remote parts of Russia.

Geology

The most striking feature in the geology of Russia is its remarkable freedom from disturbances, either in the form of mountain folding or of igneous intrusions. Over the greater part of the Cambrian country the strata are still nearly as flat as when they were first laid down, and the deposits, even of the Cambrian period, are as soft as those of the Mesozoic and Tertiary formations in England. Only in the Urals, the Caucasus, the Timan Mountains, the region of the Donets coalfield, and the Kielce Hills is there any sign of the great folding from which nearly the whole of the rest of Europe has suffered at one time or another.

In the early part of the Palaeozoic era only the gneissic region of Finland and Olonets and probably the Archean mass of S. Russia remained constantly above the sea; but there were several oscillations. Gradually, however, the sea retreated from W. Russia and in the Upper Carboniferous and Permian periods it was confined to the E.

At the beginning of the Mesozoic era the whole country became land, bearing upon its surface the salt lakes in which the Trias was laid down. During the Jurassic period the sea again invaded the region, both from the N. and from the S., but still the W. of Russia rose above the waves. In the Cretaceous period the waters withdrew from the N.E., but in the S. they spread W., covering the whole of Poland and finally uniting with the ocean in which the chalk of W. Europe was deposited. The Tertiary era was marked by a gradual extension S. of the N. land-mass. In the later stages arms of the sea were cut off and were converted at first into lagoons and then into brackish or fresh-water lakes which continued to occupy much of S. Russia until the beginning of the Quaternary period.

During the first part of the Glacial period Russia seems to have been covered by an immense ice-sheet, which extended also over central Germany, and of which the E. limits cannot yet be determined.

The Archean rocks have a broad extension in Finland, N. Russia, the Ural Mountains and the Caucasus. In S. Russia they form the floor upon which lies a thin covering of Tertiary beds, and they are exposed to view in the valleys of the Dnieper and the Bug. They consist for the most part of red and grey gneisses and granulites, with subordinate layers of granite and granitite. The Finland rappa-kivi, the Serdobol gneiss, and the Pargas and Rustiala marble (with the so-called Eozoon canadense) yield good building stone; while iron, copper and zinc-ore are common in Finland and in the Urals. Rocks regarded as representing the Huronian system appear also in Finland, in N.W. Russia, as a narrow strip on the Urals, and in the Dnieper ridge. They consist of a series of unfossiliferous crystalline slates.

The Cambrian is represented by blue clays, ungulite sandstones and bituminous slates in Esthonia and St Petersburg. The Ordovician and Silurian systems are widely developed, and it is most probable that, with the exception of the Archean continents of Finland and the S, the sea covered the whole of Russia. Being concealed, however, by more recent deposits, the deposits appear on the surface only in N.W. Russia (Esthonia, Livonia, St Petersburg and on the Volkhov), where all the subdivisions of the system have been found; in the Timan ridge; on the W. slope of the Urals; in the Pai-kho ridge; and in the islands of the Arctic Ocean. In Poland the rocks of these periods are met with in the Kielce Mountains, and in Podolia in the deeper ravines.

The Devonian dolomites, limestones and red sandstones cover immense tracts and appear on the surface over a much wider area. From Esthonia these rocks extend N.E. to Lake Onega, and S.E. to Mogilev; they form the central plateau, as also the slopes of the Urals and the Petchora region. In N.W. and middle Russia they contain a special fauna, and it appears that the Lower Devonian series of W. Europe, represented in Poland and in the Urals, is missing in N.W. and central Russia, where only the Middle and Upper Devonian divisions are found.

Carboniferous deposits occur over nearly the whole of E. Russia, their W. boundary being a line drawn from Archangel to the upper Dnieper, thence to the upper Don, and S. to the mouth of the last-named river, with a long narrow gulf extending W. to encircle the plateau of the Donets. They are visible, however, only on the W. borders of this region, being covered towards the E. by thick Permian and Triassic strata. Russia has three large coalbearing regions - the Moscow basin, the Donets region and the Urals. In the Valdai plateau there are only a few beds of mediocre coal. In the Moscow basin, which was a broad gulf of the Carboniferous sea, coal appears as isolated inconstant seams amidst littoral deposits, the formation of which was favoured by frequent minor subsidences of the seacoast. The coal is here confined to the lower division of the system; the Upper Carboniferous (corresponding with the English Coal-Measures) is exclusively marine, consisting chiefly of Fusulina limestone. The Donets Coal-Measures, containing abundant remains of a rich land-flora, cover nearly 16,000 sq. m., and comprise a valuable stock of excellent anthracite and coal, together with iron-mines. In this basin, as in W. Europe generally, the principal coal seams occur in the Upper Carboniferous, while the Lower Carboniferous is mainly composed of marine deposits, with, however, the first bed of coal near its summit. Several smaller coalfields on the slopes of the Urals and on the Timan ridge may be added to the above. The Polish coalfields belong to another Carboniferous area of deposit, which extended over Silesia.

The Permian limestones and marls occupy a strip in E. Russia of much less extent than that assigned to them by Murchison. The variegated marls of E. Russia, rich in salt-springs, but very poor in fossils, are now held by most Russian geologists to be Triassic. The Permian deposits contain marine shells and also remains of plants similar to those of England and Germany. But in the government of Vologda, on the rivers Sukhona and N. Dvina, Glossopteris, Noeggerathiopsis and other ferns characteristic of the Indian Gondwana beds have been found; and with these are numerous remains of reptiles similar to those which occur in the Indian deposits. In the Urals the marine facies is more fully developed and the fauna shows affinities with that of the Productus limestone of the Central Asian mountain belt.

During the Jurassic period the sea began again to invade Russia from S.E. and N.W. The limits of the Russian Jurassic system may be represented by a line drawn from the double valley of the Sukhona and Vytchegda to that of the upper Volga, and thence to Kieff, with a wide gulf penetrating towards the N.W. Within this space three depressions, all running S.W. to N.E., are filled up with Upper Jurassic deposits. They are much denuded in the higher parts of this region, and appear but as isolated islands in central Russia. In the S.E. all the older subdivisions are represented, the deposits having the characters of a deep-sea formation in the Aral-Caspian region and on the Caucasus.

Cretaceous beds - sands, loose sandstones, marls and white chalk - occupy nearly the whole of the region S. of a line drawn from the Niemen to the upper Oka and Don, and thence N.E. to Simbirsk. Over a large part of this area, however, they are concealed by the later Tertiary deposits, and they are absent over the Dnieper and Don ridge in the Yaila Mountains and in the higher parts of the Caucasus. They are rich in grinding stone, and in phosphatic deposits.

The Tertiary formations occupy large areas in S. Russia. The Eocene covers wide tracts from Lithuania to Tsaritsyn, and is represented in the Crimea and Caucasus by thick deposits belonging to the same ocean which left its deposits on the Alps and the Himalayas. Oligocene, quite similar to that of N. Germany, and containing brown coal and amber, has been met with only in Poland, Courland and Lithuania. The Miocene (Sarmatian stage) occupies extensive tracts in S. Russia, S. of a line drawn through Lublin to Ekaterinoslav and Saratov. Not only the higher chains of Caucasus and Yaila, but also the Donets ridge, rose above the :oo 4?.

Carboniferous

I:

Geology unknown or unexplored shown thus Jurassic Trias & Permo-Trial r 'i ' Quaternary :. Tertiary Cretaceous Ievel of the Miocene sea, which was very shallow to the N. of this last ridge, while farther S. it was connected both with the Vienna basin and with the Aral-Caspian. The Pliocene appears only in the coast region of the Black and Azov Seas, but it is widely developed in the Aral-Caspian region, where, however, the Ust-Urt and the Obshchiy Syrt rose above the sea.

The thick Quaternary, or Post-Pliocene, deposits which cover nearly all Russia were for a long time a puzzle to geologists. They consist of a boulder clay in the N. and of loess in the S. The former presents an intimate mixture of boulders brought from Finland and Olonets (with an addition of local boulders) with small gravel, coarse sand and the finest glacial mud, - the whole bearing no trace of ever having been washed up and sorted by water in motion, except in subordinate layers of glacial sand and gravel; the size of the boulders decreases on the whole from N. to S., and the boulder clay, especially in N. and central Russia, often takes the shape of ridges parallel to the direction of the motion of the boulders. Its S. limits, roughly corresponding with those established by Murchison, but not yet settled in the S.E. and E., are, according to M. Nikitin, the following: - from the S. frontier of Poland to Ovrutch, Uman, Kremenchug, Poltava and Razdornaya (50° N. latitude), with a curve N. to Kozelsk (?); thence due N. to Vetluga (58° N. latitude), E. to Glazova in Vyatka, and from this place towards the N. and W. along the watershed of the Volga and Pechora (?). S. of the 50th parallel appears the loess, with all its usual characters (land fossils, want of stratification, &c.), showing a remarkable uniformity of composition over very large surfaces; it covers both watersheds and valleys, but chiefly the former. Such being the characters of the Quaternary deposits in Russia, the majority of Russian geologists now adopt the opinion that Russia was covered, as far as the above limits, with an immense ice-sheet which crept over central Russia and central Germany from Scandinavia and N. Russia. Another icecovering was probably advancing at the same time from the N.E., that is, from the N. of the Urals, but the question as to the glaciation of the Urals still remains open. As to the loess, the usual view is that it was a steppe-deposit due to the drifting of fine sand and dust during a dry episode in the Pleistocene period.

The deposits of the Post-Glacial period are represented throughout Russia, Poland and Finland, as also throughout Siberia and Central Asia, by very thick lacustrine deposits, which show that, after the melting of the ice-sheet, the country was covered with immense lakes, connected by broad channels (the fjarden of the Swedes), which later on gave rise to the actual rivers. On the outskirts of the lacustrine region, traces of marine deposits, not higher than 200 or perhaps even 150 ft. above present sea-level, are found alike on the Arctic Sea and on the Baltic and Black Sea coasts. A deep gulf of the Arctic Sea advanced up the valley of the Dvina; and the Caspian, connected by the Manych with the Black Sea, and by the Uzboy valley with Lake Aral, penetrated N. up the Volga valley, as far as its Samara bend. Unmistakable traces show that, while during the Glacial period Russia had an arctic flora and fauna, the climate of the Lacustrine period was more genial than it is now, and a dense human population at that time peopled the shores of the numberless lakes.

The Lacustrine period has not yet reached its close in Russia. Finland and the N.W. hilly plateaus are still in the same geological phase, and are dotted with numberless lakes and ponds, while the rivers continue to dig out their yet undetermined channels. But the great lakes which covered the country during the Lacustrine period have disappeared, leaving behind them immense marshes like those of the Pripet and in the N.E. The disappearance of what still remains of them is accelerated not only by the general decrease of moisture, but also perhaps by the gradual upheaval of N. Russia, which is going on from Esthonia and Finland to the Kola peninsula and Novaya Zemlya, at an average rate of about two feet per century. This upheaval - the consequences of which have been felt even within the historic period, by the drainage of the formerly impracticable marshes of Novgorod and at the head of the Gulf of Finland - together with the destruction of forests (which must be considered, however, as a quite subordinate cause), contributes towards a decrease of precipitation over Russia and towards increased shallowness of her rivers. At the same time, as the gradients are gradually increasing on account of the upheaval of the continent, the rivers dig their channels deeper and deeper. Consequently central and especially S. Russia witness the formation of numerous miniature canons, or ovraghi (deep ravines), the summits of which rapidly advance and ramify in the loose surface deposits. As for the S. steppes, their desiccation, the consequence of the above causes, is in rapid progress.' l Bibliography: Memoirs, Izvestia and Geological Maps of the Committee for the Geological Survey of Russia; Memoirs and Sborniks of the Mineralogical Society, of the Academy of Science and of the Societies of Naturalists at the Universities; Mining Journal; Murchison's Geology of Russia; Helmersen's and MSller's Geological Maps of Russia and the Urals; Inostrantsev in Appendix to Russian translation of Reclus's Geogr. Univ., and Manual of Geology (Russian).

Population

The population of the empire, which was estimated at 74,000,000 in 1859, was found to be over 129,200,000 at the census of 1897, taken over all the empire except Finland. In 1904 it was estimated to be 143,000,000, and in 1906, according to a detailed estimate of the Central Statistical Committee, it was 149,299,300. Thus from 1860 to 1897 the population increased 742%, and from 1897 to 1904 26.3, an average annual increase of about 31% as compared with an average annual increase of 21% during the period 1860-97. The increase took place chiefly in the large cities, in Siberia, Poland, Lithuania, S. Russia and Caucasia. The official divisions of the empire are given here, and details are given in separate articles.

Province Or Government European Russia - Archangel Astrakhan Bessarabia Chernigov Courland Don Cossacks' territory Ekaterinoslav Esthonia Grodno Kaluga Kazan Kiev Kostroma Kovno Kursk Kharkov Kherson Poland Kalisz Kielce Lomza Lublin Grand-Duchy of Finland- Abo-Bjbrneborg Kuopio Nyland Caucasia- Kuban Baku Black Sea territory Daghestan Russia in Asia- Turkestan- Transcaspia Western Siberia- Tobolsk Tomsk Eastern Siberia Irkutsk Yakutsk Transbaikalia Yeniseisk Amur Region Amur Maritime Province Sakhalin It has been found, from a comparison of the densities of population of the various provinces in 1859 with the distribution in 1897, that the centre of density has distinctly moved S., towards the shores of the Black Sea, and W., the greatest increase having taken place in the E. Polish and in the Lithuanian provinces, along the S.W. border, in the prairie belt beside the Black Sea, and in Orenburg. N. Caucasia and S.W. Siberia likewise show a considerable increase. The census of 1897 revealed in several provinces a remarkably low proportion of men to women. This was owing to the fact that large numbers of the men engaged in agricultural pursuits during the summer temporarily move every year into the large industrial centres for the winter. Consequently there were only 87.4 and 89.8 women to every 100 men in the governments of St Petersburg and Taurida respectively, but as many as 133.8 in Yaroslavl, 119 in Tver and 117 in Kostroma. The average number of women to every 100 men in the Russian governments proper was 102.9; in Poland, 98.6; in Finland, 102.2; in Caucasia, 88.9; in Siberia, 93'7; and in Turkestan and Transcaspia, 83 o.

Livonia Minsk Mogilev Moscow Nizhniy-Novgorod Novgorod Olonets Orel Orenburg Penza Perm Podolia Poltava Pskov Ryazan St Petersburg Samara Piotrkow Plock Radom St Michel Tavastehus Uleaborg Stavropol Elizavetpol Erivan Kars Saratov Simbirsk Smolensk Tambov Taurida Tula Tver Ufa Vilna Vitebsk Vladimir Volhynia Vologda Voronezh Vyatka Yaroslavl Siedlce Suwalki Warsaw Viborg Vasa Terek Kutais Tiflis with Zakataly Akmolinsk Semipalatinsk The Steppes Turgai Uralsk Semiryechensk Samarkand Ferghana Syr-darya The effects of emigration and immigration cannot be estimated with accuracy, because only those who cross the frontier with passports are taken account of. The statistics of these show that there was during the thirty-two years, 1856-88, an excess of emigration over immigration of 1,146,052 in the case of Russians, and a surplus of immigration of 2,304,717 foreigners. On the other hand, in the six years, 1892-97, the excess of Russian emigration over immigration was 207,353, as compared with an excess of foreign immigration over emigration of only 136,740. During the years 1900-4 inclusive the total emigrants from Russia numbered 2,358,539, of whom 1,144,246 were Russians; while the immigrants numbered 2,333,053, of whom 1,432,057 were foreigners. It is also known that the number of Russian immigrants into the United States in1891-1902was 742,869, as compared with 313,469 in 1873-90, or a grand total since 1873 of 1,056,338. By far the greater part of these were Jews. The emigration to Siberia varies much from year to year. It was 26,129 in 1888, and 60,000 in 1898. During the two following years it amounted to an average of over 160,000, but in the years 1901-3 to an average of 84,638 per annum. Altogether some 800,000 peasants are estimated to have settled in Siberia during the period 1886-96, but during the years1893-1905no less than four millions in all. There is also some emigration from central Russia to the S. Urals, as well as to some of the steppe governments.

	Urban Population.	Percentage of Total.
European Russia.. .	12,027,038	12.8
Poland. .. .	2,055,892	21.7
Finland. .. .	281,216	11.0
Caucasia. .. .	1,010,615	10.9
Siberia. .	473, 79 6	9'3
Central Asia. .. .	936,655
Russian Empire.. .	16,785,212	13.0

Within the empire a very great diversity of nationalities is comprised, due to the amalgamation or absorption by the Slav race of a variety of Ural-Altaic stocks, of Turko-Tatars, Turko-Mongols and various Caucasian races. In some cases their ethnical relations have not yet been completely determined. According to the results obtained by the census committee of 1897, working on a linguistic basis, the distribution of races was as given in the table opposite: 1 Taken as a whole, only 13% of the population of Russia lived in towns in 1897, but in the years 1857-60 less than 10% was urban. In Russia proper less than 2% emigrated from the C villages to the towns during the forty years ending 1897. The following table shows the urban population in the various divisions of the empire in 1897: - There were in European Russia and Poland only twelve cities with more than too,000 inhabitants in 1884; in 1900 there were sixteen, namely, St Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Odessa, Lodz, Riga, Kiev, Kharkov, Vilna, Saratov, Kazan, Ekaterinoslav, Rostov-on-the Don, Astrakhan, Tula and Kishinev. In other parts of the empire there were four cities each having over too,000 inhabitants in that year, namely, Baku, Tiflis, Tashkent and Helsingfors. While only three of these are in middle Russia (Moscow, Tula and Kazan), eight are in S. Russia. There are thirty-four cities in European Russia and Poland, and forty in the entire empire, with from 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants each. The rural population live for the most part in villages, not as a rule scattered about the country. In the inclement regions of the N. and in the N. parts of the forest zone the villages are very small. They are larger, but still small, in White Russia, Lithuania and the region of the lakes; but in the steppe governments they are very appreciably bigger, some of the Cossack stanitsas or settlements exceeding 20,000, and many of them numbering more than 10,000 inhabitants each. The houses are generally built of wood and wear a poverty-stricken aspect. Owing to the great risks from fire the villages usually cover a large area of ground, and the houses are scattered and straggling. The mortality in most towns is so great that during the last ten years of the 19th century, in a very great number of cities, the deaths exceeded the births by I to 4 in the thousand. (P. A. K.; J. T. BE.) Government and Administration. - Russia was described in the Almanach de Gotha for 1910 as " a constitutional monarchy under an autocratic tsar." This obvious contradiction in terms well illustrates the difficulty of defining in a single formula the system, essentially transitional and meanwhile sui generis, established in the Russian empire since October 1905. Before this date the fundamental laws of Russia described the power of the emperor as " autocratic and unlimited." The imperial style is still " Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias "; but in the fundamental laws as remodelled between the imperial manifesto of 17/30 October and the opening of the first Duma 1 See A. AItoff, Peuples et langages de la Russie (Paris, 1906), based on the report of the Russian Census Committee of 1897.

of 442 members, elected by an exceedingly complicated 44 ? Y g Y P process, so manipulated as to secure an overwhelming preponderance for the wealthy, and especially the landed classes, and also for the representatives of the Russian as opposed to the subject peoples. Each province of the empire, except the now disfranchised steppes of Central Asia, 7 returns a certainro ortion of members (fixed in each case by P P (Y law in such a way as to give a preponderance to the Russian element), in addition to those returned by certain of 2 M. Stolypin defended the ukaz of the 2nd of June 1907, which in flat contradiction of the provisions of the fundamental laws altered the electoral law without the consent of the legislature, on the ground that what the autocrat had granted the autocrat could take away. The members of the Opposition, on the other hand, quoting Art. 84 of the fundamental laws (" The empire is governed on the immutable basis of laws issued according to the established order "), argued that the emperor himself could only act within the limits of the order established by those laws. It is noteworthy that even the third Duma in its address to the throne, if it avoided the tabooed word " Constitution," avoided also all mention of autocracy.

3 Le Parlement russe t p. 151.

Imperator is the official style. The Russian translation is Gosudar. Popularly, however, the emperor is known by his old Russian title of tsar (q.v.). This is the first time since Peter the Great that the clergy have been given a voice in secular affairs in Russia.

The number of the council was formerly not fixed, and there are still honorary councillors who have no right to sit. Thus in 1910 the honorary president of the council was the grand-duke Michael Nicolaievich, the actual president M. G. Akimov. The judicial and administrative work of the old council was in 1906 assigned to separate committees.

7 These returned 23 members in the first and second Dumas.

XXIII. 28 a descends entire in order of primogeniture, and by preference to the male heir; the emperor and his consort must belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church; the emperor can wear no crown that entails residence abroad. By the manifesto of the 17/30th of October 1905 the emperor voluntarily limited his legislative power by decreeing that no measure was to become law without the consent of the Imperial Duma, a freely elected national assembly. By the law of the 20th of February 1906 the Council of the Empire was associated with the Duma as a legislative Upper House; and from this time the legislative power has been exercised normally by the emperor only in concert with the two chambers.

[GOVERNMENT

1			Russia in Europe.	Poland.	Caucasia.	Siberia .	Central Asia.	Finland.	Totals.'
		Great Russians .	48,558,721	267,160	1, 82 9,793	4,4 2 3, 80 3	5 8 7,99 2	5,939	55,673,408
	Sla y s.	Little Russians . White Russians .	20,414,866 5,823,383	335,337 29,347	1 ,3 0 5,4 6 3 19,642	223,274 12,346	101,611 829	..	22,380,551 5,885,547
		Poles	1,109,934	6 ,755,5 0 3	25,117	29,177	11,576		7,931,307
		Other Sla y s 2. .	213,268	7,365	3,855	182	189	..	224,859
	Lithuanians Lithuanians 3 Letts		1,345,160 1,422,021	305,32 2 5,064	5,121 1,511	1,877 6,714	1,042 627	..	1,658,532 1,435,937
	r Rumanians .		1,121,669	5,223	7,232	.		..	1,134,124
	Latin and Germans .		1,312,188	407,274	56,729	5,424	8874	1,925	1,790,489
	Teutonic Greeks .		86,626	..	100,299	..	..	..	186,925
ARYANS. .	Races . Other Europeans 4		29,841		1,435				34,276
	Swedes.. .		14,199					349,733	363,932
		Armenians	76,635		1,096,461		4,862		1,173,096
		Persians .	1,630		29,278		8,015		38,923
		Tajiks. .					350,397		350,397
	Iranians.	Talyshes and
		Tates	..		130,347				130,347
		Kurds		..	99,836				99,836
		Ossetes			171,716				171,716
	.. Gypsies. .		16,004	1,056	3,041	6,253	771		27,125
SEMITES. .. .. Jews. .			3,714,995	1, 26 7, 1 94	40,498	32,597	7,872		5,063,156
		Esthonians Finns. .	989,883 143,068	4,372	4,28,	4,202		2,352,990	1,002,738 2,496,058
		Lapps	1,812					5,300	3,r Iz
		Mordvinians	989,959			20,802	13,080		1,023,841
	Finns	Karelians .	208,101						208,101
		Cheremisses .	375,439						375,439
		Syryenians	146,535			7,083			153,618
		Permiaks .	103,339						103,339
		Votyaks	420,970						420,970
		Other Finns 5	43,393			24,453			67,846
	. Samoyedes. .		3,940			11,929	..	..	15,869
		Tatars	19531 55	4,336	1,509,785	210,154	60,197	..	3,737,627
URAL-ALTAIANS		Chuvashes Bashkirs	83787 1,488,297	929 83	411 953	4,232 978	311 2,672	..	843,755 1,492,983
		Turks (Osmanlis)	68,807	156	139,419	172	268	. .	208,822
	Turko-	Turkomans .	7,938	6	24,522	124	248,767		281,357
	Tatars.	Kirghiz Sarts .	264,059 184	123 ..	98 158	32,648 305	3,9 88, 8 93 968,008		4,084,139 968,655
		Uzbegs	43	..	..	77	7 26 ,4 1 4		726,534
		Yakuts	..	..	..	227,384	..		227,384
		Kara-kalpaks	..	..	I	2	104,271	..	104,274
		Others .	46	..	204,561	63	5 18 ,949		724,039
	. Tunguses. .		..	..	..	70,064	..	..	70,064
	Mongols Kalmucks. . Buriats. .		170,865 ..	.. ..	14,409 ..	288,663	.. ..	.. ..	185,274 288,663
Races				..	1,352,455				1,352,455
{Georia CAUCASIANS Circassians and
other Caucasians ?				..	1,091,782			..	1,091,782
KORYAKS, CHUKCHIS, &c... .			..	..	..	39,349			39,349
CHINESE, JAPANESE AND KOREANS .			..	..	..	86,113		..	86,113

The Council of the Empire, or Imperial Council (Gosudarstvenniy Sovyet), as reconstituted for this purpose, consists of 196 members, of whom 98 are nominated by the emperor, The while 98 are elective. The ministers, also nominated, councli are ex officio members. Of the elected members 3 are returned by the " black " clergy (the monks), 3 by the " white " clergy (seculars), 5 18 by the corporations of nobles, 6 by the academy of sciences and the universities, 6 by the chambers of commerce, 6 by the industrial councils, 34 by the governments having zemstvos, 16 by those having no zemstvos, and 6 by Poland. As a legislative body the powers of the Council are co-ordinate with those of the Duma; in practice, however, it has seldom if ever initiated legislation.6 The Duma of the Empire or Imperial Duma (Gosudarstvennaya Duma), which forms the Lower House of the Russian parliament, consists (since the ukaz of the znd of June 1907) on the 27th of April 1906, while the name and princi p le of autocracy was jealously preserved, the word " unlimited " vanished. Not that the regime in Russia had become in any true sense constitutional, far less parliamentary; but the " unlimited autocracy " had given place to a " self-limited autocracy," whether permanently so limited, or only at the discretion of the autocrat, remaining a subject of heated controversy between conflicting parties in the state. 2 Provisionally, then, the Russian governmental system may perhaps be best defined - as M. Chasles suggests 3 - as " a limited monarchy under an autocratic emperor." At the head of the government is the emperor, 4 whose power is limited only by the provisions of the fundamental laws of the empire. Of these some are ancient and undisputed: the empire may not be partitioned, but Table Showing Distribution Of Races ' These totals include in some cases small linguistic groups not mentioned in the table.

About 77% Bulgarians, the rest mostly Bohemians (Czechs). 3 Inclusive of 448,022 Zhmuds. 4 Principally Frenchmen, with Englishmen, Italians, Norwegians, Danes, Dutchmen and Spaniards.

Ethnologically the Bulgarians ought perhaps to come here; but, as a large admixture of Slav blood flows in their veins and they speak a distinctly Slav language, they have in this table been grouped with the Slays.

Includes Georgians, Mingrelians, Imeretians, Lazes and Svanetians.

' For details, see table under the heading Caucasia. Of the total given here, 20% are Circassians.

the great cities. The members of the Duma are elected by electoral colleges in each government, and these in their turn are elected, like the zemstvos (see below), by electoral assemblies chosen by the three classes of landed proprietors, citizens and peasants. In these assemblies the large proprietors sit in person, being thus electors in the second degree; the lesser proprietors are represented by delegates, and therefore elect in the third degree. The urban population, divided into two categories according to their taxable wealth, elects delegates direct to the college of the government (Guberniya), and is thus represented in the second degree; but the system of division into categories, according not to the number of taxpayers but to the amount they pay, gives a great preponderance to the richer classes. The peasants are represented only in the fourth degree, since the delegates to the electoral college are elected by the volosts (see below). The workmen, finally, are specially treated. Every industrial concern employing fifty hands or over elects one or more delegates to the electoral P ?

': opal e ° °o T A R ple ' ag a ',ap iJ,wl Karkinit A C K r B L Scale, English Miles D S E A 32 Stavropol P O L A PI A N L A s E Derbent ° I ? ` L I S ° fold K 3 a o '0' Scale, 0 o 4 -Z 5° 4z C Longitude East 44 of Greenwich D A B college of the government, in which, like the others, they form a separate curia. In the college itself the voting - secret and by ballot throughout - is by majority; and since this majority consists, under the actual system, of very conservative elements (the landowners and urban delegates having 8ths of the votes), the progressive elements - however much they might preponderate in the country - would have no chance of representation at all save for the curious provision that one member at least in each government must be chosen from each of the five classes represented in the college. For example, were there no reactionary peasant among the delegates, a reactionary majority might be forced to return a Social Democrat to the Duma. As it is, though a fixed minimum of peasant delegates must be returned, they by no means probably represent the opinion of the peasantry. That in the Duma any Radical elements survive at all is mainly due to the peculiar franchise enjoyed by the seven largest towns - St Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, Riga and the Polish cities of Warsaw and Lodz. These elect their delegates to the Duma direct, and though their votes are divided into two curias (on the basis of taxable property) in such a way as to give the advantage to wealth, each returning the same number of delegates, the democratic colleges can at least return members of their own complexion.' The competence of the Russian parliament' thus constituted is strictly limited. It shares with the emperor the legislative power, including the discussion and sanctioning of the budget. But, so far as the parliament is concerned, this power is subject to numerous and important exceptions. All measures, e.g. dealing with the organization of the army and navy are outside its competence; these are no longer called " laws " but " ordinary administrative rules." Moreover, the procedure of the Houses practically places the control of legislation in the hands of ministers. Any member may bring in a " project of law," but it has to be submitted to the minister of the department concerned, who is allowed a month to consider it, and himself prepares the final draft laid on the table of the House. Amendments, however, may be and have been carried against the government. Ministers are responsible, moreover, not to parliament but to the emperor. They may be interpellated, but only on the legality, not the policy, of their acts. In the words of M. Stolypin, there is no intention of converting the ministerial bench into a prisoners' dock. If by a two-thirds majority the action of a minister be arraigned, the president of the Imperial Council lays the case before the emperor, who decides. The powers of the parliament over the budget are even more limited, though not altogether illusory. No legislation by means of the budget is allowed, i.e. no alteration may be made in credits necessary for carrying out a law. This deprives parliament of control over the administrative departments, all the ministries being thus " armour-plated " - to use the cant phrase current in Russia - except that of ways and communications (railways). The sum of 700,000,000 roubles per annum is thus excepted from the control of the chambers. Other exceptions are the " Institutions of the Empress Marie," which absorb, inter alia, the duties on playing-cards and the taxes on places of public entertainment; the imperial civil list, so far as this does not exceed the sum fixed in 1906 (16,359,595 roubles!); the expenses of the two imperial chanceries, 10,000,000 roubles per annum, which constitute in effect a secret service fund. Altogether, half the annual expenditure of the country is outside the control of parliament. Nor is this all. If the budget be not sanctioned by the emperor, that of the previous year remains in force, and the government has power, motu proprio, to impose the extra taxes necessary to carry out new laws. In certain circumstances, too, the emperor reserves the right to raise fresh loans.

1 Thus M. Guchkov, leader of the Octobrists, and M. Miliukov, leader of the cadets, were both returned by the second curia of St Petersburg to the third Duma.

2 Strictly speaking, the title is inapplicable, there being no collective official name for the two chambers. The word parliament may, however, be used as a convenient term, failing a better.

Further, the emperor has the power to issue ordinances having the force of law, i.e. under extraordinary circumstances when the Duma is not sitting. These ordinances must, however, be of a temporary nature, must not infringe the fundamental laws or statutes passed by the two chambers, or change the electoral system, and must be laid upon the table of the Duma at the first opportunity. Since, however, the emperor has the power of proroguing or dissolving the Duma as often as he pleases, it is clear that these temporary ordinances might in effect be made permanent. Finally, the emperor has the right to proclaim anywhere and at any time a state of siege. In this way the fundamental laws were suspended not only in Poland but in St Petersburg and other parts of the empire during the greater part of the four years succeeding the grant of the constitution.

It should be noted, none the less, that the third Duma succeeded in establishing its position, and that in view of its useful activities even the extreme Right came to realize that there could be no return to the old undisguised absolutist regime (see History, below, ad fin.).

By the law of the 18th of October (November i) 1905, to assist the emperor in the supreme administration a Council of Ministers (Sovyet Ministrov) was created, under a ministerresident the first a earance of a rime P, PP P minister in Russia. This council consists of all the ministers and of the heads of the principal administrations. The ministries are as follows: (1) of the Imperial Court, to which the administration of the apanages, the chapter of the imperial orders, the imperial palaces and theatres, and the Academy of Fine Arts are subordinated; (2) Foreign Affairs; (3) War and Marine; (4) Finance; (5) Commerce and Industry (created in 1905); (6) Interior (including police, health, censorship and press, posts and telegraphs, foreign religions, statistics); (7) Agriculture; (8) Ways and Communications; (9) Justice; (10) Public Instruction. Dependent on the Council of Ministers are two other councils: the Holy Synod and the Senate.

The Holy Synod (established in 1721) is the supreme organ of government of the Orthodox Church in Russia. It is presided over by a lay procurator, representing the emperor, and consists, for the rest, of the three metropolitans of Moscow, St Petersburg and Kiev, the archbishop of Georgia, and a number of bishops sitting in rotation.

The Senate (Pravitelstvuyushchi Senat, i.e. directing or governing senate), originally established by Peter the Great, consists of members nominated by the emperor. Its functions, which are exceedingly various, are carried out by the different departments into which it is divided. It is the supreme court of cassation (see Judicial System, below); an audit office, a high court of justice for all political offences; one of its departments fulfils the functions of a heralds' college. It also has supreme jurisdiction in all disputes arising out of the administration of the empire, notably differences between the representatives of the central power and the elected organs of local self-government. Lastly, it examines into registers and promulgates new laws, a function which, in theory, gives it a power, akin to that of the Supreme Court of the United States, of rejecting measures not in accordance with the fundamental laws.

For purposes of provincial administration Russia is divided into 78 governments (guberniya), 18 provinces (oblast) and r district (okrug). Of these 11 governments, 17 - provinces and 1 district (Sakhalin) belong to Asiatic vincial Russia. Of the rest 8 governments are in Finland, ro in Poland. European Russia thus embraces 59 governments and 1 province (that of the Don). The Don province is under the direct jurisdiction of the ministry of war; the rest have each a governor and deputy-governor, the latter presiding over the administrative council. In addition there are governors-general, generally placed over several governments and armed with more extensive powers, usually including the command of the troops within the limits of their jurisdiction. In 1906 there were governors-general in Finland, Warsaw, Vilna, Kiev, Moscow and Riga. The larger cities (St Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Sevastopol, KertchYenikala, Nikolayev, Rostov) have an administrative system of their own, independent of the governments; in these the. chief of police acts as governor. As organs of the Police central government there are further, the ispravniki, chiefs of police in the districts into which the governments are divided. These are nominated by the governors,' and have under their orders in the principal localities commissaries (stanovoi pristav). Ispravniki and stanovoi alike are armed with large and ill-defined powers; and, since they are for the most part illiterate and wholly ignorant of the law, they have proved exasperating engines of oppression. Towards the end of the reign of Alexander II., the government, in order to preserve order in the country districts, also created a special class of mounted rural policemen (uryadniki, from uriad, order), who, armed with power to arrest all suspects on the spot, rapidly became the terror of the countryside. 2 Finally, in the towns every house is provided with a detective policeman in the person of the porter (dvornik), who is charged with the duty of reporting to the police the presence of any suspicious characters or anything else that may interest them .3 In addition to the above there is also a police organization, in direct subordination to the ministry of the interior, of which the principal function is the discovery, pre vention and extirpation of political sedition. A secret police, armed with inquisitorial and arbitrary powers, has always existed in autocratic Russia. Its most famous development was the so-called " Third Section " (of the imperial chancery) instituted by the emperor Nicholas I. in 1826. This was entirely independent of the ordinary police, but was associated with the previously existing corps of gendarmes (Korpus Zhandarmov), whose chief was placed at its head. Its object had originally been to keep the emperor in close touch with all the branches of the administration and to bring to his notice any abuses and irregularities (see Nicholas I.), and for this purpose its chief was in constant personal intercourse with the sovereign. Actually, however, its activity, directed mainly to the discovery of political offences, degenerated into a hideous reign of terror. Its organization was spread all over Russia; its procedure was secret and summary (transportation by administrative order); and, its instruments being for the most part ignorant and largely corrupt, its victims were counted by thousands.

The " Third Section " was suppressed by Alexander II. in 1880, but only in name. In fact it was transformed into a separate department of the ministry of the interior, and, provided with an enormous secret service fund, soon dominated the whole ministry. The corps of gendarmes was also incorporated in this department, the under-secretary of the interior being placed at its head and at that of the police generally, with practically unlimited jurisdiction in all cases which, in the judgment of the minister of the interior, required to be dealt with by processes outside the ordinary law. In 1896 the powers of the minister were extended at the expense of those of the under-secretary, who remained only at the head of the corps of gendarmes; but by a law of the 24th of September 1904 this was again reversed, and the under-secretary was again placed at the head of all the police with the title of undersecretary for the administration of the police.

Local Elected Administrative Bodies. - Alongside the local organs of the central government in Russia there are three classes of local elected bodies charged with administrative functions: (I) the peasant assemblies in the mir and the volost, ' From Catherine II.'s time to that of Alexander II. they were elected by the nobles. This was changed in consequence of the emancipation of the serfs.

2 They were soon nicknamed Kuryadniki, chicken-stealers (from Kura, hen). See Leroy-Beaulieu, L'Empire des tsars, ii. 234.

The dvornik is on duty for sixteen hours at a stretch, during which he is not allowed to sleep or even to shelter in the porch.

(2) the zemstvos in the 34 governments of Russia proper, (3) the municipal dumas. Of these the peasant assemblies are the most interesting and in some respects the most important, since the peasants (i.e. three-quarters of the population of Russia) form a class apart, 4 largely excepted from the incidence of the ordinary law, and governed in accordance with their local customs. The mir itself, with its customs, is of immemorial antiquity (see Village Communities); it was not, however, till the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 that the village community was withdrawn from the patrimonial jurisdiction of the landowning nobility and endowed with self-government. The assembly of the mir consists of all the peasant householders of the village.' These elect a head-man (starosta) and a collector of taxes, who was responsible, at least until the ukaz of October 3906, which abolished communal responsibility for the payment of taxes, for the repartition among individuals of the taxes imposed on the commune. A number of mirs are united into a volost, The or canton, which has an assembly consisting of elected delegates from the mirs. These elect an elder (starshina) and, hitherto, a court of justice (volostnye sud). See Judicial System, below. The self-government of the mirs and volosts is, however, tempered by the authority of the police commissaries (stanovoi) and by the power of general oversight given to the nominated " district committees for the affairs of the peasants." The system of local self-government is continued, so far as the 34 governments of old Russia are concerned, 6 in the elective district and provincial assemblies (zemstvos). 'he These bodies, one for each district and another for zemstvos. each province or government, were created by Alex ander II. in 1864. They consist of a representative council (zemskoye sobranye) and of an executive board (zemskaya uprava) nominated by the former. The board consists of five classes of members: (I) large landed proprietors (nobles owning S90 acres and over), who sit in person; (2) delegates of the small landowners, including the clergy in their capacity of landed proprietors; (3) delegates of the wealthier townsmen; (4) delegates of the less wealthy urban classes; (5) delegates of the peasants, elected by the volosts. The rules governing elections to the zemstvos were taken as a model for the electoral law of 3906 and are sufficiently indicated by the account of this given below. The zemstvos were originally given large powers in relation to the incidence of taxation, and such questions as education, public health, roads and the like. These powers were, however, severely restricted by the emperor Alexander III. (law of 12/25 June 1890), the zemstvos being absolutely subordinated to the governors, whose consent was necessary to the validity of all their decisions, and who received drastic powers of discipline over the members. 8 It was not till 1905 that the zemstvos regained, at least de facto, some of their independent initiative. The part played by the congress of zemstvos in the earlier stages of the Russian revolution is outlined below (see History: § 2. Development of the Russian Constitution). 4 Until the ukaz of October 18, 1906, the peasant class was stereotyped under the electoral law. No peasant, however rich, could qualify for a vote in any but the peasants' electoral colleges. The ukaz allowed peasants with the requisite qualifications to vote as landowners. At the same time the Senate interpreted the law so as to exclude all but heads of families actually engaged in farming from the vote for the Duma.

5 None but peasants - not even the noble-landowner - has a voice in the assembly of the mir. 6 Sixteen provinces have no zemstvos, i.e. the three Baltic provinces, the nine western governments annexed from Poland by Catherine II., and the Cossack provinces of the Don, Astrakhan, Orenburg and Stavropol.

7 By the law of the 12th (25th) of June 3890 the peasant members of the zemstvos were to be nominated by the governor of the government or province from a list elected by the volosts. 8 In spite of these restrictions and of an electoral system which tended to make these assemblies as strait-laced and reactionary as any government bureau, the zemstvos did good work, notably educational, in those provinces where the proprietors were inspired with a more liberal spirit. Many zemstvos also made extensive and valuable inquiries into the condition of agriculture, industry and the like.

Secret police. Since 1870 the municipalities in European Russia have had institutions like those of the zemstvos. All owners of houses, and tax-paying merchants, artisans and workmen to their assessed wealth. The total valuation is then divided into three equal parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which elects an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive is in the hands of an elective mayor and an uprava, which consists of several members elected by the duma. Under Alexander III., however, by laws promulgated in 1892 and 1894, the municipal dumas were subordinated to the governors in the same way as the zemstvos. In 1894 municipal institutions, with still more restricted powers, were granted to several towns in Siberia, and in 1895 to some in Caucasia.

In the Baltic provinces (Courland, Livonia and Esthonia) the landowning classes formerly enjoyed considerable powers of self-government and numerous privileges in matters affecting education, police and the administration of local justice. But by laws promulgated in 1888 and 1889 the rights of police and manorial justice were transferred from the landlords to officials of the central government. Since about the same time a process of rigorous Russification has been carried through in the same provinces, in all departments of administration, in the higher schools and in the university of Dorpat, the name of which was altered to Yuriev. In 1893 district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in the purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the empire.

Judicial System

Not the least valuable of the gifts of the " tsar emancipator," Alexander II., to Russia was the judicial System system established by the statute (Sudebni Ustav) of the 10th of November 1864. The system which this 1864. superseded was not indigenous to Russia, but had been set up by Peter the Great, who had taken as his model the inquisitorial procedure at that time in vogue on the continent of western Europe. Both civil and criminal procedure were secret. All the proceedings were conducted in writing, and the judges were not confronted with either the parties or the witnesses until they emerged to deliver judgment. This secrecy, combined with the fact that the judges were very ill paid, led to universal bribery and corruption. To check this courts were multiplied (there were five, six or more instances), which only multiplied the evil. Documents accumulated from court to court, till none but the clerks who had written them could tell their gist; costs were piled up; and all this, combined with the confusion caused by the chaotic mass of imperial ukazes, ordinances and ancient laws - often inconsistent or flatly contradictory - made the administration of justice, if possible, more dilatory and capricious than in the old, unreformed English court of chancery. Above all, there was no dividing 'line between the judiciary and the administrative functions. The judges were not so by profession; they were merely members of the official class (chinovniks), the prejudices and vices of which they shared.

Of this system - except so far as the confusion of the laws is -concerned - the reform of 1864 made a clean sweep. The new system established - based partly on English, partly on French models - was built up on certain broad 1864. p principles: the separation of the judicial and administrative functions, the independence of the judges and courts, the publicity of trials and oral procedure, the equality of all classes before the law. Moreover, a democratic element was introduced by the adoption of the jury system and - so far as one order of tribunal was concerned - the election of judges. The establishment of a judicial system on these principles ,constituted, as M. Leroy-Beaulieu justly observes, a fundamental change in the conception of the Russian state, which, by placing the administration of justice outside the sphere of the executive power, ceased to be a despotism. This fact made the new system especially obnoxious to the bureaucracy, ,and during the latter years of Alexander II. and the reign of Alexander III. there was a piecemeal taking back of what had been given. It was reserved for the third Duma, after the revolution, to begin the reversal of this process.' The system established by the law of 1864 is remarkable in that it set up two wholly separate orders of tribunals, each having their own courts of appeal and coming in contact only in the senate, as the supreme court of cassation. The first of these, based on the English model, are the courts of the elected justices of the peace, with jurisdiction over petty causes, whether civil or criminal; the second, based on the French model, are the ordinary tribunals of nominated judges, sitting with or without a jury to hear important cases.

The justices of the peace, who must be landowners' or (in towns) persons of moderate property, are elected by the municipal dumas in the towns, and by the zemstvos Justices in the country districts, for a term of three years. of the They are of two classes: (r) acting justices (uchastokvye mirovye sudi); (2) honorary justices (pochetnye mirovye sudi). The acting justice sits normally alone to hear causes in his canton of the peace (uchastok), but, at the request of both parties to a suit, he may call in an honorary justice as assessor or substitute. 3 In all civil cases involving less than 30 roubles, and in criminal cases punishable by no more than three days' arrest, his judgment is final. In other cases appeal can be made to the " assize of the peace " (mirovye syezd), consisting of three or more justices of the peace meeting monthly (cf. the English quarter sessions), which acts both as a court of appeal and of cassation. From this again appeal can be made on points of law or disputed procedure to the senate, which may send the case back for retrial by an assize of the peace in another district.

The ordinary tribunals, in their organization, personnel and procedure, are modelled very closely on those of France (see France, Law and Institutions). From the town The judge (ispravnik), who, in spite of the principle laid ordinary down in 1864, combines judicial and administrative functions, an appeal lies (as in the case of the justices of the peace) to an assembly of such judges; from these again there is an appeal to the district court (okrugniya sud), consisting of three judges; 4 from this to the court of appeal (sudebniya palata); while over this again is the senate, which, as the supreme court of cassation, can send a case for retrial for reason shown. The district court, sitting with a jury, can try criminal cases without appeal, but only by special leave in each case of the court of appeal. The senate, as supreme court of cassation, has two departments, one for civil and one for criminal cases. As a court of justice its main drawback is that it is wholly unable to cope with the vast mass of documents representing appeals from all parts of the empire.

Two important classes in Russia stood more or less outside the competence of the above systems: the clergy and the peasants. The ecclesiastical courts still retain a ]. jurisdiction over the clergy which they have lost elsewhere in Europe; and in them the old secret written procedure survives. Their interest for the laity lies ' An ukaz of 1879 gave the governors the right to report secretly on the qualifications of candidates for the office of justice of the peace. In 1889 Alexander III. abolished the election of justices of the peace, except in certain large towns and some outlying parts of the empire, and greatly restricted the right of trial by jury. The confusion of the judicial and administrative functions was introduced again by the appointment of officials as judges. In 1909 the third Duma restored the election of justices of the peace.

2 The justices, though noble-landowners, are almost exclusively of very moderate means, and, though elected by the land-owning class, they are - according to M. Leroy-Beaulieu - prejudiced in favour of the poor mujik rather than of the wealthy landlord.

These honorary justices are mainly recruited from the ranks of the higher bureaucracy and the army.

4 This corresponds to the French tour d'arrondissement, but its jurisdiction is, territorially, much wider, often covering several districts or even a whole government.

are enrolled on lists in a descending order according mainly in the fact that marriage and divorce fall within their competence; and their reform has been postponed largely because the wealthy and corrupt society of the Russian capital preferred a system which makes divorce easily purchasable and avoids at the same time the scandal of publicity The case of the peasants is more interesting, and deserves a somewhat more detailed notice.

The peasants, as already stated, form a class apart, untouched by the influence of Western civilization, the principles of which they are quite incapable of understanding or appreci. ating. This fact was recognized by the legislators of 1864, and beneath the statutory tribunals created in that year the special courts of the peasants were suffered to survive. These were indeed but a few years older. Up to 1861, the date of the emancipation, the peasant serfs had been under the patrimonial jurisdiction of their lords. The edict of emancipation abolished this jurisdiction, and set up instead in each volost a court particular to the peasants (volostnye sud), of which the judges and jury, themselves peasants, were elected by the assembly of the volost (volostnye skhod) each year. In these courts the ordinary written law had little to say; the decisions of the volost courts were based on the local customary law, which alone the peasants, and the peasants alone, understand. The justice administered in them was patriarchal and rough, but not ineffective. All civil cases involving less than z oo roubles value were within their competence, and more important cases by consent of the parties. They acted also as police courts in the case of petty thefts, breaches of the peace and the like. They were also charged with the maintenance of order in the mir and the family, punishing infractions of the religious law, husbands who beat their wives, and parents who ill-treated their children. The penalty of flogging, preferred by the peasants to fine or imprisonment, was not unknown. The judges were, of course, wholly illiterate, and this tended to throw the ultimate power into the hands of the clerk (pisar) of the court, who was rarely above corruption.

In 1880, according to the observations of M. Leroy-Beaulieu,' the fines inflicted by the court were commonly paid in vodka, which was consumed on the premises by the judges and the parties to the suit; there is no reason to suppose that this amiable custom has been abandoned.

The peasants are not compelled to go to the volost court. They can apply to the police commissaries (stanovoti) or to the justices of the peace; but the great distances to be traversed in a country so sparsely populated makes this course highly inconvenient. 2 On the other hand, from the volost court there is no appeal, unless it has acted ultra vires or illegally. In the latter case a court of cassation is provided in the district com mittee for the affairs of the peasants (Uyezdnoe po krestianskim dolam prisutstviye), which has superseded the assembly of arbiters of the peace (mirovye posredniki) established in 1866.3 (W. A. P.) Previous to the revolution of 1905 but little progress had been made in Russia as regards education. 4 Distrust of the natural sciences, Ed uca- even in their technical applications, and of Western ideas of free government; desire to make university don. education, and even secondary education, a privilege of the wealthier classes; neglect of primary education, coupled with suppression by the ministry of public instruction of all initiative, private and public, in the matter of disseminating education among the illiterate classes - these were the distinctive features of the educational policy of the last twenty years of the 19th century.

L'Empire des tsars, ii. p. 310.

In the ordinary tribunals weight is given to the " customs " of the peasants, even when these conflict with the written law.

I The abolition of the special courts of the peasants was announced in the same imperial ukaz (18th of October 1906) which promised the relief of the peasants from the arbitrary control of the communes, and permission for them to migrate elsewhere without losing their communal rights. This was made part of the general reform of Russian local government, which in the autumn of 1910 was still under the consideration of the Duma.

4 Of the effects of the political changes in Russia on the educational system of the country it was, even in the autumn of 1910, too early to say anything save that an undoubted impetus had It was only towards its close that a change took place in the attitude of the government towards technical education, and a few high and middle technical schools were opened. It was only then, too, that a reform was started in secondary education, with the object of revising the so-called " classical " system favoured in the lyceums since the 'seventies, the complete failure of which has been demonstrated after nearly thirty years of experiment. Apart from the schools under the ministry of war (Cossack voiskos and schools at the barracks), the great bulk of the primary schools are either under the ministry of public instruction or of the Holy Synod. Those under the latter body are of recent growth, the policy of the last twenty years of the 19th century having been to hand over the budget allowances for primary instruction to the Holy Synod, which opened parish schools under the local priests. The schools under the Synod are themselves divided into two categories: parish schools and reading schools of an inferior grade. No teaching certificate is required by the teachers. in either class of school, the permission of the bishop (like the French lettre d'obedience of 1849) being sufficient. The consequence is, that the village priests, being too much occupied with their parochial duties, cannot give more than casual or perfunctory attention to the schools, and the numerous pupils either exist on paper only, or are handed over to half-educated cantors, deacons. or hired teachers. One good feature of the Russian primary school system, however, is that in many villages there are school gardens or fields; in nearly moo schools, bee-keeping, and in 300 silkworm culture is taught; while in some 900 schools the children receive instruction in various trades; and in 300 schools in slojd (a system of manual training originated in Finland). Girls are taught handwork in many schools. Nearly 50% of the teachers are women. The total expenditure on primary schools in 1900 was 5,30o,000 (about the average in recent years), of which 20%. was supplied by the state, 23% by the zemstvos, 351% by the village communities and the municipalities and 112 % by private persons. The middle schools are maintained by the state, which contributes 25% of the expenditure of the classical and technical schools, by the fees of the pupils (30%), and by donations from the zemstvos and municipalities. The total grants from the state exchequer for education of all grades in all parts of the empire amounted in 1906 to £8,107,000. The progress of primary education is illustrated by the fact that, while in 1885 there was one school for every 2665 inhabitants and one pupil for every 48 inhabitants, in 1898 the figures were 1643 and 31 inhabitants. respectively. According to the census of 1897 the number of illiterates varied from 89.2 to 44.9% of the population in the rural districts, and from 63.6 to 37.2% in the urban.

For higher education there were in 1904 only 9 universities. (Yuriev or Dorpat, Kazan, Kharkov, Kiev, Moscow, Odessa, St Petersburg, Warsaw and Tomsk), with 19,400 students, 6 medical academies (one for women), 6 theological academies, 6 military academies, 5 philological institutes, 3 Eastern languages institutes,. 3 law schools, 4 veterinary institutes, 4 agricultural colleges, 2 mining institutes, 4 engineering institutes, 2 universities for women (93 o students at St Petersburg), 3 technical pedagogic schools, to technical institutes, I forestry and 1 topographical school. There has, however, been much activity since 1905 in the establishment of new educational institutions, notably technical and commercial schools, which are placed under the new minister of commerce and industry. Finland has a university of its own at Helsingfors.

The standard of teaching in the universities is on the whole very high, and may be compared to that of the German universities. The students are hard working, and generally very intelligent. Mostly sons of poor parents, they live in extreme poverty, supporting themselves chiefly by translating and by tutorial work. The state of secondary education still leaves much to be desired.. The steady tendency of Russian society towards increasing the number of secondary schools, where instruction would be based on the study of the natural sciences, is checked by the government in favour of the classical gymnasiums. 5 Sunday schools and public lectures are virtually prohibited.

A characteristic feature of the intellectual movement in Russia is its tendency to extend to women the means of higher instruction. The gymnasiums for girls are both numerous and good. In addition to these, notwithstanding government opposition, a series been given to the effort for improvement, and that the question had been seriously taken in hand by the imperial administration and the Duma. What form it would ultimately take depended still on the balance between the forces of conservatism and change, the suspicious temper of the autocracy being revealed, during the years of unstable equilibrium, by the alternate concession and withdrawal of privileges, e.g. in the matter of the independence of the universities. Any account of the educational system cannot, therefore, be otherwise than historical and provisional [ED.j.

5 An imperial rescript of 10th of June 1902 foreshadowed a reorganization of secondary education, and an imperial ukaz of 15th of March 1903 laid down the lines on which this was to proceed.. The old curriculum of the Real schools is now superseded.

EUROPEAN RUSSIA]

of higher schools, in which careful instruction is given in natural and social sciences, have been opened in the chief cities under the name of " pedagogical courses." At St Petersburg a women's medical academy, the examinations of which were even more searching than those of the ordinary academy (especially as regards diseases of women and children), was opened, but after about one hundred women had received the degree of M.D. it was suppressed by government. In several university towns there are free teaching establishments for women, supported by subscription, with programmes and examinations equal to those of the universities.

The natural sciences are much cultivated in Russia. Besides the Academy of Science, the Moscow Society of Naturalists, the Mineralogical Society, the Geographical Society, with its Caucasian and Siberian branches, the archaeological societies and the scientific societies of the Baltic provinces, all of which are of old and recognized standing, there have lately sprung up a series of new societies in connexion with each university, and their serials are yearly growing in importance, as, too, are those of the Moscow Society of Friends of Natural Science, the Chemico-Physical Society, and various medical, educational and other associations. The work achieved by Russian savants, especially in biology, physiology and chemistry, and in the sciences descriptive of the vast territory of Russia, is well known to Europe.

The ordinary revenue of the empire is in excess of the ordinary expenditure, but the extraordinary expenditure not only swallows up this surplus, but necessitates the raising of fresh F loans every year. On the other hand, there is a good deal to show for this extraordinary expenditure. A considerable number of new railways, including the Siberian, have been built with money obtained from that source. But since 1894 all extraordinary items of expenditure, with the exception of those for the construction of new lines of railway, have been defrayed out of ordinary revenue. The only sources of extraordinary revenue still remaining under that head are the money derived from loans and the perpetual deposits in the Imperial Bank. The ordinary revenue, obtained principally from the sale of spirits (28%), which is a state monopoly, from state railways (231%) and customs (roe %), steadily rose from a total of £132,750,000 in 1895 to a total of £214,360,000 in 1905. Other noteworthy sources of revenue are trade licences, direct taxes on lands and forests, stamp duties, posts and telegraphs, indirect taxes on tobacco, sugar and other commodities, the crown forests, and land redemption payable annually by the peasants since 1861. At the same time the total ordinary expenditure has increased at a similarly steady rate, namely, from £119,391,000 in 1895 to £202,544,000 in 1905. In 1904, 811% of the extraordinary expenditure, namely, £71,550,000, was incurred in consequence of the war with Japan, and to this must be added in 1906 a further expenditure of £42,085,000. The total national debt of Russia nearly trebled between 1852 (£57,038,600) and 1862 (£145,50o,000), and again between 1872 (£242,277,000) and 1892 (£526,109.000) it more than doubled, while by 1906 it amounted altogether to £812,040,000. Of the total, 77% stands at 4% and 17 at less than 4%.

The system of obligatory military service for all, introduced in 1874, has been maintained, but the six years' term of service has Army. been reduced to five, while the privileges granted to young men who have received various degrees of education have been slightly extended. During the reign of Alexander III. efforts were mainly directed towards - (1) reducing the time required for the mobilization of the army; (2) increasing the immediate readiness of cavalry for war and its fitness for serving as mounted infantry (dragoon regiments taking the place of hussars and lancers); (3) strengthening the W. frontier by fortresses and railways; and (4) increasing the artillery, siege and train reserves. Further, the age releasing from service was raised from 40 to 43 years and the militia (landsturm) was reorganized. The measures taken during the reign of Nicholas II. have been chiefly directed towards increasing the fighting capacity and readiness for immediate service of the troops in Asia, and towards the better reorganization of the local irregular militia forces. Broadly speaking, the army is divided into regulars, Cossacks and militia. The peace strength of the army is estimated at 42,000 officers and 1,100,000 men (about 950,000 combatants), while the war strength is approximately 75,000 officers and 4,500,000 men. However, this latter figure is merely nominal, the available artillery and train service being much below the strength which would be required for such an army; estimates which put the military forces of Russia in time of war at 2,750,000 - irrespective of the :armies which may be levied during the war itself - seem to approach more nearly the strength of the forces which could actually be mustered. The infantry and rifles are armed with small-bore magazine rifles, and the active artillery have steel breech-loaders with extreme ranges of 4150 to 4700 yds.

Before the Japanese war Russia maintained four separate squadrons: the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Pacific and the Caspian.

But in the operations before Port Arthur and in the Navy. disastrous battle of Tsushima the Russian fleets were almost completely annihilated. The bulk of the Black Sea fleet .and a few other battleships were, however, still left, and since 1904 steps have been taken to build new ships, both battleships and powerful cruisers. Kronstadt is the naval headquarters in the Baltic, Sevastopol in the Black Sea and Vladivostok on the Pacific.

Fortresses

The chief first-class fortresses of Russia are Warsaw and Novogeorgievsk in Poland, and Brest-Litovsk and Kovno in Lithuania. The second-class fortresses are Kronstadt and Sveaborg in the Gulf of Finland, Ivangorod in Poland, Libau on the Baltic Sea, Kerch on the Black Sea and Vladivostok on the Pacific. In the third class are Viborg in Finland, Ossovets and Ust Dvinsk (or Dunamunde) in Lithuania, Sevastopol and Ochakov on the Black Sea, and Kars and Batum in Caucasia. There are, moreover, 46 forts and fortresses unclassed, of which 6 are in Poland, 8 in W. and S.W. Russia, and the remainder (mere fortified posts) in the Asiatic dominions.

European Russia Geography. - The administrative boundaries of European Russia, apart from Finland, coincide broadly with the natural limits of the East-European plains. In the N. it is bounded by the Arctic Ocean; the islands of NovayaZemlya, Kolguyev and Vaigach also belong to it, but the Kara Sea is reckoned to Siberia. To the E. it has the Asiatic dominions of the empire, Siberia and the Kirghiz steppes, from both of which it is separated by the Ural Mountains, the Ural river and the Caspian - the administrative boundary, however, partly extending into Asia on the Siberian slope of the Urals. To the S. it has the Black Sea and Caucasia, being separated from the latter by the Manych depression, which in Post-Pliocene times connected the Sea of Azov with the Caspian. The W. boundary is purely conventional: it crosses the peninsula of Kola from the Varanger Fjord to the Gulf of Bothnia; thence it runs to the Kurisches Haff in the southern Baltic, and thence to the mouth of the Danube, taking a great circular sweep to the W. to embrace Poland, and separating Russia from Prussia, Austrian Galicia and Rumania.

It is a special feature of Russia that she has no free outlet to the open sea except on the ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean. Even the White Sea is merely a gulf of that ocean. The deep indentations of the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland are surrounded by what is ethnologically Finnish territory, and it is only at the very head of the latter gulf that the Russians have taken firm foothold by erecting their capital at the mouth of the Neva. The Gulf of Riga and the Baltic belong also to territory which is not inhabited by Sla y s, but by Finnish races and by Germans. It is only within the last hundred and thirty years that the Russians have definitely taken possession of the N. shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The E. coast of the Black Sea belongs properly to Transcaucasia, a great chain of mountains separating it from Russia. But even this sheet of water is an inland sea, the only outlet of which, the Bosphorus, is in foreign hands, while the Caspian, an immense shallow lake, mostly bordered by deserts, possesses more importance as a link between Russia and her Asiatic settlements than as a channel for intercourse with other countries.

The great territory occupied by European Russia - 1600 m. in length from N. to S., and nearly as much from E. to W. - is on the whole a broad elevated plain, ranging between 500 and 900 ft. above sea-level, deeply cut into by river valleys, and bounded on all sides by broad swellings or low mountain-ranges: the lake plateaus of Finland. and the Maanselka heights in the N.W.; the Baltic coast-ridge and spurs of the Carpathians in the W., with a broad depression between the two, occupied by Poland; the Crimean and Caucasian mountains in the S.; and the broad but moderately high swelling of the Ural Mountains in the E.

From a central plateau, which comprises the governments of Tver, Moscow, Smolensk and Kursk, and projects E. towards Samara, attaining an average elevation of Boo to 900 ft. above the sea, the surface slopes gently in all directions to a level of 300 to 500 ft. Then it again rises gradually as it approaches the hilly tracts which enclose the great plain. This central swelling may be considered a continuation towards the E.N.E. of the great line of upheavals of N.W. Europe; the elevated grounds of Finland would then represent a continuation of the Scanian plateaus of S. Sweden, and the northern mountains of Finland a continuation of Kjolen (the Keel) which separate Sweden from Norway, while the other great line of upheaval of the old continent, which runs N.W. to S.E., would be represented in Russia by the Caucasus in the S. and by the Timan ridge of the Pechora basin in the N.

The hilly aspect of several parts of the central plateau is not due to foldings of the strata, which for the most part appear to be horizontal, but chiefly to the excavating action of the rivers, whose valleys are deeply eroded in the plateau, especially on its borders. The round flattened summits of the Valdai plateau do not rise above 1100 ft., and they present the appearance of mountains only in consequence of the depths of the valleys - the rivers which flow towards the depression of Lake Peipus being only 200 to 250 ft. above the sea. The same is true of the plateaus of Livonia, " Wendish Switzerland," and the government of Kovno, which do not exceed moo ft. at their highest points; and again of the E. spurs of the Baltic coast-ridge between the governments of Grodno and Minsk. The same elevation is reached by a very few flat summits of the plateau about Kursk, and farther E. on the Volga about Kamyshin, where the valleys are excavated to a depth of 800 or