Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

VITAL STATISTICS.]
RUSSIA
81
emjy
tio
u-
;irt;
ndi
Tchuvashes.
Tartars
Bashkirs....
Mescheriaks
Tepters
Kirghizes...
Various
Table IV.—continued.
697,000
1,500,000
908,000
167,000
159,000
197,000
6,000
Turco-Tartars —
Kalmucks
Total Turanians.,
Grand Total
3,629,000
119,000
3,748,000
84,495,000!
Part III. European Russia—Statistics.2
Russia is on the whole a thinly-peopled country, the average
population being but 42 to the square mile. The density of
population varies, however, very much in European Russia—from
one inhabitant per square mile in the government of Archangel to
102 in that of Moscow (exclusive of the capital) and 138 in
Podolia. Two-thirds of the whole population are concentrated
upon less than one-third of the whole surface. The most thickly-
peopled parts form a strip of territory which extends from
Galicia through Kieff to Moscow, and comprises partly the most
fertile governments of Russia and partly the manufacturing ones ;
next come a strip of fertile country to the south of the above and
the manufacturing provinces of the upper Volga. The black-earth
region has an average of 90 inhabitants per square mile ; the
central manufacturing region, 85 ; the western provinces, 79 ; the
black-earth and clay region, 38 ; the black-earth Steppes, 33 ; the
hilly tracts of the Crimea and Caucasus, 31 ; the forest-region
proper, 26 ; the Steppes, 9 ; the far north, less than 2.
The rate at which the population is increasing throughout the
empire is very considerable. It varies, however, very much in
different parts, and even in European Russia, being almost twice
as high in the fertile tracts of the south as it is in the north (l-8
to TO). The rapid increase is chiefly due to early marriages, the
peasants for the most part marrying their sons at eighteen and their
daughters at sixteen. The resulting high birth-rate compensates
for the great mortality, and the Russian population is increasing
more quickly than the Polish, Lithuanian, Finnish, or Tartar. In
1880 the marriages, births, and deaths were returned as follows
(Table V.)
Marriages.
Deaths.
Excess of Births
over Deaths.
European Russia.
Poland
Finland (1881)....
Siberia
725,427
62,771
14,283
32,952
3,678,071
294,021
74,469
180,802
2,684,828
189,514
53,777
131,793
993,243
104,507
20,692
49,009
Total
835,433
4,227,363
3,059,912
1,167,451
These figures agree pretty nearly with those for a series of
years (1871-78), which gave an annual surplus of 945,000 for
European Russia alone. In 1882, throughout the empire—leaving
out of account Caucasus and Turgai—the births numbered
4,403,555 and the deaths 3,464,404, for an estimated population
of 95,565,100. But the birth-rate and death-rate were very
different in Russia proper and in the Asiatic dominions ; in the
former they reached respectively 4-83 and 3 '77; and in the latter
only 375 and 2'84. The low birth-rate in Asia counterbalances
the low mortality. So also within Russia proper : in the central
provinces the high mortality (35 per thousand) is compensated by
a high birth-rate (49), while in the western provinces, where the
mortality is relatively small (27), the number of births is also the
lowest (37).
On the whole, the mortality in Russia is greater than anywhere
else in Europe. The lowest figures are found in Courland (20),
1 Bibliography.—Rittich, Ethnographical Map of Russia, and Ethnogr. Com¬
position {Plemmnoi Sostav) of Russia ; Venukoff, Outskirts of Russia (Russ.);
Works of the Expedition to the Western Provinces; Mem. of the Oeogr. Society
(Ethnography); Mem. of the Moscow Soc. of Friends of Nat. Science (Anthro¬
pology)-, Pauli, The Peoples of Russia-, Narody Rosii, popular edition By M.
lliin. For prehistoric anthropology, see Count Uvaroff, Archgeology, i.; Inos-
trantseff, Prehistoric Man on Lake Ladoga-, Budilovitch, Primitive Slavonians,
1879; A. Bogdanotfs extensive and most valuable researches in Mem. of Moscow
Soc. of Friends of Nat. Sc.; the researches of Polyakoff and many others in
various scientific periodicals (St Petersburg, Kazan universities); and Reports of
the Archseol. Congresses. For subsequent periods, see numerous papers in Me¬
moirs of Archseol. Soc., Mem. Ac. of Sciences, &c., and the works of Russian histo¬
rians. Mezhoff’s Bibliogr. Indexes, published yearly by the Russian Geographical
Society, contain complete information about works and papers published.
2 For all statistics for European Russia, see “ Recueil of Information” for
European Russia in 1882 (Sbornik Svedeniy), published in 1884 by the Central
Statistical Committee, and the publications mentioned below under different
heads.
the Baltic provinces (22), and Poland (30). Within Russia itself
the rate varies between 29 and 49 (30 to 38 in towns). In 1882
the average mortality in the 13 central governments reached the
exceptional figure of 62, so that there was a decrease of 17 per
cent, in the aggregate population. The mortality is highest
among children, only one-half of those born reaching their seventh
year. From military registers it appears that of 1000 males born
only 480 to 490 reach their twenty-first year, and of these only
375 are able-bodied ; of the remainder, who are unfit for military
service, 50 per cent, suffer from chronic diseases. Misery, insani¬
tary dwellings, and want of food account for this high mortality,
which is further increased by the want of medical help, there being
in Russia with Poland only 15,348 males and 66 female surgeons,
7679 assistants, and one bed in hospital for every 1270 inhabitants.
The hospitals are, however so unequally distributed, that in 63
governments having an aggregate country population of about
76,000,000 there were only 657 hospitals with 8273 beds, and an
average of two surgeons to 100,000 inhabitants.
The rate of emigration from the Russian empire is not high. In Emigra-
1871-80 the average number was 280, 700 yearly, and the immigra- tion.
tion 245,500. But within the empire itself migration to South
Ural, Siberia, and Caucasus goes on extensively ; figures, however,
even approximate, are wanting. During the ten years 1872-81 no
less than 406,180 Germans and 235,600 Austrians immigrated into
Russia, chiefly to Poland and the south-western provinces.
A very great diversity of religions, including (besides numerous Religion,
varieties of Christianity) Mohammedanism, Shamanism, and
Buddhism, are found in European Russia, corresponding for the
most part with the separate ethnological subdivisions. All
Russians, with the exception of a number of White Russians who
belong to the Union, profess the Greek Orthodox faith or one or
other of the numberless varieties of nonconformity. The Poles
and most of the Lithuanians are Roman Catholics. The Esthes
and all other Western Finns, the Germans, and the Swedes
are Protestant. The Tartars, the Bashkirs, and Kirghizes are
Mohammedans; but the last-named have to a great extent
maintained along with Mohammedanism their old Shamanism.
The same holds good of the Mescheriaks, both Moslem and
Christian. The Mordvinians are nearly all Greek Orthodox, as
also are the Yotiaks, Moguls, Tcheremisses, and Tchuvashes, but
their religions are, in reality, very interesting modifications of
Shamanism, under the influence of some Christian and Moslem
beliefs. The Moguls, though baptized, are in fact fetichists, as
much as the unconverted Samoyedes. Finally, the Kalmucks are
Buddhist Lamaites.
All these religions are met with in close proximity to one
another, and their places of worship often stand side by side in the
same town or village without giving rise to religious disturbances.
The recent outbreaks against the Jews were directed, not against
the Talmudist creed, but against the trading and exploiting
community of the “Kahal.” In his relations with Moslems,
Buddhists, and even fetichists, the Russian peasant looks rather to
conduct than to creed, the latter being in his view simply a matter
of nationality. Indeed, towards paganism, at least, he is perhaps
even more than tolerant, preferring on the whole to keep on good
terms with pagan divinities, and in difficult circumstances—
especially on travel and in hunting—not failing to present to them
his offering. Any idea of proselytism is quite foreign to the
ordinary Russian mind, and the outbursts of proselytizing zeal
occasionally manifested by the clergy are really due to the desire
for “Russification,” and traceable to the influence of the higher
clergy and of the Government.
The various creeds of European Russia were estimated in 1879
as follows :—Greek Orthodox and Raskolniks, 63,835,000 (about
12,000,000 being Raskolniks) ; United Greeks and Armenio-
Gregorians, 55,000 ; Roman Catholics, 8,300,000 ; Protestants,
2,950,000 ; Jews, 3,000,000 ; Moslems, 2,600,000 ; Pagans, 26,000.
In 1881 the number of Greek Orthodox throughout the empire,
excluding two foreign bishoprics, was estimated at 61,941,000.
Nonconformity (Raskot) is a most important feature of Russian Noncon-
popular life, and its influence and prevalence have rapidly grown formists.
during the last twenty-five years.
When, towards the beginning of the 17th century, the Moscow
principality fell under the rule of the Moscow boiars (one of whom,
Godunoff, reached the throne), they took advantage of the power
thus acquired to increase their wealth by a series of measures affect¬
ing land-holding and trade ; they sanctioned and enforced by law
the serfdom which had already "from economical causes found its
way into Russian life. The great outbreak of 1608-12 weakened
their power in favour of that of the czar, but without breaking it;
and throughout the reigns of Michael and Alexis the ukazes were
issued in the name of “the czar and boiars.” Serfdom was rein¬
forced by a series of laws, and the whole of the 17th century is char¬
acterized by a rapid accumulation of wealth in the hands of boiars,
by the development of luxury, imported from Poland, and by the
struggle of a number of families to acquire the political power
| already enjoyed by their Polish neighbours. The same tendency