of the men; in 12 governments the proportion is 100 men to 110 women.
With regard to religion, Christianity in various denominations is the religion of the great majority of the people. There are 123,000,000 Christians (84.3 per cent of the entire population). The majority are of the Orthodox Church, which has 102,600,000 adherents (69.9 per cent of the population, the corresponding figures for European Russia being 91,000,000 (75 per cent). Consequently among the Russians Orthodox and Russian are synonymous terms. Since the Ukase of April 17, 1905, which proclaimed freedom of conscience, Russian orthodoxy has lost 1,000,000 of followers, through conversions to Catholicism, to Protestantism, and to Mohammedanism. The Catholics of Russia number 13,000,000 (8.9 per cent); the Protestants, 7,200,000 (4.9 per cent); other Christian denominations, 1,400,000 (I per cent); Mohammedans, 15,900,000 (10 per cent); pagans, 700,000 (0.4 per cent). Pagans, to the number of 300,000, are to be found, not only in Siberia, but also in European Russia (Kalmucks and Samogitians). The Catholics are chiefly in Poland, where, according to the census of 1897, they constituted 74-8 per cent of the population. On the other hand, one-half of the Jews who are scattered over the earth are in Russia, the number of them in that country being estimated at from 6,000,000 to 7,000,000, all concentrated within the boundaries of fifteen governments.
From the standpoint of education, Russia does not occupy even a secondary position in Europe. In European Russia the percentage of those who know how to read and write is 22.9. The regions in which there are the least numbers of the educated are as follows: Esthonia (79 per cent); Livonia (77.7 per cent); Courland (70.9 per cent); the cities of St. Petersburg (55.1 per cent) and Moscow (40.2 per cent), and Poland (41 per cent).
Emigration, as a rule, takes place only within the boundaries of the empire. From the most remote times, the inhabitants of Novgorod founded colonies as far away as the shores of the White Sea and the Ural Mountains. Emigration to Siberia began in 1582; the first colonists of that country were the exiles, the Cossacks, fishermen, and prospectors in search of gold; and this emigration was considerably increased after the liberation of the serfs in 1861. In 1891 the Siberian Railway Company undertook the colonization of Siberia, and by opportune measures gave a great impulse to Siberian immigration. In 1889 the number of Russian emigrants to that region was between 25,000 and 40,000; in 1900 it had increased to 220,000. These emigrants, who came from Central Russia and from Little Russia, spread at first over Western Siberia, and then over Central Siberia; but later they went farther and farther towards the extreme east, a movement to which the war with Japan put a stop, but which was again taken up with greater activity when that war ended. In 1906, 200,790 emigrants passed through Cheliabinsk to Siberia, and 400,000 in 1907. A part of the emigration is directed towards the southeast of Turkestan. The first colonists arrived in the Province of Semiryetchensk in 1848, and in the Province of Sir-Daria in 1876. Emigration beyond the frontiers of Russia is very limited, amounting in numbers at the present time to from 75,000 to 100,000, who for the greater part pass through the ports of Bremen and Hamburg. From 1891 to 1906, out of every 1000 Russian emigrants, 900 went to the United States, and the majority of the others to Brazil and the Argentine Republic.
The population of Russia is very much divided linguistically, it being calculated that a hundred languages are spoken within the empire, of which forty-two are in use in the city of Tiflis alone. Russian is the official language of eighty-nine governments and provinces, but it is the predominant language in only forty-one of them. Among the dialects, Great Russian is the one that is most extensively used. The tongues of the Mongolian tribes that are subject to Russia are little developed, and are generally without a literature. The population of Russia presents a great variety of races, united by a political rule, by the community of the Russian language, and to a great extent by the Orthodox religion; it is characterized also by a great preponderance of the rural over the urban population, and by the presence of a high percentage of peoples or tribes with little culture of their own, and little aptitude for the assimilation of the culture of Europe.
SPECIAL ETHNOGRAPHY.—Ethnographically the population of the Russian Empire is divided into two races, the Caucasian, which predominates, and the Mongolian. Of the total population 121,000,000, or 82.6 per cent, are Caucasians; while the Mongolian races in all Russia constitute 17 per cent of the whole population. Russians, properly so-called, constitute 87.7 per cent of the population in Western Siberia, 80 per cent in European Russia, 53.9 per cent in eastern Siberia, 8.9 per cent in central Asia, 6.7 per cent in the region of the Vistula, and 0.2 per cent in Finland. Notwithstanding the difference in types, the Russians constitute a single people, ethnographically divided into three classes, Great Russians, Little Russians, and White Russians. These three ethnographical branches are differentiated from each other by dialectical differences, domestic traditions and customs, character, and historical tradition. It is difficult to determine the zones of the three branches, or the numbers of individuals of which they consist. According to the census of 1897, there were 55,667,469 Great Russians (Velikorussi), 22,380,350 Little Russians (Malorussi), and 5,885,547 White Russians (Bielorussi). At present, there are 65,000,000 Great Russians. They occupy the central and northern parts of European Russia, their centers of population extending from the White Sea to the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azoff, and are to be found also in Siberia and in the Caucasus. They have emigrated to Little Russia in considerable numbers; at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Kharkoff was inhabited almost entirely by Little Russians, but in 1897 Great Russians constituted 58 per cent of the population, and the Little Russians only 25 per cent. The Great Russians are active and energetic, and have great aptitude for commerce and work in general. They are regarded as the essentially Russian race, which has not only preserved its known ethnical characteristics under difficult conditions, but has assimilated with itself other races, especially of the Finnish stock. Their language is the predominant tongue of the Russian Empire. The small commerce of the cities is in their hands, as is also the commerce of the wines and fruit that come from Bessarabia, the Crimea and the Don, and the fish from the Black Sea and the Ural River.
The Little Russians inhabit the south of Russia and the basin of the middle and lower course of the Dnieper, and constitute 26.6 per cent of the total population of the empire. Their greatest masses are to be found in the Governments of Pultowa (93 per cent), Tchernigoff (85.6 per cent), Podolia (80.9 per cent), Kharkoff (80.6 per cent), Stavropol (80 per cent), Kieff (79.2 per cent), Volhynia (70.1 per cent), and Yekaterinoslaff (68.9 per cent). The Little Russians are an agricultural people, and remain in their native districts. Their emigrations extend only to the steppes of New Russia, and to the territories of the Don and of the Kuban rivers. Of recent times they have furnished a large contingent to the agricultural
