Everything about Russians totally explained
The
Russian people are an
East Slavic ethnic group, primarily living in
Russia and neighboring countries.
The
English term
Russians is also used to refer to
citizens of Russia or the former Soviet Union, regardless of their ethnicity (see
demographics of Russia for information on other nationalities inhabiting Russia); in
Russian, this meaning is covered by term
Rossiyanin (Россиянин, plural
Rossiyane). According to 2002
census, ethnic Russians make up about 80% of the population of Russia
Origins
Emergence of Russian ethnicity
According to most ethnologists, ethnic Russians originated from the earlier
Rus people (East Slavs or
Kievan Rus) and gradually evolved into a different ethnicity from the western Rus peoples, who became the modern-day
Belarusians and
Ukrainians. Early ancestors of the Russians were
East Slavic tribes migrating to the
East European Plain in the early Middle Ages. Most prominent Slavic tribes in the area of what is now European Russia included
Vyatichs,
Krivichs,
Radimichs,
Severians and
Ilmen Slavs. By the 11th century, East Slavs assimilited the
Finno-Ugric tribes
Merya and
Muroma and the
Baltic tribe
Eastern Galindae that used to populate the same area with them (now
Central Russia).
In the
First All Union Census of the Soviet Union, in 1926, they were classified as a
Narodnost.
Ethnic Russians known as
Great Russians (as opposed to
White Russians and
Little Russians) began to be recognized as a distinct ethnic group in the 15th century. At that time, during the consolidation of the Muscovy Tsardom as a regional power, they were referred to as
Muscovite Russians. Between the 12th and 16th century, Russians known as
Pomors migrated to Northern Russia and settled the
White Sea coasts. As a result of these migrations and Russian conquests, following the liberation from the
Mongol Golden Horde domination during the 15th and 16th century, Russians settled the
Volga,
Urals and
Northern Caucasus regions. Between the 17th and 19th century, Russian migrants settled eastwards in the vast, sparsely inhabited areas of
Siberia and the
Russian Far East. Russian
Cossacks played a major role in these territorial expansions and migrations.
Language: Modern Russian gradually evolved from the
Old East Slavic and
Church Slavonic between the 15th and 18th century.
Population
Russians are the most numerous ethnic group in Europe and one of the largest in the world with a population of about 140 million people worldwide. Roughly 116 million ethnic Russians live in
Russia and about 20 million more live in the neighboring countries. A relatively significant number of Russians, around 3 million, live elsewhere in the world, mostly in the
Americas and
Western Europe, but also in other places of
Eastern Europe,
Asia and elsewhere.
Culture
Russian culture is a hybrid one created from the cultures of the nationalities of this multinational state and the result of development over several distinct epochs.
Russian cuisine derives its rich and varied character from the vast and multicultural expanse of Russia.
Russian art is very important and considered by many to be unique and some of the most important painters in the world are Russian.
Russian humour gains much of its wit from the great flexibility and richness of the Russian language.
Russian literature was greatly influential to world literature. Notable Russian writers including
Aleksandr Pushkin,
Leo Tolstoy,
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Anton Chekhov,
Vladimir Mayakovsky,
Boris Pasternak,
Anna Akhmatova,
Joseph Brodsky,
Maxim Gorky,
Vladimir Nabokov,
Mikhail Sholokhov,
Mikhail Bulgakov,
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Russians also gave the
classical music world some very famous composers.
Language
Russian (
(·),
transliteration: , [ˈruskʲɪjjɪˈzɨk]) is the most geographically widespread language of
Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the
Slavic languages. Russian belongs to the family of
Indo-European languages and is one of three (or, according to some authorities, four) living members of the
East Slavic languages, the others being
Belarusian and
Ukrainian (and possibly
Rusyn, often considered a dialect of Ukrainian).
Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards, and while Russian preserves much of East Slavonic grammar and a
Common Slavonic word base, modern Russian exhibits a large stock of borrowed international vocabulary for politics, science, and technology. Due to the status of the
Soviet Union as a
super power, Russian had great political importance in the 20th century, and is still one of the
official languages of the
United Nations.
Russian has
palatal secondary articulation of
consonants, the so-called
soft and
hard sounds. This distinction is found in almost all consonant
phonemes and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language. Another important aspect is the
reduction, or drawling, of
unstressed vowels, not entirely unlike a similar process present in most forms of
English. Stress in Russian is generally quite unpredictable and can be placed on almost any syllable, one of the most difficult aspects for foreign language learners.
Religion
Around 63 % of Russian population identify themselves with the
Orthodox Christianity most of whom belong to the
Russian Orthodox Church, which played a vital role in the development of Russian national identity. In other countries Russian faithful usually belong to the local Orthodox congregations which either have a direct connection (like the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church, under the
Patriarch of Moscow) or historical origin (like
the Orthodox Church in America or a
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Even non-religious Russian people mostly associate themselves with Orthodox faith for cultural reasons. Some Russian people are
Old Believers: a relatively small
schismatic group of the Russian Orthodoxy that rejected the liturgical reforms introduced in the 17th century.
Despite continuing growth in religious observance since
Soviet times, church attendance rates in Russia are relatively low.
Other world religions have negligible representation among ethnic Russians. The most prominent are
Baptists with over 85 000 Russian adherents. others are mostly
Muslims,
Pentecostals,
Evangelicals and
Seventh-day Adventists.
For the last decades
Slavianism (Slavic Neopagan movements) seems to gain certain popularity and there are many web-sites dedicated to the study of the ancient Slavic religious traditions and thoughts.
Russians outside of Russia
Russian Empire and
Soviet Union, sometimes encouraged to re-settle in borderlands by Tsarist and later Soviet government. On some occasions ethnic Russian communities such as
Lipovans who settled in
Danube delta or
Doukhobors in
Canada immigrated as religious dissidents fleeing the central authority.
After the
Russian Revolution and
Russian Civil War starting in 1917, many Russians were forced to leave their homeland fleeing the
Bolshevik regime, and millions became refugees. Many
white emigrés were participants in the
White movement, although the term is broadly applied to anyone who may have left the country due to the change in regime.
Today largest ethnic Russian diasporas outside of Russia live in former Soviet states such as
Ukraine (about 8 million),
Kazakhstan (about 4.5 million),
Belarus (about 1.2 million),
Latvia (about 700,000) with the most Russian settlement out of the
Baltic States which includes
Lithuania and
Estonia,
Uzbekistan (about 650,000) and
Kyrgyzstan (about 600,000).
Over a million of
Russian Jews emigrated to
Israel during and after the
Refusenik movements, some brought ethnic Russian relatives along with them. There are also small Russian communities in the
Balkans, Eastern and Central European nations such as
Germany and
Poland, as well Russians settled in
China,
Japan,
South Korea,
Latin America (for example
Mexico and
Brazil) and
Australia. These communities may identify themselves either as Russians or citizens of these countries, or both, to varying degrees.
The governments and the majority public opinion in
Estonia and
Latvia, which has the largest share of ethnic Russians among the
Baltic countries, hold the view that many of the ethnic Russians arrived in these countries as part of a Soviet-era
colonization and deliberate
Russification by changing the countries' ethnic balance. Among the many Russians who arrived during the Soviet era most came there for economic reasons, or in some cases, because they were ordered to move.
People who had arrived to
Latvia and
Estonia during the Soviet era, mostly Russians, were only provided with an option to acquire naturalised citizenship which required passing a test demonstrating knowledge of the national language as well as knowledge of the country's history and customs. The language issue is still contentious, particularly in Latvia, where ethnic Russians have protested against plans to educate them in the national language instead of Russian. Since 1992, Estonia has naturalized some 137,000 residents of undefined citizenship, mainly ethnic Russians 136,000, or 10 percent of the total population, remain without citizenship.
Although not among the largest immigrant groups, significant numbers of Russians emigrated to
Canada,
Australia, the
United States and
Brazil.
Brighton Beach, in the
New York City borough of
Brooklyn, is an example of a large community of recent Russian immigrants. Another one is in
Sunny Isles Beach, a northern suburb of
Miami and "Little Moscow" in Hollywood of the
Los Angeles area.
At the same time, many ethnic Russians from former Soviet territories have emigrated to Russia itself since the 1990s. Many of them became refugees from a number of states of
Central Asia and
Caucasus (as well as from the separatist
Chechen Republic), forced to flee during political unrest and hostilities towards Russians.
Also are the million-plus
German Russians, descendants of 16th to 18th century
German settlement under the Russian empire from
Belarus, the
Ukraine and Central Asia in
Kazakhstan and
Uzbekstan. Many have left Russia and other former Soviet states for
Germany since the 1990s but aren't considered culturally Germans under the period of intense levels of "
Russification".
Both the
European Union and the
Council of Europe, as well as the
Russian government, expressed their concern during the 1990s about minority rights in several countries, most notably
Latvia. In
Moldova, the Russian-dominated
Transnistria region broke away from government control amid fears the country would soon reunite with
Romania. In June of 2006 Russian President
Vladimir Putin announced the plan to introduce national policy aiming at encouraging ethnic Russian to immigrate to Russia.
(External Link
)
Russian Chinese
After the
Russian Revolution in 1917, many Russians who were identified with the
White army moved to
China — most of them settling in
Harbin. Many of these Russians had to move back to the Soviet Union after
World War II. Today, a big group of people in northern China can still speak Russian.
Russians (eluosizu) are one of the
56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the
People's Republic of China (as
the Russ), and there are approximately 15,600 Russian Chinese living mostly in northern
Xinjiang, and also in
Inner Mongolia and
Heilongjiang. See also
Harbin Russians and
China Far East Railway.
Contribution to humanity
Russian people have greatly contributed to the world of
music,
sports,
science and
arts. Notable Russian
scientists include
Dmitri Mendeleev,
Alexander Stepanovich Popov,
Alexander Lodygin,
Pavel Yablochkov,
Nikolai Yegorovich Zhukovsky,
Ivan Kulibin,
Vladimir Zworykin,
Sergey Korolyov,
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky,
Andrei Tupolev, and
Mikhail Lomonosov.
The first man in space,
Yuri Gagarin, was Russian, and the first
artificial satellite to be put into
outer space,
Sputnik 1, was launched by the
Soviet Union and was developed mainly by the Russian
Sergey Korolyov.
Russian Literature representatives like
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Leo Tolstoy,
Ivan Turgenev,
Anton Chekhov,
Alexander Pushkin, and many more, reached a high status in world
literature. In the field of the novel,
Tolstoy and
Dostoevsky in particular were important figures, and have remained internationally renowned. Some scholars have described one or the other as the greatest novelist ever.
Russian composers who reached a high status in the world of
music include
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky,
Dmitri Shostakovich,
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov,
Sergei Prokofiev and
Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Russian people had a large part in the victory over
Nazi Germany at
World War II. During the war, the
Soviet Union lost around 27 million citizens (most of them Russian), about half of all
World War II casualties and the vast majority of allied casualties. According to the
British historian
Richard Overy, the Eastern Front contained more combat than all the other European fronts combined; the
German army suffered 80% to 93% of all casualties there.
Richard Overy also wrote it was on the Eastern Front that the war was won or lost, for if the
Red Army hadn't succeeded against all the odds in halting the
Germans in 1941 and then inflicting the first major defeats at
Stalingrad and
Kursk in 1943, it's difficult to see how the western democracies,
Britain and the
US, could have expelled Germany from its new empire.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Russians'.
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