This is a great summary and lecture about the Russian character. Judging by my Russian father and his relatives, it is extremely accurate. It goes over the history of Russia and how it affected the culture and its geopolitics. The lecture is in Finnish with English subtitles. https://caterina.net/2022/03/04/how-russians-think-and-why-they-do-what-they-do/
Thank you for publishing this! It's really informative and I appreciate having more background on the history of the Russian ethnicity. I'll check out that booklist, too.
Do you think that Czech ancestry would be clustered with German/Polish, like Ukrainian, given its location and culture?
Do you have any information about the Cossacks? Where they just a Steppe people who happen to be Slavic speaking ?
The imperial/Soviet/ Russian ability to accept Russified people always fascinated me. Especially considering how otherwise racist they were (are?). Think Stalin for example.
"Do you have any information about the Cossacks? Where they just a Steppe people who happen to be Slavic speaking ?" mostly slav, but probably some assimilated steppe ppl, who changed lifestyle on the steppes
My guess is that a lot of the population were either refugees from conquests by Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles, what have you or peasants from further north who preferred to take their chances on the steppe to being a serf in more settled territory.
At least the Viking Swedes learned to stay home and stop pestering their neighbors. Was there some gradual genetic change that created the docile 20th-century Swedes* or did all the tough guys stay in the more inviting southern conquests? * and sadly too trusting
Your ability to synthesize massive quantities of data is quite amazing, Razib. And then to apply it to current events. Just wow! Please permit me two questions:
1. "many northern Greeks from Thessaly have clear Slavic ancestry despite their fully Hellenic culture" <== do you mean the green clumps that show up on the PC1/PC2 plot outside of Northern Greece?
2. Russia "will always clash with the more modest, cooperative aspirations of other peoples and nations". Can I hope that the response to Putin's invasion will be "modest" or is that just wishful thinking?
Prior to Chekov in Star Trek there was Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. It depicts a world-spanning government (actually, across multiple worlds) forged after a devastating war between an Anglo-American-Russian alliance and "the Chinese hegemony". The inclusion of Mobile Infantry bases in Russia with recruits of multiethnic backgrounds including Germans & Japanese comes across as a deliberate contrast to how recently those places had been enemies of the US/west at the time the book was written. My vague impression of Star Trek is that all the members of Starfleet speak the same language (or maybe viewers are just hearing the results of auto-translation tech?) regardless of background and don't really have any religion, which is a contrast with the more multicultural M.I.
"The drive to the east only came to an end when the Russians ran out of land at the Pacific." Well, they did cross that water, to Alaska, and as far south as current California. But they did not put down deep roots across the water, but outposts. Still, an interesting might-have-been if they had put more effort and personnel into lodging themselves on the west coast of North America.
Their biggest problem was not geography it was time. The first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska was in 1784. Cook had already been there.
Earlier in the 18th century, Peter and Catherine had established the Russian Capital at St. Petersburg to change Russia's orientation from the East and Asia to the West and Europe. They were successful. But what followed was the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Two consequences followed: there were no resources to expend in the Far East, and the British Navy became the world hegemon.
The moment had passed. Alaska would belong to the Anglo Saxons, the only question was US or Canada?. The sale of Russian rights made the US the winner.
The fate of Russia in North America was determined by Peter. And his actions were probably determined by his internal political situation. Only a Russia with a very different focus could have carved out an American Territory and hung on to it. .
"The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed a far more fearsome wave of anti-Russian sentiment."
This is likely a strawman; people dislike autocracies invading democracies, and any "anti-Russian sentiment" is anti-Putin sentiment. One can dislike the autocrat and be favorably disposed towards the country.
"We heard tales of an American-style liberal democracy rising from communism’s ashes, not the dispiriting mobster rule that Russian citizens were enduring"
One could tell similar stories about many central and eastern European states that are now democracies, or at least flawed democracies. History isn't destiny and choice is real. Many of the countries that are now democracies also faced "dispiriting mobster rule" and yet haven't returned to autocracy.
"But in Russia, he has long had a broad base of support"
Over the last decade, that's not so clear: it's not possible to get good information about actual support or lack thereof out of Russia.
"a closer look at what 21st-century genomics can add to our understanding of the last millennium or so of human history across Russia, Ukraine and their neighbors."
The main issue with Russian's invasion is Putin's desire for power and conquest, or perceived power, and the parallel interests of the enablers around him. "21st-century genomics" is probably the wrong lens: a look at the psychology of dictators is more appropriate.
"It is true that Ukraine is a new nation-state, analogous to modern Finland or Lithuania, both of which had been ruled by ethnically exogenous elites for centuries (Swedes and Poles, accordingly)."
Likely relevant that the unique constitutional status and relatively high level of autonomy of the Grand Duchy of Finland (the 1809 creation of the Diet of Porvoo of the Estates of Finland*, ratified by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn between Russia and Sweden) made it easier for 19thC romantic nationalism to take root in Finland (compared to either Lithuania or Ukraine), since there was a clear and basically unchanging territorial and legal boundary between Finland and not-Finland. So for example when Alexander II made Finnish co-equal with Swedish within the Grand Duchy in 1863, that made a form of Finnification (Fenoman movement -> ethnic Swedes culturally appropriating :) Finnish names, starting to use Finnish in the younger generation) much easier.
Then you take Nicholas II's Russification campaign starting in 1899 (plus some earlier history that made Russia a very believable bogeyman) and voila!- bilingual Finnish ethnogenesis was turbocharged.
*I was unaware until reading to check some facts for this comment that the (Swedish) Riksdag of the Estates had four estates (no, not the press :), farmers had their own estate separate from the burghers starting in 1527 - as if the House of Commons did not group the knights of the shire with the burgesses. I'm too lazy to dig deep into early Modern Swedish history to see how that separation might have played out in terms of conflict between the 3rd and 4th estates.
Great article: really added to the Eurasian lens Putin asserts and historians observing his emphasis point out
This particular DNA scatter chart was easier than most to get my head around. Might you add a few other former USSR groups to see if they scatter east from Georgians ? And how they relate to Russians too?
I would like to see Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Ubejestanis on the same chart?
I was chatting with a pro-Russian friend and one of his talking points was that Ukrainian just means peasant.. he then painted a very vivid picture of peasants barely eking out a subsistence living from the black earth till the Soviets converted them into nuclear engineers and rocket scientists, and now those ungrateful wretches are siding with America against holy mother Russia. Who could ever allow that? Since i did not know much about the ethnogenesis or culture of Ukrainians, i did not really get his meaning until i learned (during our podcast with Karol Karpinski) that Ukraine literally means something like village, and read this piece. Now it makes more sense...
Great article...you should have also mentioned Russia's desire to imitate the Byzantines and succeed them as the third Rome once Constantinople fell. Effectively, they are slavic people - set apart thanks to their Mongol, Byzantine, and Orthodox heritage...truly a Civ in itself.
Razib this was brilliant. My favorite one so far and I have read all your essays here. Keep up the good work brother.
This is a great summary and lecture about the Russian character. Judging by my Russian father and his relatives, it is extremely accurate. It goes over the history of Russia and how it affected the culture and its geopolitics. The lecture is in Finnish with English subtitles. https://caterina.net/2022/03/04/how-russians-think-and-why-they-do-what-they-do/
I would suggest adding to your reading list:
The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore
https://www.amazon.com/Romanovs-1613-1918-Simon-Sebag-Montefiore/dp/0307280519/geneexpressio-20
Thank you for publishing this! It's really informative and I appreciate having more background on the history of the Russian ethnicity. I'll check out that booklist, too.
Do you think that Czech ancestry would be clustered with German/Polish, like Ukrainian, given its location and culture?
yes
Excellent piece. Thank you for writing.
Do you have any information about the Cossacks? Where they just a Steppe people who happen to be Slavic speaking ?
The imperial/Soviet/ Russian ability to accept Russified people always fascinated me. Especially considering how otherwise racist they were (are?). Think Stalin for example.
"Do you have any information about the Cossacks? Where they just a Steppe people who happen to be Slavic speaking ?" mostly slav, but probably some assimilated steppe ppl, who changed lifestyle on the steppes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Cossacks
My guess is that a lot of the population were either refugees from conquests by Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles, what have you or peasants from further north who preferred to take their chances on the steppe to being a serf in more settled territory.
But, genetic studies would be interesting.
At least the Viking Swedes learned to stay home and stop pestering their neighbors. Was there some gradual genetic change that created the docile 20th-century Swedes* or did all the tough guys stay in the more inviting southern conquests? * and sadly too trusting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Empire#Charles_XII_and_the_Great_Northern_War
Your ability to synthesize massive quantities of data is quite amazing, Razib. And then to apply it to current events. Just wow! Please permit me two questions:
1. "many northern Greeks from Thessaly have clear Slavic ancestry despite their fully Hellenic culture" <== do you mean the green clumps that show up on the PC1/PC2 plot outside of Northern Greece?
2. Russia "will always clash with the more modest, cooperative aspirations of other peoples and nations". Can I hope that the response to Putin's invasion will be "modest" or is that just wishful thinking?
Thanks again for this brilliant work!
the ones to the south are probably anatolian greeks. the thessaly samples are toward the northern european edge
there's also the 120.000 Greeks in Ukraine. They would be interesting.
I don't see the Germans you discuss on the second plot. Am I missing it?
they're with the english. there were only 12 so you can't see the dots
thanks for mentioning. i got some keen-eyed readers :-)
Prior to Chekov in Star Trek there was Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. It depicts a world-spanning government (actually, across multiple worlds) forged after a devastating war between an Anglo-American-Russian alliance and "the Chinese hegemony". The inclusion of Mobile Infantry bases in Russia with recruits of multiethnic backgrounds including Germans & Japanese comes across as a deliberate contrast to how recently those places had been enemies of the US/west at the time the book was written. My vague impression of Star Trek is that all the members of Starfleet speak the same language (or maybe viewers are just hearing the results of auto-translation tech?) regardless of background and don't really have any religion, which is a contrast with the more multicultural M.I.
There was one of the more recent Star Trek episodes where the universal translator broke down and they were, indeed, all talking different languages.
"The drive to the east only came to an end when the Russians ran out of land at the Pacific." Well, they did cross that water, to Alaska, and as far south as current California. But they did not put down deep roots across the water, but outposts. Still, an interesting might-have-been if they had put more effort and personnel into lodging themselves on the west coast of North America.
there are alternative history books on this
Their biggest problem was not geography it was time. The first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska was in 1784. Cook had already been there.
Earlier in the 18th century, Peter and Catherine had established the Russian Capital at St. Petersburg to change Russia's orientation from the East and Asia to the West and Europe. They were successful. But what followed was the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Two consequences followed: there were no resources to expend in the Far East, and the British Navy became the world hegemon.
The moment had passed. Alaska would belong to the Anglo Saxons, the only question was US or Canada?. The sale of Russian rights made the US the winner.
The fate of Russia in North America was determined by Peter. And his actions were probably determined by his internal political situation. Only a Russia with a very different focus could have carved out an American Territory and hung on to it. .
"The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed a far more fearsome wave of anti-Russian sentiment."
This is likely a strawman; people dislike autocracies invading democracies, and any "anti-Russian sentiment" is anti-Putin sentiment. One can dislike the autocrat and be favorably disposed towards the country.
"We heard tales of an American-style liberal democracy rising from communism’s ashes, not the dispiriting mobster rule that Russian citizens were enduring"
One could tell similar stories about many central and eastern European states that are now democracies, or at least flawed democracies. History isn't destiny and choice is real. Many of the countries that are now democracies also faced "dispiriting mobster rule" and yet haven't returned to autocracy.
"But in Russia, he has long had a broad base of support"
Over the last decade, that's not so clear: it's not possible to get good information about actual support or lack thereof out of Russia.
"a closer look at what 21st-century genomics can add to our understanding of the last millennium or so of human history across Russia, Ukraine and their neighbors."
The main issue with Russian's invasion is Putin's desire for power and conquest, or perceived power, and the parallel interests of the enablers around him. "21st-century genomics" is probably the wrong lens: a look at the psychology of dictators is more appropriate.
Semi-tangent re Finland
"It is true that Ukraine is a new nation-state, analogous to modern Finland or Lithuania, both of which had been ruled by ethnically exogenous elites for centuries (Swedes and Poles, accordingly)."
Likely relevant that the unique constitutional status and relatively high level of autonomy of the Grand Duchy of Finland (the 1809 creation of the Diet of Porvoo of the Estates of Finland*, ratified by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn between Russia and Sweden) made it easier for 19thC romantic nationalism to take root in Finland (compared to either Lithuania or Ukraine), since there was a clear and basically unchanging territorial and legal boundary between Finland and not-Finland. So for example when Alexander II made Finnish co-equal with Swedish within the Grand Duchy in 1863, that made a form of Finnification (Fenoman movement -> ethnic Swedes culturally appropriating :) Finnish names, starting to use Finnish in the younger generation) much easier.
Then you take Nicholas II's Russification campaign starting in 1899 (plus some earlier history that made Russia a very believable bogeyman) and voila!- bilingual Finnish ethnogenesis was turbocharged.
*I was unaware until reading to check some facts for this comment that the (Swedish) Riksdag of the Estates had four estates (no, not the press :), farmers had their own estate separate from the burghers starting in 1527 - as if the House of Commons did not group the knights of the shire with the burgesses. I'm too lazy to dig deep into early Modern Swedish history to see how that separation might have played out in terms of conflict between the 3rd and 4th estates.
Great article: really added to the Eurasian lens Putin asserts and historians observing his emphasis point out
This particular DNA scatter chart was easier than most to get my head around. Might you add a few other former USSR groups to see if they scatter east from Georgians ? And how they relate to Russians too?
I would like to see Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Ubejestanis on the same chart?
sure. i'll post on my other blog gnxp.com
I was chatting with a pro-Russian friend and one of his talking points was that Ukrainian just means peasant.. he then painted a very vivid picture of peasants barely eking out a subsistence living from the black earth till the Soviets converted them into nuclear engineers and rocket scientists, and now those ungrateful wretches are siding with America against holy mother Russia. Who could ever allow that? Since i did not know much about the ethnogenesis or culture of Ukrainians, i did not really get his meaning until i learned (during our podcast with Karol Karpinski) that Ukraine literally means something like village, and read this piece. Now it makes more sense...
Great article...you should have also mentioned Russia's desire to imitate the Byzantines and succeed them as the third Rome once Constantinople fell. Effectively, they are slavic people - set apart thanks to their Mongol, Byzantine, and Orthodox heritage...truly a Civ in itself.
Very good essay. I will have to read it again, more carefully.
I really like it that you did your own PCA for this.