Ethnographische Karte von Russland

Ethnographische Karte von Russland

Ethnographic Map of Russia c.1878

This ethnographic map of European Russia depicts the makeup of the Russian Empire’s diverse population during the late 1800’s and how the various ethnic groups were geographically dispersed throughout the country. The map highlights the geographic area from the northern borderlands to the Black and Caspian Seas in the south, including the mountainous isthmus of the Caucasus which is historically considered a natural barrier between Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

The map identifies European Russia’s inhabitants as belonging to one of fourteen separate ethnic groups or “Stamme” (tr. tribes) which are further classified into forty-six different places of geographic or regional origin. For instance, ethnic Russians are identified as Slavs, comprised of three separate groups, representing separate regions of Russia’s heartland. While the map does not indicate the total population or population density of any one group or region, it does suggest the gradual absorption of smaller groups into the larger group identified as ethnic Russians. The integration and mixing of various ethnic groups were largely a result of the increased mobility and migration of peasants who were emancipated in 1861.

Concentrations of non-ethnic Russians inhabited the outer ranges of the empire’s southern and easter frontiers, including the Caspian’s coastal city of Baku where Russia’s cholera epidemic of 1892 was identified as appearing first. Enclaves of ethnic Turkic and Iranian (Persian) people among others can be traced from Astrakhan on the delta of the Volga river northward toward the cities of Saratov, Samara, Simbirsk, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and westward toward Russia’s largest cities Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was along the Volga that Russia experienced the rapid incursion of cholera because of poor living conditions and lack of sanitation. It was also along the Volga that the outbreak of several riots within the towns and settlements in response to the government’s initial measures to contain the outbreak of cholera.

Rittikh, Aleksandr Fedorovich

Petermann, A.

Justus Perthes

1878

Rumsey Collection

German

Composite Map