THE HERITAGE OF THE SOVIET PEOPLES
Sprawling across the eleven time zones and comprising a sixth of the Earth's land surface, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics embraces more than a hundred ethnic strains. This National Geographic map illustrates 24 of these peoples. Most were chosen of the basis of their population and territorial importance, others to highlight the tremendous cultural diversity of the Soviet Union. In the 1970 census, 22 ethnic groups claimed more than a million members, while a few, such as the Aleuts of the far northeast, counted fewer than 500. More than 70 percent of the U.S.S.R.'s inhabitants are Slavs–Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians. Their birthrate has leveled off; that of Asian peoples has soared.
The map colors, keyed to specific language groups, show the concentrations as well as the intermingling of all the Soviet peoples. Figures in native costumes further illustrate the variety of cultures. Though traditional dress has largely yielded to contemporary attire in the western republics and in larger cities, such dress still appears in isolated regions and on festive occasions.
To speak of the Soviet peoples is to speak of a history of conquest, suffering, and revolution. The Soviet Union's extraordinary mosaic of peoples and cultures began to take shape in the 15th century, as Moscow grew from a log-hut village beside a slow-moving river into the seat of a dynamic and expanding Russian state. To the east lay its first new territory–the Upper Volga's fertile farmlands, with Finnic and Turkeic inhabitatnts, and the wooded arctic wilderness beyond. As the 16th century waned, fur traders and Cossacks extended the hand of the czars into the vast stretches of Siberia, home to scattered tribes of nomads and hunters. During the 17th and 18th centuries Russia's rulers turned west to the plains of the Ukraine, Byelorusssia, and the Baltic. In the 19th century the peoples of the Caucasus were brought into the empire, and the Moslem domains of Central Asia were penetrated.
Czarist Russia collapses during World War I, leaving a bewildering patchwork of peoples to the new leaders in the Kremlin. In 1917 the Bolsheviks set up a communist state in Russia; five years later the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established, with the inclusion of Ukrainians, Byelorussians, and Transcaucasians. Some of the nations that had gained independence with the fall of the czar–most notably Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania–were declared Soviet republics early in World War II.
Enormous changes have overtaken the population in the past generation. Some groups express a heightened interest in their cultural heritage; others, often smaller groups of poples, find themselves adopting the language and adapting to the traditions of their neighbors. throughout the Soviet Union a homogenization of society is taking place. Movement of workers from villages to cities, farms to factories, has created an urban majority–60 percent. Soviet citizens from Leningrad to Verkhoyansk listen to Moscow radio and TV broadcasts beamed via satellites launched from the plains of Central Asia.
And yet, as Tolstoy wrote in an epilogue of War and Peace. “The subject of history is the life of peoples and of humanity. To catch and pin down in words–that is, to describe directly the life, not only of humanity, but even of a single people, appears to be impossible.”
RUSSIAN - With the indomitability characeristic of the Slavic peoples, the Russians fought off invaders through the centuries and built their state into one of the world's greatest empires. Under the czars, they ranged from the Baltic sea to the Pacific, their culture enriched by the Eastern Orthodox faith and Western intellectual ideas. Their character was indelibly engraved by artists such as Tolstoy, Pushkin, and Tchaiovsky. Wth the Soviet system and the growth of an industrialized society, religious influence has waned. Russians, who make up just over half the Soviet Union's population, today can be found throughout the nation–bureaucrats, agriculturalists, factory workers, educators, technicians.
LATVIAN - Sailors from this Baltic republic help man the Soviet Union's deep-sea fishing fleet far from Latvia's forested plains. Members of the hanseatic trade league in the 12th century, maily Lutheran in religious backgound, Latvians have long been oriented to the West. Independent from 1918 to 1940, they celebrate their nation's wealth of folk music in the summer festivals at Riga, the capital. Skilled workers, Latvians take great pride in their electronics and metal industries–and in the quality of their health care and housing.
LITHUANIAN - Sword-swinging Lithuanians swept from the north across Eastern Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries and established a feudal kingdom from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Once politically and culturally linked to Poland, the Lithuanians were subjects of the Russian czar by 1795. They restablished an independent state from 1918 to 1940, when they came under Soviet domination. Staunchly Roman Catholic, Lithuanians remain a largely agricultural people, though the republic has also developed flourishing industires. Since Roman times, Lithuania's shores have been known for their fruit and their precious amber.
ESTONIAN - With night clubs, jazz festivals, and Finnish TV broadcasts, Estonians enjoy a life-style historically oriented to the West. Vacationing Muscovites are attracted to the beaches of the Baltic coast and modish goods available in the shops; they call this region the “Soviet West.” Finnicn language, Lutheran in religious background, the Estonians have the highest standard of living in the U.S.S.R., with an economy boosted by a hightly computerized industry. Their folk-music tradition is highlighted by choruses of 30,000 at festivals in Tallinn, the capital. After 700 years of foreign domination Estonians established an independent republic in the interlude between the two world wars.
TARTAR - Bursting out of Central Asia, the fabled Mongol Horde galloped across Russia in the 13th century and held the land in thrall for 250 years. Today the Tatars, Islamic descendants of the horde and the tribes it conquered, form the second largest bloc (after the Uzbeks) of non-Slavic peoples in the Soviet Union. Recently Tatar writers have aroused new interest in their rich heritage. The Kazan Tatars are centered in the oil-rich Tatar Republic; Tartars from the Crimea are found in Central Asia, where they were exiled in 1944, accused by Stalin of having collaborated with the Nazis; the Soviet Government officially exonerated the group in 1967.
EVENK - Fooled by the sound of the Evenk huntsman's birchbark horn, wild stags bound through the northern forest expecting to find a mate–and instead end up over the dinner fire. Hunters, reindeer herders, and cattle and horse breeders, the semi-nomadic Evenks receive tutelage in modern events from instructors in traveling “Red Tents” that carry the words of Moscow to their camps. Widely dispersed throughout Siberia, many Evenks have settled in permanent communities, tend plots of grain and vegetables, and farm pelt-bearing animals. Modern medicine has made great strides in overcoming endemic diseases such as tuberculosis, trachoma, and smallpox.
JEW - Highly educated and professionally advanced, today's Soviet Jews make a significant contribution to the nation's arts and sciences. Although an autonomous region was set aside for them in the Soviet Far East, nearly all Jews reside in the cities of western U.S.S.R. Once, half the world's Jews lived in the czarist empire, but wars, pogroms, and forced movements have sharply reduced the population. Today some Soviet Jews, like members of other minorities, seek more liberal emigration policies and greater rights within the U.S.S.R.
MORDVIN - Scattered across the plains and forests that border the Upper Volga, Mordvins have recently developed their own distinctive literature, despite the use of two dissimilar regional dialects. Mordvins are famed as master beekeepers. Largely a farming people, with grains and vegetables their main crops, they now also work in factories manufacturing electrial components.
CHUVASH - Modern thousand-acre collectives are fast replacing sickle-and-scythe agriculture among the Turkic-speaking Chuvash. Claiming descent from the ancient Bulgars of the Volga, the Chuvash have owed allegiance to Moscow since 1552, when Ivan the Terrible destroyed the power of the Tatars in the Kazan Khanate. Turning the earth with wooden plows, the Christian Chuvash nurtured rye and potatoes in succeeding centuries–and built their villages away from roads, in ravines, or deep in the forest to make it harder for the czar's tax collectors to find them.
CHUKCHI - “The moon is putting on his furs,” chukchi tribesmen murmur as they watch the moon haze over in the bitter Siberian night. Numbering a mere 13,000, they are dispersed among shoreline villages and the tundra. On their reindeer farms Chukchis tend 10,000 t0 20,000 head. Chukchi herdsman count their antlered charges in groups of 20–the total of a man's fingers and toes. Their word for “man” also means twenty.
YAKUT - Surviving for uncounted generations on the milk of their horses and cattle and on fish from fast-moving streams, Siberian Yakuts have recently begun sowing whet that is highly resistant to cold. In their ice-age domain, rivers form the main channels of travel. The Yakuts pursue a traditional love of learning. Graduates from their own university and scientific research institues hold key administrative and educational positions in the region.
BURYAT - Buddhists in the east, shamanists in the west, the Buryats once spent their lives in hunting and cattle herding. Now with changes wrought by collective farming and industry, few remember how to distill the vodka like tarasun once drunk with so much ceremony in mountain encampments. But one thing remais unchanged–the love of learning bequeathed by the lamas. Buryats have achieved a high level of education that helps equip many for work in regional industires such as aircraft manufacture.
TUVAN - Ringed by winter snowfields, the Tuvans were journeying cross-country on fur-wrapped skies centuries before ski lifts and resort villages. The fur lay flat when propelled forward, then gripped and held to keep the skis from sliding backward. The Turkic-speaking Tuvans were introduced early to the advantages of education through the teaching of Buddhist missionaries. Their homeland long formed a province of China. Traditionally pastoral nomads, many Tuvans have settled and now raise stock on improved pastureland. Others in remoet regions receive guaranteed prices for the pelts and meat they sell.
KAZAKH - Moslem in religious heritage, the Turkic-speaking Kazakhs have for centuries been admired as skilled horsemen. Recent, intensive development of the region's “virgin lands” has brought an influx of Slavic farmers. The Kazakhs, who now number only about 35 percent of their republic's population, find their age-old traditions colored by their contact with ideas from the West: A visitor may hear a Mozart rondo played on a dombira, a lutelike Eastern instrument. Some of the semi-nomadic people still live in yurts, circular tents of felt.
KIRGIZ - From the base of the snow-crusted Tien Shan, turbaned Kirgiz falconers on horseback release their birds to search for prey in the blue skies above small farms and pastures. The mountains long isolated the patriarchal Kirgi, reinforcing the antique purity of their Turkic tongue. Their literature before this century was oral, with wandering bards singing tales of past glory to assembled herdsmen; the epic Manas, unwritten until the 1920s, contains more than 200,000 lines. Kirgiz sheepherders now enhance traditional pastoralism with modern veterinary care and improved grazing techniques.
UZBEK - From the vast cotton collectives of Uzbekistan, Turkic-speaking farmers reap the “white gold” that dominates the economy of their Central Asian republic. Improved health care and the Uzbek's love of large families swelled this Islamic people's strength by nearly 50 percent between 1959 and 1970; today they are the third largest ethnic group in the Soviet Union. The fabled cities of Samarkand and Tashkent now provide a base for a strong new Central Asian intelligentsia.
TAJIK - With improved methods of cotton cultivation, the development of a textile industry, and increased opportunities for learning, Spvoet Tajiks today present a striking example of medernity to kinsmen in neighboring Afghanistan. Largest Iranian-speaking roup in the U.S.S.R. and perhaps the most conservative of all Central Asian peoples, the Moslem Tajiks hold fast to mny traditional ways.
TURKMEN - Crouched by fires that warded off the chill of desert nights, Turkmen storytellers of old told a favorite legend: When God created the world and distributed land, the nomadic Turkmens were the first to receive a vast territory full of sun. But when He distributed water, they were the last. What God withheld, the Turkmens supplied for themselves, collecting snowmelt in a web of irrigation canals. Millions on acres of the Kara Kum desert will soon be watered by a new 900-mile canal**. The Turkmens, noted for their frontierlike spirit, now raise large quantities of cotton and breed the sheep that produce “Persian lamb.” (Editor note on this 1976 prediction - the canal, the second largest irrigation canal in the world has proven to leak- creating lakes and ponds along its course - the result is groundwater rising and the soil salination which is unsuitable for crops ...)
AZERBAIJANIAN - Tuning coveted radios to local disc jockeys, Azerbaijanians in Turkish-style coffeehouses listen to the haunting tones of Middle Eastern music. Though still influenced by Persian culture, the family-oriented, Turkic-speaking Azerbaijanians learn new ways through universal education; women, previously restricted by Moslem custom, play a growing role in their nation's economy. Many Azerbaijanians farm cotton; others work in the extensive oil and gas fields. The republic's institutes and academies have trained highly qualified petrolem scientists and technicians.
ARMENIAN - Respected as artisans, scientists and energetic merchants, Armenians form a highly concentrated population in the rocky valleys of Transcaucasia. Adherents to the independent Armenian Church–a distinctive form of Orthodox Christianity–they receive guidance from the Cathloicos, head of the church. The character of the Armenians is both strengthened and saddened by a dark and bloody history of wars, occupations, massacres, and deportations. Their traditional homeland was centered in northern Turkey, but Armenian culture today thrives chiefly in Soviet Armenia. Since World War II, the republic has welcomed more than 200,000 Armenians from communities aboard, including the United States.
GEORGIAN - Lovers of wine, spicy food, and song, Georgians are known throughout the Soviet Union for their openhanded hospitaltiy. Among the best educated of the Soviet peoples, they have long been noted for intellectual curiosity and literary tradition. The Knight in the Panther Skin, a romatic epic written by poet Shota Rustaveli in the 12th century, is still greatly loved by Georgians and esteemed around the world. Famed for longevity, at least one in every 2,500 Georgians is a hundred years old or more. Although industrial workers have geatly increased in the past fifty years, mainly in manganese mining and food processing, about a third of all Georgians are still employed in agriculture.
BYELORUSSIAN - Their land the gateway, or the obstacle, to Moscow in World War II, Byelorussians suffered the full force of the Nazi invasion–one of every four people in the republic perished. It took more than thirty years to regain the prewar population level. the word byelo connotes either white or free, and the “White Russians” have various explanations for their name: their once predominantly white clothing, their fair coloration, their freedom from foreign domination. In a developing industrial economy, Byelorussians now manufacture such goods as tractors and motorcycles.
UKRAINIAN - Second only to the Russians as the Soviet Union's largest ethnic group, the hard-working Ukrainians proudly maintain their colorful folk culture and their distinctive literary tradition. Kiev, seat of a powerful medieval state called Rus, today is the U.S.S.R.'s third largest metropolis, after Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg - remember this map was produced before the city went back to its original name).
MOLDAVIAN - Their wines bearing the heavy sweetness born of rich soil and golden days, their grains a fullness nurtured by constant care and a long growing season, the Moldavians cling to a slice of black earth wedged between the Ukraine and Romania. Tracing their ancestry and their tongue to Roman settlers in the first century A.D., they have close cultural ties to Romania. Inhabitants of the Soviet Union's most rural yet most densely populated republic, Moldavians now bolster a farm economy with fast-developing light industry.
