Finno-Ugrian impact on Russian ethnos

Originally posted by Arekushii So by thiese posts, in these paragraphs it's quite clear that slavic tribes were far more stronger; another example of it can be Moscowite's states expansion into Siberia, eventually absorbing natives and forming them like the main nation of that state - Russians, however logically it's up to the tribes to decice whether to accept the culture from their conquerers or try to gain autonomious rights, like Tatars did. Moreover that article states that by settling in the territories of FU tribes Slavic tribes cannot be considered as a pureblood FUs, therefore marking them as a mixture of both (maybe more, I don't have any rescources to back up this, but I have heard that post-Ainu tribes lived in the Uralic territories for quite a large period of time. I believe that modern Russians are not Finns, they're not purebloods, surely they have some genetic features and borrowings from FU, but marking them as Finns isn't wise, for sanity's sake I'd dare to call Russians a total mixtures of the nearby tribes. (Pureblood = having a distinctive part of a chromosome which covers more than 80% of one's genetic background) P.S. geopolitically it's quite popular to claim their country's territory cut thus making a clear statement that there was a Greater something, I'm against these practices in politics because of their dangerous outcome, nowadays boundaries should be preserved as their are, declaring their sovereignity of territorial composition is a far better idea than making stories of once upon a time Greater country from Baltics to Black sea..

From the begining of 9th century Finland experienced quite a decent influence from their neighbours - Swedes, Kievan Rus' at that moment started to re-adopt their religious issue, and in 988 their religion, as you know, was changed to Christianity; means the were backed up by Byzantines, assimilating their culture and traditions (both religious and ethnic) vastly developed their own culture, means, Finns and Rus' were "divided" among Byzantine empire and Swedish "sphere" of influence. But we know that Finland accept the latin script, but not general swedish traditions (although as far as I understand Swedes tried to change the minds of Finns into the likes if Swedish ones, means assimilation not integration..)
Quite a number of wars waged trained Ru's warriors to a degree where they could wage a war large enough, but ONLY as a united Kievan Rus', we all know what happened afterwords when it was divided into little countries.. Mongolic reign in other words. Therefore since Ru's adopted Christianity they gained quite a decent superiority over the FU tribes in a cultural way (note that Rus' waged few successful wars against Byzantines). Blood question? Surely evidence is quite clear that Northern Russians have that distinctive mark, but they neither talk nor think in Finnish, claiming that they are Finns is just illogical to me. Ancestry? maybe yes, but that maybe is more like who the f**king hell knows? because there are no decent information about it, both historical, genetical and linguistical, surely people have tried to analyse it, but these records are so far from this topic, that if you try to find proof from various information sources it might lead this topic to a new one like "Are Russians Poles?" for instance.

All in all, I strongly disagree that current Russians can be classified as Finns or any other ethnic group, we have a nowaday result, Russians speak and think in Russian, not in any other language..  And about contribution, every ethnic group contributes to their neighbours, I don't think that FU people were the MAIN contributers, but pieces of their culture are a part of Russian culture fr sure!(saunas for instance now, I love saunas myself, godly things..)


Edited by Arekushii - 25-Jan-2009 at 11:18

And vice versa. Keeping in mind that Uralic language speakers were the first inhabitants in the area. It was not allways easy to get a foothold, stories tell that in Eura when a small group of Franks (or a similar group, not yet proven 100% who) moved to the Western Finland, there "was blood up to peoples ankles everywhere". The Swedish could not do it until the late 13th century and were allies even with some Finnic groups agains another Finnic groups. Every group got in between the battle of religions and under Christianisation attempts. The Rus were also FU people, there were 2 influental groups e.g. Kolbjagit (FU) and Varangians (multinational). Nobody is claiming that modern Russians think or talk in Finnish, others than FU groups who have survived the russification attempts. I would say that geneology gives proof what you cannot bias if the chance beeing wrong is 1 compared to millions. Also genes vary within Russia depending on the place what we are talking about, not everybody's origin is identical. Language is also not linked to genes 100%. The oldest inhabitants of Northern Europe are FU people, the Samis and the Basque, there is no question about. Has not been for a long time.

I believe that there's quite a strong propaganda which tries to note a direct relation between cultural and political boundaries.. my final word is: I am not trying to say that FU tribes weren't influental but by any means, at this present moment, if there were any tribes FU origin speaking Old Bulgarian, nowadays they're totally assimilated, therefore stating that they're Finns is wrong. Thus a clear fact that FU tribes were one of the main contributors to future Russian nation is obvious, genetics is useless: A RUSSIAN THINKS AND SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN, NOT IN FINNISH, SO THEY CANNOT BE FINNS.
To add I'm quite disappointed in myself and in you guys, I myself haven't found any decently reliable sources.. sucks.. :(

The role of these Kylfings in the Ancient Russian history is zero. I don't know any Ancient Russian chronicles writing anything about the relation of this people with Rus.

According to the Russian sources Rus were a group of Varangiangs which is just a name used in Russian lands to designate Vikings, the same fact is confirmed by the Byzantine and Frankish chronicles that noted that Rus is the same people with Normans. It's also confirmed by the first treaty that the Rus prince Oleg  (Helgi in Scandinavian) signed with the Byzantines: 80% of Helgi's Rus people names were Germanic like Karl, Yarl etc. 20% Slavic.

The only other "strong" hypo on the origins of Rus states that they were Slavic, but it doesn't have that much back up as the "Viking" theory has.

Ok, I'm a liar, so that wasn't my last word, if, by any chance Russians were Finns I'm 100% that at this day, Russia would be a bilingual country, but ethnic composition of that time is quite contraversal, I tend to think that Germanic tribes of Vikings, Danes and etc were far more influental that Finnish ones, and Reginmund's link is pretty justified explanation, at least for me.
Another well example of culture's total assimilation is the fat of Prussians and the fate of Ainus these days, both nations were/are being integrated into other larger ones, Germans and Japanese in this matter are/were far more influental than Prussians, yet the names of lakes and rivers along with city/town names still exist, claiming that Japanese are Ainus and Germans are Prussians is nonsense. The fact that they LIVED still remains obvious, yet the same example of this obviousity cannot be transferred to FU location of tribes in Ladoga, Pskovo-Novgorodian area.
I'd like to add that recently I visited the so called "banned threads" I really think that there's some sort of mistake in banning few people in this thread, either people like Jassas and Sarmat tend to dislike others with VERY different theories or they just like to press report/ban buttons :) Moreover people are quite ignorant to study history without a linguistical background, these two branches of sciences cooperate nicely together with facts; if you need any translations - lithuanian, russian ones, please feel free to tell me it, just for god's sake don't ban others who post it in these two languages. I'm only a newbie translator and my English is fairly poor compared to the native speakers, so forgive me for my mistakes :P
Hope you take my post into consideration and please, when you create topics, name it appropriately, preferably with question tags, it's easier for others with poor English to understand the main idea of one's topic explanation, therefore I propose to close this topic for having no serious background of proof that FU tribes are nowaday Russians, Russians don't know Finnish until they want to study it as a foreign language and vice versa. Hope you get it that if one's ancestry WAS from other tribe he cannot belong to it if he can't think or speak in that language.


Edited by Arekushii - 26-Jan-2009 at 16:56

Originally posted by Sarmat The role of these Kylfings in the Ancient Russian history is zero. I don't know any Ancient Russian chronicles writing anything about the relation of this people with Rus. According to the Russian sources Rus were a group of Varangiangs which is just a name used in Russian lands to designate Vikings, the same fact is confirmed by the Byzantine and Frankish chronicles that noted that Rus is the same people with Normans. It's also confirmed by the first treaty that the Rus prince Oleg  (Helgi in Scandinavian) signed with the Byzantines: 80% of Helgi's Rus people names were Germanic like Karl, Yarl etc. 20% Slavic. The only other "strong" hypo on the origins of Rus states that they were Slavic, but it doesn't have that much back up as the "Viking" theory has.

Originally posted by Arekushii I'd like to add that recently I visited the so called "banned threads" I really think that there's some sort of mistake in banning few people in this thread, either people like Jassas and Sarmat tend to dislike others with VERY different theories or they just like to press report/ban buttons :)

Originally posted by Tuohikirje If any history what is written Russian chronicles and Norse sagas is information next to zero to you, I can not argue with your opinion. They were also in Byzantine as Koulpingoi in Greek if I remember right (Russian chronicles Kolbiagi, Finnish Kolbjagit tai Kalpamiehet) in the 11th century and were guards for fur traders. Varangians, guards, Kolbjagit and the Rus. The name comes from a sword.

Edited by Sarmat - 26-Jan-2009 at 19:01

I'm not precisely talking about the results and consequences of cultural assimilation.