Russian scientists have conducted a large-scale study of the gene pool of the Russian people. Its results are a real sensation. In particular, it has been established that genetically Russians do not belong to the Slavic, but to the Finno-Ugric group of peoples. What kind of resonance in the world will cause the publication of research results, one can only guess.
Genetic paradoxes
Genetics, which was not so long ago considered the "corrupt girl of imperialism", achieved tremendous success in the 20th century. Today, in the 21st century, scientists can read all human genes. And the most advanced methods of DNA analysis are sequencing (reading by letter of the genetic code) of mitochondrial DNA and DNA of the human Y chromosome. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down the female line from generation to generation almost unchanged since the appearance of homo sapiens on Earth.
And the Y chromosome is present only in males and therefore is also transmitted practically unchanged to male offspring. The rest of the chromosomes, when passed from father and mother to their children, are shuffled by nature, like a deck of cards before being dealt. Thus, unlike indirect signs (appearance, body proportions), sequencing of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA is indisputable and directly evidence of the degree of kinship of people. These methods have been used in the West for over two decades. In our country, they were used only once, in the mid-1990s, when identifying the remains of Emperor Nicholas II and his family. However, in 2000, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research allocated a grant to scientists from the laboratory of human population genetics at the Medical Genetic Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences,and they were able to fully concentrate on studying the gene pool of the Russian people. Molecular genetic studies were supplemented by an analysis of the frequency distribution of Russian surnames in the country. This method was very cheap, but its informative value exceeded all expectations: a comparison of the geography of surnames with the geography of genetic DNA markers showed that they almost completely coincide.
Who's brother to whom?
The research results shocked scientists. For example, it turned out that according to the Y chromosome, the genetic distance between the Russian and Finno-Ugric peoples living in the territory of the Russian Federation (Mari, Veps, Mordovians, etc.) is equal to 2-3 conventional units. That is, they are genetically almost identical.
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A similar indicator in relation to the Finns is 30 units (close relationship). The results of the analysis of mitochondrial DNA showed that the Tatars, who are at the same distance of 30 conventional units from them, are also close relatives of the Russians. But the Belarusians - it would seem the closest people - in fact turned out to be genetically very far from the Russians. They are practically identical to the Poles, very close to the Czechs and Slovaks, that is, they are part of the group of Western Slavs.
And what about the Ukrainians? Everything here is also quite unexpected … It turned out that genetically Eastern Ukrainians are practically no different from Russians, Komi, Mordovians, Mari. And the western ones are neither Slavs, nor "Russofinns" of Russia and Eastern Ukraine, but a completely different ethnos: the genetic distance between Ukrainians from Lvov and Tatars is only 10 units. This may be explained by their Sarmatian roots (Sarmatians are the South Ural tribes, neighbors of the Scythians).
That is, practically two different ethnic groups live on the territory of Ukraine. They also differ externally. Anthropologists have identified the appearance of a typical Russian person. He is of medium build and medium height, light brown-haired with gray or blue eyes. And the reference Ukrainian is a dark-skinned brunette with regular facial features and brown eyes.
Slavic Rus and Finnish Rus
An interesting fact is that the territory, the population of which bears "truly Russian" (and in fact - Finno-Ugric) genes, geographically coincides with the territory of the medieval Moscow state, which in the west bordered the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And this is the border between two warring countries, during the XIII-XV centuries, with varying success, aspiring to the role of hegemon in Eastern Europe. This is the border between two ethnic groups, between Finnish Rus and Slavic Rus.
Note that the basis of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was formed by the present Belarusians, who were then called Litvin. And in those days, it was the Belarusian lands that were called Lithuania, clearly separating from them the Baltic Samogitia, or Samogitia (present-day Lithuania) - the northwestern province of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Despite the commonality of the Orthodox faith, the genetic differences between the two ethnic groups were too great. Western Russia, "Slavic", gravitated towards the Poles, with whom it formed a single state - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And Eastern Russia, "Finnish", genetically close to the Tatars, was part of the Golden Horde, which then the Moscow princes, seizing power in it, made Muscovy. Perhaps it is ethnic differences that have become the main reason for the centuries-old feud between the two leading (and equal-sized) states of Eastern Europe. In the end, it ended with the victory of Muscovy, although it could have been the other way around. But history does not know the subjunctive mood.
Russian surnames
Studying the statistics of Russian surnames, scientists have compiled lists for five conditional regions: North, Central, Central-West, Central-East and South. The criterion for inclusion in the list was the residence in this region for three generations at least five carriers of this surname. In total, in all regions of Russia, there were about 15 thousand Russian surnames, most of which were found only in one of the regions and were absent in others. When regional lists were superimposed on each other, scientists identified only 257 so-called "all-Russian surnames".
Which of them turned out to be the most common? Ivanov? No matter how it is! Here is a list of the 20 most common Russian surnames: 1. Smirnov; 2. Ivanov; 3. Kuznetsov; 4. Popov; 5. Sokolov; 6. Lebedev; 7. Kozlov; 8. Novikov; 9. Morozov; 10. Petrov; 11. Volkov; 12, Soloviev; 13. Vasiliev; 14. Zaitsev; 15. Pavlov; 16. Semyonov; 17. Golubev; 18. Vinogradov; 19. Bogdanov; 20. Vorobyov.
All top all-Russian surnames have Bulgarian endings with "-ov" (-ev) plus several surnames with "-in" (Ilyin, Kuzmin, etc.). And among them there is not a single surname of the "Eastern Slavs" (Belarusians and Ukrainians) in "-ii", "-ich," -ko ". The Bulgarian endings indicate that the surnames were given by priests who spread Orthodoxy in Muscovy among its Finno-Ugric tribes, these surnames are from holy books, and not from the living Slavic language, which these peoples just did not have. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand why the Russian surnames are not at all the Belarusians living nearby, but the Bulgarian ones, although the Bulgarians are not at all bordering Moscow, but live thousands of kilometers from it.
The mass character of "animal" surnames is explained by the fact that in the Middle Ages people had two names - from their parents and from baptism. In some families, children had such middle names as Hare, Wolf, Bear, etc. These "home" names later became generic surnames.
Scientists have analyzed what place the names of the people who ruled our country occupy in this list. The result is quite unexpected. Only Gorbachev entered the list of 250 top names (158th place). Brezhnev takes 3767th place in the general list (found only in the Belgorod region of the southern region). The surname Khrushchev is in 4248th place (found only in the Northern region, Arkhangelsk region). Chernenko took 4749th place (Southern Region). Andropov is in 8939th place (Southern region). Putin ranked 14250th (Southern Region). And Yeltsin was not included in the general list at all.
Even more interesting is the fact that the so-called Russian surnames prevail precisely in those regions where in the Middle Ages the territory of the Moscow state, later called Russia, was located.
Eritrean poet Pushkin
With all due respect to genetics, the author of the article thinks that a person's self-identification with this or that nation is determined primarily not by the set of chromosomes, but by the country where he was born, grew up and lives: its landscapes, culture, language … On one of the squares of the capital of Eritrea, Asmara a monument to the great Eritrean poet Alexander Pushkin was erected. I don’t know to what extent Pushkin’s DNA contained "Arap" genes, but in spirit, the genius poet was an absolutely Russian person who thought, spoke and worked in the literary Russian language, which he himself created. Are Gogol, Pasternak, Brodsky separable from our culture?
But still, how and when did the Finno-Ugrians, who lived on the territory of modern Russia, become Russians? On this score, there are many theories that require special discussion. However, we are all Russians. And if you tell some tractor driver in the Ryazan region that he is not Russian by blood, but Erzya, I'm afraid it will hurt you to remember this.
Victor MEDNIKO