Notes Upon Russia.

Various are the opinions entertained respecting the origin of the name of Russia. Some maintain that it is derived from one Russus, a prince of the Poles, and brother or nephew of Lech, as though he himself had been a prince of the Russians. Others again derive it from a certain veryancient town, named Russum, ¹ not far from Great Novogorod. Some also derive it from the dark colour of the people; and some think that, by a change in the word, Russia has received its designation from Roxolania. The Muscovites, however, contradict those who maintain these discrepant opinions, and assert, that it was anciently called Rosseia, as a nation dispersed and scattered, which indeed the name implies. For Rosseia, in the language of the Russians, means a dissemination or dispersion; and the variety of races even now blended with the inhabitants and the various provinces of Russia lying promiscuously intermingled, manifestly prove that this is correct. It is well known also to those who read the sacred writings, that the prophets use a word expressing dissemination when they speak of the dispersion of nations. ² There are not wanting those also, who by a somewhat similar process of reasoning, derive the name of the Russians from a 4Greek, and hence from a Chaldaic origin, viz., from the Greek word https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315598604/043a3b58-8659-4b21-ab51-3686ecbb4dcb/content/in182_1.tif"/> a flowing, or from a kind of dispersion, as it were, by drops, which is called by the Aramaeans, ¹ Resissaia or Ressaia; just as the Galli and Umbri have received their appellations from the Hebrew words, Gall and Gallim, and from Umber, i. e., floods, storms, and inundations; which is as much as to call them an inconstant and stormy people, or a nation liable to burst out and run over. But whatever be the source from which Russia has derived its name, all the races using the Sclavonic language that observe both the faith and the forms of Christianity in accordance with the ritual of the Greeks, and are called in conventional language Russians, and in Latin Rhuteni, have increased to so great a multitude, that they have either driven out all intermediate nations, or have absorbed them into their own habits of living; so that all may now be designated by one common word, Russians.