Russian language while Slavic, and as such Indo-European, is at the same time the transition speech between the Indo-European and Uralo-Altaic groups. Its inflections connect it with the western group. But the dominant use of vowels bears impress of the strong influence exerted by Asia in the formation of the language. The very consonants in Russian are liquid and softened so as to shade insensibly into vowels. These are characteristics of Turkish and Finnish. The singular charm with which the melodious sounds of the Russian language greet a stranger’s ears is derived from this Asiatic strain. In spirit also the fundamental fatalism of Russians increases in the eastern sections of the country. The trait can hardly be characterized as Slavic. In the case of the Poles or Bohemians, it gives place to buoyant hopefulness which helps to color life and the world in roseate hues. The fatalism of the Russian is a relic of past habitat in the interminable steppes of central Eurasia. The Turks whose former roaming ground was the same are also imbued with this spirit. It is the sophism of the level land. No matter how far the horseman urged his mount, the same monotony met his gaze. No effort on his part could ever change the prospect. As late as the twelfth century the peoples of the basin of the Volga spoke purely Tatar dialects. The wide and open steppes of Siberia, extending without break into eastern Europe, poured the overflow of their populations into the valleys of the Russian rivers which flow into the Black Sea. The great Russian cities of the borderland between Europe and Asia were either founded or Slavicized after the eleventh century. About that time the Slavic dialects of the Vistula and the Dnieper began to blend with the Asiatic languages of the Oka, Kliasma and Volga valleys. Modern Russian, a mixture of Slavic and Tatar or Mongolian words, was born of this blending. In a broader sense it is the expression of the union of Europe and Asia to create a Russian nation, for Russia is the product of the ancient Russ or Ruthenian principalities and the old Muscovite states. The former were Slav and lay in Europe. The latter were Tatar and belonged physically to Asia. As a nation the Russia of our time sprang into existence at the end of the seventeenth century. Prior to that period, its western section is known to history as the land of Russ or Ruthenia. Its eastern part was Muscovy. Through the union of the eastern and western sections the Russian Empire of modern times came into being. No literary monuments antedate the birth of its nationality.