The eastern half of the European Continent contains a zone of excessive linguistic intermingling along the line where Teutonic and Slavic peoples meet. From the shores of the White Sea to the Baltic and thence to the coast of the Black Sea an elongated belt of lowland was ill fitted to become the seat of a single state because nature has not provided it with strongly marked geographical boundaries which might have favored the development of nationality. Hence it is that before the eighteenth century we do not find a single nation in possession of this region. On the other hand, it is the site on which three religions met in bloody fray in modern times. At the beginning of the modern era its northern sections became the theater of wars between Protestants and Catholics, while to the south, Christians arrayed against eastern infidels were obliged to war for centuries before the danger of the invasion of central Europe by Mohammedan hordes was totally removed. The Finns, occupying the northernmost section of this elongated belt, are linguistically allied to the Turki. Physically they constitute the proto-Teutonic substratum of the northern Russians with whom they have been merged. Their land was transferred from Sweden to Russia in 1808. Autonomy conceded by the Czar’s government provided the inhabitants with a tolerable political status, until it was rescinded by the imperial decree of February 15, 1899. The opening years of the present century marked the beginning of a policy of Slavicization prosecuted with extreme vigor on the part of the provincial administrators. The Finnish peoples of Russia must be regarded as autochthons who have been subjected to the inroads of both Slavic and Tatar invasions. In the ninth century A.D. they formed compact populations on the European mainland directly south of Finland, where their descendants now group themselves in scattered colonies. Except in Finland they are being Slavicized at a rapid rate and the Slav population is now imposing itself on the Tatar which had once swamped the indigenous element. Early mention of these Finns shows them divided into several tribes. The Livs and Chuds, who dwelt mainly around the gulfs of Livonia and of Finland, were the forefathers of the present inhabitants of northern Livonia as well as of Esthonia.[83] The Ingrians and the Vods inhabited the basin of the Neva. The Suomi tribes, of which the Kvens, Karels, Yams and Tavasts were the most important, occupied the Finnish territory held at present by their descendants. Every river valley of northwestern Russia was in fact a tribal homeland. The term Finnish as applied to these tribes refers to their culture, which was Asiatic throughout. Racially, however, they consist of Nordics with a strong addition of Tatar blood.