The geographical results of the Magyar settlement were to place a barrier between the Northern and the Southern Slaves. This it did both directly and indirectly. The _Patzinaks_ pressed into what had been the former Magyar territory; they appear in the pages of the Imperial geographer as a nation with whom the Empire always strove to maintain peace, as they formed a barrier against both Hungarians and _Russians_. ♦The Russians.♦ This last name begins to be of importance in the ninth century. A part of the Eastern branch of the Slavonic race, they were cut off from the other members of that branch south of the Danube by these new Turanian settlements. The Magyars again parted the South-eastern Slaves from the North-western, while the Russians were still neighbours of the North-western Slaves. ♦Effects of the geographical position of the Slaves.♦ The geographical position of these three divisions of the Slavonic race has had an important effect on European history. ♦History of the South-eastern Slaves.♦ The South-eastern Slaves in Servia, Croatia, Dalmatia, and the neighbouring lands, formed a debateable ground between the two Empires, the Magyar kingdom, and the Venetian republic, as soon as Venice grew into a distinct and conquering state. These lands have, down to our own time, played an important, but commonly a secondary, part in history. And in later times their history has chiefly consisted in successive changes of masters. The states which they formed will have to be spoken of in connexion with the greater and more lasting powers to which they have commonly been adjuncts. ♦The North-western Slaves.♦ The North-western Slaves appear for the most part in different degrees of vassalage or incorporation with the Western Empire. ♦Bohemia, Poland.♦ But, besides several considerable duchies, there grew up among them the kingdoms of _Bohemia_ and _Poland_, of which the latter established its complete independence of the Empire, and became for a while one of the chief powers of Europe. ♦Russia.♦ Russia meanwhile, forming a third division, appears, in the ninth and tenth centuries, first as a formidable enemy, then as a spiritual conquest, of the Empire and Church of Constantinople. Russia had then already assumed the character which it has again put on in later times, that of the one great European power at once Slavonic in race and Eastern in faith. Russia is now fully established as an European power. The variations of its territorial extent must be traced in a distinct chapter. § 5. _Northern Europe._ ♦The Scandinavian settlements.♦