«A Model Example of the Eastern Race». Why European science in the early 20th century distinguished Belarusians as a separate European race

Belarusian peasant. Photo before 1907. Photo: Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences

In 1900, the work «Races and Peoples of the Earth» (*Les races et les peuples de la terre*) was published in Paris. Its author, the eminent French naturalist and anthropologist Joseph Deniker, proposed classifying humanity not according to changeable linguistic or cultural characteristics, but exclusively on the basis of physical data.

He was born in Astrakhan into a family of French emigrants and received an engineering education in St. Petersburg, which allowed him to directly observe the ethnic diversity of the Russian Empire. Later, while working as the chief librarian of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, Deniker systematized the measurements of tens of thousands of Europeans.

Павялічыць

One of the pioneers of European anthropology, Joseph Deniker. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Biological Area and Parameters of the «Eastern Race»

Analyzing the European continent, the researcher identified six primary and four secondary races. Among them, the so-called «Eastern Race» (*race Orientale* or *Européenne Orientale*) holds its place. Such a term might confuse a modern reader, as today «orientality» usually refers to something Middle Eastern or distant Asian. However, Deniker explains his choice of term in the book's pages: this group is «named thus because its representatives are almost exclusively grouped in Eastern Europe».

Павялічыць

Map of European races, compiled by J. Deniker in 1899. Photo: «Les races et les peuples de la terre», 1900.

Deniker calls Belarusians (*Biélorousses* or *Blancs-Russiens*), who compactly inhabited the upper basins of the Dnieper, Dvina, and Vistula (the Bug River is in the Vistula basin), the purest representatives of this race.

The anthropological portrait of Belarusians in the work is based on measurements of 961 recruits. Representatives of this group are described as people with straight, light ash or flaxen hair (*blond cendré ou de filasse*) and predominantly blue or gray eyes. The face is defined as square, the nose — often slightly upturned.

Павялічыць

The area of the «Eastern Race» (*race Orientale*) in Deniker's classification largely coincides with the ethnographic territory of Belarusian settlement. Photo: «Les races et les peuples de la terre», 1900.

The cephalic index, which reflects the proportion between the width and length of the skull, ranged from 82 to 83 in Belarusians. This corresponds to sub-brachycephaly — a moderately round head shape. The average height was 163.6 centimeters, which was the norm for the rural population of Europe at that time, before the onset of global acceleration.

The French scientist paid special attention to the Poleshuks from the Pinsk marshes (*les Poliechtchouki des marais de Pinsk*) within the ethnic structure. According to Deniker, the isolation of the marshy region allowed for the preservation of the most conservative variant of the «eastern» anthropological type, untouched by external influences.

Павялічыць

Polesian fisherman and woman at the market in Pinsk. 1934. Photo: Boyd Louise Arner / pinsklib.by

Differentiation of the Balto-Slavic Borderland

Examining the north-western neighbors, the anthropologist relied on extensive statistics, which made it possible to record the physiological heterogeneity of the Baltic population.

While Latvians were assigned to the taller and dolichocephalic «Nordic» race, Lithuanians turned out to be a transitional variant between the sub-Nordic and Eastern races.

The statistical appendices to the book contain precise measurement figures that show internal gradation. The tallest group turned out to be the Samogitians-Lithuanians (*Jmoudines-Lithuaniens*): among 1003 recruits studied, the average height was 165.6 centimeters. The main body of the Lithuanian population (*Lithuaniens de la Lithuanie*), calculated based on 4701 people, showed an average height of 164.3 centimeters. Separately recorded were the «Lithuanians of Russian Poland» (*Lithuaniens de la Pologne russe*), referring to the inhabitants of the Suwałki Governorate. The average height of 890 measured young men was 163.9 centimeters. This dynamic of decreasing height from northwest to southeast demonstrates a gradual approximation of physiological parameters to the Belarusian 163.6 centimeters.

Anthropological Barriers of Eastern Europe

A comparative analysis with other neighboring peoples shows that natural geographical boundaries served as evolutionary barriers.

The southern border of the Belarusian area ran along the Pripyat River, beyond which began the lands of Ukrainians (in the terminology of that time — Malorussians or Rusyns). The scientist assigned Ukrainians to entirely different biological groups — the «Occidental» (Western, Alpine) and «Adriatic» races. Anthropologically, this is manifested in a different facial structure, greater height, and significantly darker pigmentation of hair and eyes.

The western neighbors, Poles, also form a separate type in Deniker's classification. Together with Kashubians, they are assigned to the Vistula race (*race Vistulienne*). Despite their light pigmentation, this group differs from Belarusians in their lower height and a mesocephalic, less rounded skull structure.

The eastern neighbors — Great Russians — represent an anthropological mosaic. In the north and center of Russia, the «eastern» type characteristic of Belarusians is found, but, as Deniker emphasizes, exclusively in a state of deep mixture (*à l'état de mélange*).

The researcher considered this process to be the result of the assimilation of Finno-Ugric tribes and directly compared the mixture of types in central Russia with analogous processes in Finland.

At the same time, among the Russian population, Deniker recorded the influence of the dark-haired «Occidental» race, as a result of which the population, in the researcher's opinion, remained heterogeneous, unlike the homogeneous Belarusian core.

Today, when any mention of racial classifications is often condemned and associated with crimes against humanity committed in the 20th century, such studies might be viewed with caution. However, physical anthropology itself has not disappeared, and its basic methods have not fundamentally changed in a century.

The French scientist did not construct hierarchies and did not divide peoples into «higher» or «lower» — he worked as a systematist who impartially recorded biological reality. And although modern science avoids the word «race,» preferring terms like «anthropological type» or «phenotype,» the measurement figures do not change because of this.

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