[Footnote 43: Among the Greeks, this national appellation
has a singular form, as an undeclinable word, of which many
fanciful etymologies have been suggested. I have perused,
with pleasure and profit, a dissertation de Origine Russorum
(Comment. Academ. Petropolitanae, tom. viii. p. 388 - 436)
by Theophilus Sigefrid Bayer, a learned German, who spent
his life and labors in the service of Russia. A
geographical tract of D'Anville, de l'Empire de Russie, son
Origine, et ses Accroissemens, (Paris, 1772, in 12mo.,) has
likewise been of use.
Note: The later antiquarians of Russia and Germany appear to
aquiesce in the authority of the monk Nestor, the earliest
annalist of Russia, who derives the Russians, or Vareques,
from Scandinavia. The names of the first founders of the
Russian monarchy are Scandinavian or Norman. Their language
(according to Const. Porphyrog. de Administrat. Imper. c. 9)
differed essentially from the Sclavonian. The author of the
Annals of St. Bertin, who first names the Russians (Rhos) in
the year 839 of his Annals, assigns them Sweden for their
country. So Liutprand calls the Russians the same people as
the Normans. The Fins, Laplanders, and Esthonians, call the
Swedes, to the present day, Roots, Rootsi, Ruotzi,
Rootslaue. See Thunman, Untersuchungen uber der Geschichte
des Estlichen Europaischen Volker, p. 374. Gatterer, Comm.
Societ. Regbcient. Gotting. xiii. p. 126. Schlozer, in his
Nestor. Koch. Revolut. de 'Europe, vol. i. p. 60.
Malte-Brun, Geograph. vol. vi. p. 378. - M.]