Letter to the Editor: Response to Sołtysiak’s Comment:Germans in Russia

In our recent article (Morozova et al., 2012), wereported the ethnic history of Russians from the area oftheir formation, based on mtDNA polymorphisms. Weidentified three genetically distinct groups and showedthat one of the main causes of differences between thetwo southern groups and the northern group was thegenetic closeness to Germanic people. We suggested thatthis differentiation of the Russian gene pool was theresult of differentiation among the early Slavs because,in the southern Slavic branch (whose descendants arethe modern southern Russians), the Germanic influencewas much stronger than in the northern Slavic branch(from which the modern northern Russians aredescended; Sedov, 1994, 1995).In his comment on our article, Dr. Sołtysiak suggested

that the closeness of southern (especially southeastern)Russians to Germanic peoples may be caused by laterevents than we suggested, namely by the influence ofGermans who settled on Volga river. We would like torespond to his comments.We had considered the possibility of the influence of

Volga Germans, but this was not included in our article.Indeed, as Dr. Sołtysiak noted, Germans settled in someregions of Russia (mainly in the southern and southeast-ern territories of European Russia) beginning in the18th century. The Germans who settled around theVolga River identified themselves as Wolgadeutsche.Most of their descendants were deported to Siberia andCentral Asia in 20th century (especially during the1940s). Currently, the number of ethnic Germans insome regions of Russia (western Siberia) is as high as3% and, in some regions (Omskaya oblast, Altay), evenhigher (http://www.perepis2002.ru). Some of the Wolga-deutsche were russified and their descendants identifiedthemselves as Russians. Thus, the Wolgadeutsche com-prise an appreciable part of the modern population ofRussia.To determine whether the Wolgadeutsche influenced

the ethnic differentiation of the Russians in the area oftheir formation, we determined two types of geneticdistances. First, we calculated genetic distances to anintegrated Germanic group, represented by the Ger-manic linguistic group (sources of data and calculationdetails are in Morozova et al., 2012). In addition to theRussian groups, our analyses also included publisheddata on mtDNA polymorphisms in European popula-tions with known closeness to the Germanic group. Allanalyzed Slavic populations (Bosnians, Slovenians,and Bulgarians) are descended from the southernSlavic branch (Sedov, 1994, 1995). The genetic distances,standardized by their square deviations, are presented inTable 1.As described in the article, the northern Russians (de-

scendants of the northern Slavic branch) are distantfrom the Germanic group. The genetic distance of the

southwestern Russian group (descendants of the south-ern Slavic branch) is within the range of genetic distan-ces for other descendants of the southern Slavic branch(namely, Bosnians, Slovenians, and Bulgarians; Table 1).Thus, the southwestern Russians are neither moreclosely nor more distantly related to the Germanic groupthan the other southern Slavic branch descendants,which never had contact with the Wolgadeutsche.Finally, the southeastern Russians (descendants of thesouthern Slavic branch plus migrants from differentparts of the historical Russian area) are maximally closeto Germanic group (Table 1).Second, we calculated the genetic distances to the Wol-

gadeutsche (Baranov et al., 1999). In our analyses, weincluded the published data on mtDNA polymorphismsin Russian populations of southern and southeasternterritories of European Russia, i.e., Krasnodar kray,Stavropol kray, Belgorod oblast, Saratov oblast, NizhniNovgorod oblast (Malyarchuk et al., 2001, 2002), and theRepublic of Mordovia (Mordovians; Bermisheva et al.,2002). Comparisons of the genetic distances to theGermanic group and to the Wolgadeutsche are includedin Figure 1. In the figure, populations from regionswhere Russian Germans settled, and their neighbors(i.e., Saratov oblast, Krasnodar kray, Nizhni Novgorod,and Mordovians), are closer to the Wolgadeutsche, ascompared to the Germanic group. Thus, the Wolgadeut-sche apparently did influence the gene pools of theseregions.As expected, most of Slavic populations (Bosnians and

Slovenians) are less closely related to the Wolgadeutsche

TABLE 1. Genetic distances, standardized by their squaredeviations, from the analyzed populations to Germanic group

Populations Genetic distances

RussiansNorth 20.083Southwest 20.675Southeast 21.132Bosnians 20.926Slovenians 21.014Bulgarians 20.243Germans 21.434Finns 0.902

*Correspondence to: Irina Morozova, Vavilov Institute of GeneralGenetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Gubkina st. 3, Moscow119991, Russia. E-mail: irina.yu.morozova@gmail.com

Received 23 March 2012; accepted 26 March 2012

DOI 10.1002/ajpa.22078Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

VVC 2012 WILEY PERIODICALS, INC.

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 000:000–000 (2012)

than to the Germanic group. The same is true for theRussian groups, primarily the northern and southeast-ern (where genetic closeness to the Wolgadeutsche wasmost expected) groups. Surprisingly, the southwesternRussians demonstrated a smaller than expected geneticdistance from the Wolgadeutsche. It was also interestingthat Slavic-speaking Bulgarians, who have no relation-ship to the Wolgadeutsche, demonstrated a smallergenetic distance to the Wolgadeutsche than to theGermanic group (Fig. 1). We cannot, yet, explain this,but we believe that it was not caused by a direct Wolga-deutsche influence but, rather, through a more distantprocess.Thus, there do not appear to be particular reasons to

suggest that the genetic closeness of the southern (espe-cially southeastern) Russians to Germanic peoples wasdue to an influence from the Wolgadeutsche. On thebasis of the available data, it is possible that theWolgadeutsche made substantial contributions tothe gene pool of the modern Russian population butapparently did not influence the differentiation of theRussian gene pool in the area of its formation. Weabsolutely do not exclude the possibility that theWolgadeutsche (as well as other ethnic groups) influ-enced, perhaps intensifying, the differentiation ofRussian gene pool, but it is unlikely that their influencewas the main cause of the differentiation.

IRINA MOROZOVA, ALEXEY EVSYUKOV, AND

SERGEY RYCHKOV

Vavilov Institute of General Genetics,Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991, Russia

LITERATURE CITED

Baranov PO, Babenko VN, Ivanova AV, Kobzev VF, Romash-chenko AG, Voevoda MI. 1999. Characteristics of the mito-chondrial genome of Russian Germans. Genetika 35:249–254.

Bermisheva M, Tambets K, Villems R, Khusnutdinova E. 2002.Diversity of mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in ethnic popula-tions of the Volga-Ural region of Russia. Mol Biol (Mosk)36:990–1001.

Maliarchuk BA, Denisova GA, Derenko MV, Rogaev EI, Vla-senko LV, Zhukova SG. 2001. Variability in mitochondrialDNA in Russian inhabitants from Krasnodar Krai, Belgorodand the lower Novgorod region. Genetika 37:1411–1416.

Malyarchuk BA, Grzybowski T, Derenko MV, Czarny J, WozniakM, Miscicka-Sliwka D. 2002. Mitochondrial DNA variabilityin Poles and Russians. Ann Hum Genet 66:261–283.

Morozova I, Evsyukov A, Kon’kov A, Grosheva A, Zhukova O,Rychkov S. 2012. Russian ethnic history inferred from mito-chondrial DNA diversity. Am J Phys Anthropol 147:341–351.

Sedov V. 1994. Slavs in antiquity. Moscow: Archaeology Fund(in Russian).

Sedov V. 1995. Slavs in the early middle ages. Moscow: Archae-ology Fund (in Russian).

Fig. 1. Genetic distances from the analyzed populations to Germanic group and to Wolgadeutsche.

2 I. MOROZOVA ET AL.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology