Baltic Finns in the context of "Ludic language"

The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were military campaigns undertaken by Catholic Christian military orders and kingdoms in an effort to Christianize the pagan Baltic, Finnic, and West Slavic peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. In some cases, such as with the Wendish Crusade, the campaign was partly motivated to control the rich resources found in the lands.

The most notable of these campaigns were the Livonian and Prussian Crusades. Some of these wars were explicitly regarded, during the Middle Ages, as crusades; for example, the military venture against the Estonians—and the "other pagans in those parts"—authorized by Pope Alexander III's 1171 crusade bull, Non parum animus noster. However, others—such as the (possibly mythical) 12th-century First Swedish Crusade and several subsequent incursions, undertaken by Scandinavian Christians against the then-pagan Finns—were dubbed "crusades" only in the 19th century, by romantic nationalist historians.

Finns or Finnish people (Finnish: suomalaiset, IPA: [ˈsuo̯mɑlɑi̯set]) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these countries as well as those who have resettled. Some of these may be classified as separate ethnic groups, rather than subgroups of Finns. These include the Kvens and Forest Finns in Norway, the Tornedalians in Sweden, and the Ingrian Finns in Russia.

Finnish, the language spoken by Finns, is closely related to other Balto-Finnic languages such as Estonian and Karelian. The Finnic languages are a subgroup of the larger Uralic family of languages, which also includes Hungarian. These languages are markedly different from most other languages spoken in Europe, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Native Finns can also be divided according to dialect into subgroups sometimes called heimo (lit. 'tribe'), although such divisions have become less important due to internal migration.

The Finnic peoples, or simply Finns, are the nations who speak languages traditionally classified in the Finnic language family, and which are thought to have originated in the region of the Volga River. Currently, the largest Finnic peoples by population are the Finns (6 million), the Estonians (1 million), the Mordvins (800,000), the Mari (570,000), the Udmurts (550,000), the Komis (330,000) and the Sámi (100,000).

The scope of the term "Finnic peoples" (or "Finns") varies by context. It can be as narrow as the Baltic Finns of Finland, Scandinavia, Estonia, and Northwest Russia. In Russian academic literature, the term typically comprises the Baltic Finns and the Volga Finns, the indigenous peoples living near the Volga and Kama Rivers; the Perm Finns are sometimes distinguished as a third group. These eastern groups include the Finnic peoples of the Komi-Permyak Okrug and the four Russian republics of Komi, Mari El, Mordovia and Udmurtia. The broadest sense in the contemporary usage includes the Sámi of northern Fennoscandia as well. In older literature, the term sometimes includes the Ugrian Finns (the Khanty, Mansi and Hungarians), and thus all speakers of Finno-Ugric languages.Based on linguistic connections, the Finnic peoples are sometimes subsumed under Uralic-speaking peoples, uniting them also with the Samoyeds. The linguistic connections to the Hungarians and Samoyeds were discovered between the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Ancient Estonia refers to a period covering History of Estonia from the middle of the 8th millennium BC until the conquest and subjugation of the local Finnic tribes in the first quarter of the 13th century during the Teutonic and Danish Northern Crusades.

Veps, or Vepsians (Veps: vepsläižed), are a Baltic Finnic people who speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages.

According to the 2002 Russian census, there were 8,240 Veps in Russia. Of the 281 Veps in Ukraine, 11 spoke Vepsian according to the 2001 Ukrainian census.

The Izhorians (Ingrian: ižorat, ižorit, inkeroiset; Russian: ижо́ра; ижо́ры, ижо́рцы; Finnish: inkerikot; Estonian: isurid) are a Finnic indigenous people native to Ingria. Small numbers can still be found in the western part of Ingria, between the Narva and Neva rivers in northwestern Russia. They are also referred to as Ingrians, although the term can also refer to the Ingrian Finns or the Baltic Finnic residents of Ingria in general.

Votians, also referred to as Votes, Vots and Vods (Votic: vađđalaizõd; Russian: водь; Estonian: vadjalased; Finnish: vatjalaiset) are a Finnic ethnic group native to historical Ingria, the part of modern-day northwestern Russia that is roughly southwest of Saint Petersburg and east of the Estonian border-town of Narva. The Finnic Votic language spoken by Votians is close to extinction. The language is still spoken in three villages of historical Votia and by an unknown number of speakers in the countryside. The villages are Jõgõperä (Krakolye), Liivcülä (Peski), and Luuditsa (Luzhitsy). In the Russian 2020 census, 99 people identified as Votian.

Votians were one of the founding people of Veliky Novgorod.

The Nordic race is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. It was once considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming that its ancestral homelands were Northwestern and Northern Europe, particularly to populations such as Anglo-Saxons, Germanic peoples, Balts, Baltic Finns, Northern French, and certain Celts and Slavs. The supposed physical traits of the Nordics included light eyes, light skin, tall stature, and dolichocephalic skull; their psychological traits were deemed to be truthfulness, equitability, a competitive spirit, naivete, reservedness, and individualism. In the early 20th century, the belief that the Nordic race constituted the superior branch of the Caucasian race gave rise to the ideology of Nordicism.

With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."