The Russian Mafia, "Rossiskaya Mafiya" or Russian Mafia (French: Mafia Russe) is a major criminal organization in the Eastern Department of the French Empire and, since the late 1970's, the Empire as a whole and internationally. The Mafiya (sometimes also referred to as the Bratva, or "brotherhood") has its roots in the rural bosses during the 1920's and 1930's in the East, who emigrated to the cities in the 1940's and 1950's following the French Civil War and began operating larger criminal organizations.