Now it is really the historico-political traditions which are very

strongly developed in the Ukrainians. The story of his fatherland, full

of the most terrible catastrophes, with the frightful Tatar menace and

the oppression enduring for centuries, still lives in the consciousness

of even the most uneducated Ukrainian. How few happy moments does the

history of the Ukraine present, and yet no people in the world so

dearly loves its past and so piously honors its national heroes as the

Ukrainian People. And in this connection I do not mean the educated

Ukrainians who know the history of their country, but the illiterate

peasant, who recalls in his songs the naval expeditions to

Constantinople, the old princes of the Kiev dynasty, the hetmans, and

the great commanders of the Cossack period.

It is the historico-political tradition, living even in the lowest

ranks of the nation, that gives the Ukrainians their most important

indications of separate national existence. And, had it not been for

the dense ignorance that prevails in Western Europe regarding the

history of the eastern half of the continent, and for the advertising

carried on to this very day by Russian scholars in behalf of their

propaganda for “Russian” history, which has worked its way into all the

history books, this real condition of affairs could never have been

obscured so long. We shall now attempt to determine the main lines of

the Ukrainian historical tradition, basing our exposition on the works

of Kostomariv, Antonovich, Drahomaniv, Hrushevsky and others.

The historical life of the Ukrainian Nation has been of an entirely

different type from that of the Poles or Russians. Hence, the

historical traditions and, consequently, the present political

aspirations of the three nations, are entirely different.

The Ukrainian historical tradition has its roots in the ancient Kingdom

of Kiev. Altho the historians of Eastern Europe are still undecided as

to whether the so-called Old Russian Kingdom was founded by the

Varangians in the present Northern Russia, or by the Eastern Slavic

tribes of the south in Kiev, I have no doubt that the latter view

should be approved. Anthropogeography knows no instance of a pirate

band, at most a few thousand strong, which, within a few decades, could

constitute a kingdom embracing half a continent. The Normans, to be

sure, were able to found governments in Normandy, Naples and Sicily;

they were even able to conquer the England of their day and to settle

there, because everywhere they could take advantage of already existing

state organizations and modify them to suit their purpose. Whenever the

state organization was just in its beginnings, as for instance, in

their own country, the Normans exhibited no particular capacity for

state-organization.

The ancient Kingdom of Kiev, which is called “Old Russian” in all

historical works, was a state organized by the southern group of the

Eastern Slavic races, particularly the Polan race around Kiev. The

tribal chiefs, who had grown rich thru commercial relations with

Byzantium, founded the State of Kiev. This government was already in

existence in the beginning of the 9th Century. With the aid of

mercenaries from Scandinavia (Varangians) who, since the middle of the

9th Century, had been serving in the armies of the princes of Kiev, the

Kingdom during the 10th Century gave remarkable evidences of a very

unusual activity of expansion. The Northern Slavic tribes, the forbears

of the Russians of today, were subjugated, the nomadic tribes of the

steppes were driven back, commercial and cultural relations were

established with the Byzantine Empire. In the year 988 the Great Prince

of Kiev (Vladimir the Great), together with all his peoples accepted

Greek Christianity—with Slavic rites. There ensued, especially under

his successor, Yaroslav the wise, a great advance in the material and

spiritual civilization of the ancient Ukrainians.

The fact that the ancient state of Kiev, as well as its civilization,

was produced by the ancient Ukrainians, is evident, not only from the

fact that the most ancient literary monuments of Kiev already show

specifically Ukrainian peculiarities of language. A still more

important piece of evidence is the constitution of the Kingdom of Kiev,

which originated thru the amalgamation of the newly organized royal

power with the original republican constitution of the Ukrainians.

The ancient clan constitution has been of as fundamental importance for

the historico-political tradition of the Ukraine as the Kingdom of Kiev

itself.

All the power of government rested originally in the hands of the

general assembly of all freemen, whose decrees were executed by elected

officials, consisting in part of the war-chieftains (probably the later

princes). In the ancient Kingdom of Kiev there was constant opposition

between the power of the princes, which originated later and rested on

military might, and the power of the clan assembly, sanctioned by long

tradition. The Prince, his retainers, and the Boyar nobility, which

gradually developed out of the body of retainers, were never liked by

the people. The Kingdom of Kiev grew out of the union of trade, and was

a union which at that time was necessary. The governmental system

established by the princes of the Kiev dynasty, on foreign models, was

inherently alien to the original social-political system of the

Ukrainian People, so that the amalgamation of these two elements was

difficult, in fact, almost impossible.

Altho, as time passed, the General Assembly (viche—a name that is

applied to all political assemblies of the Ukrainians to this day)

partly regained their former power, and, altho at the same time various

provisions of the original constitution sifted into the new

governmental organization, monarchy, nevertheless, always remained

something extraneous and unpleasant to the people. There is no wonder,

therefore, that the State of Kiev never attained a power in keeping

with its great territory and population. The people ostensibly

supported everything which tended to weaken the power of the

government. Thru the entire existence of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev,

its Great Princes were forced to wrestle with the Boyar nobility and

the people for absolute power. This limitation of the monarchic power

turned out to be a disaster for the Kingdom of Kiev. By applying the

practice of succession to the throne, in accordance with a principle

known as that of “seniority,” there resulted the formation of numerous

petty principalities, all rather loosely, perhaps only nominally,

subject to the authority of the Great Prince of Kiev. The Boyar caste

and the people were very persistent in their labors to aid in the

formation and maintenance of these petty principalities thruout the

southern portion of the Kingdom of Kiev.

At the same time, it is very probable that if the ancient State of Kiev

had survived a longer time, the Ukrainian People would gradually have

become accustomed to a constitution founded on caste and privilege. It

would also have been possible, as early as the Middle Ages, for the

Ukrainian People to attain a constitutional monarchy. But things

happened differently.

The Kingdom, weakened by partitions, was soon confronted by a powerful

enemy in the young Muscovite State which was formed by the northern

petty principalities of the Kingdom. In a series of bloody wars with

the Muscovite State, Kiev was so permanently weakened that the

headquarters of Ukrainian political life had to be shifted southward,

in the 13th Century, to Halich on the Dniester.

Then, the situation of this Kiev country was such as to expose it to

continuous invasion on the part of the nomadic warlike tribes which

infested the steppes of the Ukraine. But the nation managed to hold

them in check during this weary term of warfare. When, however, the

hosts of the Mongol potentate, Djingis Khan, appeared in the Pontian

steppes, the resources of Kiev and Halich were no longer equal to the

pressure. In the three days’ battle on the Kalka (1224) their army was

annihilated, and in 1240 the city of Kiev was razed to the ground. The

principality (later kingdom) of Halich survived it by almost a century,

but could not withstand the continued aggressions of the Tatars on the

one side and of the Poles and Lithuanians on the other; in 1340 it was

incorporated with Poland by right of succession, and thus ended the

first national organization of the Ukrainian People. All the Ukraine,

excepting the forest regions in the northwest, had been completely

devastated.

The Polish-Lithuanian state treated the Ukraine as conquered territory.

Being now dissenters in the midst of a Catholic state, the Ukrainian

nobles were limited in their prerogatives, and deserted their faith and

their nationality, in order to have a share in the golden freedom of

Poland. The burgher class was tyrannized (as was the practice all over

Poland); the peasant became a serf. The splendid task of an

ecclesiastical union with Rome was solved (Florence, 1439; Brest 1596)

in an unsatisfactory manner and bore little fruit at the time. Every

Ukrainian was made to feel the iron hand of the Polish government, and

their dissatisfaction expressed itself in numerous rebellions. And yet

the Polish-Lithuanian State was far too weak to protect the Ukraine

against the onslaughts of the Tatars. Every year these hordes of riders

sallied forth from the Crimea, pushing their invasions even as far as

Galicia and Volhynia, devastating the country and depopulating it by

seizures of slaves, conducted according to a systematic plan. The

victims of this slave trade filled the markets of the Orient for

centuries.

It was inevitable that this sorely-tried nation should take steps to

defend itself. And its efforts were successful in that they led to the

formation of a new independent state, but unsuccessful in that they

exhausted its resources and later had a tragical outcome.

The constant state of warfare on the Tatar border forced the Ukrainian

population in those parts to adopt a policy of continual

“Preparedness.” These fighting people of the marshes led a precarious

life, but they had access to the virgin lands of the borders with all

their natural treasures, and the exploiting Polish officials did not

dare venture forth into these dangerous districts. These armed farmers,

hunters and fishermen led an independent life and called themselves

Cossacks, i.e., “free warriors.”

In the 16th Century there arose among these Ukrainian Cossacks a

military state organization, the center of which was a strongly

fortified position below the rapids of the Dnieper (the Zaporog Sich).

The Zaporog warrior state, compared by some to a religious order of

knights (because of their compulsory celibacy and their wars against

unbelievers), by others to a communistic republic, shows us most

clearly what has always been the goal of the Ukrainian “political

idea.” In the Zaporog organization, absolute equality of all citizens

in all political and social rights prevailed above all else. All

authority was vested in the General Assembly of all the Zaporogs, and

their decisions were enforced by elective officers who were, at the

same time, officers of the army. The liberty of the individual was very

great, but had to yield to the will of the whole. And when, in time of

war, the General Assembly delegated unlimited dictatorial power to the

highest official, the Hetman, it gave him a degree of authority with

which the power of any one of the absolute rulers of Europe at the time

could not be compared.

In the aristocratic state organization of Poland there was no room for

such a lawless democratic state as that of the Zaporogs was in Polish

eyes. The entire Ukrainian nation regarded the Zaporog Cossacks as

their natural defenders against the terrible Tatar peril, and likewise

as their sole hope as opposed to the oppression practiced by the Poles.

An ominous discontent prevailed thruout the Ukraine, and after the

Poles had naturally taken severe measures, a number of Cossack revolts

occurred in rapid succession, beginning toward the end of the 16th

Century and filling the first half of the 17th. In these revolts the

Cossacks were supported by the oppressed peasantry. But the Polish

Kingdom was rather deficient, always, as far as its standing army was

concerned, and was obliged to appeal to the Ukrainian Cossack

organization, which it could not possibly destroy, to aid in its wars

against the Turks, the Russians and the Swedes.

Finally, in 1648, the Ukrainian Cossacks, aided by the entire people,

from the Dnieper to the San, raised the standard of rebellion, and

under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, succeeded in annihilating

the Polish armies. Thus the Ukrainian Nation fought for and won its

independence again after three hundred years of a foreign yoke.

Khmelnitsky, after his victory over the Poles, extended the Cossack

organization beyond the narrow bounds of the Zaporoze, over the entire

huge area of the Ukraine.

Surrounded by enemies on all sides, the new state needed calm and quiet

to enable it to achieve the necessary internal organization. Much time

was needed to organize the new order completely in so enormous a

country, to bring to a successful conclusion the fight against the

Polish social-political order, which had prevailed here so long and was

so different from the Ukrainian. It required much time to work out new

constitutional forms, which were inevitable, now that the Zaporog

organization was extended over great areas. Khmelnitsky negotiated with

all the surrounding governments and peoples, with the Poles, the

Transylvanians, the Swedes, the Turks, and finally, in 1654, concluded

the treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, with which they were related by

ties of religion. This treaty provided that the Ukraine should retain a

complete autonomy, as well as their Cossack organization, the latter

under the suzerainty of the Czar. The Hetman, who was to be elected by

the votes of the General Assembly, was even to retain the right of

conducting an independent foreign policy.

But Russia had no mind to respect the treaty that bound it in dual

alliance with the warlike Ukrainian nation. The democratic form of

government in the Ukraine was an abomination to Russia, just as it was

to aristocratic Poland.

Once the Cossack republic was under the control of Moscow, the Russian

government felt that not a stone must be left unturned to destroy this

dangerous national organism. Taking advantage of the untimely death of

Khmelnitsky (1657), and the incompetence of his immediate successors,

Russia began her political machinations in the Ukraine. The Cossack

generals were inspired with prejudice against the Hetman, the common

Cossacks against their superior officers, and the common people against

all who were wealthy and in authority; huge sums of money were spent,

successfully, and vast tracts of land granted as fiefs; and Russia thus

fished in troubled waters to very good advantage. At every successive

election of a new Hetman the autonomy of the Ukraine was cut down, and

in the Peace of Andrussovo (1667) with Poland, the country was

partitioned. Of the two sections, one, that nearest to Poland, which

had been dreadfully devastated and depopulated, was ceded to that

country, and this section very soon lost its Ukrainian form of

government and its Cossack organization. The section on the other side,

the left side, east of the Dnieper, under its dashing Hetman, Mazeppa,

made an effort, during the Scandinavian War, to throw off the Russian

yoke. Mazeppa made an alliance with Charles XII of Sweden. But the

Battle of Poltava (1709) buried all his hopes. He had to flee to Turkey

with Charles XII, and the Ukrainian rebellion was put down by Peter the

Great with the most frightful atrocities, and finally the guaranteed

autonomy of the Ukraine was abolished. To be sure, the title of Hetman

was again introduced after the death of Peter the Great, but it had

only a wretched semblance of life. Even this shadow of autonomy was

destroyed in 1764; in 1775 the last bulwark of the Ukraine, the Zaporog

Sich, fell into the hands of the Russians thru treachery, and was

destroyed by them. The peasants became serfs.

Russia thus succeeded, in the course of about a century and a half, in

completely wiping out the later, second Ukrainian state. The devious

policy Russia was simultaneously carrying on in Poland, led also to the

latter’s downfall. In the successive partitions of Poland (1772–1795),

the entire part of that nation which was inhabited by Ukrainians, with

the exception of Eastern Galicia and the Bukowina, which fell to

Austria, became the property of Russia.

But Russia was not satisfied with political domination alone. Russia

already understood, in the 17th Century, that the Ukrainians differed

entirely from the Russians in language, customs and views of life. The

Russian government, therefore, inaugurated a policy of rigid repression

of all these points of difference. As early as 1680 it prohibited any

use of the Ukrainian language in ecclesiastical literature. In 1720,

the printing of any Ukrainian books at all was forbidden. All Ukrainian

schools were closed. In the middle of the 18th Century there were, in

the province of Chernihov, 866 schools that had been founded during the

period of Ukrainian autonomy; sixty years later not one of these was in

existence. This, together with the attempt to introduce the Russian

language, which none of them understands, is the cause of the

overwhelming percentage of analphabets among the Ukrainians. The

Ukrainian orthodox church, which enjoyed absolute autonomy, with a sort

of loose subordination to the Patriarch of Constantinople, was made

subject to the Patriarch of Moscow (later to the Holy Synod) and became

completely Russified. The Greek-United faith, which had many adherents

in the Western Ukraine, was completely suppressed by the Russian

government, and all who confessed it were obliged, by the most terrible

persecutions, to “return to the orthodox belief.” The Ukrainian people

became completely estranged from their former national church, which

now is a tool wielded for purposes of Russification.

The bloody wars for independence which the Ukrainian nation waged

against Poland and Russia consequently brought no realization of its

political ideals of liberty, equality, and a constitutional, democratic

form of government. Instead came a terrible political, social and

national oppression, which threatened to bring about the downfall of

the tortured nation.

But the Russification of the Ukraine seemed to be making very little

headway. To be sure, many educated Ukrainians, for the sake of personal

advantage or for other considerations, did renounce their nationality,

and some in fact, like Gogol, became great lights of Russian

Literature. Yet there always remained the feeling of national

independence, together with a living historical tradition, which

continued to groan despite all obstacles. The rise of Ukrainian

Literature did most to aid this great movement.

The idea of working for national independence was revived first in the

Russian Ukraine, and found its logical starting point in the tradition

of the one-time autonomy of the country. As early as the forties of the

19th Century, the national ideology of the modern Ukrainian movement

was complete in all essential respects. It then made its way very

rapidly to the Austrian Ukraine, and Galicia, particularly, soon became

a national Piedmont to the Ukrainian people, who were so ruthlessly

oppressed in Russia.

The present-day political efforts of the Ukrainian nation are a direct

continuation of the former efforts, and a logical result of the

historical tradition of the Ukraine. The ideal of these efforts was,

and is, liberty and equality and the participation of all in government

and legislation. Not until the present time has this ideal ceased to be

an anachronism; only the present has opened to the Ukrainian nation a

field of political activity; only in the present have these forms of

political life, which the Ukrainian nation strove for, without success,

so many centuries, become the common possession of the entire civilized

world. Hence, we may look with confidence toward the future. Now, at

last, the times have come in which the Ukrainian nation may freely

develop its political life; the times in which the political ideals

which have been sacred to this nation for centuries, have become the

common goal of civilized humanity.

The idea of the revival of the Ukrainian state developed gradually from

a movement with modest aims to one of larger aims. It was generally

recognized that the free development of the Ukrainian Nation could take

place only outside of Russia. Hence, in the 20th Century, an

independent democratic Ukraine, enclosed in its ethnographic

boundaries, became the highest national ideal. Toward this goal all

political parties of the Ukraine are striving today. The path leading

to this goal is the fight for the autonomy of the Ukrainian territory

in the frame of the states dominating it. In Russia, the efforts of the

Ukrainians are almost hopeless. On the other hand, the Ukrainians place

much hope in Austria, who has afforded her Ukrainians opportunities for

political and cultural development.

The historico-political traditions of the Ukrainians are entirely

different from those of the nations adjacent to them. The Polish

tradition is a tradition of a one-time great kingdom, which was

probably built up upon a local constitution similar to that of the

oldest Ukrainian State. But fate permitted Poland to live thru the

sorrowful period of partitions and civil wars, while, at the same time,

the old Kingdom of Kiev was destroyed by the Mongols. Poland

consolidated into a strong united kingdom, western influences destroyed

the old local constitution entirely, the common people became serfs,

and the classes of the aristocracy, nobility and bourgeoisie were

formed. Thru wars, and particularly thru its union with Lithuania,

Poland increased considerably in size, for a time including almost the

entire bridge of land between the Baltic and the Black Seas, and, in

the 15th Century, became the most powerful state of Eastern Europe. At

that time the Poles became the dominant race over the Lithuanians,

White Russians, and Ukrainians. The entire ideology of the dominant

caste became a characteristic of the Poles. In this very property of a

ruling people lies the basis of the aristocratic nature of the

historico-political tradition of the Poles. This aristocratic quality

has a more important foundation in the historical development of Polish

society. The middle class in Poland declined very rapidly, and the

nobility and the magnates dominated the entire political, social and

intellectual life of the country, so that Polish society, in the last

centuries of the existence of the Polish kingdom, was purely

aristocratic, and was supported on the backs of the completely

submerged peasant and middle classes. Even tho, in the patrician

republic, when the power of the kings was extremely limited, mobocracy

or even anarchy very often prevailed, these forms also were

aristocratic. This aristocratic tradition is responsible for the fact

that democratic currents still find little encouragement among the

Poles. Even the social democrats are obsessed with the Great-Polish

state-idea.

From these facts, we perceive that the historico-political traditions

of the Poles are entirely different from those of the Ukrainians. Just

as great is the difference in their present aspirations. The Poles,

with an endurance that is worthy of admiration, and awakens universal

sympathy, are striving for the reorganization of their independent

state. But not with ethnographic boundaries like the Ukrainians, but

with ancient historical boundaries from the Baltic to the Dnieper and

the Black Sea. To attain this goal, the Poles are trying, above all, to

hinder the adjacent peoples, the Lithuanians, White Russians and

Ukrainians, in their national progress, and, whenever possible, to

assimilate them. These efforts are responsible for the very sharp

conflicts of the present day between the one-time rulers and their

one-time subjects.

The Russian historico-political traditions are quite as different from

and as opposed to those of the Ukrainians as the Polish, but in another

direction. The Muscovite State was created out of the petty

principalities which the ancient Kiev dynasty had founded among the

Eastern Slavic races and the Finnish tribes of the north. From the

blending of the Slavs and the Finns came the foundation of the present

Russian or Great Russian (Muscovite) Nation. The name “Russian” was

derived from the name of the dynasty. But the state was in reality

simply Muscovite, for the Muscovite people gave this state a substance

which was entirely different from the substance of the old Kingdom of

Kiev. As early as the 12th Century we observe the Muscovite people

striving for centralization and absolute power for the princes in their

state. It was to the advantage of the prince to undermine the influence

of the Boyar nobility and the clergy, and to attain absolute or even

despotic power in the state. Not equal rights and liberty for all

citizens as with the Ukrainians, or for certain classes as with the

Poles, but the despotic authority of the Great Prince (later Czar), is

the basis of the historico-political tradition of the Russian people.

The absolute power of the ruler, that everlasting bugbear of the Poles

and Ukrainians, becomes a sacred object to the Russian nation, and

makes it possible for them to establish a Russian Empire which devours

Poland and the Ukraine. For a comparison of the three adjacent states,

the second half of the 16th Century affords the best illustration. At

the same time that the radical-democratic Cossack republic originated

in the Ukraine, and Poland was a paradise of golden freedom for the

aristocrats and the nobility, with a powerless kingship and a

suppressed people, we witness in Russia the bloody orgies of the

despotism of Ivan the Terrible.

The historico-political tradition of the Russian people places the Czar

only slightly below God. The entire people, without class distinction,

are slaves (kholopi) of the Czar, his property. The individual counts

for nothing; everything must be sacrificed to the general good, which

is embodied in the Czar. The reforms of Peter the Great, altho they

gave Russia the external appearance of a civilized state, had no

significance for the historico-political tradition of Russia. At most,

they even strengthened the prestige of the absolute rule of the Czar,

thru arguments repeated after the Western European absolutism. Even the

Russian revolution of 1905 could not weaken this historico-political

tradition. At best the revolution undermined its significance in some

spheres of the Russian intelligenzia (numerically small). And, even in

these spheres, it meant only the modification of the authority for

which the Russian national spirit retains an immutable respect.

The present-day aspirations of the Russian Nation are hardly definite

in their outlines. Nevertheless, it can already be clearly seen that

they will follow the beaten path of the century-old tradition. The

greatest possible expansion and strengthening of the Empire and the

assimilation of all foreign peoples (including the Ukrainians too),

will constitute the main substance of these aspirations. The Muscovite

world has always been extremely intolerant of divergencies in faith,

language and customs. This intolerance has always existed, and always

will exist, even tho it may sometimes conceal itself behind a very

cleverly adjusted mantle of commonplaces.

UKRAINIAN CULTURE

When we speak of culture as a distinguishing mark of a specific nation,

we mean, of course, not culture in the widest sense of the word, but

those well-known cultural peculiarities which characterise every

European nation.

The Ukraine lies wholly within the confines of the greater European

cultural community. But its distance from the great culture-centers of

Western and Central Europe has, of course, not been without profound

effect. The Ukraine is at a low stage of culture, and must be measured

by Eastern European standards.

The Ukraine, which in the 11th Century caused great astonishment among

travelers from Western Europe, because of its comparatively high

culture, can now be counted only as one of the semi-cultural countries

of Europe. The very low stage of material culture, to which the

economic conditions of the country bear the best witness, is

characteristic of the Ukraine in its entire extent. The intellectual

culture of the people appears frightfully low. The number who know how

to read are 172 out of a thousand in Volhynia, 155 in Podolia, 181 in

Kiev, 259 in Kherson, 184 in Chernihiv, 169 in Poltava, 168 in Kharkiv,

215 in Katerinoslav, 279 in Tauria, and 168 in Kuban. These hopeless

figures, to be sure, are only a result of the exclusive use of the

Russian language, which is unintelligible to the Ukrainians, in all the

schools. Even in the first school-year, it is not permitted to explain

the most unintelligible words of the foreign language in Ukrainian.

This frightfully low grade of education of the people permits of no

progress in the economic life of the country. Even the most

well-meaning efforts of the government or the Zemstvo, break on the

brazen wall of illiteracy and ignorance of the Russian language. And

Ukrainian books of instruction and information are forbidden as

dangerous to the state. No wonder, then, that the Ukrainian farmer

tills his field, raises his cattle, carries on his home industries,

cures his ills, etc., just as his forefathers used to do. There is a

small number of the educated who are still cultivating literature and

art, feebly enough for the size of the nation—but how could one speak

of a distinct, independent culture here?

And yet it exists. For the low stage of culture which every foreign

tourist, who only knows the railroads and cities, immediately notices,

applies only to the culture created in the Ukraine by the ruling

foreign peoples, together with the small mass of Ukrainian

intelligenzia. (The intellectual culture of the Ukrainian educated

classes will be discussed later). In the same way, every hasty observer

would consider the Ukrainian peasant as a semi-European, standing on a

very low level of culture. And yet this illiterate peasant possesses an

individual popular culture, far exceeding the popular cultures of the

Poles, Russians and White Russians. The settlements, buildings,

costumes, the nourishment and mode of life of the Ukrainian peasant

stand much higher than those of the Russian, White Russian and Polish

peasant. Hence, the Ukrainian peasant easily and completely assimilates

all peasant settlers in his own land. The rich ethnological life, the

unwritten popular literature and popular music which, perhaps, have no

counterpart in Europe, the highly developed popular art and standard of

living, preserve the Ukrainian peasant from denationalization, even in

his most distant colonies. The power of opposition to Russification is

particularly great. The Ukrainian peasant never enters into mixed

marriages with the Russian muzhik, and hardly ever lives in the same

village with him. The ethnological culture of the Ukrainian people is,

by all means, original and peculiar; entirely different from the

popular cultures of all the neighboring peoples.

Even in prehistoric times, Ukrainian territory was the seat of a very

high culture, the remains of which, now brought to light, astonish the

investigator thru their loftiness and beauty. In ancient times the

early Greek cultural influences flourished in the Southern Ukraine,

then the Roman, and in the Middle Ages the Byzantine. Byzantine culture

had a great influence upon ancient Ukrainian culture, and its traces

may still be seen in the popular costume and in ornamentation.

The most important element in Ukrainian culture, however, is entirely

peculiar, and independent of these influences. The entire view of life

of the common man, to this day, has its roots in the pre-Christian

culture of the ancient Ukraine. The entire creative faculty of the

spirit of the nation has its source there; all the customs and manners

and very many of the songs and sayings. Christianity did not destroy

the old view of life in the Ukraine, but was adapted to it. This

accommodation was all the easier, because the character of the ancient

faith and philosophy of life of the Ukrainian people were not so gloomy

and cruel as was the case with many of the other peoples of Europe.

Outside of the prehistoric, Byzantine and Christian body of culture, we

observe extremely few foreign influences in the popular culture of the

Ukraine. It is highly independent and individualized. The Polish and

Muscovite influences are very insignificant, and appear only here and

there in the borderlands of the Ukraine.

It would require the giving of a detailed ethnological description of

the Ukrainian people if we wished to draw a complete picture of its

peculiar culture. Such a description has no place in geography, and

certainly none in a book of such general nature as this. Therefore, I

shall discuss but briefly the various phases of the popular culture of

the Ukraine, so that in this respect, too, the independent position of

the Ukrainians among the peoples of Eastern Europe may appear in the

proper light.

The Ukrainian villages (with the exception of the mountain villages,

which consist of a long irregular line of farms) are always built

picturesquely, in pretty places. The huts of a typical Ukrainian

village are always surrounded by orchards, which is hardly ever the

case among the Russians and White Russians, and very rarely so among

the Poles. These neighbors of the Ukrainians plant orchards only in the

few regions where professional fruit-growing has developed. In a

Ukrainian village, the green of the orchards is considered absolutely

necessary. The Russian will not endure trees in the neighborhood of his

hut; they obstruct his view. In the Ukraine an orchard is an

indispensable constituent part of even the poorest peasant homestead.

And the separate farms, in which very much of the spirit of the

glorious national past still lives, are hidden in the fresh green of

fruit orchards and apiaries.

The Ukrainian house is built of wood only in the mountains and other

wooded areas. In all other regions it is made of clay and covered with

straw. The front windows are always built facing the south. In this

way, different sides of the houses face the street, and in general,

too, street life does not play so important a part in a Ukrainian

village as it does in Polish, White Russian or Russian villages. The

Ukrainian houses are always well fenced in, altho not so strongly and

so high as the Russian houses in the forest zone, or as the White

Russian houses. They usually stand (except in Western Podolia) rather

far apart. Thus, the danger of fire is less than in the Russian

villages of the Chornozyom region, where the huts lie very close

together. As a result, the insurance companies, for instance, charge

smaller premiums in the Governments of Kursk and Voroniz for insuring

Ukrainian village properties than for Russian.

The general external appearance of the Ukrainian huts, which are always

well whitewashed and have flower gardens before the windows, is very

picturesque, and contrasts to advantage with the dwellings of the

neighboring races, especially the miserable and dirty Russian “izbas.”

All the houses of the Ukrainians, excepting, of course, the poorest

huts, are divided by a vestibule into two parts. The division into two

we do not find in the typical huts of the Poles and White Russians. A

further characteristic in which the Ukrainian house differs from the

houses of the neighboring peoples, is its comparative cleanliness.

Particularly does it differ in this respect from the Russian izbas,

which are regularly full of various insects and parasites, where sheep

and pigs, and, in winter, even the large cattle, live comfortably

together with the human inhabitants. The well-known authority on the

Russian village, Novikov, relates a very characteristic little story in

this connection. Several Russian families settled in a Ukrainian

village. Naturally, cattle were kept in the living room. And when the

Ukrainian village elders expressly forbade the keeping of cattle in the

huts, the Russians moved out, because they could not become accustomed

to the Ukrainian orderliness. It happens very seldom that the Russians

live together with the Ukrainians in one and the same village. In such

a case, the Russian part of the village lies separate, on the other

side of a ravine, a creek, or a rivulet. In the regions of mixed

nationality we see, adjoining one another, purely Ukrainian and purely

Russian villages.

The interior arrangement of the houses and the arrangement of the

barnyard differentiate the Ukrainian very sharply from his neighbor.

Still more decidedly does he show his individuality in his dress. The

mode of dress is quite varied thruout the great area of the Ukraine,

and yet we observe everywhere a distinctness of type and individuality

as opposed to the dress of neighboring peoples. Only the dress of the

Polissye people bears some trace of White Russian influence, on the

western border of Polish influence, in Kuban of Caucasian influence

(Russian influence appears nowhere). But all these influences are

slight. Ukrainian dress is always original and esthetic. No one can

wonder, therefore, that the Ukrainian costume is surviving longer than

the Polish, White Russian and Russian, and is giving way very slowly to

the costume of the cities.

The description of even the main types of Ukrainian costume would take

us too far afield; similarly, we cannot discuss the diet of the people

in detail, altho in this respect, too, the Ukrainian race retains its

definite individuality, those cases excepted, of course, in which

economic strain forces the people to be satisfied with “international”

potatoes and bread.

We now come to the intellectual culture of the Ukrainian people. If the

material culture of the Ukrainians, despite its originality and

independence is not at a strikingly higher level than that of the

neighboring peoples, the intellectual culture of the Ukrainian people

certainly far outstrips all the others.

The Ukrainian peasant is distinguished, above all, by his earnest and

sedate appearance. Beside the lively Pole and the active Russian, the

Ukrainian seems slow, even lazy. This characteristic, which is in part

only superficial, comes from the general view of life of the

Ukrainians. According to the view of the Ukrainian, life is not merely

a terrible struggle for existence, opposing man to hard necessity at

every turn; life, in itself, is the object of contemplation, life

affords possibilities for pleasure and feeling, life is beautiful, and

its esthetic aspect must, at all times and in all places, be highly

respected. We find a similar view among the peoples of antiquity. In

the present time, this view is very unpractical for nations with wide

spheres of activity. At all events this characteristic of the Ukrainian

people is the sign of an old, lofty, individual culture, and here, too,

is the origin of the noted “aristocratic democracy” of the Ukrainians.

Other foundations of the individuality of the Ukrainian are the results

of the gloomy historical past of the nation. It is the origin, first of

all, of the generally melancholy individuality, taciturnity, suspicion,

scepticism, and even a certain indifference to daily life. The ultimate

foundations of the individualism of the Ukrainian are derived from his

historico-political traditions; preference for extreme individualism,

liberty, equality and popular government. Proceeding from these

fundamentals, all the typical characteristics of the Ukrainians may be

logically explained with ease.

The family relations reflect the peculiarity of the Ukrainian people

very clearly. The comparatively high ancient culture, coupled with

individualism and a love of liberty, does not permit the development of

absolute power in the head of the family (as is the case among the

Poles and Russians). Likewise the position of woman is much higher in

the Ukrainian people than in the Polish or Russian. In innumerable

cases the woman is the real head of the household. Far less often does

this state of affairs occur among the Poles, and only by exception

among the Russians. A daughter is never married off against her will

among the Ukrainians; she has human rights in the matter. Among the

Russians, this business is in the hands of the father, who takes the

so-called kladka for his daughter, that is, he sells her to whomever he

pleases. Grown sons among the Ukrainians, as soon as they are married,

are presented by their fathers with a house and an independent farm.

The dwelling under one roof of a composite family (a family clan), as

is usual among the Russians, is almost impossible among the Ukrainians,

and is of exceedingly rare occurrence. The father has no absolute power

in this case (as among the Russians) to prevent discord in the family.

It is part of the peculiarity of the Ukrainians that they seldom form

friendships, but these are all the more lasting, altho reserved and

rarely intimate. The Russians make friends among one another very

easily, but they separate very easily, too, and become violent enemies.

The Poles form close friendships easily and are true friends, too.

Enmity is terrible among the Russians; among the Poles and Ukrainians

it is less bitter, and is, moreover, less lasting. The capacity for

association is very considerable in the Ukrainians. All such

association is based on complete equality in the division of labor and

profit. A foreman is elected and his orders are obeyed, but he receives

an equal share of the profits and works together with the rest. Among

the Russians, the bolshak selects his workmen himself, does not work,

and is simply an overseer. Still he receives the greatest part of the

profits, Among the Poles the capacity for association is but slightly

developed.

At this juncture we may also discuss the relation of the Ukrainians to

their communities. The Ukrainian community (hromada) is a voluntary

union of freemen for the sake of common safety and the general good.

Beyond this purpose the Ukrainian hromada possesses no power, for it

might limit the individual desires of some one of the hromada members.

For this reason, for example, common ownership of land which has been

introduced, following the Russian model, chiefly in the left half of

the Ukraine, is an abomination in the eyes of the Ukrainian people, and

is ruining them, economically, to a much greater extent than the

division of the land in the case of individual ownership. The Russian

“mir” is something entirely different. It is a miniature absolute

state, altho it appears in the garb of a communistic republic. The mir

is completely a part of the Russian national spirit, and the Russian

muzhik obeys the will of the mir unquestioningly, altho its will

enslaves his own.

The general relation to other people has become a matter of fixed form

to the Ukrainians; a form developed in the course of centuries. The

ancient culture and the individualistic cult have produced social forms

among the Ukrainian peasantry which sometimes remind one of ancient

court-forms. The proximity and influence of cities and other centers of

“culture” have, to a great extent, spoiled this peasant ceremonial. But

in certain large areas of the Ukraine it may still be observed in its

full development. Great delicacy, courtesy and attention to others,

coupled with unselfish hospitality, these are the general substance of

the social forms of our peasants. These social forms are entirely

different from the rough manners of the Polish or Muscovite peasants,

which, in addition, have been spoiled by the demoralizing influence of

the cities.

The relation of the Ukrainian people to religion is also original and

entirely different from that of all the adjacent nations. To the

Ukrainian, the essence of his faith, its ethical substance, is the

important factor. This he feels deeply and respects in himself and

others. Dogmas and rites are less significant in the Ukrainian’s

conception of religion. Hence, despite differences in faith, not the

slightest disharmony exists between the great mass of the orthodox

Ukrainians of Russia and the Bukowina, and the 4,000,000 Greek-Catholic

Ukrainians of Galicia and Hungary. From the ancient culture and

consideration of the individual comes, also, the great tolerance of the

Ukrainians toward other religions, a tolerance which we do not find

among the Poles and Russians. The spirit of the Ukrainians has,

likewise, been very indifferent toward all sects and roskols. Among the

Poles, sects flourished very luxuriantly in the 16th Century; among the

Russians, there are to this day any number of sects, often very curious

ones, and more are constantly arising. Among the Ukrainians, a single

sect has been formed, the so-called stunda (a sort of Baptist creed).

This sect is not the result of rite formalism, however, but merely an

effect of the Russification of the Ukrainian national church. In order

to be able to pray to God in their mother-tongue, more than a million

of the Ukrainian peasantry is persevering in this faith, which came

over from adjacent German colonies, despite harsh persecution on the

part of the Russian clergy and government.

The worth of Ukrainian culture appears, in its most beautiful and its

highest form, in the unwritten literature of the people. The

philosophical feeling of the Ukrainian people finds expression in

thousands and thousands of pregnant proverbs and parables, the like of

which we do not find even in the most advanced nations of Europe. They

reflect the great soul of the Ukrainian people and its worldly wisdom.

But the national genius of the Ukrainians has risen to the greatest

height in their popular poetry. Neither the Russian nor the Polish

popular poetry can bear comparison with the Ukrainian. Beginning with

the historical epics (dumy) and the extremely ancient and yet living

songs of worship, as for example, Christmas songs (kolady), New Years’

songs (shchedrivki), spring songs (vessilni), harvest songs

(obzinkovi), down to the little songs for particular occasions (e.g.

shumki, kozachki, kolomiyki), we find in all the productions of

Ukrainian popular epic and lyric poetry, a rich content and a great

perfection of form. In all of it the sympathy for nature,

spiritualization of nature, and a lively comprehension of her moods, is

superb; in all of it we find a fantastic but warm dreaminess; in all of

it we find the glorification of the loftiest and purest feelings of the

human soul. A glowing love of country reveals itself to us everywhere,

but particularly in innumerable Cossack songs, a heartrending longing

for a glorious past, a glorification, altho not without criticism, of

their heroes. In their love-songs we find not a trace of sexuality; not

the physical, but the spiritual beauty of woman is glorified above all.

Even in jesting songs, and further, even in ribald songs, there is a

great deal of anacreontic grace. And, at the same time, what beauty of

diction, what wonderful agreement of content and form! No one would

believe that this neglected, and for so many centuries, suppressed and

tormented people could scatter so many pearls of true poetic

inspiration thru its unhappy land.

This peculiarity of the poetical creative spirit enables us, just as do

the other elements of culture, to recognize the vast difference between

the Ukrainian and the Russian people. The Russian folk songs are

smaller in number and variety, form and content. Sympathetic

appreciation of nature is scant. The imagination either rises to

supernatural heights or sinks to mere trifling. Criminal monstrosities

and the spirit of destruction are glorified as objects of national

worship. The conception of love is sensual, the jesting and ribald

songs disgusting.

Like their popular poetry, the popular music of the Ukrainians far

surpasses the popular music of the neighboring peoples, and differs

from them very noticeably. Polish popular music is just as poor as

Polish popular poetry, and almost thruout possesses a cheerful major

character. Russian popular music has many minor elements in addition to

the major elements. But the Russian popular melodies are quite

different from the Ukrainian. They are either boisterously joyous or

hopelessly sad. The differences in the character of the melodies are so

great that one need not be a specialist to be able to tell at once

whether a melody is Ukrainian or Russian.

Popular art, in our people, is entirely original and much more highly

advanced than in the neighboring peoples. The remains of the ancient

popular painting are still in existence in the left half of the

Ukraine. Wood carving has developed to a highly artistic form among the

Hutzuls (there are the well-known peasant-artists Shkriblak,

Mehedinyuk, and others). The chief field of Ukrainian popular art,

however, is decoration. Two fundamental types are used; a geometric

pattern with the crossing of straight and broken lines, and a natural

pattern, which is modelled after parts of plants (as leaves, flowers,

etc.). In the embroideries, cloths and glass bead-work, we find such an

esthetic play of colors, that even tho each individual color is

glaring, the whole has a very picturesque and harmonious effect. The

decorative art of the Russians is much lower. It is based on animal

motifs or entire objects, e.g., whole plants, houses, etc., and evinces

an outspoken preference for glaring colors, which are so combined,

however, as to shock the eye. Among the Poles, the art of ornamentation

is very slightly developed. As for colors, they prefer the gaudy, not

many at a time; usually, blue is combined with bright red.

For the sake of completeness, we must still say something about

Ukrainian manners and customs. In this aspect, too, the Ukrainian

peasantry is richer than its neighbors. Only the White Russians are not

far behind them. The entire life of a Ukrainian peasant, in itself full

of need and poverty, is, nevertheless, full of poetic and deeply

significant usages and customs, from the cradle to the grave. Birth,

christening, marriage, death, all are combined with various symbolic

usages, particularly the wedding, so rich in ceremonies and songs, so

different in its entire substance from the Russian or Polish. The

entire year of the Ukrainian constitutes one great cycle of holidays,

with which a host of ceremonies are connected, most of which have come

down from pre-Christian times. We find similar ceremonies among the

White Russians, some also among the Poles, e.g., Christmas songs, songs

of the seasons, but among the Russians, on the other hand, we find no

parallel to the Ukrainian conditions. Among the Russians, neither the

Christmas songs (kolady) are customary, nor the ceremonies of Christmas

eve (bohata kutya), neither the midwinter festival (shchedri vechir),

with its songs (shchedrivki), nor the spring holidays (yur russalchin

velikden) and spring songs (vesnianki), nor the feast of the solstice

(kupalo), nor the autumn ceremonies on the feast-days of St. Andrew or

St. Katherine, etc. The entire essence of the popular metaphysics of

the Ukrainians is quite foreign to the Russians, and almost entirely so

to the Poles. Only the White Russians form a certain analogy, but,

among them, pure superstition outweighs customs and ceremonies in

importance.

Sufficient facts have been given to make clear to the reader the

complete originality and independence of Ukrainian popular culture. We

now come to a brief survey of the cultural efforts of the educated

Ukrainians.

The number of educated Ukrainians is comparatively small. Hardly a

century has passed since the intelligence of the nation awoke to new

life, yet, in its hands lies the development of the national culture in

the widest sense of the word. The disproportion between the magnitude

of the task and the small number of the workers for culture, is at once

apparent. And yet the results of the work, in spite of obstacles on

every side, have grown in volume.

The Ukraine lies within the sphere of influence of European culture.

This culture has spread from Central and Western Europe over the

territory of the Ukraine and its neighboring peoples, the Poles,

Russians, White Russians, Magyars and Roumanians. Each one of these

nations has accepted the material culture of Western Europe to a

greater or less degree, and adjusted the spiritual culture to its

national peculiarities. The Ukrainians, for a long time after the loss

of their first state and the decline of their ancient culture, found no

line along which they could develop their national culture

independently. For centuries they vacillated between the cultures of

Poland and Russia. To this day, now that the conditions are much

better, one may still find among the Ukrainians individuals who,

culturally, are Poles or Russians, and only speak and feel as

Ukrainians. Such a condition is very sad, and causes the Ukraine untold

injury—most of all in the field of material culture, which, in both

these neighboring nations, is very incomplete. Agriculture, mining,

trade and commerce, are on a much lower plane among the Poles than in

Western Europe. And what is to be said of the Russians, who are a mere

parody of a cultured nation in almost every field, altho they possess

so great a political organization? No one need be surprised that

material culture is of so low a grade in the Ukraine. On the other

hand, it has become clear to every intelligent Ukrainian, that the

development of material culture is possible only thru Western European

influence, by sending Ukrainian engineers, manufacturing specialists,

merchants and farmers, to Western and Central Europe to learn their

business.

In the field of Ukrainian mental culture, the chief influences to be

considered are Polish and Russian. In this field, Polish culture is

comparatively very high. It possesses a very rich literature,

considerable science and art, and very definite principles of life. The

influence of Polish culture is limited almost exclusively to Galicia at

the present time. But it was very strong until very recent years, when

it began to decrease. At one time, however, the entire Ukraine,

particularly the right half, was emphatically under the influence of

Polish culture for centuries (16th to the 18th Century).

There is one element in the spiritual culture of the Poles which

certainly deserves to be, and is, imitated by the Ukrainians. It is the

tone of national patriotism, the love for the nation, its present and

its past, which is everywhere evident. Hence, modern Polish literature

must be a model for Ukrainian literature in its tendencies and its

sentiments. But, beyond its patriotic tone, Polish culture is not

appropriate for the Ukrainian people. It is aristocratic, by reason of

its descent and its philosophy of the universe. It is far removed from

the mass of the people it should represent. In spite of all efforts,

the Polish culture of the educated classes has been unable to establish

an organic connection with the common people of Poland. It has been

built up above the masses and has not grown out of them. To build up

Ukrainian culture entirely after the model of Polish culture, would

mean to tear it from its life-giving roots in the soul of the people.

That it would be deadly to Ukrainian culture, the Ukrainians have

perceived for a long time.

Russian culture is much more dangerous to the Ukrainian people than

Polish. In its material aspect it is of a very low grade. In the

spiritual field it possesses a very rich literature and a noteworthy

science and art. The spiritual culture of Russia now dominates all of

the Russian Ukraine, and has, to a great extent, become prevalent even

among those educated Ukrainians in Russia who possess real national

consciousness.

This very circumstance constitutes a great danger for the development

of Ukrainian culture. For, let the Muscovite conquest extend over the

Ukrainians, even in the cultural field, and there is an end of all the

independence of the Ukrainian element, and its beautiful language will

be, in fact, degraded to a peasant dialect. But a still greater danger

lies in the quality of the Russian cultural influence. The first evil

characteristic of Russian culture is the complete lack of national and

patriotic sentiment, which is absolutely necessary for an aspiring

culture like the Ukrainian. Russian culture is infecting the Ukrainians

with an ominous national indifference. Another unfavorable

characteristic of all Russian culture, is the fact that it is

undemocratic thru and thru, and very far removed from the Russian

people. The Russian people did not create this culture; the educated,

in producing it, took nothing from the people. An intelligent man,

brought up in the atmosphere of Russian culture, is unspeakably distant

from the Russian people, so that it is impossible for him to work at

the task of enlightening them. The views of the Russian “lovers of the

people” (narodniki), or of a Tolstoy, concerning the common people and

its soul, simply offend us thru their unexampled ignorance of the

peculiarities and customs of the common people.

A culture so far removed from the people as the Russian can bring no

benefit to the Ukrainians. We observe this, best of all, in the

condition of the muzhik, to whom the educated Russian has never been

able to find an approach, and now the latter looks on indifferently,

while the masses sink deeper and deeper down into the abyss of

intellectual and spiritual darkness. To guide the common people along

the path of organic social-political and economic progress, is a task

which an intellect permeated with Russian culture can never perform.

The last Russian revolution, and the beginning of the era of

constitutional government for Russia, have furnished the best proof for

the truth of this assertion.

The other chief characteristic of Russian culture is its manifest

superficiality. Hidden beneath a thin veneer of Western European

amenities lies coarse barbarism. The external manners of the educated

Russian very often strike one by the coarseness, lack of restraint and

brutal recklessness accompanying them. We see, then, that even the

external forms of European culture have only been outwardly assumed by

the Russians. Still poorer is their condition with respect to the

things of the spirit. We have observed to what a slight degree the

Russians have been able to assimilate the material culture of Europe.

The same holds for spiritual culture. Russian literature, particularly

the latest, has brought ethical elements of the most questionable worth

into the world’s literature. (Artzibashev and others). Russian science,

altho it can point to some great names and has unlimited means at its

disposal, stands far behind German, English or French science. In

Russian science, everything is done for the sake of effect, without

thoroness, without method, hence fatal gaps appear. Let us consider,

for example, our science of geography. Hardly a year passes in which

the Russian government does not send one or more great scientific

expeditions to Asia or to the North Pole. Each expedition hands in

volumes of scientific results, and, at the same time, the surface

configuration of the most populous and culturally most advanced regions

of European Russia, for example, is barely known in its main aspects.

The best geography of Russia was written by the Frenchman Reclus. A

modern, really scientific geography of Russia does not exist.

Even more emphatically does the superficiality of Russian culture

appear in social and political questions. These two directions of human

thought have, in most recent times, become very popular in all Russian

society. But what an abyss separates a European from a Russian in this

field! In Europe the theses of the social sciences or of politics are

the result of life. They are adjusted to life conditions and treated

critically. In Russia they are lifeless dogmas, about which Russian

scholars of the 20th Century dispute with the same heat and in the same

manner as their ancestors, a few hundred years ago, disputed as to

whether the Hallelujah should be sung twice or three times, whether the

confession of faith should read “born, not created” or “born and not

created,” whether one should say, “God have mercy upon us” or “Oh God,

have mercy upon us,” whether one should use two fingers in crossing

oneself or three, and so on. Naturally, at that time religious

questions were the fashion. Today it is social questions. And what does

it amount to? Rampant doctrinism, the eternal use of banal

commonplaces, an immature setting up of principles. And the result

is—extreme unwieldiness of Russian society in internal politics and in

parliamentarism, in social and national work, together with a deep

scorn of the depraved West (gnili zapad).

With this superficiality of Russian culture, its most evil

characteristic is connected; the decline of family life and a certain

moral perverseness. This phenomenon is commonly met with in all peoples

who have but recently come in contact with Western European culture.

The bad qualities of a high civilization are always assumed first, the

good qualities slowly. In this field the Russians have far outstripped

their European models.

The above facts suffice to prove that Russian cultural influences are

dangerous for the Ukrainian people. The severe, rigid materialistic

character of the Russian people will, without any doubt, enable it to

outlast the storm and stress period of the present Russian culture, and

guide it to a splendid future. But for the Ukrainian people, with its

sentimental, gentle character, the assuming of Russian culture would be

a deadly poison. Even supposing that the Ukrainian people might survive

such an experiment, a thing which is not likely, it would forever

remain a miserable appendage of the Russian nation.

And besides, such an experiment is entirely unnecessary. Either we say,

“We are Ukrainians, an independent race and different from the

Russians,” and build up our culture quite independently, or we say, “We

are ‘Little Russians,’ one of the three tribes of Great Russia and of

its high culture,” and, in that case, we may calmly lie down on the

world renowned Ukrainian stove. For then it does not pay even to work

at the development of our language. A third alternative does not exist.

At present, however, the former view is generally predominant among the

intelligenzia of the land, and the fact that many intelligent

Ukrainians are permeated with Russian culture is due, not to an ideal

conviction, but only to the powerful influence of the Russian schools

and the Russian cities. How do these educated people stand beneath the

Ukrainian peasant who, even on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, does

not exchange his individual Ukrainian popular culture for the Russian,

and deserves the scornful, but in our eyes very commendable saying of

the Russians, “Khakhol vyesdie kharkhol!”

If, then, we are to remain a really independent nation, there is only

one avenue open to Ukrainian culture, and that is to follow the culture

of Western Europe step by step, to seek its models among the Germans,

Scandinavians, English and French. And this entire development we must

base upon the broad foundation of our high popular culture. Let us

consider with what piety the really cultural nations of Europe preserve

the little remains of their popular culture. Their few usages or

superstitions, their little body of folk-songs! How much richer than

they are we in all our misery! The Ukrainian people spoke a mighty

first word thru Kotlarevsky a century ago; it then found the first

diamond upon its path, the pure language of the people. Unfortunately,

no Ukrainian has yet arisen who could speak just as mighty a second

word by finding ways and means of lifting the treasures of the home

culture of the land, and enabling the entire nation to work at the task

of using them to advantage. This “apostle of truth and science,” as he

is called by Shevchenko, has not appeared, altho he has had several

ancestors, like Drahomaniv. But there are already very many Ukrainians

who would place their seal upon the declaration: “that the Ukraine

possesses so rich a popular culture, that by developing all its hidden

possibilities and supplementing them by elements drawn from the

untainted sources of Western European culture, the Ukrainian nation

could attain a complete culture just as peculiar to itself, and just as

exalted among the great European cultures, as Ukrainian popular culture

is among the popular cultures of other peoples.”

Hence, the way lay clearly indicated for the Ukrainians of the 19th and

20th Century. Ethnological investigations and the scientific study of

folk-lore have been taken up very eagerly by Ukrainian scholars, so

that in this particular field, recent Ukrainian science, perhaps, ranks

highest in all Slavic science. In no other cultured nation of Europe is

the life of the educated elements so permeated with the influences of

the nation’s own popular culture. The Ukrainian cultural movement is

hardly a century old, and yet it has results to show which, even today,

guarantee the cultural independence of the Ukrainian nation. Active

relations with Central and Western European cultures have been

established, which may become of incalculable effect in the further

development of Ukrainian culture.

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SOIL AND THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE

The geographical situation of the Ukraine is the same today as it was a

thousand years ago. If the theories which call the present Ukrainian

territory the original home of the Aryans are true, the Ukrainians must

be considered the primeval autochthones. The limits of the Ukrainian

nation, too, are almost the same today as they were a thousand years

ago, altho, in the meantime, great shifts have taken place. Only in the

west, the Ukrainians have lost a strip about 30 kilometers wide to the

Poles, thru the Polonization movement, which has been advancing

eastward since 1340. In this section the Ukrainian element has survived

only in the mountains. The northern border, next to the White Russians,

which, since primitive times, has consisted of great forests and

swamps, has always remained without changes of any kind. On the other

hand, the part of the northern border east of the Dnieper, and still

more the eastern and southern borders, have been subject to radical

changes in the course of Ukrainian history.

The old Ukrainian state of Kiev rapidly developed a far-flung expansive

movement, and soon covered almost all of Eastern Europe. In the south,

the old Kingdom of Kiev, and together with it the southern tribes of

East Slavs (the ancestors of the present Ukrainians) reached the delta

of the Danube and the Black Sea and the foothills of the Caucasus,

where, in the present Kuban district, the old province and petty

principality of Tmutorokan was situated. How far to the north the

southern East Slavic tribes then extended we can not tell exactly. But

it is very improbable that they extended beyond the woods and swamps of

the Polissye.

Even at that time, a thousand years ago, the geographical position of

the Ukraine, on the edge of Europe and the steppe-country of Central

Asia, proved itself dangerous. From the beginning of the Middle Ages

on, innumerable tribes of Turkish-Tatar origin, came crowding out of

the Central Asiatic steppes westward, thru the steppes of Southern

Ukraine. The Ukraine had to be the first of all the countries of Europe

to withstand the attack of these hordes. The first Ukrainian conqueror,

Sviatoslav, who destroyed the state of the Khazars and Bulgars and

defeated other weak hordes, was killed in the struggle with the

Pechenegs. Volodimir the Great was forced to fight these nomads under

the very walls of his capital. These wars with nomad tribes, which

began before the Ukraine appeared in the arena of history, lasted from

this time until the end of the 18th Century, with varying fortunes. At

times the balance of power was on the side of the Ukraine, and then

Ukrainian colonization advanced victoriously to the south and east as

far as the Black Sea. At other times the nomads were victorious, and

the eastern and southern boundaries of the Ukraine receded north and

west. The great chains of fortifications and border walls erected by

the Great Princes of Kiev, on the southeast borders of the Ukraine,

were of no avail. At the time of the greatest extent of the Tatar

attacks (15th to 16th Century) almost all the left half of the Ukraine

was a wilderness, and in the right half Kiev was a border fortress. All

the southern Dnieper country, the Boh country and Eastern Podolia, was

at that time a sparsely-peopled borderland, and constantly exposed to

the dangers of Tatar attacks. At that time Ukrainian territory was

confined to the Polissye, the northern part of Chernihiv, Volhynia,

Western Podolia, Eastern Galicia and Podlakhia, and only small, very

thinly populated border strips of the adjacent regions. These

fluctuations in the boundaries of the Ukraine have no parallel in the

history of Europe, and show most clearly in what difficult straits the

Ukrainian nation was forced to live for centuries.

The proximity of nomadic Asia for a time greatly weakened the

influences of the proximity of another neighbor—the Black Sea. The

Black Sea was, for the Ukraine, the means of intercourse with

Byzantium, the greatest cultural center of Europe in the Middle Ages.

The Ukraine, because of its waterways, was nearest to Byzantium of all

the European countries. This comparatively short period in which the

Ukraine was able to maintain intercourse with Byzantium, without

obstacles, brought the Ukraine splendid cultural advantages. In a wide

stream the Byzantine material and spiritual culture flowed into the

Ukraine, so that the country from the 11th to the 13th Century stood

highest, culturally, among all the Slavic states and almost equalled

the Western European states. In some respects the Ukraine of those days

was even superior to Western Europe. In those days Kiev or Halich

surpassed London or Paris in wealth and commercial importance.

The relations with the sea and with Byzantium kept growing ever more

difficult for the Ukraine to maintain, however, as a result of the ever

growing pressure of the nomad hordes. Finally, in the 13th Century,

came the Tatar invasions. These have best demonstrated the significance

of the geographical situation of the Ukraine. The ancient Ukrainian

state had to be the first to withstand the Mongol attack. After the

defeat, the Ukraine was the first of all the countries of Europe to be

desolated by fire and sword. It is true that the strong resistance of

the Ukraine effectively stopped the Tatar pressure, and Europe has this

circumstance to thank for its escape from the fate of Asia in the 13th

Century, three-fourths of which was conquered by the Mongols of Djingis

Khan. The Ukrainian state fought a whole century longer with the

Tatars, but could not hold their own after that. The Ukraine was

systematically devastated by the Tatars, and in the struggle with them

the entire military power of the Ukraine was spent. At the same time

the neighbors on the north and west—the Poles and Lithuanians—were able

to develop freely behind the protecting back of the Ukraine, and to

increase their powers. Finally the Poles annexed Eastern Galicia, and

the rest of the Ukrainians faced the choice of either joining

themselves to the Lithuanians, whose upper classes were at that time,

culturally, entirely Ukrainian, or to place themselves beneath the

Muscovite yoke. They chose the first. In 1569 the Lublin Union joined

the Ukraine to Poland. All these things are the unhappy results of the

geographical situation of the land on the threshold of Europe and Asia.

A long time following the loss of Ukrainian political independence, the

sad results of the geographical situation of the country continued. The

constant attacks of Tatars and Turks, the millions of Ukrainian slaves

in the slave-markets of the Orient, had to continue for many centuries

to be the source of the oriental world, which was fast hurrying toward

its fall. But soon the geographical situation of the Ukraine began to

work positively too. The geographical situation, together with other

natural factors, became one of the main causes for the formation of the

Ukrainian Cossack organization. This is not the place to discuss at

length the significance of the Cossack organization for the Ukraine; we

are only emphasizing the fact that the Cossack organization alone has

preserved the Ukraine from complete downfall.

The Cossack organization, as a product of geographical situation, has a

parallel only in the familiar North American backwoodsmen, prairie

hunters and pioneers who constituted the advance guard of European

civilization on their continent. Yet this analogy is a very weak and

incomplete one. The Zaporog Cossacks can in no way be compared either

with the Volga, Don or Ural Cossacks, who were chiefly brigands, or

with the Austro-Hungarian border-soldiers, who were a state

organization. The Ukrainian Cossack organization represented the

efforts for liberty and independence of the entire Ukrainian people,

and, finally, led up to the revival of Ukrainian political life in the

form of an independent hetman state. To be sure, the territory of this

hetman state embraced barely one-half of the Ukraine, but it

constituted a region about which a Piedmont of independence for the

entire Ukraine might grow up.

Since the last decades of the 18th Century, the geographical situation

of the Ukraine on the threshold of two continents has been growing from

an unfavorable position to one that may be described as very favorable.

It was for the most part with Ukrainian forces that Russia finally

destroyed the nomads of the Ukrainian steppes. This fact has been of

great significance for the Ukraine. Since that time the vast, tho

almost imperceptible, colonization movement of the Ukrainian people to

the east, southeast and south, has been in progress. This movement

extended the Ukrainian boundaries twice within a single century. For

the second time, and in a peaceful way, the Ukraine reached the delta

of the Danube, the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. All

this is only an outcome of its geographical situation. In another

situation the Ukrainians could not so easily dispose of unsettled

lands. This expansion of the Ukrainian people has by no means reached

its maximum, but it has surely passed its climax. To be sure, the

migration of the Ukrainian element to the east and south is still very

large, but there are no longer so many uninhabited districts open to

settlement as in former times, and the emigration in masses has had to

stop.

Nevertheless, the geographical situation opens a very fine prospect for

later Ukrainian colonial expansion. Ciscaucasia and many regions on the

lower Volga and Ural are, culturally considered, really a bonum

nullius. Russian colonization is directed to other regions, chiefly for

climatic reasons, and other competing races need hardly be considered

because of their smallness. Even at present the Ukrainians constitute a

very noteworthy minority; in the sub-Caucasian country most probably an

absolute majority. In the course of a few decades of rather

unsystematic colonization, extensive regions of the sub-Caucasian

country, with their wealth of natural resources, will become Ukrainian;

the entire Kuban region already is part of the compact national

territory of the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainian language has become an

international language for the small mountain races of the Western

Caucasus.

The geographical situation of the Ukraine on the threshold of Asia is

distinctly favorable to the immigration of Ukrainians into Central Asia

and Southern Siberia. In a strip of thousands of kilometers, chains of

Ukrainian settlements extend along the southern border of Siberia to

the Japan Sea. Along this immeasurable strip the number of Ukrainian

settlements is continually growing. This colonization, which leads tens

of thousands of Ukrainian peasant-settlers to the far east every year,

has attracted the attention of wider circles only within the last two

decades. In reality it is much older, for as early as the seventies of

the past century, German explorers found Ukrainian colonies at the

northern base of the Altai and on the Chinese border, etc. The

establishment of these old and new colonies of the Ukrainians in Asia

is proceeding in all quietude, and is quite analogous to that splendid

colonization movement of the Ukrainians at the beginning of the 19th

Century, which, at one time, quite imperceptibly doubled the national

territory of the Ukrainians.

Yet the colonial expansion of the last century brought the Ukrainian

nation many disadvantages along with the advantages. For more than a

century it drained the entire energy of the nation and deprived it of

tens of thousands of the most active and energetic individuals every

year. All the strength of the nation was turned to the one task of

settling new lands and cultivating them according to ancient usage.

From this cause, the political idea and the cultural efforts of the

Ukrainians have suffered very keenly.

After the Ukrainian territory had again reached the Black Sea, as a

result of colonial expansion, the Black Sea regained its ancient

significance to the Ukrainians. Of course, there is no longer any such

cultural center on the Pontus as Byzantium once was, and Turkish

domination has deprived the formerly highly cultured districts on the

shores of the Black Sea of all their ancient civilization. But the sea

has retained its capacity for promoting culture, and, after many

centuries, once more gave the Ukrainians direct connection with the

wide world. To be sure, the Black Sea is closed by nature and by

international treaties, and the Russian Government, intentionally or

unintentionally, has never particularly encouraged the development of

Pontian navigation; and, to be sure, the Black Sea lies far distant

from the main commercial thorofares of the world. But all these

disadvantages of the Black Sea may lose much of their weight in a short

time. The materialization of the splendid project to connect the Baltic

and the Black Sea by means of a canal, including the Dvina and the

Dnieper, navigable by large vessels, can not be far off. After the

carrying out of this project the isolation of the Black Sea will be

lessened, and an important channel of sea-navigation will run across

the entire Ukraine. Pontian navigation must sooner or later experience

a great advance, for it is a natural necessity for the productive

hinterland and for the entire Ukrainian shore people, who have always

exhibited considerable skill as seamen. The Ukrainians already

constitute more than two-thirds of the crews of all Russian trade and

warships on the Black Sea. With the strengthening of the constitutional

regime in Russia, the obstacles which have been placed in the way of

Pontian navigation by the Russian government in favor of Baltic

navigation must disappear of themselves.

Finally, the great commercial thorofares of the world are beginning to

move nearer to Ukrainian territory as the cultural development of the

Orient advances. As the European influences in the Iran, in Syria and

Mesopotamia begin to grow, new projects for an overland connection of

Europe with India continually arise. At present the Bagdad Railroad is

the center of interest, and soon the Persian railroad projects will

claim attention. But the shortest and easiest overland route from

Europe to India must cross the length of the Ukraine, touching Kiev and

Kharkiv, going past the deltas of the Volga and Ural and the Aral Sea,

along the Amu, and thru Afghanistan and the Punjab. When this route is

once established the Ukraine will attain a great commercial

significance as the right of way of one of the world’s most important

commercial highways. Then, only, will the importance of the Dnieper and

Don, the Black Sea, the Sea of Azof and the Caspian Sea, as bearers of

the main commercial road, be indeed realized.

Everyone can readily understand that in this case the political

significance of the Ukraine would also be very great. Even now this

land is an invaluable possession to Russia. Only the possession of the

Ukraine makes possible for Russia access to the Black Sea and permits

her to gravitate toward the straits, to win influence on the Balkan

peninsula, to threaten Turkey and the Mediterranean, to dominate the

Caucasus country, to oppress Persia and seek the nearest way to the

Indian Ocean. And when once the overland route to India goes thru

Ukrainian territory, the Ukraine will command over a thousand

kilometers of this important road and begin to be a prime factor in

world politics. The possession of the Ukraine will then be the

costliest treasure and a life-problem to the state which will dominate

this territory. Or, if the Ukraine, in all its ethnographic extent,

should win its political independence, it may in time become one of the

largest and most powerful states of Europe.

Another element of the geographical situation of the Ukraine, which

should not be underestimated, is the fact that the Ukraine is so remote

from all the cultural centers of Europe. We indicated briefly, above,

of what great importance was the short, direct connection of the

Ukraine with the Byzantine cultural center. Only during this short

period did the historical fate of the Ukraine permit the land to have

direct relations with an important culture center. The wall of

barbarian nomad attack separated the Ukraine very quickly from this

culture center, and when it died the Ukraine suddenly fell into a

situation in which it was far removed from all the cultural centers of

Europe. Only Poland allowed a few elements of Western European culture

to sift thru into the Ukraine. But the lack of Polish political and

social organization did not allow Western European culture to take firm

root in Poland. The Ukraine could, therefore, receive only a little of

the Western European wealth of culture thru this channel. Until well

into the 18th Century, Russia stood upon a much lower grade of culture

than the Ukraine. And altho Russia very soon reached and surpassed her

rival, the Ukraine has, to this day, received nothing worth while from

Russia. The Ukraine even suffered great loss, culturally, from its

union with Russia. The White Russians, the Roumanians, the Slovaks, the

Magyars, were never so far advanced, culturally, as to be able to teach

the Ukrainians anything. The centers of Western and Central European

culture—Germany, Scandinavia, France and England—are so far distant

from the Ukraine that they can exert only slight and indirect influence

upon its cultural progress. The low state of culture of the Ukraine,

consequently, springs chiefly from its geographical situation.

The second geographical element, surface formation, has had as strong

an influence upon the Ukrainian people as the geographical situation.

The chief factor in the surface configuration of the Ukraine is the

great preponderance of plains and plateaus. These take up nine-tenths

of the area of the Ukraine. The difference in level of the ground is

from 200 to 300 meters. Such slight variations in height are of great

significance as far as anthropogeographical conditions are concerned.

The most important characteristic of level countries such as this, is

the complete lack of such obstacles as might make good natural

boundaries. And the lack of good natural boundaries is very strongly

felt in the history of all lowland peoples.

This lack the Ukrainians have always felt very deeply. With the

exception of the Black Sea, which was once the boundary of the ancient

Ukrainian Kingdom of Kiev and now forms the southern boundary of the

Ukraine, and, with the exception, also, of the forest swamps of the

Polissye, the Ukraine never possessed, and does not now possess, any

good natural boundaries. Neither the Carpathians nor the Caucasus have

provided the Ukraine with a distinct natural boundary line. The borders

and borderlands of the Ukraine lie open, were always easily accessible

to all conquerors, and made the defense of their political independence

much harder for the Ukrainians than it has been for any other nation of

Europe. To be sure, the lack of obstacles on the borders made it very

easy for the Ukrainian Kingdom to extend its limits, as the rapid and

appreciable growth of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev best proves. But

later, unfortunately, this favorable surface formation was taken

advantage of with much greater gain by the Tatars, Lithuanians, Poles

and Russians, to the ruin of the Ukraine. The facility of military

campaigns and of territorial conquests, two favorable foundations for

the development of great land-conquering nations, and at the same time

typical anthropogeographical characteristics of low countries, have

played an active part in the history of the Ukraine. The pressure of

various races, which is a characteristic of plain countries, is another

condition the Ukraine had to face. From the Cimmerians to the Turks,

how many races have inhabited the steppes of the Ukraine!

In the present times of highly developed intercourse, natural obstacles

are losing much of their value, and, for the same reason, the

disadvantages of low countries are becoming less serious. It is true

that the Ukraine is hard to defend strategically, and an enemy wishing

to attack Russia in the Ukraine would place her in a very precarious

position. But the lack of pronounced natural lines of defense is also

peculiar to the eastern border of Germany, for example, or the northern

border of France. Apart from these strategic elements, the Ukrainian

plain country and plateau country has nothing but advantages. The

migration of the Ukrainian people has always been very easy, and the

growth of Ukrainian territory has been unhindered because of the

openness of the borders.

The lowland character of the Ukraine is important not merely in respect

to borders. The lack of obstacles within the country in the way of

highlands always favored easy travel in all directions. The building of

the roads met with no obstacles, and was able to proceed in straight

lines. In the present days of high-roads and railways, this is a very

important characteristic of the land. Unfortunately it has never been

taken advantage of. The railroads of the Ukraine tend toward unknown

Russian centers, without consideration of the natural centers of the

country. Hence its insufficient importance for traffic.

Another characteristic of all plain countries, and therefore of the

Ukraine, is great homogeneity. It produces a great uniformity of living

conditions, and gives the Ukraine great unity of language, customs and

standard of living. The types of buildings, national costume, etc., so

varied in the small area of Germany, extend over hundreds of thousands

of square miles in the Ukraine, with only minor changes. The uniform

lowland character of the Ukraine favored, to a certain degree, the

constant preservation of the old customs and the gradual development of

culture. The lack of natural differences within the country has brought

with it the lack of differences among the inhabitants, and it is well

known that such differences enrich the ability and the character of the

entire nation considerably. Hence, the lack of those necessary

conditions of development and progress has always had a profound

influence in the Ukraine, while we meet such favorable conditions at

every step in the small areas of Central Europe, with their smaller

supply of natural wealth. Melancholy and indifference, these typical

marks of the lowland peoples, have always been characteristic of the

Ukrainians also. And these types are not favorable to the development

of culture. Only the present time of easy communications are capable of

weakening the bad influence of the uniformity of surface of the Ukraine

to any marked degree.

Yet, not all the typical characteristics of a lowland country are

common to the Ukrainians. Above all, they lack, and always have lacked,

the capacity for the development of great political strength, the

capacity for centralization; in a word, the capacity for state

organizing. This characteristic of the lowland peoples, which is very

strongly developed among the Russians, more weakly in the Poles, has

always been very poorly bred in the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have

possessed the tendency, peculiar to all lowland peoples, to level its

aspirations, to divert them to one side, but never to the subordination

of their individuality to the interests of the state. Only when the

general equality of all citizens of the state opens to every man an

equal field for the activity of his personal ego, have the Ukrainians

been able to do the state-idea justice and to embody it very finely.

They have given the best proof of this in the Zaporog Cossack

organization. This fact gives us the only hope that the Ukrainians may

yet become an organized nation in modern times. The present manner of

national life is what the Ukrainians wished to have centuries ago—much

too early, of course.

In view of the great uniformity, every rise of land is significant.

Slight elevations, chains of hills, river valleys, even swamps and

forests appear in the Ukraine as important boundaries, lines of

defence, foundations for cities and castles, fortified places, lookout

stations, etc. Even the many barrows (mohili, kurhani) have played an

important part in the history of the Ukraine.

The anthropogeographical significance of the Ukrainian mountains is in

general slight, altho we find all the typical influences of the

mountains in the mountain tribes of the Ukrainians. Great physical

endurance, coupled with a feeling for liberty and independence, great

personal courage, great love of country, etc., have always

distinguished the Ukrainian mountain dwellers.

The Ukrainian Carpathians are, to this day, one of the most thinly

settled regions of the Ukraine, chiefly for the reason that it was

always a passive region, which was not considered in political life.

Great historical movements hardly ever touched the Carpathians. For

many centuries they remained almost devoid of human life. Hence, the

Carpathians played hardly any part as a border defence of the Ukrainian

state organizations. Mountain chains usually are of very great

importance as a defence for individual tribes or entire races. The

Carpathians, with their great ease of passage, especially in the

Ukrainian part, have been of no significance in this respect. They did

provide effective protection for the Walachian shepherds thru many

centuries. These shepherds led a nomad life with their flocks on the

Carpathian pastures, and left proof of their presence in numerous names

of mountains, rivers and villages. The Carpathians also provided

shelter for the numerous Ukrainian fugitives who fled from oppressive

serfdom and formed bands of half-political freebooters, friends of the

lowly, and warriors against the lords (oprishki). The brigandage

peculiar to all mountain regions flourished also in the Carpathians.

But no state originated in the Carpathians. The Alps were the

foundation of Switzerland, and played a part in the formation of the

Austrian state. The Carpathians have given the Ukraine nothing, apart

from occasional passing shelter.

At this point we must emphasize another anthropogeographical

characteristic of the mountains. It is the general poverty of their

inhabitants and their consequent desire, under compulsion, to seek

expansion. The inhabitants of the Ukrainian Carpathians, about the

middle of the 19th Century, were in a serious economic condition

because of the small amount of productive ground. Need came first to

the Lemkos, then to the Boikes, and last to the Hutzuls. Above all, it

partly divested the mountain population of the then predominating

industry of cattle raising. The Lemkos at first carried on a lively

trade in wagon grease thruout the southern part of Eastern Europe, then

they turned to harvest work, in the surrounding lowlands, and last to

the annual emigration to America. The Boikes first carried on trade in

salt, then changed to the fruit trade, which they are carrying on

today, down as far as Warsaw and Moscow. Very lately, the annual

emigration to America has been depleting their ranks also. The Hutzuls

have but just begun to resort to emigration. They hire out less

frequently for agricultural work than for the lumber industry, in which

they are very skilful. Their highly developed domestic industry, which

borders on the artistic, might provide them with rich support, but it

is rather hindered than advanced by the determining factors of the

land.

In presenting the general influence of the ground formation on the

people, we must also consider the anthropogeographical significance of

the geological conditions of the country. They should not be

underestimated, as one might expect, while to overestimate them, as

some scholars have done, by even referring anthropological

characteristics back to the geological composition of the country, is

quite as bad; at all events very many of the living conditions of the

inhabitants are dependent upon the geological make-up of the land. We

shall skip over the great importance of the geological composition of

the country for the surface formations which it determines. We shall

pay attention only to the direct geological influences.

The Ukraine possesses very great mineral treasures. The most important

mineral deposits for the present time, namely, coal, iron, salt and

petroleum, are very large in the Ukraine. Of all these mineral

treasures, however, only the salt deposits have had an historical

significance, since far back in the period of the Kingdoms of Kiev and

Halich they furthered active trade and commerce, and later favored the

development of the Chumak organization. The other mineral treasure

attained a greater importance only in the past century. When one

considers today that the Ukraine furnishes almost three-fourths of the

coal and iron output of Russia, one can readily believe that the

Ukraine might some day become as great an industrial country as

Germany, England or Belgium. A single glance at the mining map of the

Ukraine soon shows us, however, how small the regions containing this

abundance of mineral wealth are in proportion to the entire territory.

Then everyone can understand what the geological composition of the

country means. It condemns the Ukraine forever to remain an

agricultural country, altho it also permits the development of a

considerable industry in several centers.

The same path of future development is outlined for the Ukraine by its

fertile soil. Almost three-fourths of the Ukrainian territory lies

within the Eastern European black-earth zone. The chornozyom, one of

the most fertile species of earth on the globe, makes the Ukraine the

most fruitful land of Europe. We need not wonder, therefore, that the

Ukrainians have, to this day, remained almost entirely an agricultural

people. The fertility of the soil must also remain the greatest wealth

of the land into the remotest future. Now that the greatest grain lands

of the earth, the American prairies and pampas, the Australian

border-steppes, etc., have been almost entirely subjected to

cultivation, the extensive market production of grain must, in the

nearest future, give way to intensive production. Then the importance

of the Ukrainian black earth, which has maintained its great fertility

for thousands of years, will become even greater than it is today; and

even today the Ukraine must be considered one of the main centers of

grain production.

The fertility of the Ukrainian soil has had several unfavorable as well

as favorable results. Like a promised land, the Ukraine has always

lured foreign conquerors and colonists. Its fertility has brought the

Ukraine much war and trouble. For centuries the fertile ground of the

Ukraine gave its own people only a part of its rich produce. To this

day the foreign landowners and grain merchants demand the greater part

of the harvest, while the native people of the Ukraine, who have dwelt

in the land since time out of mind, can hardly reserve enough for

themselves to keep from dying of hunger.

The fertile Ukrainian ground has exerted another important unfavorable

influence over the Ukrainian people. The great fertility of its fields

has caused a certain indifference and carelessness in planting among

the Ukrainian peasants. To be sure, the Ukrainian is a better farmer

than the White Russian, Russian or Roumanian. But for centuries he has

been accustomed to depend on the fertility of his native soil and is,

therefore, far behind the progressive farmer of Central or Western

Europe. Antiquated methods of planting have until recently prevailed in

the Ukraine without the slightest change. At the same time the ground

has become scant, and progressive methods of cultivation must be

adopted in order to get as much as possible out of the land and to

balance the relative diminution of the cultivation area.

The geological conditions have also exerted a great deal of influence

over the buildings and roads of the Ukraine. Clay houses, covered with

straw, are still typical for the Ukraine today. Only in the most recent

times brick houses, covered with shingle, are beginning to appear in

the Ukrainian villages. Stone buildings were not original with the

Ukraine, and were only adopted with the higher grade of culture. The

cause of this is not the lack of building material. Almost everywhere

in the Ukraine good building-stone is found beneath the thick cover of

loose earth. But the abundance of clay always showed the nearer and

easier way—clay huts. Even this small matter has had an unhappy

influence upon the fate of the Ukraine. The ancient Ukrainian cities

consisted chiefly of wood and clay buildings and were fortified by

means of earthworks, palisades and clay covered wooden towers. Walled

houses and circular walls were very rare. This condition made the

defence of the cities and castles, even against the attacks of nomadic

tribes, very difficult. The ancient Ukrainian State would not have been

destroyed so soon if it had had an abundance of strongly fortified

walled cities.

The black earth and clay sub-layer of the Ukraine has, since the most

ancient times, been an unfavorable influence as far as the quality of

its roads are concerned. Outside of the negligence of the Polish and

the Russian State, which alternated in the domination of the Ukrainian

territory, natural conditions, too, have had a great deal to do with

the roads in the Ukraine. The stone lay far below the loose cover of

clay; it was used very rarely for building purposes; hence the idea of

plastering the roads with stones could hardly occur to anyone.

We shall now consider the anthropogeographical significance of the

Ukrainian bodies of water. Of the importance of the Black Sea we have

already spoken. The Ukrainian people lived in close connection with

this sea in the days of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev, as well as in the

days of the Cossack organization. But the lack of well-developed coast,

of harbors and islands, have prevented the development of the

Ukrainians into a seafaring nation, altho favorable tendencies were not

lacking. The smallness and isolation of the Black Sea could not favor

the development of navigation. The frequency of dangerous storms had a

deterring effect, altho they strengthened the courage of the sailors.

Then again, the smallness of the sea made the use of small vessels

sufficient, which could more readily find shelter at any time or at any

point along the coast, with its few harbors, than larger ships. These

circumstances have hindered the development of extensive navigation for

long distance traffic. Hence, the Ukrainians, altho in certain periods

of their history they gained a not inconsiderable familiarity with the

sea, could not rise to a genuine seafaring people.

Much stronger ties connect the Ukrainian people with the rivers of its

territory. The rivers have an anthropogeographical significance chiefly

as ways of travel. The great main streams of the Ukraine, particularly

the Dnieper and the Dniester, have always had the character of a

transition between rivers and arms of the sea. At the time of the

ancient Kingdom of Kiev, seafaring vessels sailing up the Dniester

reached the royal city of Halich, and, in the time of the Cossacks, the

Zaporog boats were pursued by the Turkish galleys as far as the rapids

of the Dnieper. As far as ancient navigation was concerned, there was

very little difference between river and sea; rivers were simply the

extension of sea routes. In the ancient Ukraine, the Varangians were

the first to use them in this sense. Their route “from the Varangian

Land to Greece,” which later became one of the main paths of the old

Kingdom of Kiev, led from the Baltic to the Black Sea by way of rivers

and portages. These wanderings of the Varangians in the Ukrainian water

system are of great historical significance. For altho we are now

almost certain that the Varangians were not the founders of the Kingdom

of Kiev, it cannot be denied that they played a great part in the

forming of it.

Rivers are natural, and therefore, also the easiest and cheapest roads.

Especially in countries of great area, as the United States, Russia and

the Ukraine, the importance of rivers as roadways is very great. Rivers

connect the nations. The Dniester and the Dnieper connected the Ukraine

with the sea, with the highly-cultured Constantinople, with the entire

Mediterranean and Oriental world of culture. The Dnieper, thru its much

branched water-web, connected the Ukraine directly with Poland and

White Russia, and indirectly with the Baltic Sea and Northern Europe.

Even today, altho the canals connecting the Dnieper with the Vistula,

Niemen, and Dvina are entirely neglected, the Dnieper River plays a

very significant part as a great vein of traffic connecting different

lands, peoples and producing regions. It may become more important

still if it is made accessible to sea vessels and connects two distant

seas.

In the Cossack period a considerable portion of the Ukrainians became a

river people. The life and work of the Zaporog Sich depended entirely

upon the Dnieper River. It protected, fed and clothed them. So strongly

were the Zaporogs bound to the Dnieper, so necessary did the great

river become to them, that all attempts to found new Zaporog centers on

other rivers simply failed. We need not wonder, then, that the Dnieper

is celebrated in all the Cossack songs as a sacred possession of the

nation.

Closely connected with the character of rivers as roadways, is their

importance as the directing lines of the movements of races. The

history of the Ukraine tells us how the ancient Kingdom of Kiev

penetrated toward the south along the Dnieper, and how the Kingdom of

Halich reached the delta of the Danube by way of the Dniester and Prut.

Most likely the first expansion of the Ukrainians proceeded along the

Dniester, Boh and Dnieper, southward. At the time of the great shifts

of the Ukrainian southeast border, the advance of the Ukrainians was

always directed southeast, their retreat always northwest. The history

of the 16th Century shows plainly how the first pioneers of the new

colonization movement—the Cossacks—pushed along the Dnieper, toward the

southeast, into the steppe region. Altho it is a commonplace, yet it

may be established without doubt that the whole Ukrainian nation took

its way southeast along the Ukrainian rivers. To this day the national

territory of the Ukraine is advancing irresistibly in that direction.

But not only with the southeast has Nature connected the Ukraine.

Important borderlands of the Ukrainian territory—Central Galicia, the

region of Kholm, Podlakhia, Western Volhynia—with their river system,

belong to the Baltic slope. At the same time, the transition from the

Pontian river system to the Baltic system is very easy, the divides

flat and low. The easy transition from the Dniester to the San and Buh,

from the Pripet to the Vistula and the Niemen, was of great importance

in the past, when western influences could easily penetrate these

Ukrainian borderlands, and is of great importance in the present. If,

in the near future, the now antiquated canals are improved and new ones

built, the Ukraine will have as good connections with the west as it

has with the east. Then the Ukraine may, from a hydrographic point of

view, gain great importance as a transition country of important

waterways.

By no means accidental is the remarkable fact that the Ukraine has no

hydrographic connection with the northeast, the real Muscovite country.

Of the country drained by the Don, only the region of the Donetz (which

also flows southeast) and the mouth of the main stream belong to the

territory of the Ukraine, and that only since a relatively short time.

Outside of the Don region the Ukraine has no hydrographic connections

with the Muscovite country, which has always had different directions,

different channels of traffic, and different centers of waterways.

Modern geography does not consider rivers good natural boundaries, and

does not believe in their powers of separation. In the Ukraine, rivers

have played almost no part as boundaries. Even the Pripet, surrounded

as it is with inaccessible swamps, does not make a good natural

boundary between the Ukraine and White Russia. The ethnographic

influences on both sides, and even the political boundaries are hardly

considered. Nor could the rivers be important lasting obstacles;

instead of separating they are more likely to connect individuals, and

even whole nations. Only as passing, momentary obstacles, they were of

importance to the Ukraine in the innumerable wars which were waged on

Ukrainian soil, and much Ukrainian blood was carried by them to the

sea.

We now come to the relations between climate and people of the Ukraine.

The situation of the Ukraine at an equal distance from the equator and

the pole, on the southeast border of the European continent, which is

so very favored climatically, has given the country one of the finest

climates of the temperate zone. The hot summer permits of an extensive

exploitation of the ground, the severe winter hardens the body and

strengthens the soul, strong winds clear the atmosphere and bring

motion into nature. The amount of rainfall is sufficient for the

vegetable world, and is as far removed from the superabundance of damp

Western Europe, as from the deadly dryness of the Asiatic steppes.

As for the general influence of the Ukrainian climate upon the people,

it is in the main similar to that of Western and Central Europe. The

Ukrainians are one of the northern peoples of Europe, and they show it

by the difficulty with which they become acclimated to the tropical

conditions of Brazil and Argentina. There conditions are much worse for

the Ukrainians than for the Spaniards, Portuguese and Italians, but at

least better than for the English or Scandinavians. The Ukrainian is

already accustomed to a hot and long summer in his native land. He

accustoms himself quickly and easily to the cold Siberian climate,

because the frosts in the Ukraine, despite the short frost period, are

very severe. For climatic reasons then, the colonial capacity of the

Ukrainians must be even better than that of most of the peoples of

Western or Central Europe.

The climate of the Ukraine, which we have discussed in a preceding

chapter, is very uniform thruout the entire great territory, with the

exception of the southern borders. This homogeneity is favorable on the

one hand, because it advances the homogeneity of the people,

unfavorable on the other hand, because differences in climate as a rule

enliven and quicken the course of history of a country. The variations

in character of the people and in the mode of living due to the

differences in climate give countless impulses to development and to

progress.

Despite the general uniformity of the climate, we do find appreciable

differences when we compare the northern border regions of our country

with the southern ones. The Ukraine has the same climatic peculiarity

as France on a small scale, the transition of the temperate to the

Mediterranean climate without sharply defined boundaries. In this way

some difference of products does arise, which advances the development

of trade and commerce.

In our description of the Ukrainian climate, we emphasized its peculiar

position as compared with the climates of the adjacent districts of

Eastern Europe. Just beyond the borders of the Ukraine, to the north

and east, the annual temperature becomes lower and the duration and

severity of the winter suddenly becomes very much greater. The

Muscovite climate and that of the Ukraine would not be ranked together

by anyone who understands anything about the matter. And yet the

renowned historian and publicist, Leroy Beaulieu, considers a uniform

climate as one of the chief causes of the unity of Russia. In January,

he writes, one may ride in a sleigh from Astrakhan to Archangel; the

Sea of Azof and the Caspian Sea freeze over just as the White Sea or

the Finnish Gulf, the Dnieper as well as the Dvina; the winter wraps

north and south in one vast blanket of snow every year. Less strong are

the ties formed by the summer, but there is a preponderance of unifying

circumstances.

Such statements can come only from one who has no conception of

climatology and anthropogeography. On such premises no conclusions may

be based, except by persons who have previously constructed a

hypothesis and now wish at all costs, to prove its validity. For it is

certainly generally known that the same winter covers all Scandinavia,

Poland, Germany and Northern France together with the same white

mantle. In the winter-time one may travel by sleigh not only from

Astrakhan to Archangel, but also to Irkutsk in one direction and to

Stockholm in the other, and even to Paris. Not only the Dnieper

freezes, but also the Vistula, the Oder, the Elbe, and sometimes even

the Seine. If we consider ice and snow as the basis of “unification,”

very little of Europe remains. For not only in snow and ice should we

seek signs of uniformity in climate, but in its general character, in

the community of all climatic characteristics. It is true that the

Ukraine is part of the Eastern European climatic province, but in this

province we may also include almost all of Sweden, almost all of

Poland, a part of Austria-Hungary and Prussia, and Supan adds all of

Western Siberia, Caucasia and Turkestan as well. Every geographer

understands that so great a climatic province must be divided into

smaller districts even in climatology, not to mention the details of

daily life. Every inhabitant of Southern Russia, whether a Ukrainian or

not, feels the difference of the Ukrainian climate from that of St.

Petersburg or Moscow very keenly. There is hardly a Russian author who

does not describe the fine climate of the Ukraine as wonderfully mild

compared to the inhospitable climate of his native land. How keenly,

then, does a Ukrainian feel the difference in the two climates, who is

forced to live in the cold Muscovite country.