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The Ukraine lies between 43° and 54° north latitude
_and between 21° and 47° east longitude from Greenwich,
/if we look for our country on a map we will find that it
lies as the northern hinterland of the Black Sea, in the
southern part of Eastern Europe, just on the threshold of
Asia. From the foot of the Tatra Mountains, from the
sunny Hegyalia and cloud-wreathed Chornohora, from the
silver-rippled San, from the dark virgin forest of Biloveza
and the immense swamps of Polissye, to the delta of the
Danube — so often sung in the lore of the Ukrainian folk —
to the Black Sea, to the gigantic Caucasians and the
Caspian, surrounded by brown desert steppes, extends our
fatherland, the Ukraine. From the beginnings of the his-
torical life of Eastern Europe, for one thousand two hundred
years, the Ukrainian race has resided in this region, and
has been able, not only to preserve its boundaries, but,
after heavy losses, to regain and even to pass beyond them.
And this continued thru centuries of stress, thru bloody
wars, after the loss of the first and second national govern-
ments, and under the merciless pressure of neighboring
states and peoples. That other nations, as the French,
the Italians, the Spaniards, should have preserved their
original seats, is not surprising; they were protected on all
sides by high mountains and deep seas. All the more,
therefore, must we admire the great vitality of the Ukrain-
ian nation, which has been able to retain in its possession a
mother-country lying open, almost without any protection,
to mighty enemies.
For the Ukraine lies at the southeastern edge of Europe,
on the threshold of Asia, at the point where the easiest
overland route connects the two continents. For an
entire period of a thousand years, this border position was
most disadvantageous and dangerous for the Ukraine;
for Nature and History did not bring the Ukraine, placed
as it is, into the proximity of that part of Asia which for
thousands of years past had been inhabited by the rich
civilizations of that continent. The Ukraine has always
been the nearest European neighbor of the steppe-country
of Central Asia. There, from the earliest beginnings of
history, dwelt pillaging hordes of Nomads, who would
flood Europe from this point. The Pontian steppes of the
Southern Ukraine were, for these steppe-people, the natural
military road to the West and Southwest, where the rich,
civilized lands of the Mediterranean region lay invitingly
open. For more than a thousand years, from the beginnings
of the history of the Ukraine, these nomadic Asiatic tribes
traversed the South Ukrainian steppes, covering the entire
Ukraine with war and unspeakable misery. Huns, Avars,
Khazars, Magyars, Pechenegs, Torks, Berendians, Polovs,
Tatars, Kalmucks, infested the Ukraine in succession.
Of all the European peoples, the Ukrainians always had to
be the first to oppose these steppe-plunderers. The
nomads always had first to force their way thru the Ukraine.
Many of them were annihilated by the ancient Ukrainians ;
thus, the Khazars, Pechenegs, Torks and Berendians;
others were held off, as the Polovs or the Kalmucks. But
the Ukraine exhausted its strength in this eternal warfare,
and, in the terrible stress occasioned by the Tatars, lost
their ancient culture and their mighty state.
If, therefore, any one of the European nations may
claim the credit of having been Europe's shield against
Asiatic barbarism, it is the half-forgotten Ukrainian
nation.
The border position of the Ukraine was fatal also, for
the reason that the country lay, and lies, so far distant from
the cultural centers of Europe. As long as the Byzantine
Empire, with its cultural wealth, remained firm, a strong
stream of culture flowed from the Pontus into the Ukraine.
The decline and fall of the Byzantine Empire suddenly
transferred the Ukraine to the furthest (in respect to
culture) corner of Europe, close to the Ottoman Empire,
which was at that time hostile to culture.^, The western
neighbors of the Ukraine, the Magyars and Poles, acquired
little of the culture of Western Europe in the time of their
independence, and allowed still less to slip thru into the
Ukraine. The Russians entered the circle of European
culture only two centuries ago, and have made only
superficial cultural progress since.
And yet the geographical location of the Ukraine is not
without favorable features. The Ukraine embraces the
entire northern coast of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof,
and holds considerable possibilities for oversea commerce.
The proximity of Asia is no longer dangerous, but, on the
contrary, very advantageous. A century and a half has
passed since the power of the steppe-races was finally
broken. Their heritage has been taken possession of, altho
in a different manner, by the Ukrainian peasant, who has
thickly settled the Pontian steppes. With plow in hand, he
has reconquered the lands which his ancestors tried in
vain to defend with the sword. Ukrainian colonization is
still advancing irresistibly in the Crimea and in the fore-
country of the Caucasus, and will, no doubt, within a very
short time, flood these countries completely.
A further advantage of location lies in the circumstance
that the Ukraine is situated on the shortest land-route from
Central Europe to the southern part of Central Asia and
India, and commands a good portion of this route. This
fact may, in the very near future, be of the greatest political
and economic importance. At the same time, the Ukraine is
the only one of all the East European countries which,
thru its location, stands in the closest relations to the Medi-
terranean countries.!
Reserving theaetailed discussion of the Ukraine's
geographical location for the anthropogeographical part
of my little book, let us now consider the size of the Ukraine.
The area of the Ukrainian territory is 850,000 square
kilometers.
We see before us, therefore, a European country which is
surpassed in area only by present-day Russia in Europe.
No European people, with the solitary exception of the
Russians, possesses so large a compact national territory as
the Ukrainians. This characteristically Eastern European
spaciousness of the territory, combined with the natural
wealth of the region would, if coupled with Western Europe-
an culture, make a fit dwelling-place for a world-power. On
such ground as this, the possibilities for the development
of a material and intellectual culture are almost unlimited.
/ But alas! The greatest poet of the Ukraine, Taras
'Shevchenko, has characterized his fatherland all too
fittingly as "Our Land, but not belonging to us." Upon
its large and rich territory the Ukrainian nation has had to
endure so many hard buffets of fate, that it must be con-
sidered, along with the Jews, the most sorely tried civilized
race on earth. Even down to the present moment the
Ukrainians are a helot race, which is forced to unearth the
treasures of its fatherland for its hostile neighbors. /
The Black Sea and its Coasts
Altho for many centuries separated from the Pontus
by the nomad-haunted steppe-border, the Ukrainian
nation is closely identified with this sea. An enormous
number of legends and songs of the Ukrainian people deal
with it; even in fanciful love-songs it is mentioned. And
the intimacy of this East European nation with the Sea
need not surprise us. The Black Sea, with which so much
in Ukrainian song and story is connected, has had a
significance in the history of the Ukraine which has not
been forgotten in the unwritten traditions of the people.
How many cultural and warlike memories are connected
with the Black Sea! How much Ukrainian blood has mingled
with its waters!
The Black Sea is not large (450,000 square kilometers).
It is a landlocked sea, situated between Europe and Asia,
and connected with the Mediterranean Sea by the narrow
Straits of theBosphorus and the Dardanelles and the Sea of
Marmora, which, geologically speaking, is a basin formed by
subsidence. Great subsidences of the earth's surface created
the deep basin of the Pontus. The Pontus was a part of the
extensive upper Miocene and Sarmatian inland sea,
which slightly flooded large districts of the present European
continent as far as the Vienna basin. Toward the end of
the tertiary period, this inland sea shrank and separated
into single sea basins. The Pontian basin became connected
with the Mediterranean Sea later, in the latter part of the
diluvial period, by means of great subsidences of recent date.
The present morphology of the Pontus is in full accord
with this genesis. The northern part, as far as the line of
communication between the Balkan and Yaila Mountains,
is a shallow sea of a depth of less than 200 meters; the
so-called bay of Odessa is barely 50 meters deep; the Sea
of Azof, projecting to the northeast, barely 15 meters.
But just on the southern border of the line of plicated
mountains, which is broken at this point, the bottom of the
Black Sea declines rapidly to greater depths (1500 meters)
until, declining more gradually now, it attains the depth
of 2245 meters in the center of the oval-shaped main
basin of the Pontus.
The salt content of the Black Sea is much smaller
than that of the ocean, or even of the Mediterranean. The
Sea is comparatively small, and receives a great deal of
fresh water from the many and large rivers of the region
which it drains, while the influx of salt water from the
Mediterranean thru the shallow straits cannot be great.
The salt content is on the average 1.8%; only at great
depths does it reach 2.2%. The diluted surface layer
shows barely 1.5% salt content; the Sea of Azof hardly
1%. The surface water, containing little salt but a great
deal of air, cannot, because of the greater density of the
lower layers of water, sink far, and this low degree of
ventilation accounts for the fact that the waters of the
Black Sea below a depth of 230 meters are saturated with
sulphide of hydrogen, and thus preclude any possibility of
organic deep-sea life.
Nevertheless, the Black Sea is notable for its beautiful
blue-green color and the great transparency of its waters.
A white disc, on being submerged, disappeared only at a
depth of 77 meters.
The surface temperature of the Black Sea is subject to
many fluctuations; from 27° C in midsummer to 5° C in
winter. In severe winters the Sea is frozen over in the bay
of Odessa for a short time; the Limans and the Sea of
Azof regularly for from two to three months.
The Black Sea has been known since hoary antiquity as
a dangerous, stormy sea. The waves, running as high as
10 meters, the short cross-waves caused by the proximity
of the shores, the difficult approaches to the land, are still
a great hindrance to navigation, especially in the winter
time. Not without cause did the Greeks originally call it
"the inhospitable sea," until the great number of flourishing
Greek settlements on its shores led them to change its name
to "hospitable sea." Despite this euphemistic name, how-
ever, "Pontus Euxeinos," the Black Sea has devoured many
goods and lives, many Greek and Roman ships, many
Turkish and Genoese galleys, many English and Russian
steamers. And many a little Zaporog vessel sank in the
dark waves of its native sea, "on white cliffs dashed to
pieces," as is related in the old folk-epics; many a one was
driven to far-off hostile Turkish shores, to the destruction
of its crews.
Being a closed interior sea, the Pontus has no noticeable
tides. Marked changes of level are caused by the action
of the wind. In the liman of the Boh, for example, they pro-
duce 20 centimeters difference of level in a day, sometimes
even 40 centimeters; in the bay of Yah6rlik as much as
46 centimeters. The Sea of Azof becomes 45 to 90 centi-
meters deeper when there is a west wind, up to 1 meter
deeper in the case of south winds, and shallower by an
equal amount when the winds are in the opposite direction.
Slight changes of level are dependent also on the seasons.
The Black Sea has its lowest water level in February,
when the region which it drains is covered with snow; the
highest in May and June, as a result of the melting of the
snows and the early summer rains. These fluctuations,
however, amount to only 25 cm. The currents of the
Black Sea, too, are inconsiderable, because of its isolation.
Outside of local currents which are caused by winds, we
know of only one greater current, weak in itself, which
encircles the Pontian Basin in a counter clock-wise direction
and may be traced to the cyclonal motion of the air.
The same conditions obtain on a smaller scale on the Sea
of Azof and are reflected in the direction of the tongues
of land along the coasts.
Despite the fact that the deep-sea region of the Black
Sea is poisoned with sulphide of hydrogen, it possesses a
rich flora and fauna in its surface layers. Enormous
shoals of all kinds of fish — sturgeon, hausen, sterlet, "kephal,"
"bichok," "balmut," come to the coast and into the limans
of the river deltas. For this reason the Pontian fishing
industry has been considerable for thousands of years.
The extraction of salt from the limans and salt lakes is
also important. Before the age of the railroad the abun-
dance of fish and salt of the Black Sea created a special
trucking trade in the Ukraine, the so-called Chumaki,
who came to the Pontian strand in whole caravans of ox-
carts to take dried fish and salt in exchange for grain.
The Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea begins at the delta
of the Danube and ends at the western spurs of the Cau-
casus. The greater part is flat coast, the smaller, steep
coast.
At the northern Kilian arm of the Danube delta, where
now the descendants of the Zaporog Cossacks gain a
scanty living thru fishing, begins the coast of the Ukraine.
The steppe approaches the sea with a steep declivity,
which is bordered by a narrow strand of sand and pebbles.
The coast runs evenly as far as the Dnieper delta, without
any indentations. Even the famous port of Odessa is an
artificial harbor.
Only at a point where a river, a streamlet, even a balka
(step-glen, ravine) opens into the sea, is the steep incline
of the steppe-plateau broken. We then see before us an
enormous pond as it were, at the upper end of which the
water-course enters and the lower end of which is locked
from the sea side by a land-tongue or bar (Kossa, Peresip)
as by a flat dam. This sea-water lake is called liman in
Ukrainian.
Wherever a stream of great volume empties into a
liman, the bar is severed at one or more places. These
liman deltas are called, in Ukrainian, hirl6. Limans which
have such connections with the sea are broken. Of such a
kind are the limans of the Kunduk, Dniester, Boh and
Dnieper. Where a little streamlet discharges which has
not a sufficient volume of water to cover the loss from
evaporation of the liman surface and still retain an excess
for keeping open the outlet, then the bar of the liman is
without an opening and the water contains a great deal of
salt. Of this kind are, above all, the limans of Kuyalnik
and Khadshib6 near Odessa, the large, deep Tilihul and
many smaller ones. The water and the mud of such limans
possess healing powers, and every summer thousands of
patients travel to the hot shores of the limans to regain
their health.
The limans are simply submerged eroded valleys of
steppe rivers which are now being filled in by alluvial
deposits. Therefore, the limans of all larger rivers are too
shallow to serve as good harbors for the larger sea-going
vessels. The liman of the Dniester allows entrance only
to small ships drawing two meters of water; the gigantic
Dnieper liman is only 6 m. deep, and only the Boh liman
is accessible to larger sea-going ships. Systematic dredging,
however, could, without a doubt, bring relief, and would
change a number of the limans into profitable harbors.
Beginning at the liman of the Dnieper, the coast is
strongly indented as far as the bay of Karkinit, but these
indentations (Yahorlik, Tendra, Kharilgach) are closed off
by long tongues of land and the undersea extension of the
bar of Bakalsk. The west coast of Crimea is also a uni-
form liman coast, increasing constantly in height, however,
toward the south. At the Alma delta the coast becomes
steep and has two excellent harbors, Sevastopol and
Balaklava, which are submerged deep valleys. The
southeast coast of the Crimean peninsula is a strongly
marked acclivitous shore. The steep descent of the Yaila
Mountains has been transformed here, thru the abrasive
action of the sea, into a beautiful coastline. Eruptive rock,
capable of offering great resistance, is found here in places,
forming picturesque capes, jetties and crags, between which
lie pretty little bays and coves. The agreeable climate,
the clear sky, the good sea-baths and the beautiful country
annually lure to this Ukrainian Riviera thousands of
consumptives and health-seekers. There are rows and
rows of cottage-colonies and mansions.
Beginning at the crescent-shaped bay of Feodosia,
the coast again becomes lower and also has a number of
salty lagoons and bars. Of the same description are the
coasts of the Strait of Kerch, leading into the Sea of Azof,
which is 35,000 sq. km. in area. This extremely flat sea
is often compared to a liman. Numerous tongues of land
(Biriucha, Obitochna, Berdianska, Kossa, etc.) jut out
here into the sea, showing very clearly in their direction
the effect of the cyclonal motion of the air. The low coast
has an enormous number of limans and lagoons, e. g.,
Utluk, Mius, Molochni, Yeski, Akhtirski, Tamanski,
Kisiltash, etc. The most remarkable part of the Sea of
Azof, however, is the Sivash. A bar 111 km. in length
shuts the Sivash off from the Sea of Azof, leaving only a
connecting passage of 150 m.,near Henichesk. The curiously
ragged banks of red-clay, the salt swamps, lagoons and
islands, the bracken, ill-smelling water, which is salty in
summer, and in a few spots at other times as well, have
given the Sivash the name of Foul Sea (Hnile More).
The eastern part of the Ukraine's Black Sea coast is
a mountainous cliff-coast again. The plications of the
western Caucasus, which approach the sea obliquely, are
here so quickly destroyed by the powerful abrasive action
of the surf, that the erosive action of the rivers and moun-
tain streams cannot keep pace. Therefore, the crest is
difficult of access and only the two harbors of Novorossiysk
and Gelendshik offer shelter for ships along this part of the
coast. But even this shelter is doubtful, because of the
bora-like winds.
As we perceive from this description of the Ukrainian
coast, it is not one which would promote navigation among
the inhabitants. Lack of harbors, isolation, remoteness
from the main lines of the world's traffic, never could have
an encouraging effect upon the development of navigation
among the Ukrainians. Despite all this, however, they
developed very high seafaring qualities in the time of the
old Kingdom- of Kiev and later on in the Cossack period,
and the present age, too, has brought a revival of the
nautical skill of the Ukrainian coast population.
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