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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 east-
ward 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 geograph-
ical 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 ex-
posed 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 comparative-
ly 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 amost 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 sig-
nificance 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 Eu-
rope 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 sys-
tematically 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 be-
hind 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 them-
selves 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 situa-
tion 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 consti-
tuted the advance guard of European civilization on their
continent. Yet this analogy is a very weak and incom-
plete one. The Zaporog Cossacks can in no way be com-
pared 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 geo-
graphical 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 impercepti-
ble, 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 Ukrain-
ian 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 con-
sidered 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 unsys-
tematic 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 begining 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 unintention-
ally, 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 materializa-
tion 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, cultur-
ally, as to be able to teach the Ukrainians anything. The
centers of Western and Central European culture Ger-
many, 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 pre-
ponderance 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 anthropogeo-
graphical 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 boun-
daries. 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 Car-
pathians 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 authropogeographical character-
istics 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 there-
fore 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 thou-
sands 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 inhabi-
tants, 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 develop-
ment 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 develop-
ment of great political strength, the capacity for centraliza-
tion; 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 individual-
ity to the interests of the state. Only when the general
equality of all citizens of the state opens to every man ah
equal field for the activity of his personal ego, have the
Ukrainians been able to do the state-idea justice and to em-
body 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 impor-
tant boundaries, lines of defence, foundations for cities
and castles, fortified places, lookout stations, etc. Even
the many barrows (mohili, kurhani) have played an im-
portant 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 op-
pressive 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 foun-
dation 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 anthropogeo-
graphical characteristic of the mountains. It is the
general poverty of their inhabitants and their consequent
desire, under compulsion, to seek expansion. The inhabi-
tants 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 forma-
tion on the people, we must also consider the anthropo-
geographical 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 produc-
tion. 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 Ukrain-
ian 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. Anti-
quated 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 diminu-
tion 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 in-
portance 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 pre-
vented 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 anthropogeo-
graphical 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 Constanti-
nople, 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 road-
ways, 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 Pruth. 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 estab-
lished 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 border-
lands, 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 impor-
tance as a transition country of important waterways.
By no means accidental is the remarkable fact that the
Ukraine has no hydrographic connection with the north-
east, 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 rela-
tively short time. Outside of the Don region the Ukraine
has no hydrographic connections with the Muscovite coun-
try, 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 separ-
ation. 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 bound-
ary between the Ukraine and White Russia. The ethno-
graphic 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 bor-
der 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 exten-
sive 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 north-
ern peoples of Europe, and they show it by the difficulty
with which they become acclimated to the tropical con-
ditions 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 Medi-
terranean 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 em-
phasized 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 Scandi-
navia, 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.
The climatic difference is illustrated more clearly still
when we consider the matter from the climatological side.
Voyekov, the great Russian climato pzeshasiemlogist,
expressly the slight cover of snow in the Ukraine, the
relatively high temperature of the warmer periods of the
winter, and the abnormally warm spring, which is due to
the lightness of the snow-cover, which requires only a little
of the spring warmth to melt it. The snow cover of
Poland, Lithuania or Northeastern Germany is much
more similar to that of Muscovy than the Ukrainian. The
January isotherms in the Ukraine switch over from the
N. to S. direction to the N. W. to S. E. direction. The
isotherm of the typical Russian winter (January 8 to 10ฐ)
avoids the region of the Ukraine entirely. It is true that
the Dnieper and Dniester have the same amount of ice as
the Volga or the Dvina. But here the main consideration
should be the period of freezing; the Dvina is covered over
for 190 days, the Volga 160, the Dnieper in the Ukraine
only 80 to 100 days, the Dniester 70 days. These are cer-
tainly greater differences. Still greater differences between
the Ukrainian and the Muscovite climates become evident
when we compare the length of the winter, or the time
suitable for work outdoors. In Great Russia this time is
at most four months; in the Ukraine, at least six and a half;
and in its southern borderlands even nine months. Such
differences play a great part in the life of the people. The
time of the winter obstructions and enforced idleness is
twice as great in Russia as in the Ukraine. The struggle
with the cold takes on forms in the Ukraine which are
entirely analogous to the Western European forms. In
the Muscovite country we observe polar elements in the
winter-life of the people. The Ukrainian winter does not
depress the people, does not bore them to death, but only
steels their bodies in the struggle with the cold and gives
them the desired rest after the summer's heat. The winter
is the time of the most intensive social life among the
Ukrainian peasantry.
The spring of the Ukraine, warm and sunny, has quite
a different influence upon people to that of the cool, damp
Russian or Polish spring. The sunny climate of the spring
and the cloudlessness of the summer have produced in
the Ukrainian a quiet, fundamentally cheerful temper.
Yet, we find in him none of the gaiety which is charac-
teristic of the people of the south as compared with the
people of the north, but rather a quiet melancholy. It is
just the Russians or the Poles that are of a much gayer
sort than the Ukrainians, livelier, more easy-going in their
social life, more frolicsome; not the Ukrainians, but the
Russians and Poles, are the very ones that are vying with
one another for the epithet of the "Frenchmen of the
North" or "of the East," respectively. (This remarkable
fact is due, in the first place, to the unhappy history of the
Ukraine). But, on the other hand, the melancholy of the
Ukrainians is quiet, while the occasional melancholy of
the Russians turns into despair and pessimism.
The Ukrainian summer and fall, warm and beautiful,
has made the Ukrainian, in contrast with the Russian, a
farmer par excellence. The warmth of these seasons is
very similar to Southern European conditions, and gives
to the life of the Ukrainian people many southern charac-
teristics. The life in open communion with Nature, the
accessibility of her organic treasures, is much more pro-
nounced in the Ukraine than in Russia, White Russia or
Poland. In the warm seasons the Ukrainian lives much
of the time outside his house. In the day he works con-
tinuously in the field or in the garden, and even at night
he usually sleeps outdoors in the orchard or the yard.
If the fields are at a distance from the village, a large part
of the population of the place camp out in the open fields
for several days during harvest time. These are all charac-
teristics of the life of the south. Yet we see in our people
no real characteristics of the people of the south. Despite
all this, the Ukrainian is much more domestic than the
Russian, more frugal and more temperate; the "extrava-
gant Russian nature" is entirely foreign to him. We have
already seen that the Ukrainians do not have gay manners,
and in like manner their activity of thought is less than
that of the northern peoples, the Russians and the Poles.
Yet the depth of thought of the Ukrainians is much greater,
and their popular poetry incomparably deeper than that
of the Russians or Poles. Dreaminess and reserve of
character is much greater in the Ukrainians who live in the
south than in the Poles and Russians who live in the north.
All these are the effects of a sorrowful past. Only in one
respect do the Ukrainians bear out their southern type of
character; in their great abilities and their generally rich
intellectual gifts. Every unprejudiced observer must
admit that the Ukrainian peasant, almost the only typical
representative of our nation, surpasses almost all his
neighbors in his natural accomplishments.
The laziness and weakness of will peculiar to the
southern nations compared to the northern, have not
developed into a typical characteristic among the Ukrainians.
The often remarkable indifference of the Ukrainian is
rather an outgrowth of sad historical events than of the
climate and the nature of the land in general. At most
one might blame the great fertility of the black soil. For
the faith in this fertility is almost never misplaced and
favors the indifference of the peasant. On the other hand,
the five hundred years of Tatar oppression were actually
able to produce an inherited indifference. And why strive
and work, when at any moment the Tatar hordes might
come and take or burn everything?
Despite this historically inherited indifference, as we
may call it, the laziness peculiar to southerners cannot be
ascribed to the Ukrainians. They are better farmers than
all their neighbors, with the single exception of those who
adopted progressive farming, as, for example, the Prussian
Poles. Domestic industry is also well developed among
the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainian seasonal workers are
actually sought after, especially in Germany, and earn a
great deal. The Ukrainian harvest-worker is more sought
after and better paid than the Russian. He works slowly
but methodically, and achieves good results. The Ukrain-
ian colonists find tolerable living conditions in places in
which the Russian starves to death or from which he flees.
In like manner weakness of will is not a real peculiarity
of the Ukrainians, in spite of their southern location. The
thousand years' struggle with piratical Asia, the indepen-
dent establishment of t&o great state organizations,
especially the second, after three centuries of slavery, the
new awakening in the 19th Century under such difficult
and hostile conditions, the splendid colonial expansion
all this speaks rather for great energy than for weakness of
will. It is certainly true that in our people, oppressed by
centuries of serfdom, energy and strength of character
must hide beneath a thick crust of indifference, and our
educated people find their energy weakened by the bad
influence of foreign cultures. But these facts show most
clearly that an enormous amount of energy and will-
power is latent in the Ukrainian people, which, to this day,
however, has not been properly developed.
Among historians and anthropogeographers it is a
much used commonplace that the northern peoples always
appear as conquerors who subjugate the southern peoples,
and that they are always the founders of states in their
particular climatic zones. The Germans overthrew the
Roman Empire, the Northern Frenchmen founded the
French state, the Northern Spaniards the Spanish, the
Northern Italians, the Italian state, and the North Germans
united Germany. It is natural, therefore, that this com-
monplace should be applied also in Eastern Europe. The
"Northern" Russians have, by the natural necessity of
history, "united" the "southern" Russians. The, same
explanation should be accepted as a necessity by the
Ukrainians, and nothing should be done to resist this
condition !
In reality this commonplace, like so many others, is
false. The Ukrainians, as we have already observed, possess
no such characteristics, as opposed to the Russians, as a
southern race possesses with regard to a northern neighbor.
To be sure, the Russian state now dominates the Ukraine.
But the present Russian state is, after all, only a branch of
the ancient Ukrainian Kingdom of Kiev. The ancient
Ukrainian Kingdom subjugated the present Russian
territory, organized it as a state, even partly colonized it,
and gave it a ruling dynasty. The ancient Ukrainian state
tradition was usurped. by the Muscovite states, and gave
them all the prestige which the Muscovite possesses. It
was only the Tatar invasion that entirely held up the
political development of the Ukraine, and, at the same
time, favored the development of trie Muscovite Empire.
Only the Tatar invasion brought Moscow the supremacy
over the Ukraine which Russia still enjoys. It was a
foreign conquest, which has nothing to do with climatic
influences. The very name of Russia only came into use
in the time of Peter the Great!
From this survey of climatic influences, it appears,
unequivocally, that the Ukrainians cannot be classed
with the so-called southern peoples. The Ukrainians have
all the characteristics of the races of the North Temperate
Zone, who are the representatives of the European culture
of today. The growth of national consciousness and of
culture will, without a doubt, raise the Ukrainians to the
standard of the European family of cultured nations. The
nature of the country has, by means of its influences,
given them all the necessary prerequisites.
The significance of the flora and fauna, for a lowland
people like the Ukrainians, should be considered very
great. From the physico-geographical description of the
Ukraine, everyone will observe that the Ukraine may be
naturally divided into two main parts, the forest country
and the steppe country. The mountain formations take up
only a comparatively small part of our territory.
Even among the Ukrainians themselves, the opinion is
very widespread that they are a steppe-people. The
enemies of the Ukraine have largely represented them in
the eyes of Europe as a semi-nomadic steppe-people,
devoid of all culture, which thru their growth and develop-
ment might threaten the' cultural treasures of Europe.
These views, tho based partly upon the great part the
steppe has played in the history of the Ukraine, and partly
upon the unquestionable fact that three-fourths of the
present Ukrainian territory lies within the steppe region of
Eastern Europe, are, nevertheless, incorrect. For, a
glance at the floral map of Europe is enough to show that
the so-called old Ukraine, that is, the original Ukrainian
territory, lies almost completely within the forest region.
That means Galicia, Kholm, Western Podolia, Western
Volhynia, Kiev, Chernihiv, etc. From here the most
ancient Ukrainian colonization advanced to the Black Sea,
only to lose all the steppe districts again upon the sudden
nomad attack. For centuries the steppes of the present
Ukraine were the stamping-ground of Mongolian-Turkish
nomad tribes. The Cossack organization at last wrested
great areas from them, and made these accessible to
Ukrainian colonization. And only the last colonial expan-
sion of the Ukrainians has been able to reach the Pontian
shore again. The Ukrainians, then,, were originally a
forest and wood-meadow people. They have become in
part a steppe people, but only thru their latest colonial
expansion. And, just as today we would not call the
English or the North Americans steppe peoples, merely
because they colonized the American prairies and now
inhabit them, so we can no more call the Ukrainians a
steppe people, merely because they have colonized the
Southern European steppes.
Not the steppe, but the forest and the wood-meadow
are the native floral conditions of the Ukrainian. In the
forest zone and in the adjacent parts of the forest-meadow
zone, the seed of the Kiev State originated. In its expan-
sion, this state first of all embraced the forest regions of
the Ukraine, while the steppe regions were conquered later
and kept under the dominion of the state for a compara-
tively short time only. The second center of the old
Ukrainian historic life also lies within the forest zone of the
Ukraine, namely, the Galician-Volhynian. Even the
center of Ukrainian historical life that extended farthest
into the steppe, the Zaporog Sich, was dependent for its
existence upon the great wooded areas of the Veliki Luh
on the Dnieper and its tributaries, and thus bound to the
forest country.
The pronounced inclination of the Ukrainian people to
agriculture, from the most ancient times down to the
present, is another proof that it is a forest people, para-
doxical tho it may seem. For it is an undisputed fact
that, altho the steppes have apparently been most favorable
to the cultivation of the grain grasses, and altho the
present main centers of the grain production of the world
lie in the steppe country of the prairies, pampas, Ukraine,
yet nowhere in the whole world have the steppes brought
forth an agricultural people. No steppe-people, anywhere,
ever began agriculture of its own accord. The forest
peoples had to teach the steppe-races agriculture in the
first place. Only in case of bitter necessity do the inhabi-
tants of the steppes take to the plough, and never has
agriculture become part of their system to them.
How great was the part of the Ukrainian forest region
in the past life of the nation has already been suggested in
Book I. Only to the forests does the Ukrainian nation
owe its preservation during the Tatar attacks. The forests
were the only refuge of the people, to the forest zone the
inhabitants of the steppes retreated whenever the steppes
were threatened by the nomads, moving back again at a
favorable opportunity.
The Ukrainian forests have also been of great impor-
tance as boundaries. The function of the forest to form
important boundaries for races on a low grade of culture is
familiar to anthropogeography. In Ukrainian history, too,
this characteristic of the forests has appeared prominently.
The forests of the Ukrainian Polissye were of great impor-
tance for the fencing-off of the East Slavic tribes, and by
forming a wide zone, difficult of passage, separating the
East Slavic tribes of the south from those of the north and
west, they have contributed a great deal to the formation of
the three East Slavic nations of today. In the days of the
ancient Kingdom- of Kiev, the centers in which the Mus-
covite nation later developed bore the name of Salissye
(land behind the forest). There was a Pereyaslav Saliski,
Vladimir Saliski, etc.
The significance of the forest as a boundary has also
made itself felt in the internal history of the Ukraine. For
the grade of culture upon which the Ukraine remained
thruout the Middle Ages and in the early centuries of the
modern era, the forests constituted good boundaries. The
forest divided the population into small groups, which
lived apart in separate clearings, every group living its
own life. The forest made communication difficult and did
not permit the organization of a powerful central state.
The forest character of the old Ukraine was the natural
chief cause of the formation of principalities in the ancient
Kingdom of Kiev, and advanced that fateful particularism.
It is not by mere accident that Kiev lies on the border of
the forest zone of the Ukraine. Together with other
causes, the thinner forests were an aid to the more rapid
development of the Kiev principality, and made it the
natural starting point for the great expansion under the
reigns of Oleh, Sviatoslav, Volodimir.
From his original territory the Ukrainian took with
him his great preference for trees, a love of trees which
causes the white huts of a typical Ukrainian village to be
bordered with the fresh green of leaves. The green of the
trees in which the Ukrainian huts disappear, enables us
immediately to differentiate a Ukrainian from a Russian
village, which seems to be afraid of trees.
Consequently, the steppe is not originally native to the
Ukrainian. The words of the Cossack song, "The steppes
so wide, the joyous land" were not composed until the
latter days of the Cossack organization. For centuries the
steppe meant to the Ukrainian the terrible, mysterious,
"wild field," from which at every moment the nomad
hosts, like a swarm of locusts, invaded the Ukraine. The
struggles of the Kingdom of Kiev with the nomads show
an anthropogeographer very plainly the reason of their
final failure. The ancient Ukrainians, being forest dwellers,
simply could not successfully fight the riders on the natural
steppe or the artificial steppe of their own fields. The
ancient Ukrainians did not feel at home in the steppe. A
long evolution was necessary before the Ukrainians adapted
themselves to the steppe, and the beginning of this adapta-
tion was the Ukrainian Cossack organization. Not until
after the formation and development of the Cossack organi-
zation could the Ukrainian people successfully advance into
the steppe zone and colonize it. Yet the denser settlement
of the steppes did not take place until toward the end of the
18th Century. Some of these early Ukrainian settlements
have, to this day, not lost the character of new colonies.
But these steppe districts were colonized by so great a
mass of Ukrainian colonists, and they increased so rapidly
in the fertile country, that today more than half the
Ukrainians live in the steppe zone, and thereby favor the
widespread commonplace that the Ukrainians are a
steppe people.
The wealth of its flora and fauna very soon enabled
the Ukraine to prosper. Very early it was called a land
"where milk and honey flows." This natural wealth of the
organic world possessed the greater worth for the reason
that it was not soon exhausted, and offered, as it still
offers, to the population, an opportunity for constant
work, enduring activity and steady development. The
natural treasures of the Ukrainian territory are not the
treasures of tropical countries which favor laziness, but
the treasures of a more thrifty Nature, which require
constant work to properly exploit them.
Man has changed the natural conditions of the flora and
fauna of the Ukraine to a great extent. These changes are
not as fundamental as in Western and Central Europe,
but they have a great anthropogeographical significance.
The forest zone of the Ukraine is thinned even beyond the
normal and in places destroyed. The artificial steppe of the
cultivated land has penetrated very far to the north and
west. Certain plant species have become rare, others have
entirely disappeared, while, on the other hand, new ones
have been acclimated. The original wealth of game of the
Ukraine is a thing of the past now, and the great abundance
of fish is almost all gone. On the other hand, man has
increased the number of domestic animals enormously.
All these conditions give to the Ukraine characteristics
of a cultivated country. As we shall see further on, the
degree of exploitation of natural resources is still very low,
much lower than in the genuinely cultured countries of
Europe.
Despite all this, the Ukraine must be considered a land
exceptionally endowed with riches by Nature. Up to the
present day this has been a misfortune, for from all sides
strangers have come in to take with full hands of the
riches of the Ukraine.
But the time has come, at last, in which the possibility
lies in the hands of the Ukrainian people to make use in
the future of the rich resources of the Ukrainian land for
themselves.
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