Ukraine: The Ukrainian Nation

In the first chapter of our little book we mentioned the reasons which compel us to regard the Ukraine as a physico-geographic whole. We emphasized the fact that the geographic units of the great uniform country of Eastern Europe could not, for obvious natural reasons, appear so well-defined and individualized as the different sections of Western and Central Europe. The same is true of the anthropogeographic conditions of Eastern Europe as well.

The anthropogeography of Eastern Europe is so unfamiliar a part of geographic science that even such pioneer geographers as Ratzel, Kirchhoff and Hettner entirely misunderstood and misrepresented the anthropo- geographic conditions of Russia, and especially the racial conditions of this giant empire.

There are two reasons for the universal ignorance of the anthropogeographic conditions of Russia which exists even in the ranks of renowned scholars. The first cause lies in the sources from which scholars, and subsequently publicists, draw their knowledge of the subject. Now the official Russian sources on the basis of which an anthropo- geography of Eastern Europe would have to be written are not immune from serious criticism. The ranks of Russian scholars have always worked in the interests of the Russian political idea, and latterly, caught by the mighty wave of Pan-Slavic-Russian nationalism, they are doing their best to represent as actual fact whatever Russian governmental politics would desire to be fact. Russian geography, ethnography, statistics, history, have always worked in accordance with approved "unifying" designs. Hence, European learning involuntarily sees all that exists and is coming into existence in Russia thru the spectacles put on it by official Russia. The same official Russia comes to meet the European traveler upon every step of his journey, and guides him in such a way that he may be sure not to see below the general official Russian varnish what is actual and true. Besides, there is the Russian censorship, which even now, after the introduc- tion of the constitution, takes very good care to veil everything from the view of the outside world, which, in the interest of the Russian political idea, should remain hidden.

The second cause of ignorance as to the anthropogeo- graphy of Russia lies in the subject itself. The Eastern Euro- pean family of races inhabiting Russia is so different from that of Western and Central Europe in its evolution and composition, that the anthropogeographical laws and methods which (as far as civilized peoples are concerned) are based upon Western European conditions, do not apply in the least in Eastern Europe. A difficulty confronts anthropogeography here, analogous to the difficulty which confronted geologic science when, fitted out with European stratigraphy, it sought to explore South Africa or India. The geologists, as representatives of a natural science, were readily able to find the way out, but the anthropogeogra- phers, whose field is more that of a psychic science, have lost themselves in false assumptions and in commonplaces.

We must not wonder, therefore, if every critical reader of the preceding chapter is assailed by a host of questions: Why in the world are the Ukrainians, this second largest Slavic nation of the whole world, so utterly unknown? Perhaps Ukraine is only an ethnographic conception, and the Ukrainians only a branch of the Russian race, just as the Bavarians or Saxons are branches of the German people? Or are the terms "Ukraine," "Ukrainian", only outgrowths of the idle imagination of a few belated en- thusiasts, who rave about a glorious past and a brilliant future, and represent what they are striving after as a fait accompli, and so forth.

Such questions, based upon deep ignorance of the anthropogeography and history of Eastern Europe, come up in this very 20th Century, even in the learned circles of scholars, publicists and politicians. To answer these and similar questions correctly, this little book has been written.

The Ukrainians are quite as independent a Slavic nation as the Czechs, Poles, White Russians, Russians, Serbs or Bulgarians. The historic roots of the Ukrainian nation extend just as far back into the early middle ages as the roots of the German, French or English nations. The old Ukrainian Empire of Kiev is of the same age as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. But, while the evolution of the great European nations was steady and uninterrupted, the Ukrainian Nation was hindered in its development by reason of its geographical position on the threshold of Asia. The Mongolian attack in the 13th Century shattered the state of Kiev and intro- duced the 500 years' Tartar scourge. Weakened by the continual expeditions and slave-hunts of the Crimean Tatars, the Ukraine fell under the rule of Lithuania and Poland, who not only could not relieve the land of the Tatar menace but even added national, social and religious pressure. The instinct of self-preservation led the Ukrainian nation, in that troubled time, to create the splendid military organization of the Ukrainian Cossacks, and about the middle of the 17th Century, in a victorious war, to shake off the Polish yoke. Thus, the second Ukrainian state, the Cossack Republic, came into existence. By the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654) it was ceded as a vassal state to Russia, which was related to it in religious faith. But Russia broke the treaties of suzerainty, shared the desolated Ukrainian land with Poland, and, after a century and a half, changed the autonomy of the Ukraine into abject serfdom. After Russia, in the partitions of Poland, had united almost the entire Ukrainian territory under its rule (with the exception of Eastern Galicia, Northwestern Bukowina, and Northeastern Hungary), it set all forces to work to destroy the national independence of the Ukrainians as well. In the 17th and 18th Centuries the Ukrainian Nation lost its upper classes — the aristocracy, the lesser nobility, the wealthy burghers — first thru Polonization, then thru Russification. It had left only its minor clergy, its lower middle class, and a completely downtrodden peasantry. Thus, at the end of the 18th Century, it seemed as if the last hour of the Ukrainian people had struck.

It is therefore easy to explain that in the 19th Century, when the national question became one of the most impor- tant problems of humanity, the two neighbor nations of the Ukraine, the Poles and the Russians, believed they had solved the "Ukrainian question."

The views of Poles and Russians coincide absolutely in emphasizing one statement: "There is no such country as the Ukraine; no such people as the Ukrainians; there are only Poland and Russia; a Polish nation and a Russian nation."

This complete agreement of both nations, whose giant states fought for two centuries for domination in Eastern Europe, may be easily understood. The Ukraine has always been the richest region of Eastern Europe in natural resources, the Ukrainians the second largest nation, the Ukrainian question the most important problem in every state commanding Eastern Europe. Now the Ukrainian nation was completely exhausted by half a thousand years of Tatar oppression and an equally long period of serfdom. So that it seemed an easy matter to the mighty neighbor nations to even deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation, to hold up its development, and gradually to absorb it.

The Poles, since their country lost its independence, have made heroic attempts to win back their freedom by armed uprisings. Despite all defeats, they have never given up their hopes of re-establishing the Polish Kingdom. But these hopes were never confined to the ethnographic territory of the Polish nation. The future Polish Kingdom was to have the old boundaries of the historic Poland — the Baltic and the Black Sea. Hence, the geographical conception of Poland, even to the scientific Polish geogra- phers, still includes, besides the entire Polish ethnographic territory, Lithuania, White Russia and all of the Ukraine, as far as the Dnieper River and the Black Sea.

How could this historico-geographical conception of Poland be made to harmonize with the ethnographic conception of the Ukraine? The solution of this question seemed very easy to the Polish scholars and politicians. They simply proved that the Ukrainians constituted a part of the Polish nation, that their language was a pro- vincial dialect of the Polish language, and that only the religious faith, a number of manners and customs, songs, etc., were slightly different from those of the Poles; these slight differences the common country folk might retain, likewise the educated Ukrainian might be permitted to keep his language and customs in private life, but in his political sentiments, in his culture, in his literary language, he must be and remain a Pole.

This Polish solution of the Ukrainian question is derived from the Polish "state-idea" of a Polish Empire extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Despite the fact that the history of the national relations of Eastern Europe clearly proved this solution false in the second half of the 19th Century, the opinion prevails in all im- portant Polish circles, that the Ukrainian people merely constitutes an ethnographic mass which shall make a good foundation for the expansion of Polish culture and power.

This Polish theory in the Ukrainian question has not been detrimental to the development of the Ukrainian nation. That the Ukrainians are not a Polish people was quite clear to every Ukrainian at the very beginning of the relations of the two nations (11th Century). Among the masses the feeling of independence was always lively and strong, and only those of the educated Ukrainians credited Polonophile theories, who were the few members of Polish secret societies, plots, uprisings (1831, 1863), etc. Polonization, in former centuries, demanded many victims from among the educated Ukrainians; in the past half a century it has only very slight successes to show, altho the Ukrainians of Galicia still continue to be under the political and cultural influence of the Poles.

Much more dangerous for the Ukrainians was the other solution of the Ukrainian question. It, too, is derived from a state-idea, namely, from the idea of a Russian state which should unite all Slavdom, or at least, all of the one-time Empire of Vladimir the Great, under its scepter. In order to attain this end the "Theory of the Unity of the Russian Nation" was formed, as far back as the times of Peter the Great, who transformed the old Muscovite Czar state into an imperial Russian government, and later this doctrine was further developed. According to this theory the Russian nation consists of three tribes: the Great Russians, the Little Russians, and the White Russians, whose tongues differ from one another only dialectically. A common literary language, Russian, connects all the tribes; race, customs, history, political aspirations are the same for all three. Ukraine, Ukrainian, are only local names, which, however, bear a strong taint of separatism, and must, therefore, appear dangerous and inadmissible. In the spirit of this theory of the unity of the Russian nation, the politics of the Russian state have, for more than two centuries, aimed incessantly to hinder the develop- ment of the Ukrainian nation, by means of the most ruthless oppression, and to degrade it to an ethnographic mass which, thru its increasing denationalization, should strengthen the Russian state and support its political expansion.

In a later section we shall be able to follow the individual phases of Russian state politics in regard to the Ukraine. We shall turn, now, to consider the great injury which the Russian unity theory has done to the progress of the Ukrainians as a nation.

The internal injury of the Russian unity theory to the Ukrainian peasantry is comparatively slight. The Ukrain- ian peasant in Russia is much more highly conscious of his national individuality as opposed to the Russian than as opposed to the Pole. The ethnologic culture of the Ukrainian peasantry is so much higher than that of the Russian, that the Ukrainian looks down with contempt upon the "rough Katzap." This, as it were, ethnologic feeling of independence has protected the Ukrainian peasantry from Russification, not only within its national territory, but even in its distant Siberian or Turkestan colonies. Only a small part of the so-called village aristoc- racy, e. g., pensioned soldiers, village mayors, notaries, former city workmen who have learnt some Russian, try to murder the Russian language and to pass for Russians . The same is true of a part of the city proletariat. But the great mass is opposed to the Russian language and cus- toms, and preserves its national individuality unchanged.

Far more serious injuries has the Russian unity theory caused among the upper classes of the Ukrainian nation. For the sake of office, honors and gifts of land, the Ukrainian nobility has, in the last two centuries, permitted itself to be Russified for the most part ; likewise a host of govern- ment officials, military men, clergymen, etc. In the second half of the 19th Century the Russification of the educated Ukrainian circles has slackened its pace, altho, even now, there are in Russia a great many of the educated Ukrainians by birth who are completely Russified and the worst enemies of their own nation.

The Russian unity theory, in the sixties of the 19th Century, found its way into Austria-Hungary too, and founded the so-called "Russophile Party." Its educated retainers, with few exceptions, do not even command the Russian language. Nevertheless, they call themselves Russians, propagate "the unity of the Russian People from the Carpathians to the Kamchatka," and call their Ukrainian mother-tongue "a dialect of the Carpathian herdsmen and swineherds." They speak and write a remarkable jargon consisting of Ukrainian, Russian and Church-Slavic words (the so-called Yazichiye) ; only in very recent years have they begun to use a bad Russian. Sup- ported by considerable subsidies of money from Russia, the educated Russophiles are developing an active agitation among the peasants of Eastern Galicia, the Bukowina and Northeastern Hungary. The Russophile peasants of these countries, whose number is insignificant, to be sure, constitute a remarkable type of a seduced mass. They also try to speak the Yazichiye, use the old-fashioned "thousand-year-old" orthography, which is entirely an- alogous to the Russian and, at least, partly hides the dif- ferences between the Ukrainian and Russian languages, live in the illusion that the Czar speaks the same language that they speak, use the Russian national colors, and hate everything Ukrainian with the passion of the renegade.

These internal injuries of the Russian unity theory and the Russophile tide it has created are becoming slighter year by year. Ukrainian national consciousness is continually growing in the masses of the Ukrainian nation, and the Russophile wave would long since have disappeared if it were not for the Russian subsidies, and if certain Polish circles, frightened by the rapid advance of the Ukrainian national idea, were not working with all their might to prevent the fall of Russophilism.

Much more important are the external injuries done to the Ukrainian national idea by the Russian unity theory. They may be expressed in a single sentence: As a result of the absolutism of the Russian unity theory in the history, geography and statistics of Eastern Europe, the civilized world does not know that there exists in Europe a large country which is called "Ukraina," and that in this country there lives a nation with a separate individuality, a nation of over thirty million souls, which bears the name "Ukrain- ians."

It is true that, from time to time, since the beginning of the present century, magazine articles and pamphlets in various leading languages have appeared, which aim to inform the world about the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. But these journalistic efforts have only an ephem- eral value. Politicians only occasionally interest themselves in the Ukrainian question when it is brought to their notice. And scholars, however well-disposed, can not give such publications preference over the official Russian sources.

The young Ukrainian learning has thus far been unable to spread true information on the Ukrainian nation, and to establish the Ukrainian nation in the scientific world as an independent unit among the Slavic nations. Only in the historical field the independent position of the Ukrain- ians among the nations of Eastern Europe has been demon- strated, thanks to the compositions of a Kostomariv, Antonovich, Drahomaniv, Hrushevsky. In the fields of philology, anthropology, ethnology, ethnography and folk-lore, there are many treatises relating to these sciences, but there is no systematic exposition of the Ukrainian nation as a uniform whole in relation to these branches of science. In the anthropogeographic field the present lines constitute the first effort. In addition, all these treatises have appeared only in Ukrainian or Russian, and, consequently, remain inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of the European world of scholar- ship.

For these reasons science must depend upon the official statements. The official Russian geography considers the Ukrainians only as one of the three tribes of the unified Russian people. The official Russian statistics report this to the world. Hence, German, French and English geographic science, too, usually accounts for the Ukrainians as Russians. The names Kleinrussen, Petits Russes, Little Russians, do not mean an independent nation, but a tribe of the Russian nation. Such erroneous views may be found in all the general encyclopedias and lexicons, in all handbooks of geography and statistics. The Austro- Hungarian Ukrainians, who are mentioned in the official statistics as Ruthenians, are also to a great extent taken for a part of the Russian people which differs from the mass of Russians only in its Catholic faith, or more remark- ably still, for an entirely independent little nation called Ruthenia, and differing both from the Little Russians and the Russians.

The results of such ignorance of the Ukrainian Nation in the scientific world are disastrous for the Ukrainians.

Every appearance of the Ukrainians in the political and cultural arena remains enigmatic to the whole world. Enigmatic remains the struggle of the Ukrainians against Russia and particularly against its Russification policy. In case after case it is explained by far-fetched political, social and economic causes, but never by national-cultural reasons. For almost no one in Europe knows that in the Ukraine a great independent nation is struggling for its national life, and not a political or social party for its significance in the state. The struggle of the Austrian Ukrainians against the predominance of the Poles in Galicia seems hardly more reasonable to the foreigner than the striving of the Russian Ukrainians. Most incompre- hensible here appears the struggle of the Ukrainians against the Russophile movements. For a long time it was regarded as insincere, or even as non-existing, and this circumstance has brought the Ukrainians innumerable political injuries.

From these briefly stated observations we see what obstacles are impeding the Ukrainians in their efforts to bring their Ukrainian nation to a point where it will be respected as an element of equal worth with the other nations of Europe. The two neighboring nations, the Polish and the Russian, politically and culturally stronger, are trying to divide the Ukrainians between themselves, and are refusing them the right to exist as an independent nation. Against these appetites for conquest the com- paratively small army of educated Ukrainians is fighting with might and main, supported semi-consciously by the mass of the Ukrainian People. The Ukrainian peasantry has for centuries defied all attacks upon its ethnographic- national independence. It refuses, even in its most distant Eastern Siberian colonies, to be assimilated by the Russians. This characteristic has made the Ukrainians the subject of a proverb with their Russian neighbors: "Khakhol vsyegda khakhol" — the Ukrainian remains a Ukrainian everywhere. In the following sections we shall discuss briefly all the foundations of the independence of the Ukrainians as a nation. The chief foundations of an independent nation are, proceeding from the less important to the most important: Independent anthropological characteristics, a distinct, independent language, uniform historico-political traditions and aspirations for the future, an independent culture, and, especially, a compact geographical territory.