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But do you know what the Ukraine is ?
Where in Spring the warm wind breathes,
bearing on its wings from " Earey " (Egypt) the
myriads of grouse and other birds, and into the
hearts of the people the paean of love; where
the woods are carpeted with blue " prolisoks "
and red " riast "; where Vesnianka, the " Lada "
of Spring, with the assistance of vovkoolaks and
spirits of the woods, is running through the
forest scattering bloom, her song echoing over
the whole country; where the sun is so bright
and gay; where the willow tree in full blossom
looks like a great yellow stack, orchards are
white with cherry; where millions of nightin-
gales sing all the night long where Petrus so
truly loves Natalka
There is the Ukraine.
Where in the Summer the Dnieper is carrying
down its broad yellow waters to empty them
into the bluish waves of the Black Sea; and
upon the steeps of its mountainous right bank,
like pyramids, the ancestral grave-hills stand,
looking over the endless plains golden with
ripening rye; where the little white huts of the
villagers hide themselves in the green orchards
of scarlet apples, yellow pears, purple prunes,
musical with the humming of bees; where,
beside a broad road, under a willow tree, a blind
lirnik-beggar sits, singing a song of the vanished
freedom; where the " grandsons " of that free-
dom mow the lush grass, with their scythes
glistening in the hot sun, just as the sabres of
their grandfathers flashed on the same field
There is the Ukraine.
Where in Autumn in the wood on the peaceful
bank of a Dunai the hopvine with its gold and
bronze covers the bared branches of ash trees;
where on cranberry bushes the red bunches burn
in the rays of the Autumn sun like a circlet of
rubies; where Marusina walks in the wood pick-
ing the berries and calling upon her fated one
in her songs; where in the fields, now umber-
coloured, the herds of cattle graze; where the
poplar rustles sadly with her leaves yet green
over a lonesome grave as a maiden deserted by
her lover ; where, when the leaves fall, the night-
heaven is so darkly blue and the stars so bright
This is Ukraina.
Where in Winter Witch-Marina with snow
white as swansdown covers the fields, making
of them an endless white sea; where Frost-
Moroze with its magic power changes fog into
rime and sleet, transforms the forests into silver
coral jungles of the undersea kingdom; where
in gayety the people know how to spend the
whole winter season, entertained by folk-drama ;
where hymns to the pagan goddess Lada are
heard at Christmas;
Where the red foxes, seeking refuge in tall
" ocherets," or bulrushes, and hares lying in
utter stillness on the hillocks, shall hear the
stamping of horses' hoofs, the baying of hounds
and the sudden clamour of the horn
There is Ukraina.
Where on the summits of the Carpathians old
oaks and pines murmur, and the native Hutzul
in white embroidered shirt and red breeches
plays on his trimbeeta amid his grazing flocks
in the mountain meadow; where on a dark night
thunder roars and the lightning plays on the
white breasts of beech-trees; where Dobush
sleeps with his robber Oprishki, in a rocky cave
under the Chorna Hora, waiting for the summons
to arise once more against the enemies of the
Ukraine
There is the Highland of the Ukrainian.
Where the southern prairies meet the waves
of the Black Sea, and grey eagles circle in the
heavens watching the numberless herds of sheep ;
where the Dnieper's cataracts roar, dashing down
to the Khortitsa Island, asking it : " Where are
the banners of the hetmans and the cannons of
old ? " There, where a black cloud covers heaven
from Lyman, the Mount of the Dnieper, in the
semblance of the dragon of the fairy tales
There are the Zaporogian Steppes.
And the ages passed over the Ukraine. . . .
" In the beginning " black-haired Scythians
came from Ariastan to the Ukraine with their
herds later, the race was crossed with blue-
eyed, white-haired Finns ; both disappeared and
the tall, dark brown-eyed, fair-haired Ukrainian
arose, the beneficent gods Yoor and Lada nursing
him in his cradle.
Mongolians came from Asia, and Ghingiz-
Khan built his pyramids of men's skulls. . . .
And on the Steppes, on the Kalka river the
brave Russichi barred the way to the Polovets,
with scarlet shields, and all fell for the mother-
land. Still, the Mongolian waves rolling over
the Ukrainian rock were unable to devastate
Europe. The Khan turned back, civilisation was
saved, but the Ukraine was covered with corpses,
on whose bones Cossacks arose who again checked
the Tartars. There in the Ukraine was Freedom
personified by the Zaporogian Cossack, in blue
zhupan and red breeches, mounted on his grey
horse.
Seven feet deep is the black soil of Ukraina,
bringing forth from one seed one hundred and
twenty fold. Poles, Turks, and Muscovites
began to press forward, eager to grasp the land
flowing with milk and honey and bind her as a
captive. Long centuries the sabre of the Cossack
flashed beheading invaders from all parts of the
world. At last it was shivered and broken!
Now naught is left of Ukraina save her songs
but in that song she still lives, engraved in
the heart of the people. Let it be sung, and before
your eyes you shall resurrect the dead centuries.
The Ukrainians sing their Kolady, Ves-
nianky, Kupalni and the ancient gods of the
Sun and Thunder are again alive, adversaries of
Christianity.
The bride-maidens sing the wedding songs,
and ancient days come back when a wild youth
gathered a band of the boys of his tribe and
raided another village to kidnap a maiden. All
her relatives rose to defend her, and sometimes
only after a bloody fight did the bridegroom
carry his bride safely home. A thousand years
passed, and only song was left 'to show that
such barbarous days had ever been.
In the troublous days that followed, when the
Cossacks ringed Ukraina with the terrible circle
of their sabres, they sang of Freedom ; and even
now those songs will stir a man's blood and make
him long to leap on a horse and gallop over the
broad steppes, " swift to the fields of Freedom."
Moscow, Tartary, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey
what neighbours! the Hetmans, wars and
revolutions at length the fall of Seech, the
last stand of Ukrainian freedom the whole
Ukrainian history was put into song by the
Kobzars, the rhapsodists, and if the Ukraine
has lost her written history it is still preserved
in her historical songs.
The period of bondage and feudalism began
in 1771. The Cossacks had disappeared, but
their place was taken by the avengers of the
people's sorrows Robbers, Haidomaki, Oprishki
the Ukrainian Robin Hoods and their deeds
also are recorded in their songs. The bitter fate
of the feudal slave sighs in the song of the
Ukrainian woman before, a free Cossachka,
now the slave of her husband, with no rights of
her own. Full of self-pity and sorrow are the
" Songs of Unhappy Women." The sons of
Cossacks became Tchumaks and tramps; they
wrote their songs on their broken hearts. . . .
But eternal song, that of love, of the nightin-
gale's voice, and the cherry blossom, is the same
everywhere unchangeable young, charming,
immortal !
Italian songs are glorious, but the singing of
the Ukrainian is also a precious pearl in the
common treasury of mankind. It was born out
of the beauty of the Ukraine, and it is beautiful;
it was born on the steppes, and as the steppes
it is wide; it was born in battles, and it is free; it
was born of the tear of a lonesome girl, and it
rends the heart; it was born of the thoughts
of the Kobzars and its harmonies are pregnant
with thoughts
This is Ukrainian Song.
THE Songs, alas! must lack their native music; of the
land which evoked them Mr. Paul Crath has written
with a poet's pen. It remains for me just to say a
few words about the people who sing the songs and
(with one digression) I will quote a few extracts from
French and Ukrainian essayists:
" The Ukrainian is a race purely Slav, gay, chivalrous,
made thoughtful by its own steppes a race of poets,
musicians, artists who have fixed for all time their
national history in the songs of the people which no
centuries of oppression could silence. The singers the
Kobzars accompany themselves on the kobza while
they sing the glories of the Ukraine. All art with them
is national, from the building of their tiny huts to the
embroideries which adorn their clothes and which are
distinguished for their originality all over the East."
" Here is a people, one of the most numerous of
Europe and nevertheless one of the least known. They
have not even an assured name. They are called Little
Russians to distinguish them from the mass of the
Russian people they are called Ukrainian because
they inhabit the frontier between Poland and Russia;
one of the branches (in Austrian Galicia) bears the name
of Ruthenian. ... In the nineteenth century this
oppressed people revealed to the world the puissance of
its artistic gifts. The Ukrainians became the first singers
of Europe; the celebrated Russian music is the music
of the Ukraine, and it is an Ukrainian, Gogol, who has
opened the way to the Russian romancers of genius."
CHARLES SEIGNOBOS, Professor at the Sorbonne.
" In the Russian Ukraine the nobles, descendants of
the line of the Cossacks, and the clergy had closely
guarded the remembrance of the grandeur, the glory, and
the independence of the Ukraine. Living in contact
with a people which had preserved its language, songs,
and customs, they turned to it to know it better. . . .
Collections of popular songs by Maximovich, Drago-
manov, Shesnevsky, Zerteleff, etc., began to be made
around 1820 and in the second half of the nineteenth
century. Soon romantic poets found this field Kvitka
outstripped George Sand and Auerbach. . . . Towards
1840 the great poet Shevchenko (1814-1861) combined
by his genius all that was most profound in universal
poetry with the genre of the popular poetry of the
Ukraine. A great poet and a great citizen, his name is
sacred to all Ukrainians."
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