Kharkiv

“ The only neighbors of the Ukrainians here are the Russians, who also comprise the majority in all cities. Only in Biriuch, Bohuchar, Ostrohosh, do the Ukrainians predominate.
In the Government of the Don Cossack army (164,000 square kilometers, 3,500,000 inhabitants) the relation of the Ukrainians to the population is similar to that in the Governments of Kursk and Voroniz. Just as the Ukrainian districts there border on the adjacent central Ukrainian [138] lands of Poltava and Kharkiv, so the Ukrainian parts of the Don country touch the central Ukrainian lands of Kharkiv and Katerinoslav. ”

“ The number of annual fairs in the Russian Ukraine exceeds 4000, altho it is far out of proportion to the great number of annual fairs in Great Russia. But out of twenty-two grand annual fairs of Russia, eleven fall to the Ukrainian territory—four in Kharkiv, two in Romny, one in Poltava, Kursk, Kolevez, Yelisavet and Sumy, respectively. ”

“ Thus, for example, the marked density of the Districts of Stanislaviv (184) , Ternopil (161) , Peremishl (160) , Kolomia (156) , is caused by the presence of the populous cities of the same names. Therefore the Pokutian District of Sniatin (147) seems very thickly settled, because of the smallness of the district cities. The average density of Ukrainian East Galicia is only 98; in the mountainous Districts of Dolina and Kossiv it only attains 45. The same conditions exist in Russian Ukraine. The District of Kharkiv has a density of 164 inhabitants to the square verst; the District of Kiev 152. ”

“ As the weeks went on, the rumors grew thicker and there began to come through to Poland, our land of the fields, the news that the country lands of the Ukraine were ablaze. Then it was heard that Kiev had fallen, then Lvov, the city of the Lion, and now there was naught between the savage band of warriors and the fair city of Krakow, save a few peaceful villages and fertile fields.
The Tartars came through the world like a horde of wild beasts. They left not one thing alive nor one green blade of wheat standing. ”

“ A Russian engineer who had just returned from the Don basin and whom we met in Kharkov threw considerable light on the Ukrainian situation. It was silly to put the entire blame for conditions on Moscow, he said. The Communists in the south in no way differed from the followers of Lenin in the north in their methods of dictatorship. If anything, their despotism was even more irresponsible in the Ukraine than anywhere else in Russia. His experience in the mines had convinced him of their ruthless persecution of those of the intelligentsia who were unwilling to cooperate with them. ”

“ People here in Kiev feel the same terror of the German advance. Can nothing stop it? A panic has swept over the city that makes every one want to run away and hide. They crowd the square before the railway station and camp there for days, waiting to secure a place on the trains that leave for Petrograd or Odessa. For three weeks Peter has been waiting for his reservation to get to Petrograd. Our case drags on so. He wants to see the Ambassador personally. But the trains are packed with terrified people. Men leave their affairs and go down to the square with their families and baggage. ”

“ The health of the troops was better, mortality and sickness decreased, and the spirits of the men were good. The wreck of Balaklava was shovelled away, or was in the course of removal, and was shot into the sea to form piers, or beaten down to make roads, and stores and barracks of wood were rising up in its place. The oldest inhabitant would not have known the place on his return. If war is a great destroyer, it is also a great creator. The Czar was indebted to it for a railway in the Crimea, and for new roads between Balaklava, Kamiesch, and Sebastopol. ”

“ How strange it will be to have no longer a Russian army between the Germans and Kiev. No more a wall of flesh to protect us. Poor soldiers, without a round of ammunition, fighting with naked hands. They will cross the Dnieper to one side of the city, crowding, fighting, falling together. And the German cannon driving them on, and crashing into the city, sometimes, wiping out whole streets of townspeople. And then, the gray lines of the Germans running into Kiev. The thousands of blue-eyed Germans and their pointed helmets and guttural speech taking possession of everything. ”

“ They wanted not merely to die but to live for the Revolution. It appeared that the Anarchists of Russia had been divided into several factions, most of them numerically small and of little practical influence upon the progress of events in Russia. They had been unable to establish a permanent hold in the ranks of the workers. It was therefore decided to gather all the Anarchist elements of the Ukraina into one federation and thus be in condition to present a solid front in the struggle not only against invasion and counter-revolution, but also against Communist persecution. ”

“ The aspect of Kherson is as dismal as that of Nicolaïef is brilliant and lively. Nothing is to be seen but dilapidated houses and abandoned sites, which give it the appearance of a town devastated by war. But viewing it from a distance, as it rises in an amphitheatre on the banks of the Dniepr, with its numerous belfries, its barracks, and its gardens, one would be far from suspecting the sort of spectacle its interior presents. ”

“ Since July war has come nearer Kiev. The hospitals are full of maimed and wounded soldiers who fought to defend Russia. They made a bulwark of their breasts. It was as though one single giant breast, hundreds of versts broad, thrust itself between the Germans and home.
And it is winter now. The days are short with an icy, gray mist from the Dnieper, and flurries of snow. There is a shortage of coal, and we sit shivering in our apartment. We drag the covers off the beds and wrap ourselves up in them while we read books from the circulating library or play three-handed bridge. ”

“ Clair in the north of the Crimea demonstrated the enormous difficulties experienced by the Russians in maintaining their position. It satisfied every one, that if the Allies had advanced after the 8th of September, and followed the enemy, the Russian army of the South must have surrendered, and Cherson, Berislaff, Nicholaieff, and Odessa would have been seriously menaced. All the north side, its guns, its garrison, all the matériel, all the provisions and magazines of Bakshiserai and Simpheropol, must have fallen into our hands, and about 60,000 or 70,000 men. ”

“ He offered a simple explanation for his dual political views: "I wanted to be a Ukrainian Bolshevik." The drama of being divided ended in suicide: on May 13, 1933, Khyvlovy shot himself in his apartment. The revolution was devouring its children. The new Soviet authorities set out to destroy an entire generation of Ukrainian intelligentsia – and Khvylovy was one of their leaders. And as a leader and ardent communist, he could not fail to feel his responsibility for the unfolding tragedy... ”

“ Kiev, he told me, had just been captured by the Germans. They were threatening Petrograd, and the opposition of the Red Guards would not prevent or even postpone its capture by one day if the Germans were bent upon taking the city.
Red Terror was rampant in Petrograd. The river was full of corpses of officers who had been slain and lynched. Those who were alive were leading a wretched existence, fearing to show themselves in public because of the temper of the mob, and therefore on the verge of death from starvation. ”

“ But of the Russians whom I have met in three to four years in the Crimea and Caucasus, I cannot say so much. A Russian, though he invariably has some chaff for an Englishman on the score of tame pheasants, &c., is essentially either a pot-shot if a peasant, or a lover of battues if he be a gentleman. At Kariâs (the viceregal preserves) all the shooting is of the battue order. At another great sporting centre in the Caucasus, where a prince preserves the shooting and wild sheep and chamois abound, even the chamois are cleverly deluded into becoming victims of a drive. ”

“ Bulgarians, Poles and others, who loathed their totalitarian masters and the brutality, without freedom, under which their peoples were forced to live, and work away their lives, like ants. Former high-ranking members of the government, military, and intelligence branches of the Eastern bloc and the Soviet Union. KGB. Here they lived in close communion, despite the danger, working sometimes with the West, sometimes without it, according to their skills, to undermine the iron grip of the communist leadership, to encourage and protect dissidents, and to publish their work both home and abroad. ”

“ The Czars used the Ukrainians as tools in their ambitious projects. A hundred thousand of them perished in the marshes, digging the foundations of Petrograd. As many more died in the attempt to subdue the Circassians—tribes inhabiting the Caucasus mountains—to the imperial will of the Russian autocrat. ”

“ Kherson, where we arrived in the evening, retains no relics of its ancient opulence, or of the importance it derived scarcely fifty years ago from its commerce, its port, and its admiralty; at present, it exhibits the melancholy spectacle of a town entirely ruined; its population does not exceed 6000 or 8000 souls. Odessa and Nicolaïef have dealt it mortal blows, and it now subsists only by its entrepôt for the various productions of the empire, which are conveyed to it by the Dniepr, and forwarded by lighters to Odessa. ”

“ They say there was no ammunition at the front. No shells for the soldiers. They had nothing to do but retreat. And now? They are still retreating, fighting with empty guns and clubs and even their naked hands. And still, trainloads of soldiers go out of Kiev every day without a gun in their hands. What a butchery! Can you imagine how horrible it is to see them march through the streets, swinging their arms and singing their stirring songs,—tall, able-bodied men,—while the beggars, cripples from the Russo-Japanese War, stand whining at the street corners. ”

“ Basil the Blessed, the Cathedral of the Assumption, are being bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered the most important art treasures of Petrograd and of Moscow, is under artillery fire. There are thousands of victims.
The fearful struggle there has reached a pitch of bestial ferocity.
What is left? What more can happen?
I cannot bear this. My cup is full. I am unable to endure these horrors. It is impossible to work under the pressure of thoughts which drive me mad!
That is why I am leaving the Council of People's Commissars. ”

“ The Petrograd garrison numbered about sixty thousand men, who had taken a prominent part in the Revolution. It was they who had turned the tide in the great days of March, created the Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies, and hurled back Kornilov from the gates of Petrograd.
Now a large part of them were Bolsheviki. When the Provisional Government talked of evacuating the city, it was the Petrograd garrison which answered, “If you are not capable of defending the capital, conclude peace; if you cannot conclude peace, go away and make room for a People’s Government which can do both...” ”

“ The best agriculturists here are the German colonists, whose neat homesteads remind one for the moment of lands nearer home. Even the Tartars are better than the Malo Russ, but they have lately been leaving the Crimea in large numbers to escape the compulsory military service which Russia seeks to impose upon them. Everywhere the army seems to be the worst enemy of the State.
At last our ride comes to an end, and there is a general stretching of limbs and buckling on of shot-belts and powder-flasks, for with many muzzle-loaders are still the fashion here. ”

“ Arnaud has been for camping south of the Balkans, and giving battle to the power of Russia there, and Raglan has been all for the Crimea and the road to Sevastopol. And no man has known what to believe amongst the divided councils of the Allies. The men amongst the vineyards are plucking and sucking the grapes. The sun grows hotter and hotter, and there is so dreary a silence in these waiting hours that the angry neigh of a horse is heard for a mile along the line. ”

“ The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The population is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators and take them to the Soviet Commissars at the nearest barracks. At the first attempt of the Dark Forces to make trouble on the streets of Petrograd, whether robbery or fighting, the criminals will be wiped off the face of the earth!
Citizens! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands.
List of regiments where there are Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee... ”

“ Flames, in a few hours, will consume a city which centuries alone have reared. A squadron of cavalry will, in a few moments, trample fields of grain which have been slowly growing and ripening for months. In less than a fortnight nearly the whole of the Ukraine was a depopulated waste, the troops of the tzar being shut up in narrow fortresses. The King of Poland, apprehensive that this vast Turkish army would soon turn with all their energies of destruction upon his own territories, resolved to march, with all the forces of his kingdom, to the aid of the Russians. ”