Ukraine

“ For no one is able to repeat the impressions which fill the soul of every Ukrainian when he looks down from this beautiful observation point of Shevchenko’s grave upon the majestic river below. How many thoughts, then, arise about the glorious, and yet so unspeakably sad, past of the Ukraine, about its miserable present and the great future toward which the nation tends, amid great difficulties, as does the Dnieper toward the Black Sea over the porohs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is therefore easy to explain that in the 19th Century, when the national question became one of the most important 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.” ”

“ Now it is really the historico-political traditions which are very strongly developed in the Ukrainians. The story of his fatherland, full of the most terrible catastrophes, with the frightful Tatar menace and the oppression enduring for centuries, still lives in the consciousness of even the most uneducated Ukrainian. How few happy moments does the history of the Ukraine present, and yet no people in the world so dearly loves its past and so piously honors its national heroes as the Ukrainian People. ”

“ 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 12sleeps 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. ”

“ I will focus on one thing that is at the core of Ukraine’s existence today: freedom.
There are moments in history when freedom is more than just a political concept.
At those moments, freedom becomes the ultimate choice, which defines who you are – as a person and as a nation.
Ukraine has lived this moment over the last 10 months – and became the scene of the most heroic story of the last decade, a synonym for sacrifice, dedication and the unbreakable will to live free. ”

“ In the Ukraine are merged the boundaries of two European forest regions—of the sub-steppes, transition-steppe, prairie-steppe zone, and of the Mediterranean region. The Ukraine is situated upon the boundaries of the European family of peoples—of Slavdom, of European culture—and, at the same time, upon the boundaries of that anthropogeographical structure which is so remarkable and so little known—the body social of Eastern Europe. ”

“ Make nothing of their God.
They harness the people
With heavy yokes.
Evil they plough,
With evil they sow.
What crops will spring?
What harvest will you see?
Arouse ye, unnatural ones.
Children of Herod!
Look on this calm Eden,
Your own Ukraine,
Bestow on her tender love,
Mighty in her ruins.
Break your fetters,
Join in brotherhood,
Seek not in foreign lands [83]
Things that are not.
Nor yet in Heaven,
Nor in stranger’s fields,
But in your own house
Lies your righteousness,
Your strength and your liberty.
In the world is but one Ukraine,
Dnieper—there is only one. ”

“ The absolute power of the ruler, that everlasting bugbear of the Poles and Ukrainians, becomes a sacred object to the Russian nation, and makes it possible for them to establish a Russian Empire which devours Poland and the Ukraine. ”

“ THE sun goes down beyond the hill,
The shadows darken, birds are still;
From fields no more come toiler's voices
In blissful rest the world rejoices.
With lifted heart I, gazing stand,
Seek shady grove in Ukraine's land. ”

“ For the Ukraine, as for all the nationalities of the Russian Empire, the Revolution of 1905 was the bursting of a dam behind which had gathered the pent-up forces of many generations. In South Russia the democratic movement at once assumed a national Ukrainian form, and its swift progress surprised even its own adherents. After thirty years of utter suppression there suddenly sprang up a flourishing Ukrainian press at Kiev, Harkov, Odessa, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav, and Mohilev. ”

“ The Ukraine is an Eastern European country. Its situation, its decidedly continental character, its geologic history, tectonic construction and morphologic conditions, its climate, plant and animal life, its anthropogeography—all are characteristic of Eastern Europe. But within Eastern Europe the Ukraine occupies a unique position, which fully warrants our conceiving of this great land as a geographic unit standing on an equal basis with the other natural units, as Great Russia, North Russia, the Ural, White Russia, the Baltic Provinces. ”

“ The region of the Ukraine, in Southern Russia, is supposed to be clamouring for freedom and independent [334] existence. Long before the Russian revolution, I and all the diplomats of Germany were flooded with newspapers, pamphlets and literature about the longing of the Ukraine—all as plainly issued by the Germans as if they had been stamped with the Royal arms of Prussia and the seal of the General Staff.
The Lithuanians, too, stir uneasily. There is, perhaps, more in their claim; they request the world not to confuse them with the Poles and they protest against incorporation with Poland. ”

“ The Ukraine has always [152] 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. ”

“ Another characteristic of all plain countries, and therefore 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 thousands 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 Ukraine has always been the nearest European neighbor of the steppe-country of Central Asia. There, from the earliest beginnings of history, dwelt pillaging hordes of Nomads, who would flood Europe from this point. The Pontian steppes of the Southern Ukraine were, for these steppe-people, the natural military road to the West and Southwest, where the rich, civilized lands of the Mediterranean region lay invitingly open. ”

“ Determined to continue my journey through Russia, I proceeded towards Kiow, the principal city of the Ukraine, and formerly of all Russia, for this empire began by fixing its capital in the South. The Russians had then continual communication with the Greeks established at Constantinople, and in general with the people of the East, whose habits they have adopted in a variety of instances. The Ukraine is a very fertile country, but by no means agreeable; you see large plains of wheat which appear to be cultivated by invisible hands, the habitations and inhabitants are so rare. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Ukraine lies within the sphere of influence of European culture. This culture has spread from Central and Western Europe over the territory of the Ukraine and its neighboring peoples, the Poles, Russians, White Russians, Magyars and Roumanians. Each one of these nations has accepted the material culture of Western Europe to a greater or less degree, and adjusted the spiritual culture to its national peculiarities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Ukraine is the land in which the Ukrainian nation dwells—a great solid national territory embracing all the southern part of Russia in Europe, besides East Galicia, Northwest Bukowina and Northeast Hungary. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ The Ukraine, which in the 11th Century caused great astonishment among travelers from Western Europe, because of its comparatively high culture, can now be counted only as one of the semi-cultural countries of Europe. ”

“ MCMXVI
5 CONTENTS
9 SONGS OF UKRAINA Ukrainian Song.... 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 ”

“ Since that was my first time in the Ukraine, I saw the strangest deeds and strangest things. That country is warlike; there the common man too is more resolute and daring than with us, and in peasants there is courage of which a noble would not be ashamed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ His worldly interests and his judgment advise him to go on with his painting. But strange music seems to ring in his ears. It is the music of his beautiful and suffering Ukraine. Songs seem to come to him from the wind and he writes them down.
They are in the peasant language of the Ukraine. ”

“ The foreign-speaking cities are gradually coming to be Ukraine-ized, and the very rapidly growing percentage of Ukrainians in Galicia and the Russian Ukraine justify us in hoping that the Ukrainian element, in its continuous stream from the surrounding country, will, in time, absorb the foreign-speaking elements which now command the cities of the Ukraine. ”

“ Ukraine possesses so rich a popular culture, that by developing all its hidden possibilities and supplementing them by elements drawn from the untainted sources of Western European culture, the Ukrainian nation could attain a complete culture just as peculiar to itself, and just as exalted among the great European cultures, as Ukrainian popular culture is among the popular cultures of other peoples. ”

“ The significance of the flora and fauna, for a lowland [240] 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. ”

“ The area of the Ukrainian territory is 850,000 square kilometers.
We see before us, therefore, a European country which is surpassed in area only by present-day Russia in Europe. No European people, with the solitary exception of the Russians, possesses so large a compact national territory as the Ukrainians. This characteristically Eastern European spaciousness of the territory, combined with the natural wealth of the region would, if coupled with Western European culture, make a fit dwelling-place for a world-power. ”

“ For an entire period of a thousand years, this border position was most disadvantageous and dangerous for the Ukraine; for Nature and History did not bring the Ukraine, placed as it is, into the proximity of that part of Asia which for thousands of years past had been inhabited by the rich civilizations of that continent. ”

“ The Ukraine, because of its waterways, was nearest to Byzantium of all the European countries. This comparatively 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 almost equalled the Western European states. In some respects the Ukraine of those days was even superior to Western Europe. ”