The Problems of the Ukraine

PRICE SIXPENCE.

The Ukrainian people occupy a large territory of more than 500,000 sq. miles,^[1] that is to say, an area greater than that of France.

The purely Ukrainian population comprises some 37 million inhabitants.

This population is distinguished fro:n the neighbouring peoples in all respects: anthropological, ethnographical and as regards folk lore. The anthropological mensurations show very clearly the type and national individuality of the Ukrainian people, which differs in a very marked manner from that of the people of Great Russia. The ethnic frontier of these two races !s easy to trace. Even superficial observations show the existence of this frontier. On one side are found villages designed and built in the Ukrainian style; on the other, the plans and constructions are of Russian style. In the Ukrainian villages the little white cottages have thatched roofs which slope on four sides, and always have a garden in front. The villages give the impression of being lost in foliage. On the other hand, the Great Russian villages are impressions of sadness, as are the countries of the North. They are usually ​empty of gardens or trees. Their cottages, constructed of unwhitewashed and unpainted wood, have a sombre appearance. Their roofs, often of laths, are made in the shelving ridge style. The yards, sheds and interiors of the Great Russian abodes completely differ from the Ukrainian habitations. On the frontier, the Ukrainian villages, and those of the Great Russians, are frequently neighbouring. It even happens that a Ukrainian village, or Great Russian village, over-reaches the frontier by some scores of miles. But one never sees the houses constructed partly in the Ukrainian type or partly according to the Russian style. The two styles are never confused with each other.

The same difference is met with in the costumes, manners and morals. The Ukrainian peasants and those of Great Russia rarely inter-marry. The character of the two types is so accentuated that the Russian villages, constructed by emigrants in the depth of the Ukraine (Kherson Government) and those of the Ukrainians, built also by emigrants in the heart of Russia (Saratov Government) preserve their ethnic individuality.

These differences are accounted for by anthropology and history. The Great Russians were constituted in the North by a mixture of a minority of Slav emigrants, and a majority of Finnish tribes. The Slavs gave their language; but from the anthropological point of view it was the Finns who prevailed, and they also had a great preponderance in all that concerns the customs, and even the mythology.

Although they have undergone in the past certain oriental influences, the Ukrainian people have preserved a much more purely Slavonic character. Ethnographically, it has more resemblance with the Slavs of South than with the Great Russians, although the languages of the Great Russians and the Ukrainians, distinct as they both are, both belong to the same group of Slavonic languages of the East.

Historically, the explanation of the characters and the differences between these two races is also easy. ​For centuries the Ukrainian people and the people of Russia have not had even common frontiers. The wandering tribes occupied vast lands, and the Ukrainians came to inhabit the Northern part, and especially the Western district of the country, whilst the Great Russians congregated in the North, near to Moscow. They did not dare to venture very far into the Southern Steppes, where the nomad tribes had formidable forces. It was not until later, when these forces had diminished, that the Ukrainians, emigrating towards the East (in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) met the Russians who were emigrating towards the South.

If two nations, more or less connected, as, for example, the Serbians, and the Bulgarians, lived near to each other through the centuries, they would inevitably have had in the period of their formation an influence on each other, and they would necessarily have inter-mixed on their frontiers. But the Great Russians and the Ukrainians were brought together at the time when their ethnic culture was accomplished: and it is for that reason they ought not to and cannot have an influence over each other.

The same may be said, and the same explanation be given, concerning the languages. The existence of a Ukrainian language is no longer debatable. It is established that it is a quite independent language, belonging to the Slavonic group of the East (Ukrainian, Great Russian and White Russian). This is not only admitted by the Ukrainian scholars, but also by the best Slavists of Europe, including the philologists of Russia. When in 1905 the Academy of Petrograd was consulted by the Government to know whether they ought to authorise publications in the Ukrainian language, a memorandum was presented by some Russian Academicians, such as Shakhmatoff, Korch, Fortunatoff, Lapo-Danilievsky, Ovsianiko-Koulikovsky. In this memorandum, it was scientifically recognised and affirmed categorically, that the Ukrainian language was indeed an individual language, and in explaining ​this thesis, the Russian scholars have given to the formation of this language almost the same historic explanations as those which we have given to the subject of Ukrainian ethnic development.

"From even the beginning of history the general Russian language had its dialectic differences which allowed for the supposition that the Russian people were divided into three groups: the Northern Group, the Centre Group, and the Southern Group. The documents of the South in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as is proved by the Academician, Sobolievsky, already showed the characteristic traits of the language of the Little Russians. One can say with certainty that the dialect of the South (Ukrainian) is quite distinguished from the dialects of the Centre and the North, even before the pre-Tartar period. This distinction did not cease by the political union of the Slavs of the East in the tenth and eleventh centuries (the Duchy of Kiev). On the contrary, the political dispersion of these territories which took place later, the organisation of a political centre near to Moscow, the downfall of Kiev towards the end of the twelfth century, all favoured the separation of the South, which the arrival of the Tartars achieved. In the Lithuanian-Russian State (which comprised many Ukrainian lands), the tribes of the South met the tribes of the Centre, who, later on, formed the White Russians. It is only by the colonisation, which did not occur until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that the Great Russians and the Little Russians drew together in the basins of the rivers Seime, Donetz and Don. Thus it is, that historical conditions have contributed to the complete isolation of South-West Russia (Ukraine) and Great Russia, and thus it is, that the differences between the languages of the Great Russians and the Little Russians are explained. The historical life of these races has not created a common language; on the contrary, it has deepened the dialectic differences which one sees at their entrance in history, among the ancestors of the Little Russians on one side ​and among the ancestors of the Great Russians on the other side."

The Ukrainians, in distinguishing themselves from all their neighbours, established on their vast territory an almost absolute ethnic unity, and such a distinction makes itself felt even on the outskirts of the north of the country and in the region of the Carpathians.

This remarkable unity is explained by the displacements which several conquests effected in the different regions of the territory, when the Ukrainians ebbed and flowed back under the pressure of the invaders, nomadic tribes and others. The Ukrainians of these different regions thus met each other, harmonised together and formed a single ethnic type.

All that we have said with regard to the ethnology of the Ukrainian people shows they are a people possessed of a many-sided individuality. If up to now it has been ignored in the West, it is because people there have been living under the somewhat hypnotic influence of the Russian Empire. European thought has been accustomed to bow unquestionably to the suggestions and official tradition of Moscow and Petrograd. Now, the Ukrainians have the very legitimate pretension to present things as they really are.

Without doubt, the civilisation of the élite, thanks to the more favourable conditions, has realised during a century much more progress in Russia than in Ukraine, but also, without any doubt, the organic civilisation of the people themselves, the ethnological culture. Is much more advanced In Ukraine than in Russia. Whilst Moscovia, dwelling outside all civilising Influence for centuries, submitted to the sole influence of the Tartars, the Ukraine preserved Its relations with the civilised world: it was impressed by Byzantium, and then by all the Western civilisa​tion. In the seventeenth century, when she contracted a union with Moscovia, the Ukraine had fewer illiterates than she has now, after two and a half centuries of Russian domination. And it was in this same century that the Muscovites endeavoured to awake to the intellectual life, and it was to the Ukrainians, to the scholars of the Academy of Kiev, that they appealed for their education.

Centuries of oppression have hindered the progress of high culture in Ukraine, but this oppression has never abolished the efflorescence of the letters and sciences. If in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries writers used a conventional language written in a more or less archaic style, we see, towards the end of the eighteenth century, the litterateur employ the popular and living language of the Ukraine, that of the poetic song and the legendary ballads of the country.

The father of the new Ukrainian literature was a citizen of Poltava, of the name of Kotlarevsky. His dramatic play, "Natalka Poltavka," is still played on all the Ukrainian stages. His humorous and satiric adaptation of the "Enéide," in which he put in the place of Trojans the Cossacks dispersed by Catherine II, had a tremendous reception.

After Kotlarevsky, a pleiade of poets and writers succeeded, among which domniated a veritable genius: Shevchenko. The latter has written some admirable lyrical poems: he has made the tragic and glorious past live again, he has exalted the sentiment of the country. His influence on the national and foreign literature has been immense.

To-day the Ukrainian literature abounds in poets, novelists, and dramatists. Among the contemporary writers, one distinguishes the fine figure of Ivan Franko, author of the prophetical poem of "Moses," the delicate, æsthetic, and famous novelist, Kotzubinsky, the elegiac poet, Olès, and perhaps one of the most original and vivacious writers of the European East, Vinnichenko.

​The Ukrainian literature is, with the exception of the Russian and Polish, the richest of the Slavonic literatures.

The Ukrainian theatre had, at the close of the nineteenth century, a great influence over the national development. The Russian Censor unfortunately only authorised productions of a popular style, and sometimes historical plays. The plays of a more serious nature and translations were rigorously forbidden.

This oppression has caused the drama to be of a very original type. A talented group of artists has made the drama celebrated, in conjuring up the past, in showing the life and the sadness of the people, and in bringing to the fore the melancholy Ukrainian songs, and has kept alive the national sentiment.

To-day, the Ukrainian drama is undergoing a transformation. To its répertoire are being added the best works of the European dramatic literature and also Ukrainian plays, the production of which was impossible under the old régime.

The music of the Ukrainians is well known to the Slavonic races. If the Ukrainians are proud of anything, it is of their songs. The most illustrious of the Ukrainian composers is Liscenko, who has arranged the music of the greater part of the old songs, and has written a great number of original works. Various causes have hindered the expansion of the musical genius of the Ukrainian people. But everything allows us to hope that the young school of musicians which has been formed at Kiev will achieve satisfactory results.

The historical studies and technical researches conducted by the Ukrainian scholars take place at the present time with the object of disseminating a knowledge of the ancient style of architecture and painting. Though each of these arts has evidently received inspiration from Byzantium, and then from the West, they are based on a national art which is notable in the numerous motifs of original ornamentation.

​The best known of the Ukrainian painters are the portrait-painter, Borovikovsky (commencement of nineteenth century), and the poet, Shevchenko. In 1917 a Ukrainian Academy of Plastic Arts as opened at Kiev, the importance of which has already been manifested.

The Ukrainian sciences, and above all those which touch the country itself, have developed constantly.^[2] In 1870 there existed at Kiev a Scientific Society which was an appendant to the Geographical Society of the Russian Empire, and which has published several remarkable works. But the former Society was closed on account of its national character. Publications in the Ukrainian language being rigorously forbidden, the Ukrainian scholars continued to publish in the Russian language the monthly review, "Kievskaia-Starina," devoted to the study of the native country, which commenced to appear in 1882, and lasted for twenty-five years.

In 1892, the Society "In Memory of Shevchenko," of Lemberg, became a scientific society, and published the first collection of his works. This Society had sections of history, philology, natural science, and mathematics. It possessed a museum, a library, a printing press, and a bookseller's shop. It published hundreds of volumes comprising original works and documents relative to all the sciences. In 1906, after the first Russian revolution, the Ukrainian Scientific Society was founded at Kiev, which also had several sub-divisions, and published in the Ukrainian language a number of scientific works and a periodical "Ukrainia."

​At the University of Lemberg, about fifteen courses of lectures were taken in Ukrainian.

In 1905, in the Universities of Kiev, Kharkov, and Odessa, courses in Ukrainian sciences were authorised, but it was not long before they were forbidden. After the Revolution of 1917, a Ukrainian University was inaugurated at Kiev, which, at the same time, worked with the old Russian University. At Kamenetz-Podolsk a national university was also inaugurated. At Poltava, the Faculty of Letters was opened, and at Kiev the Scientific Academy. In all the Russian Universities of the Ukraine Chairs were founded for the studies of the country.

One of the things in which Ukraine suffered most cruelly was the prohibition of national schools. It is only in Galicia and in the Bukovina that a primary and secondary school have existed for long, and, as a result; the inhabitants of these two districts have a much higher national culture and a more ardent patriotism than the dwellers in the Eastern regions of the Ukraine.

But two years of revolution have rendered possible the re-organisation of public instruction all through the country. Owing to the zealous activity of the Ministry of Public Instruction at Kiev, and of all the "intellectuals," national primary schools have been instituted all over the Ukraine. The organisation of secondary schools is slower. The Ukrainian language, history, and literature, however, are taught everywhere, and already there exists more than a hundred high-schools (gymnasia) that are solely Ukrainian.

In 1905 were created, under the title of "Prosvita," societies for the development of the instruction of the people. But the police persecuted them without cessation, and they were frequently closed. To-day, the Ukraine possesses some hundreds of these societies, often founded by the peasants themselves. In this manner the national instruction of the Ukrainian people has been realised.

​The Ukraine Press, which has been for some decades totally forbidden, at the present time is flourishing. Besides the daily papers, there exist reviews, various periodicals, all kinds of special publications (pedagogical, co-operative, agricultural, medical, etc.). In spite of much technical difficulty, the printing of books during the Revolution attained an importance which it had never had till then. But, considerable as the number of printed books of these last years may be, they have been scarcely enough to satisfy the demands of the people.

The Ukrainian intelligenzia, whilst taking part in the political contests, have shown an extraordinary zeal in the development of national culture and for the instruction of the people, of which they understand the supreme necessity.

Geographically and economically the Ukraine is an autonomous country. The extent of its lands occupies the basins of the rivers which flow into the Black Sea, with which it is closely connected. It is universally known that this "Black Earth" district is one of great natural resources, and that it is the principal granary of Europe. Taking into consideration the nine governments of the Ukraine, without counting Galicia, but including the Kuban, which is ethnographically a part of the Ukraine, we see that the average annual quantity of the cereals throughout the years 1911–1915 was 275,000,000 quintals (quintal equals 220 lb.), to which must be added beet, more than 100,000,000 quintals, and potatoes, some 60,000,000 quintals. In the same period the Ukraine had produced 65,000,000 kilogrammes (kilogramme equals 2.2 lb.) of tobacco, of which 22,000,000 kilogrammes was of superior quality. Each year the production of oleaginous seeds attained to 6,000,000 quintals, whilst that ​of hemp attained to 1,000,000 quintals, and that of flax to 600,000 quintals. The South of the Ukraine gave an average of 1,000,000 quintals of grapes, which produced nearly 500,000 hectolitres (hectolitre equals 22 gallons) of wine.

Cattle-breeding in the Ukraine is also of great importance. There were at the beginning of the war 8,100,000 horses, including 27,600,000 horned cattle, sheep and goats, and 6,300,000 pigs.

The Ukraine possesses vast coal measures and the greater part of the anthracite mines of the Donetz. Her production from the mines does not fall far short of that of France.

The Ukraine has also important iron mines (Krivoirog and Kerch), which give each year five to seven million tons of ore. It takes a third place (after Caucasus and the Indies) for its production of manganese. It also contains rich-bearing petroleum wells in Eastern Galicia (from 10,000,000 to 17,000,000 quintals annually) and in the Kuban (from 12,000,000 to 17,000,000 quintals).

All this wealth shows that the Ukraine is capable of forming a State and of developing its strength. Through the coal and iron a considerable industry has already been developed. But the Russian policy has so far favoured the industry of the North and neglected that of the Ukraine. Also the textile industry hardly exists in the Ukraine (not a tenth of the production of Old Russia has been reached.) But other industries, such as the sugar and flour industries, and also the metallurgic and ceramic industries, are, in spite of everything, more developed in Ukraine than in the rest of the former Empire. Concerning, for example, metallurgy, the Ukraine has some 20 factories, and more than 50 furnaces, from which 3,000,000 tons of cast iron are passed out; she possesses three large factories for the manufacture of locomotives, which suffice the needs of the railways in the country. At Ekaterinoslav and at Nicholaieff (naval construction) factories are numerous. For agricultural implements there ​exists in Ukraine some 80 factories of both large and medium size, which produce implements to the value of about £6,000,000.

But the principal industry of the Ukraine is the sugar industry. The Ukraine supplied 85 per cent. of the total sugar production of Russia. In 1915 the Ukraine possessed 222 sugar factories against the 265 possessed by Russia. The soil in the Ukraine is particularly propitious to the culture of the beet. This latter is of a sweeter kind than in any other country. The Ukraine occupies the second place, after Germany, for the production of beet sugar. This industry progresses without cessation. In 10 years (from 1905 to 1915) it has increased 100 per cent. During the season of 1914–1915 it has produced 17,000,000 quintals of beet sugar.

As to milling, the Ukraine has more than 50,000 small mills and more than 800 large mills. That is to say that it has an important flour trade, although the greater part of the cereals of the country are exported in the natural state.

The alcoholic industry is fairly well developed in the Ukraine. It furnished a quarter of the alcohol of former Russia. In 1912–1913 it produced 1,000,000 hectolitres of alcohol.

The ceramic industry is more flourishing in the Ukraine than in any of the other States of the former Empire. The Ukraine has 12 earthenware factories, 30 glass works, 12 cement factories. But the natural conditions are so favourable that these industries are bound to play a still greater part.

As to the chemical industry, although it is not fully developed as yet, it has during the last war made great progress, especially with regard to the derivatives of coke—benzol, naphthaline, ammonia, etc. One can also say that the Ukraine, when she is ready to do so, can cease to be dependent on Germany regarding these last products.

The preceding shows that the Ukraine, in consolidating its State and in attracting foreign capital, is bound to have a great economic future. Both French ​and Belgian capital is already placed in the principal Ukrainian enterprises, but the greatest field still remains open. Besides these industrial enterprises, there still remains new railways to be built, quays and canals to be constructed, and the rivers have to be rendered more navigable.

One often hears that the Ukraine is economically tied to Russia. Certainly two neighbouring countries have always had more or less relations between each other. But the economic relations of the Ukraine and Northern Russia have never been very great.

What has Russia given to the Ukraine? Thanks to the protectionist policy of the Russian Empire, the Ukraine had to consume the products of the Northern industry, but the products of this industry were very inferior to the products of France, England, and America, also they were much dearer.

On the other hand, Russia did not constitute an important market for the Ukraine. The exportation of cereals to Russia never reached a very high figure (less than 15 per cent. of the exportation of Ukrainian corn). Besides, Russia herself possesses great resources upon which she has not drawn sufficiently. Taking into consideration the corn, she has the huge plains of the Volga, which should be sufficient for her own supply and allow even for exportation. It is only since the Bolshevik anarchy, the lands remaining uncultivated, that Russia has lacked the corn.

It is also said that the whole of the basin of the Donetz is necessary for the supply of Russia. Now more than three-quarters of the productions of this basin have always remained in the Ukraine. The Ukrainian Metallurgical Industry alone requires more than 30 per cent. of the total production of the Donetz. Northern Russia chiefly consumes the coal from Germany and England. The Moscow industry also uses the naphtha of Baku, and the wood and coal which we find in the environs of Moscow.

However, the Ukrainian Republic ought always to seek to effect economic arrangements with Russia. The ​Ukrainian Government will be obliged to take into account the needs of a national industry and if it (the mines of Donetz, for example) requires a market in Russia for a part of its production, it will be necessary to settle this question. It must take into consideration the interests of Russia herself so as to avoid any political conflicts with the northern neighbour.

The Ukraine and Northern Russia, although two agricultural countries, totally differ in their social and economic life. Russia is more directly connected with Asia, and is interested in the exploitation of its immense wealth. The Ukraine, on the other hand, is a country attached to the West. From the agricultural point of view the two countries are also very different. In Russia, the Commune (the Mir) plays a considerable part. In the Ukraine the small private ownership occupies the principal place, and in this respect she resembles France. There still remains in the Ukraine some large estates which are more or less artificial, but the tendency is to partition them, and the question, when it arises, will be definitely settled in the sense of "the land for the people."

The economic forces of the Ukraine, which have developed in spite of all the hindrances brought about by the Tsarist régime, constitute the best guarantee that the Ukraine, in re-appearing again on the world's stage as a free State, will not renounce the rank to which she has the right.

Her population is industrious and capable of progressing very quickly. The enormous development which has taken place in the Ukraine through the co-operative societies formed by the peasants themselves during the last few years shows it in a very striking manner.

From the preceding one concludes that the Ukraine possesses all the necessary elements for the formation ​of a State. But it is here that one puts the question: Do the Ukrainians desire to create a State? Have they a true national spirit?

In order to answer these questions it is well to cast a comprehensive glance over their history and, in particular, over all the recent manifestations of popular sentiment.

The Ukraine was throughout the centuries the scene of conflict between various nations. It was through her lands that the tribes of Asia entered Europe.

Her natural mission was to guard civilised Europe against the continual invasion of these tribes, Tartars and others.

On the other hand, the peoples of the North and the East coveted the Ukrainian lands, the fertility of which was a mixed blessing for the inhabitants.

In this way the history of the Ukraine was fitful and confused, and the country met insurmountable difficulties for the construction of a State. Nevertheless the Ukrainian people during the centuries of their history succeeded three times, before the present reconstitution, in forming a State. In the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries there existed the famous Grand Duchy of Kiev, which entertained diplomatic and economic relationship with Byzantium and with the whole of Europe.

After the fall of Kiev, due to pressure of the nomadic tribes, there was formed in Western Ukraine the State of Galich, of which the celebrated head, Daniel (thirteenth century), received the royal crown from the Pope.

Later on, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which comprised the greater part of Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainians had the largest share in the administration and in the government.

It was after the personal union of this State with Poland (1386)), and after the latter had subjugated the Ukraine (sixteenth century), that the Ukrainian people revolted. The army of the free Ukrainian Cossacks waged numerous wars against the Poles.

​In the middle of the seventeenth century the most illustrious Hetman of the Ukraine, Bogdan Chmelnislcy, completely defeated the Poles and founded the Independent Republic of the Cossacks.

After several years of persistent struggle with the Poles and the Tartars, Bogdan Chmelnisky conceived the idea of contracting a close alliance with Moscovia to save the country, and in 1654 he concluded the Treaty of Pereyaslav. Having heed of military aid from the Muscovites, he recognised the supremacy of the Tsar of Moscow and in return he received guarantees of independence. The Hetman had to be freely elected by the people. He had his army of Cossacks, and, with some reservations concerning Poland and Turkey, he had the right of entertaining diplomatic relations. He also had the same independence in the administration of the country.

But the Tsar of Moscow had no real intention of respecting the Treaty. In the very first year he commenced to violate it with the intention of subjecting the Ukraine. However, more than a century of heroic struggle passed before the Russian Empire triumphed over the tenacity of the Ukrainian people for their country and independence.

One of the best-known and most popular events of this strife is the revolt, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, of Mazeppa, who allied with Charles XII with a view to fighting against Peter the Great.

The victory of the latter was a blow to the Ukrainian liberty, which Catherine II abolished completely.

In 1775 the Russian troops completely surrounded Zaparojie, the celebrated seat of the Cossacks, who were dispersed.

At the same time Galicia, after the partition of Poland, and a little later Bukovina, became part of the Austrian Empire, and up to the second half of the nineteenth century they remained in complete bondage.

The Ukrainian peasants became the serfs of Russian and Polish gentry and of newly made Ukrainian ​nobles. Orders were given by the Empress to denationalise and to Russify the Ukrainians.

But the national consciousness never left the people. And this consciousness has been kept alive by the élite even through the most gloomy time of the Tsarist oppression. In 1767 Catherine II had the idea of convening deputies elected from all parts of the Empire, in order that they might present the aspirations of their countries and give their advice in legislative questions. The Ukraine, although deprived then of almost all her liberties, also had to send her deputies. And in spite of all the repression made by her Governor, Count Roumiantzev, the Ukrainian patriots were elected and a memorandum drawn up in which the national demands w-ere formulated.

This memorandum recalled the fact that the Ukraine was bound to Russia by her own wish and that she had the right to constitute a separate State in the Empire and to preserve her national freedom.

But the assembly of deputies instituted by Catherine II resulted in nothing; it was soon suppressed by the Empress. And from that time until 1905 Russia possessed no means through which the will of the people could be expressed.

The populace of the whole Empire became plunged in a miserable ignorance. The Ukraine, who had, at the time of her union with Russia, numerous schools, saw these Russified and constantly diminished, so that illiteracy increased without cessation.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, as we have already said, a new era of literature arose and brought with it the man of genius, Shevchenko. Owing to him and the Ukrainian literature, the national sentiment and the memory of a sad but glorious past were kept alive.

At the commencement of the nineteenth century political groups sprang up which formulated the Ukrainian demands (1820–1825). Some twenty years later the ​celebrated historian Kostomarov, the poet and political writer Koulich, Shevchenko, and other patriots dreamt of a confederation of all the Slav independent people and founded the secret society of Cyril and Methodius.

Later on this idea was developed by the professor Dragomanov (1841–1895), the greatest theorist and propagandist of the political revival of the Ukraine.

And since then and up to the present time national Ukrainian groups have existed at Kiev and in other towns of the country, their object being to develop the Ukrainian literature and science, to further national propaganda among the people, and to develop instruction for the latter.

As to politics, they faithfully kept to the views put forward by the society of Cyril and Methodius, and by Dragomanov. But their activity was thwarted by the continual persecutions of the Russian Tsarist Government.

When this Government had ascertained that the national movement was progressing so well, it promulgated the Ukase of 1876, which prohibited the publication of Ukrainian books and made all patriotic propaganda practically impossible.

The Siberian prisons became well known to patriotic Ukrainians. Shevchenko, the national hero, became a martyr to Tsarism: he was condemned to serve as a private for ten years in Central Asia and was absolutely forbidden to write.

Kostomarov, also condemned for his patriotic ideas, remained for several years far away from his own country. Dragomanov had to pass the greater part of his life in exile. The ardent patriot Volkov, the anthropologist of European reputation, to avoid penal servitude was obliged to escape like a wrong-doer, and lived for thirty years in foreign lands. Many Ukrainians had to submit to the same thing. To declare oneself a Ukrainian in most cases meant one had to renounce all positions of importance and to compromise one's career for ever.

​It required much courage, much zeal and devotion to profess a patriotic faith and to persevere in the great national work.

As to the masses, were they able to show their national spirit?

Once a Russian Reactionary and Centralist said, regarding the Ukrainian claims, that the people asked for none.

Later on a speaker in the fourth Duma (February 22, 1914) replied to this reactionary:—

"You close the mouth of the people, and then you say they ask for nothing, that they are quiet. 'They are silent because they are happy,' as Shevchenko ironically said. No, gentlemen, the Ukrainian people are not happy, and they will not be silent much longer; and, besides, when they are silent it is dangerous to take their silence for a sign of assent."

And that speaker was not a Ukrainian, nor even a friend of the Ukraine. On the contrary, he was one of her most ardent adversaries. It was Milioukoff.

Thus all popular manifestations were impossible. But all the same the people made themselves heard in the end.

The first Russian Revolution gave birth to the so-called constitutional régime. The elections for the first and second Dumas were not based on universal suffrage, which was a great disadvantage for the Ukrainian people, who are entirely democratic. Nevertheless, it was sufficient to make the opinion of the people heard. Out of the 120 deputies sent by the Ukraine to the first two Dumas more than half were Ukrainians.

Nearly a century and a half after the summoning by Catherine II of the assembly of deputies, of which we have spoken, the Ukrainian deputies repeated what had been said then; they demanded afresh the return of the liberties of the Ukraine, which again must become a separate State, enjoying the most extensive political ​rights (autonomy), whilst Russia would be constituted in a great federated State.

These same deputies met the deputies of Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Armenia, Esthonia, Latvia, and White Russia to defend their national rights.

But the first and the second Dumas were, the one after the other, dissolved by the Government of the Tsar.

As to the third and fourth Dumas, the system of election was changed in favour of the wealthy classes. The elections took place under violent oppression of the police and the Reactionary party. The Russian people, strictly speaking, were not accurately represented. With the exception of some deputies elected by chance, the Ukraine was without representatives in these two Dumas.

At the time of the third and fourth Dumas the Local Self-Government represented but little better the rights and the wishes of the people. These local self-governments were the Zemstvos, founded also on the property franchise. The elections also were carried out under administrative influence, but the Ukrainian Zemstvos found themselves in a too close relationship with the country to remain absolutely deaf to the needs of the people.

Even before the pretended constitutional régime at the time of the terrible reaction at the end of the nineteenth century some Zemstvos of the Ukraine had had the courage to pronounce themselves in favour of the demands of the people, and notably those concerning the language and the national schools, the prohibition of which was both painful and dangerous for the country.

The Zemstvo of Tchernigov showed a courageous example regarding these national demands. In 1893 and long before that date, and then in i8g8, they put forward among their national claims the urgent demand for the introduction. of the Ukrainian language in the schools.

​At Kherson in 1881, through a congress of schoolmasters, and after that by the Zenistvo itself; in Elisabetgrad in 1895, at Poltava in 1900, and in several other towns, the same demands were formulated.

During the period 1905–1917 these demands became more frequent, and almost all the Zemstvos of the Ukraine made the same demands (Tchernigov, Poltava, Loubni, Zolotonosha, etc.).

Although the Revolution of 1905 betrayed the hopes of the Ukrainians it brought with it certain improvements in the administration. It was possible to publish—under a severe censorship, it is true—journals, reviews, and books dealing even with scientific and political questions, which, as we have seen, were formerly forbidden.

Despite the fact there were many difficulties in the way, and in spite of the risk of confiscation by the police, the books, etc., reached the hands of the people, spreading everywhere the sparks which led to the great national conflagration. At Kiev a scientific society was created, and at the same time all sorts of Ukrainian circles and societies of Prossvita (national instruction) were opened in all the towns and in many of the villages. The police watched them strictly and closed them, but often they succeeded in reopening. At all events they fulfilled their mission, and the more the police tried to hinder this movement the more it developed. So it was during the war, when persecutions were particularly terrible (suppression of the Press in Kiev, etc.), that the national activity made so much progress.

For a long time all the more or less democratic congresses that assembled in the Ukraine pronounced themselves in favour of national demands. And the Agricultural Committees convened in 1902 and in 1903 were, in spite of all obstacles, in favour of national schools and of the wishes of the country.

​It was through the insistence of the Ukrainian delegates that the Agronomical Congress, meeting at Moscow in 1901, carried resolutions to the same purpose. It was the same in the Union of the Small Industries at Poltava in 1902, at the Congress of Technical Workers at Petrograd in 1903, and in several other conferences.

In the years which preceded the Revolution of 1917 the Ukrainian national question occupied, almost to the exclusion of all others, all the congresses and provoked the most impassioned discussions.

At the congress of the schoolmasters of all Russia which was held at Petrograd in 1913 numerous representatives of the Ukraine ardently maintained their national demands (the Ukrainian members of this congress were later on relieved from their duties).

The Ukrainian co-operative societies also played a very big part during the last ten years. Some millions of men joined in these movements which were directed by the patriots.

In the Congress of Co-operative Societies of the whole of Russia the struggle between the North and the South, between the Ukraine and Russia, occupied all minds. The co-operative movement in the Ukraine was largely instrumental in the general awakening of the people in 1917.

At its commencement the revolution in the Ukraine presented itself in a most national form. A demonstration of more than 100,000 men, comprising a considerable number of peasants, took place at Kiev on March 19, under the national flag, amid most splendid and moving enthusiasm.

In March and also in April several congresses of co-operative societies and of all political parties gathered together at Kiev. The most important was the National Congress of April 8, in which all patriotic societies, all co-operative societies and professional organisations, and numerous municipalities took part. The delegates of the Ukraine met: they were composed ​for the greater part of provincial representatives and more especially of peasant representatives.

This Congress elected about 100 members to the Central Rada, and these latter were the core of the Revolutionary Parliament which governed the whole of the Ukraine for a year.

Later on the Rada was increased through the introduction of the delegates from the Congress of Peasants, the Congress of Soldiers, and the Congress of Workmen.

The Congress of Peasants was convened on May 30 by the Ukrainian as well as the Russian political parties. The system of election was based on the social and territorial principle;^[3] the national principle was put aside. But when the Congress had its first gathering it showed more national ardour than had been shown even at the National Congress of April 8.

The Congress of Peasants showed forcefully its desire immediately to construct a State either founded on federation or on independence.

The Ukrainian statesmen tried to calm the effervescence of spirits, and it was through the energetic insistence of the Ukrainian Socialists that the Congress agreed to listen to Russian Social Revolutionaries.

The same enthusiasm reigned in the Congress of Soldiers, which included some 2,000 soldiers elected by the groups of Ukrainian soldiers scattered along the front and in all the Russian towns. There were more than two million military electors.

The Central Rada, which in June comprised some 600 Ukrainians, was at this time accorded a tremendous popularity throughout the country.

Every day the President of the Rada received numerous deputations and hundreds of telegrams and letters. In all the towns, boroughs, and villages of the country special congresses of every kind gathered together and unanimously demanded the reconstitution of ​the Ukrainian State in either an independent or federative form. And each of the congresses paid homage to the Central Rada, which was considered by them to be the supreme head of the country.

In June the authority of the Petrograd Government declined, while the strength of the Central Rada increased. It was then that the non-Ukrainiansi (the Poles, Jews, and Russians living in the country) were permitted to be represented in the Rada by a hundred delegates. The Rada became a true provisional parliament of the country.

When the Revolution burst out, the local self-governments of the towns and the country districts, the Town Dumas and the Zemstvos, not being elected on democratic principles, in consequence did not respond to the tendencies of the hour. They were provisionally strengthened by the revolutionary and liberal forces.

Thus it was that the Zemstvos, which have always played a large part in the country's affairs, were clearly of a national character, whereas in the municipalities of the towns (the Town Dumas) the Ukrainians remained in a minority, which is explained by the fact that the towns contained a great number of non-Ukrainians.

In the summer the general elections for the local self-government were made on the principle of universal, direct, secret, equal and proportional suffrage. The result was to strengthen the patriotic representation in the Zemstvos and the Town Dumas. The number of electors who did not take part was very small, and while nine million votes were in favour of the Ukrainian delegates, the non-Ukrainians only obtained two or three million votes, which comprised those of the inhabitants of the Russian and Jewish boroughs and villages.

In the Zemstvos the Ukrainian majority was almost absolute. It was not altogether so in the Town Dumas (municipal councils). At Kiev, where the population is very mixed, the Ukrainians only obtained a quarter of ​the seats. In the smaller towns, where the Ukrainian population is proportionately higher, the Ukrainians had the relative majority (40 or 45 per cent. Ukrainians, 30 per cent. Jews, 15 or 20 per cent. Russians, and in the western villages a certain percentage of Poles).

One recalls that the Constituent Assembly of former Russia was dissolved by the Bolsheviks who took over the Government in October, and has since been unable to reassemble.

But in almost the whole of former Russia, and especially in the Ukraine, all deputies were elected on the basis of the universal and proportional system in September and October—that is to say, before the coup d'état of the Bolsheviks at Petrograd. These elections had been a manifest victory for the Ukrainians. Of the 150 deputies that the Ukraine had to elect, 115 (being 65 per cent.) represented the Ukrainian party. The other 35 were of different nationality, some 20 were Jews, and the others were Russians or Poles.

In the autumn of 1917 the Central Rada decided to convene the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly. The elections were made in December, 1917, and in January, 1918. Unfortunately the Bolsheviks had made their first invasion of the Ukraine, and in Eastern Ukraine the elections could not take place. Of the 326 deputies who should have been sent to the Constituent Assembly about 250 were elected. They comprised:—

Thus nearly 80 per cent, were Ukrainians. Of the ten million votes polled eight million were for the Ukrainian party.

In the Government of Kiev the Ukrainians obtained about 1,300,000 votes, whilst all the other parties collected only 250,000 votes.

​The Ukrainian Constituent Assembly had a no more happy fate than the Russian Assembly, for it was unable even to assemble. These last elections, just as those which took place in the Ukraine for the Russian Constituent Assembly and also for the local self-governments, show by their figures the opinions of the people—viz., that they had confidence only in the Ukrainian patriots.

If the will of the people in the Ukraine of the former Russian Empire was clearly shown, the will of the Ukrainian population of Austria-Hungary was expressed still more clearly.

We have already said that Galicia had been absorbed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1772. Until 1848 the Ukrainian people, placed under the yoke of this empire, lived in servitude and complete ignorance. But the patriotic ideas of Shevchenko, and later on those of Dragomanov and several other writers of Kiev, awoke the sentiment of the people, dulled through the slavery. On the other hand, the more or less constitutional Government of Austria during the second half of the nineteenth century, and the many years' struggle with the Poles, had strengthened the Ukrainian national spirit in that country.

Before 1918 the Ukrainians of Austria-Hungary had for a long time (1848) demanded the union of Galicia, Bukovina, and Hungarian Ukraine in one autonomous province. But at the beginning of the constitutional régime the Poles had succeeded in getting consent from the Emperor for the union of Eastern and Western Galicia, and in this autonomous province the absolute authority belonged to the Polish feudal landlords. The Ukrainians could obtain nothing, neither a school nor any institution, without running up against the difficulties raised by the Polish Administration. All advantages were given to the Poles by the electoral law before 1907.

​During the period of the elections veritable terror reigned, and Ukrainians were sometimes even killed. But the will of the people always overcame the obstacles that confronted it and always succeeded in electing a certain number of active representatives.

In 1907, as is known, universal suffrage was introduced in Austria. But the Poles, who were the chief opponents of this reform, also obtained great advantages in Galicia. In the Polish districts (Western Galicia) and in the towns of Eastern Galicia, where the Poles and the Jews were in a majority, the electoral districts were organised in such a way that each deputy represented a maximum of 50,000 electors, whilst in districts where the Ukrainians were in a majority (and these were often absolute) one deputy represented more than 100,000 votes. It must be recorded that the system of proportional representation existed everywhere where it was favourable to the Poles, but it was inoperative in the regions where it was unfavourable to the Poles (the towns of Eastern Galicia).

Thus it is that the Ukrainians of Eastern Galicia, of which the Ukrainian population is more than 70 per cent., were only able to elect 28 deputies, while the Poles had the right to 30.

The elections for the Galician Diet were carried out under conditions still more unfavourable for the Ukrainian party.

In Northern Bukovina the situation was practically the same as in Galicia. In Hungarian Ukraine it was still worse.

Thus the situation was difficult enough in Austria-Hungary, but in Russia under the yoke of the Tsars it was unbearable. The existence for a long time of a national school in Galicia and in Bukovina, and the fact of the population being accustomed to taking part in the political struggles, has given to the inhabitants of these districts an education and patriotic determination that the inhabitants of Eastern Ukraine, held under the most rigorous suppression until 1917, have been unable to acquire.

​Let us remember this: The great national ideas were born and developed at Kiev, but historic and other circumstances and fortuitous events have produced the greatest progress during the last few years in East Galicia.

Until the last hours of its existence the Austro-Hungarian Empire, desirous of the sympathy of the Poles, always upheld them to the detriment of the Ukrainians, and the last Minister of Foreign Affairs in this Empire was opposed, in the interest of the Poles, to the division of Galicia into two provinces, as demanded by the Ukrainians.

After the fall cf the Habsburg monarchy, the Ukrainian people of Austria instituted a National Council which comprised all the Ukrainian members of the Reichsrat, all those of the Diet of Galicia and Bukovina, to which were added the representatives of the Ukrainian parties and those of the various districts. These representatives were elected in the congresses of the provinces.

On October 19, 1918, the National Council proclaimed the Republic of Western Ukraine. It expelled the Austrian officials as well as the military authorities. It recognised the rights of the Polish and Jewish minorities.

For a long time the desire of all the Ukrainians has been to be united in a single State. But the realisation of this great national desire was made impossible until 1919 owing to the Austrian and Polish opposition. But on January 4, 1919, the National Council of the Western Republic, in expressing the earnest will of the people, was at last able to proclaim the union of the two Republics.

The supporters of the idea of Russian federation have often asked us if Eastern Ukraine aspired to detach herself from Russia.

​Put thus the question is badly put.

After the Russian Empire's complete fall into anarchy the Ukraine found herself suddenly detached from this Empire and, de facto, independent. In proclaiming herself independent by the solemn proclamation of the Central Rada (which was the true revolutionary parliament of the country), she but expressed in judicial terms that which had been already accomplished. It was undoubtedly difficult to construct a State in the middle of reigning anarchy. A heavy burden fell on the shoulders of the Ukrainian patriots, but the latter felt they should accept it. It was an historical necessity: the Ukrainian State must be founded.

That is why, instead of asking if the Ukrainian people wish to be detached from Russia, the supporters of the idea of a federated Russia would do well to put the question in the following terms:—

Have the Ukrainian people the intention of being re-united to Russia?

One is then able to reply that when a more peaceful time has come the people will have the opportunity of expressing their will through, the different elections which will take place.

And even if the Ukrainian people should believe that a federation with the neighbouring people would give them sufficient guarantees for the development of their national State, it is as well to ask:—

What ought they to do now?

They ought to continue to consolidate their State and struggle for sovereignty.

It is only free sovereign States which are able to make a Treaty of Confederation, in the same manner as every other international treaty.

All the preceding pages have shown that for the construction and for the consolidation of an independent State the Ukrainian people possess all the necessary qualities.

Ethnology, the progress of national culture, and political economy have certainly formed an objective foundation. The short outline of history that has been given ​has equally shown that the Ukrainian State is also based on the subjective principles: the national spirit, the will of the people. This national basis is the most substantial foundation for the construction of a State.

On February 22, 1914, in the hour of greatest trial for the Ukrainian people, the bitterest enemy of Ukrainian independence, the Russian Imperialist, Milioukoff himself, was compelled to pronounce (in the speech already cited) the following truths:—

"The Ukrainian movement does exist. We cannot stay it or change it. …"

"… The Ukrainian movement has been invented by no one; the Ukrainian movement exists and will exist, and all attempts to deny it will be fruitless."

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