Chapter I. HOMELANDS AND WATERWAYS
The
homelands of the Ukrainian people lie to the north and north-west of the Black
Sea, and extend from the Carpathians to the river Don. Collectively they have
neither natural nor political frontiers; though political frontiers cross these
lands at various points without apparent reason, the people's allegiance being
divided thereby among several sovereign States. At the present time by far the
largest and most prosperous part of Ukraine is that which forms one of the
Republics of the Soviet Union. Next in size comes a region in the south-east of
Poland, including East Galicia, with part of the ancient province of Volhynia,
and, less definitely, country to the north as far as the Pripet Marshes.
Ukrainian lands of less extent form the eastern extremity of what until
recently was known as Czechoslovakia, and part of Rumania. The Ukrainians in
the former Czechoslovak territory, like their kinsmen in East Galicia, are
sometimes called Ruthenians and sometimes 'Red Russians' — though not with the
meaning of the word 'red' as applied to communists. Their homeland has been
given various names such as Ruthenia, Sub-Carpathian Ukraine, Carpatho-Russia,
and Carpatho-Ukraine. The Ukrainians of Rumania live in Bessarabia, a province
having a frontier in common with Soviet Ukraine; and in Bukovina, on the
south-east frontier of Galicia. Bukovina was a crown province of Austria before
the Great War. Bessarabia, previously a Russian province, became a prey to
conflicting interests after the Russian Revolution of October 1917, but was
eventually taken over by Rumania. The Soviet Government has never recognized
the annexation, but has pledged itself not to resort to force to recover the
lost territory.
In
general the Ukrainian lands form the western end of what is known as the black
soil belt, a tract of great agricultural fertility extending from the
Carpathians to the Urals and beyond, and, in Soviet Ukraine, from the Seim
river (a tributary of the Desna) to the Black Sea. Unlike the more northerly
expanse of European Russia, which consists of forest land with a clay soil,
much of the black soil belt is treeless except in ravines and river valleys.
Travelling south through Soviet Ukraine one comes to a huge, slowly undulating
plain, a world of parabolic distances which makes one think of the open sea. In
this land there are also occasional marshes and ponds, haunted by herons,
storks, wild-ducks, and a variety of singing birds.
The
grassy steppe of Soviet Ukraine is subject to the extremes of a continental
climate, and the absence of hills and trees exposes the land to winds which may
be excessively hot in summer and excessively cold in winter. If, owing to hot
winds, the snow melts too soon, or if the melting is delayed by a continuation
of very cold winds, widespread damage to crops or destruction of flocks may
ensue. Moreover, the intense winter cold, with frost lasting sometimes as long
as four months, makes the working year much shorter than it is in Western
Europe.
In its
natural state the steppe produces a variety of grasses, some of which grow to a
considerable height and bear silvery plumes which wave in the wind. Under
cultivation the black soil is capable of providing magnificent crops. It is
rich in humus, it absorbs moisture readily, and is more easily worked than the
clay soil of the forest zone. Even on the old three-fields system of
agriculture corn has been grown on it for over fifty consecutive years without
any need to add manure.
It must
not be supposed, however, that the whole of the territory occupied by the
Ukrainian people is steppe. In the northern part of Soviet Ukraine the open
steppe is replaced by an intermediate zone in which thinly wooded steppe melts
gradually into forest land. To the west of this lie the Pripet Marshes, where
conditions are very different. Here are vast morasses interlinked by a network
of streams. In some parts these morasses are covered with reeds and rushes,
elsewhere they are studded with pines and other trees. Here and there is a stretch
of sandy dune forming an island suitable for grazing cattle or for raising
crops; but these islands are often well-nigh inaccessible, and the peasants
must be adepts in sailing their boats on the languid streams and in finding
their way through the treacherous marshes. A series of drainage schemes put in
hand from time to time during the past seventy years has resulted in much more
land being brought into cultivation. But still the marshes as a whole are
estimated to cover between seven and eight million acres — rather less than
one-quarter the area of England. Despite partial drainage, the region is still
inimical to health. Fevers as well as throat and lung diseases are common,
owing to the combination of a damp atmosphere with poisonous gases liberated by
the putrefaction ceaselessly taking place in the marshes. The poverty-stricken
condition of the people, together with bitterly cold weather in the winter when
the marshes are usually frozen over for at least two months, naturally
increases the virulence of recurring epidemics.
Turning
to Carpatho-Ukraine we find a country cut off by the Carpathians from the black
earth belt, but possessing other advantages, The soil at the lower levels is
good, and crops are sheltered by the mountains from north and north-east winds.
This region also gets the benefit of moist and relatively mild winds from the
south-west. These are factors of considerable importance to agriculture, by
which the great majority of the Ukrainian people live, making it possible to
work in the fields for at least seven or eight months of the year. On the
uplands of Carpatho-Ukraine there are extensive forests. Here live the
Hutzulians, highlanders of Ukraine, many of whom were formerly employed in the
timber industry but have lately suffered greatly in consequence of political
changes in that region.
Little
need be said about Bessarabia and Bukovina, since these are in effect merely
extensions of Soviet Ukraine and Galicia respectively. Much of Bessarabia
presents the same wide, open, treeless spaces as Soviet Ukraine. In the north,
however, there is mountainous country with wide-spreading forests. In Bukovina
too there is much forest land. The soil is exceptionally fertile, and under
more favorable economic conditions might be made remarkably productive.
As might
be expected, crops vary in kind or area sown according to natural conditions.
Wheat, rye, barley, and maize are grown throughout the greater part of Ukraine.
Potatoes, sugar-beet, sunflower, and hemp are widely cultivated; whilst cattle
and pig breeding, poultry farming, and like activities are common to all the
sections into which Ukraine is politically divided. In Carpatho-Ukraine, East
Galicia, and Bukovina grapes, tobacco, and hops are grown. Cotton growing has
recently been greatly developed in Soviet Ukraine.
Some
parts of Ukraine are rich in mineral resources. There are, for example,
valuable oilfields in East Galicia in the neighborhood of Boryslaw and
Dohobycz, though the output of the wells has declined in recent years. In
Soviet Ukraine there is the great Donetsk coalfield, covering an area nearly
equal to all the British coalfields combined. Apart from importation, Donetsk
was practically the sole source of coal in Tsarist Russia. Some two hundred
miles farther west is the iron-ore region of Krivoi Rog, output from which has
been enormously increased under the first and second Five-Year Plans. Other
minerals such as manganese, zinc, lead, and silver are also mined in this
region.
Oil and
coal are two of the primary resources for the production of power; and a third
resource of ever-increasing importance, the flow of water, is also widely
available in Ukraine. Under the Soviet regime these and other resources in
various parts of the U.S.S.R. are being exploited on a scale which has already
placed the Union in the front rank as a producer of electric power. The most
notable of such developments is the giant hydro-electric power plant on the
Dnieper, near the site once occupied by the famous Zaporozhye Cossack Camp.
It is abundantly
evident that the rivers of Soviet Ukraine will in future figure prominently in
the development of the country. But for the present we are more concerned to
stress the important part they have played in times gone by. All the Ukrainian
homelands — with the exception of Carpatho-Ukraine, which is accessible from
Galicia by mountain passes— are united by navigable rivers. For example, the
Dniester is navigable in small boats from East Galicia down to the sea. It
touches Bukovina, and winds along the frontier between Soviet Ukraine and
Bessarabia. Farther north it is possible to propel small craft through the
Pripet Marshes and along the Pripet to the Dnieper, means of transport being
thus provided between a large tract of Soviet Ukraine and lands lying to the
west. These rivers and their tributaries have been used for transport for
hundreds of years, and facilitated control of Volhynia by the Princes of Kiev
from the ninth century onwards.
But the
Dnieper has played a still more important part in Ukrainian history. To understand
why, we must now look farther afield.
European
Russia, including the former western territory of the Tsars, is itself a great
plain or plateau nearly nine times the size of France in area. This plateau,
which presents greater physical resemblances to Western Siberia than to Western
Europe, has no mountains to check winds, to bring down rain from clouds borne
by winds from the sea, or to arrest the advance of arctic weather from the
north; or again, to act as barriers to freedom of travel between one part of
the plateau and another. Nevertheless, the boundless forest in the north — huge
stretches of which still remain — together with numerous formidable swamps and
ferocious wild beasts, must formerly have sufficed to deter men from wandering
over great distances, were it not that nature provided roads through the
wilderness whereby all obstacles might be circumvented.
Over the
plateau flow many slow-moving rivers, forming what is perhaps the finest
natural network of waterways in the world. The watersheds from which these
rivers flow, some north, some south, are low; and gradients are in general so
gentle that except for occasional rapids the rivers are navigable in small
boats far upstream. The principal watershed is the Valdai Hills in the province
of Novgorod. The highest point on these hills is 1100 feet above sea-level, but
few of the rivers rise at a greater height than 600 feet and many have their
sources in the foothills. The headwaters are so near together that it is relatively
easy to drag boats over land, across the watersheds, from one river to another;
excellent water roads thus being provided from the Baltic to both the Black Sea
and the Caspian Sea. Already by the second century A.D. a number of Gothic
rovers had made their way from the Baltic through what is now Soviet Ukraine to
the Black Sea. Later came the Vikings, with whose advent Ukraine may be said to
emerge from the misty region of conjecture on to the stage of history. The
routes ordinarily followed were along the West Dvina from the Baltic and down
the Dnieper, or alternatively from the Gulf of Finland by way of the Neva to
Lake Ladoga, thence up the Volkhov to Lake Ilmen and on to the source of the
Lovat, across the Dvina, and so down the Dnieper to the Black Sea. Yet another
route, taking the rovers farther east, was provided by the Volga, which, after
following a sinuous course for some 2400 miles, empties its waters into the
Caspian Sea.
Lack of
natural frontiers, and the geographical position of Ukraine, have greatly
influenced the history of that country. Looking back into the distant past we
see a constant movement of peoples; invasions and migrations, piratical
exploits, and trading activities. This movement necessarily resulted in a
complex intermingling of races and reacted extensively upon the characteristics
of the people. The Black Sea— Baltic water road lays the country open to attack
and colonization from the north, a fact of which the Vikings took full
advantage. The black soil belt provided a natural highway for invaders from the
east. To the south the Black Sea afforded ready access to Constantinople, thus
ensuring contact with the civilized world of the time. For some centuries the
bulk of the trade between the Orient and Western Europe — so long, that is, as
this trade was controlled by merchants of the Greek Empire — passed over the
water road through Ukraine, thereby stimulating the growth of towns which
sprang up on the Dnieper and farther to the north. The influence of Byzantine
civilization has left its mark not only on Ukraine but on the whole of European
Russia to the present day. For example, when Christianity came to these lands
it was the Greek Orthodox confession which was established there. Poland, on
the other hand, was under West European influences and adopted Roman
Catholicism. As we shall have occasion to note later, proselytizing zeal on
behalf of the rival Churches gave rise to prolonged persecution of which the
Ukrainian people were the principal victims.
Chapter II. THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE
It is impossible to determine accurately the number of Ukrainians in different countries, as reliable census figures are not available and estimates differ considerably. Figures given here must therefore be regarded as rough approximations, providing a general guide to the distribution of the people.
We may safely assume that there are at least 40,000,000 Ukrainians in Europe, whilst 1,000,000 or more emigrants to America are in the main divided between the United States and Canada. There are also smaller groups of Ukrainians in the Far East and other parts of the world. Taken as a whole they form the second largest of the Slavonic peoples, they are one of the largest groups in Europe with a common tongue, and even in Canada they are the third largest of such groups, being exceeded in numbers there only by Canadians of British and French descent. By far the greatest number — about 26,000,000 — live in Soviet Ukraine. Together with another 8,000,000 in adjacent Soviet territory they form between one-fifth and one-sixth of the total population of the U.S.S.R. Soviet Ukraine is a densely populated region, with sixty-five inhabitants to the square kilometer. The next largest group is found in those parts of Poland known as East Galicia, Volhynia, and Polessia, where there are between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 Ukrainians. Poland has a population of 32,000,000, so that here, as in the U.S.S.R., the Ukrainians form a minority of about one-fifth to one-sixth of the total population of the country which claims their allegiance. Geographically the Ukrainians of Galicia comprise three-quarters of the people living in that province east of the river San.
Turning to the smaller groups, there are 500,000 Ukrainians in Carpatho-Ukraine, and in Bessarabia and Bukovina together another 800,000. Finally, there are perhaps 100,000 Ukrainians in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and other countries of Eastern Europe.
Certain physical differences between the Ukrainians and Great Russians may be noted, though such differences are far from being universal and are not so numerous as resemblances. If we could find an 'average' Ukrainian and an 'average' Great Russian we should probably note that the Ukrainian was the taller; that he had a broader head, with a tendency for the head to be flattened at the crown; and had also a straighter nose and a brighter complexion. Nevertheless, if we looked about us we should find a good many Ukrainians with a lighter coloring, such as chestnut hair and brown eyes, which would make us slow to generalize. In so far as Ukrainians differ from Great Russians it is reasonable to assume that difference of racial admixture and milieu are responsible. In our next chapter it will be seen that the earliest known home of all the Slav tribes was in much the same region as that occupied by the Ukrainian people to-day; and the guess may be hazarded that those Slavs who migrated to the north-east in times long gone by have changed more than those who stayed behind. Facial characteristics often seen among Great Russians are high cheek bones, squat noses, and dark complexions, which suggest an admixture of Finnish blood; and history shows that such an admixture is what in all probability took place. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, came into more intimate association with Turkish peoples, and made little contact with the Finns. Both Ukrainians and Great Russians became interblended in some de...