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Title: Ukraine : The land and its people
Author: Rudnitsky, Stephen
Language: English
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UKRAINE
THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE
AN INTRODUCTION TO ITS GEOGRAPHY
BY
STEPHEN RUDNITSKY, Ph. D.
PRIVATDOZENT OF GEOGRAPHY
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LEMBERG
NEW YORK CITY
1918
PUBLISHER’S PREFACE
The first appearance of this book, which is from the pen of Stephen
Rudnitsky, the famous geographer of the University of Lemberg, was in
the Russian Ukraine. The book was printed in Ukrainian, at Kieff, and
the date under the publisher’s imprint was 1910. The first translation
into a foreign language was into German. This translation appeared at
Vienna in 1915, with many improvements and additions.
The English translation which appears in this volume is an authorized
translation of the German edition above-mentioned.
The reader is respectfully requested to note that the few unpleasant
references to Russia are of course meant to apply to the Russia of the
Czars, as the book was written during the Czarist régime.
Ukrainian Alliance of America
New York City
1918
CONTENTS
Book I. Physical Geography
PAGE
Ukraine as a Geographic Unit 3
Location and Size 12
The Black Sea and its Coasts 15
General Survey of the Topography of Ukraine
The Ukrainian Mountain Country 23
The Ukrainian Plateau Country 37
The Ukrainian Plain Country 53
Streams and Rivers of Ukraine 63
The Ukrainian Climate 85
Flora and Fauna of Ukraine 99
Book II. Anthropogeography
Ethnographic-Boundaries of Ukraine.
Number and Geographical Distribution of the
Ukrainians 118
The Ukrainian Nation as an Anthropogeographical Unit
General Survey 148
Anthropological Characteristics of the Ukrainians 159
The Ukrainian Language 167
Historico-Political Traditions and Aspirations
of the Ukrainians 176
Ukrainian Culture 190
Relations between the Soil and the People of Ukraine 211
Economic-Geographical Survey of Ukraine 246
Hunting and Fishing 246
Forestry 251
Agriculture 255
Fruit and Vegetable Raising 267
Cattle Raising 271
Mineral Production 275
Industry 282
Trade and Commerce 292
Districts and Settlements of Ukraine 307
Bibliography 341
Index 346
Maps:
General Physical Chart of Ukraine
General Ethnographic Map of Eastern Europe
Geological Map of Ukraine
General Climatic Map of Ukraine
Map of the Flora of Ukraine
Structural-Morphological Map of Ukraine
BOOK I.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
UKRAINE AS A GEOGRAPHIC UNIT
There are few lands upon the whole globe so imperfectly known to
geographic science as the one which we shall try to describe in this
little work. The geographic concept of the Ukraine does not exist in
the geography of today. Even the name has been almost forgotten in
Europe in the course of the last century and a half. Only occasionally
on some maps of Eastern Europe the name “Ukraine” shows timidly along
the middle of the Dnieper. And yet it is an old name of the country,
originating in the 11th Century, generally known thruout Europe from
the 16th to the end of the 18th century, and then, after the abrogation
of the autonomy of the second Ukrainian state, gradually fallen into
oblivion. The Russian Government has determined to erase the old name
of the land and the nation from the map of Europe. Little Russia, West
Russia, South Russia, New Russia, were officially introduced in place
of the old name Ukraine, the Austrian part of the Ukraine receiving the
name of East Galicia. The people were named Little Russians, South
Russians, Ruthenians, and all remembrance of the old name seemed to
have been blotted out. But, in the speech of the people and in the
magnificent unwritten popular literature of the nation, the name of the
land could not be destroyed, and, with the unexpected rise of Ukrainian
literature, culture, and a feeling of national political independence
in the 19th Century, the name Ukraine came into its own again. Today
there is not an intelligent patriotic Ukrainian who would use another
name for his country and nation than Ukraine and Ukrainian, and,
slowly, these designations are penetrating foreign lands as well.
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.
This district is a definite geographic unit. A discussion of its exact
boundaries shall be reserved for the anthropogeographical part of this
book.
A division of Europe into natural regions almost invariably stops at
Eastern Europe. While all the other portions of our globe have long
been the object of the most detailed classification, Eastern Europe
remains, as before, an undivided whole. To be sure, there have been
many attempts at classification, but they are all based upon a
non-geographical point of view. Only the Baltic provinces and Poland
are, in their present political extent, regarded as possible geographic
units.
These deficiencies in the geographic material relating to Eastern
Europe are due, above all, to our imperfect knowledge of this great
region. Russian science is devoting far more intensive study to the
Asiatic borderlands of the immense empire than to the European home
country. For this reason, our literary aids in this direction are few
and unreliable. The latter criticism applies even to the twenty-volume
Geography of Russia by Semyonoff and the Geography of Krassnoff. Apart
from the consideration that it is relatively out of date, the fifth
volume of Reclus’ “Géographie universelle” still offers the best
insight into this unique region of Eastern Europe.
If we glance at the map of Eastern Europe, we perceive at once that the
great uniformity of this immense region makes it quite impossible to
apply to Eastern Europe as a criterion the division of Western or
Central Europe. It is not seas and mountains that separate the natural
regions and anthropogeographical units of Eastern Europe, but
imperceptible morphological transitions, hydrographic and climatic
boundaries, petrologic and floral conditions.
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. But
it also forms a characteristic transition country from Eastern to
Central and Southern Europe on the one side, and to Western Asia on the
other.
The location of the Ukraine causes us necessarily to consider it as the
easternmost of the Mediterranean countries of Europe. The Ukraine
differs from these other Mediterranean countries in that it is not
hemmed in on the north by mountains. The back-country of the Black Sea,
which the Ukraine really is, therefore merges gradually into the lands
lying further to the north—Great Russia and White Russia. Of all the
regions of Eastern Europe, the Ukraine alone has access to the
Mediterranean.
The geological history of the Ukraine is entirely different from that
of the rest of Europe. The pre-Cambrian core of gneiss-granite of the
Ukraine, unlike other parts of Eastern Europe, was not flooded by the
sea either in the Cambrian period or the lower Silurian, while in the
upper Silurian the sea covered only a slight part of Western Podolia
and Northern Bessarabia. The Devonian sea crossed the boundaries of the
Ukraine only in the farthest east (Donetz Plateau) and west (Western
Podolia). The carbon deposits and Permian formations, so widely
distributed in Eastern Europe, are found in the Ukraine only on the
Donetz; triassic rock hardly at all. The Jurassic Sea confined its
action almost wholly to the plicated borderlands of the Ukraine, altho
it actually flooded great stretches of Eastern Europe. Only the
extension of the chalk seas thru Eastern Europe affected Ukrainian
territory, especially the northern and western borderlands. The old
tertiary sea, on the other hand, confined itself for the most part to
the Ukraine, with the result that a goodly section of the northeastern
boundary of the old tertiary deposits coincides exactly with the
anthropogeographical boundaries of the Ukraine. The inland seas of the
lower green-sand formation of Eastern Europe, too, are confined almost
entirely to Ukrainian territory.
The geologic history of the Ukraine in the diluvian period was also
decidedly different from that of the other districts of Eastern Europe.
The Northern European inland ice covered the northwestern borderlands
of the Ukraine only in the main ice period, for the boundary set for
the glaciation of the north, on the basis of the investigations of
Russian scholars, applies in great measure only to the limits of the
distribution of northern glacial boulders, which were carried to their
present site not by ice but by flowing water. The two indentations of
the glaciation-boundary in the Don and Dnieper district merely mark the
sphere of action of two glacial river systems.
The absence of a one-time inland-ice-cap differentiates the Ukrainian
district very markedly from the other parts of Eastern Europe. As we
perceive, even from this short description, the Ukraine has had an
entirely different geologic history from the rest of Eastern Europe.
More plainly still, the independence of the Ukraine as a natural unit
is revealed in its contour-line and surface-relief. The Ukraine is the
only portion of the Eastern European plain which has access to the
mountainous region, for it rests upon the Carpathians, the Yaila
Mountains and the Caucasus. Important individual districts of the
Ukraine lie in these mountains and lessen the Eastern European
uniformity of the country. The formation of the Yaila and the Caucasus
began at the end of the Jurassic period—its completion and the building
up of the Carpathians occur in the late tertiary period.
The plains and plateau of the Ukraine, while at first glance quite
similar to those of Central Russia, are in reality very different from
these as to structure and surface-relief. The nucleus of the Ukrainian
plateau group, which is surrounded by the two plain districts of the
Ukraine, consists of the so-called Azof Horst (so named by E. Suess),
which stretches from the banks of the Sea of Azof in a northwesterly
direction as far as Volhynia and Austrian Podolia. This primeval rock
surface, composed of granite gneiss, is bounded by quarries and edged
with declivities, which are hidden by more recent sediment deposits.
Since this extended Horst stretches thru practically the whole length
of the Ukraine, we shall call it “the Ukrainian Horst.”
This Ukrainian Horst is of great importance for the entire process of
folding, all over the earth. To the west of this Horst is the immense
fold-system of the Altai, folded far into North America toward the
north and northeast, in direct opposition to the main parts of the
enormous system which lie to the east of it. In the east of the Horst
we see the straight line of the mountain system of the Caucasus; in the
west the winding guide-lines of Central Europe.
The region of the Ukrainian Horst has influenced not only the formation
of the plicated country. In connection with it we find, arranged on a
grand scale, but not very intensive, disintegrating lines, which
traverse the entire Ukrainian country from N. W. to S. E. These
tectonic disturbances have led to strong folding and dislocation of the
more recent sedimentary layers which lie close to the Horst. This
folding district can be observed only in the trunk range on the Donetz
and in a few isolated places to the northwest; beyond this it is buried
under the huge cover of the tertiary layers. The folding process took
place in the Donetz Mountains, continuing with long interruptions from
the end of the paleozoic era to the beginning of the tertiary period.
As pre-tertiary disturbances of this kind we consider the disturbance
of Isatchky, Trekhtimiriv, etc., as well as some dividing lines at the
northwestern extremity of the Ukrainian Horst.
There is no doubt that the Ukrainian Horst was also the origin of more
recent tectonic disturbances—tertiary and post-tertiary. The two main
lines of Karpinsky (the northern—Volga, bend of the Don, source of the
Donetz, delta of the Desna, South Polissye, Warsaw; the southern—delta
of the Don, end of the Porohy of the Dnieper, source of the Boh,
Western Podolia) for the most part go back to these more recent
post-cretaceous disturbances. Besides, we are already able, despite our
insufficient morphological data on the Ukraine, to establish the fact
that the entire Ukrainian plateau-group is the scene of a significant
post-glacial elevation. The strikingly parallel courses of the main
streams, the Dniester, the Boh, the Dnieper as far as Katerinoslav, the
Donetz and the Don, together with the precipices frequently
accompanying them, lead us to infer the existence of tectonic
influences. That the precipices of Podolia are very recent we may now
confidently maintain, and that the precipitous bank of the Dnieper is
quite as recent is shown by the familiar dislocation near Kaniv, where
the tertiary is affected. Seismic movements of the most recent past and
morphological observations show us that the tectonic disturbances of
the Ukraine are continuing into our own day.
From this tectonic characterization of the Ukraine we perceive that
this country occupies an independent position in relation to the rest
of Eastern Europe. The much more intensive tectonic disturbances of the
Ukrainian region have produced a greater variety of plateau and plain
country here than in White, Great or North Russia. The Ukrainian
plateaus attain the contour-lines of 400 and even 500 meters and reveal
precipices of tectonic origin, which for a long time were considered
proof of Baer’s law and have recently been explained as Davis Cuestas.
The extensive working out of valleys in the Ukrainian plateau regions,
the characteristic cañon-like type of the valleys, the frequent
occurrence of hills formed by erosion, lack of glacial formations and
deposits, but evidences of great erosive and flattening action—these
are the chief elements of difference between the plateau lands of the
Ukraine and other Eastern European plateau lands. The plains of the
Ukraine possess similarities to neighboring Central Europe only in the
Northwest. Beyond this, they are all more or less decided steppes, the
like of which are not met with in Central Europe, Hungary not excepted.
At the same time the character of the steppes of the Ukraine is
different from that of the steppe-region of Eastern Russia as well,
chiefly because of the detail of the country and the peculiarities of
vegetation, which are occasioned by differences of climate.
Hydrographically the Ukraine is distinguished by a web of rivers
concentrating in the Pontus. The Ukraine embraces the river systems of
the Dniester, Boh, Dnieper, Don and Kuban—not entirely, to be sure, yet
by far the greater part, leaving only the sources of the two greatest
rivers to the White and Great Russians. Only the most western
borderlands of the Ukraine lie within the watersheds of the Baltic
Rivers (the Vistula district); only the most eastern mountain-spurs in
the water-shed of the Caspian Sea (Terek and Kuma). We may therefore,
without hesitation, conceive of the Ukraine hydrographically as the
northern part of the Eastern European water-shed.
In respect to climate, the Ukraine occupies an independent position in
Eastern Europe. In fact, de Martonne recently declared “the Ukrainian
climate to be one of the main types of climate of the earth.” We shall
not go so far as this, but we must emphasize the fact that the climate
of the Ukraine differs no less from that of Poland, White Russia and
Great Russia than does Germany’s climate from that of England or
France. An important wind-partition crosses the Ukraine in winter from
East to West, subjecting the entire southern part to the sway of the
east wind. Winter in the Ukraine is strictly continental, with a
coldness of 30 degrees, but not with the semi-polar character of the
Russian or the Central European character of the Polish winter. The
east and southeast winds by day prevent the snow-blankets, produced by
the moist south winds of the Pontus, from ever becoming too heavy,
especially in the Southern Ukraine, and cause them to disappear quickly
in the spring. In the spring the temperature rises very rapidly. The
summer of the Ukraine is the hot continental summer, and despite the
predominant Atlantic west winds and the abundant precipitation, it is
not sultry. Autumn is pleasant and dry.
The climate of the Ukraine, then, is the continental climate of the
Pontus. Toward the west it merges into the Central European climatic
zone at the border of Poland, into the Eastern European continental
climate at the border of White and Great Russia, into the Aralo-Caspian
dry climate at the eastern border. The southern borderlands of the
Ukraine, like those of France, constitute a transition to the
Mediterranean climate.
In respect to its flora, the unique position of the Ukraine depends
upon the fact that it embraces almost the entire region of the
prairie-steppes of the Pontus, with their regions of transition to the
Northern and Central European forest zone. Right east of the Don begin
the steppes and desert-steppes of the Caspian region. Consequently, the
Ukraine is the only country in Europe which has the prevailing
character of the steppes. Here, again, this circumstance is of
geographical importance and makes the Ukraine, in this respect also, a
geographic unit.
The most important signs of independence as a geographic unit, however,
are imparted to the Ukraine by its anthropogeographical conditions, to
which we shall turn our attention in Book II of this little work.
We have now become acquainted with the natural foundations of the
Ukraine as a geographic unit. One important characteristic of this
geographic entity must especially attract our attention. The name of
the country is Ukraine, which means border-country, march-land. It is
an old historical name which originated in the course of the centuries
and has become customary. And yet it is significant as hardly another
name of a land or people could well be. For the Ukraine is a true
borderland Europe, between Eastern Europe, and Western Asia. It lies on
the borders of the European plicated mountain-girdle and of the Eastern
European table-land. The Ukrainian Horst constitutes a tectonic
border-post for the development of the entire European folded area. In
the morphological sense as well, the Ukraine constitutes a decided
borderland. Here the glacial formations give way to the erosive and
flattening formation. Climatologically, too, the Ukraine is a decided
borderland. Yet, most of all, does the character of the Ukraine as a
land of boundaries and transitions appear in its biogeographical and
anthropogeographical conditions. 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.
LOCATION AND SIZE
The Ukraine lies between 43° and 54° north latitude and between 21° and
47° east longitude from Greenwich. If we look for our country on a map
we will find that it lies as the northern hinterland of the Black Sea,
in the southern part of Eastern Europe, just on the threshold of Asia.
From the foot of the Tatra Mountains, from the sunny Hegyalia and
cloud-wreathed Chornohora, from the silver-rippled San, from the dark
virgin forest of Biloveza and the immense swamps of Polissye, to the
delta of the Danube—so often sung in the lore of the Ukrainian folk—to
the Black Sea, to the gigantic Caucasians and the Caspian, surrounded
by brown desert steppes, extends our fatherland, the Ukraine. From the
beginnings of the historical life of Eastern Europe, for one thousand
two hundred years, the Ukrainian race has resided in this region, and
has been able, not only to preserve its boundaries, but, after heavy
losses, to regain and even to pass beyond them. And this continued thru
centuries of stress, thru bloody wars, after the loss of the first and
second national governments, and under the merciless pressure of
neighboring states and peoples. That other nations, as the French, the
Italians, the Spaniards, should have preserved their original seats, is
not surprising; they were protected on all sides by high mountains and
deep seas. All the more, therefore, must we admire the great vitality
of the Ukrainian nation, which has been able to retain in its
possession a mother-country lying open, almost without any protection,
to mighty enemies.
For the Ukraine lies at the southeastern edge of Europe, on the
threshold of Asia, at the point where the easiest overland route
connects the two continents. 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 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. For more than a thousand years, from the
beginnings of the history of the Ukraine, these nomadic Asiatic tribes
traversed the South Ukrainian steppes, covering the entire Ukraine with
war and unspeakable misery. Huns, Avars, Khazars, Magyars, Pechenegs,
Torks, Berendians, Polovs, Tatars, Kalmucks, infested the Ukraine in
succession. Of all the European peoples, the Ukrainians always had to
be the first to oppose these steppe-plunderers. The nomads always had
first to force their way thru the Ukraine. Many of them were
annihilated by the ancient Ukrainians; thus, the Khazars, Pechenegs,
Torks and Berendians; others were held off, as the Polovs or the
Kalmucks. But the Ukraine exhausted its strength in this eternal
warfare, and, in the terrible stress occasioned by the Tatars, lost
their ancient culture and their mighty state.
If, therefore, any one of the European nations may claim the credit of
having been Europe’s shield against Asiatic barbarism, it is the
half-forgotten Ukrainian nation.
The border position of the Ukraine was fatal also, for the reason that
the country lay, and lies, so far distant from the cultural centers of
Europe. As long as the Byzantine Empire, with its cultural wealth,
remained firm, a strong stream of culture flowed from the Pontus into
the Ukraine. The decline and fall of the Byzantine Empire suddenly
transferred the Ukraine to the furthest (in respect to culture) corner
of Europe, close to the Ottoman Empire, which was at that time hostile
to culture. The western neighbors of the Ukraine, the Magyars and
Poles, acquired little of the culture of Western Europe in the time of
their independence, and allowed still less to slip thru into the
Ukraine. The Russians entered the circle of European culture only two
centuries ago, and have made only superficial cultural progress since.
And yet the geographical location of the Ukraine is not without
favorable features. The Ukraine embraces the entire northern coast of
the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof, and holds considerable possibilities
for oversea commerce. The proximity of Asia is no longer dangerous,
but, on the contrary, very advantageous. A century and a half has
passed since the power of the steppe-races was finally broken. Their
heritage has been taken possession of, altho in a different manner, by
the Ukrainian peasant, who has thickly settled the Pontian steppes.
With plow in hand, he has reconquered the lands which his ancestors
tried in vain to defend with the sword. Ukrainian colonization is still
advancing irresistibly in the Crimea and in the fore-country of the
Caucasus, and will, no doubt, within a very short time, flood these
countries completely.
A further advantage of location lies in the circumstance that the
Ukraine is situated on the shortest land-route from Central Europe to
the southern part of Central Asia and India, and commands a good
portion of this route. This fact may, in the very near future, be of
the greatest political and economic importance. At the same time, the
Ukraine is the only one of all the East European countries which, thru
its location, stands in the closest relations to the Mediterranean
countries.
Reserving the detailed discussion of the Ukraine’s geographical
location for the anthropogeographical part of my little book, let us
now consider the size of the Ukraine.
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. On such ground as this,
the possibilities for the development of a material and intellectual
culture are almost unlimited.
But alas! The greatest poet of the Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko, has
characterized his fatherland all too fittingly as “Our Land, but not
belonging to us.” Upon its large and rich territory the Ukrainian
nation has had to endure so many hard buffets of fate, that it must be
considered, along with the Jews, the most sorely tried civilized race
on earth. Even down to the present moment the Ukrainians are a helot
race, which is forced to unearth the treasures of its fatherland for
its hostile neighbors.
THE BLACK SEA AND ITS COASTS
Altho for many centuries separated from the Pontus by the nomad-haunted
steppe-border, the Ukrainian nation is closely identified with this
sea. An enormous number of legends and songs of the Ukrainian people
deal with it; even in fanciful love-songs it is mentioned. And the
intimacy of this East European nation with the Sea need not surprise
us. The Black Sea, with which so much in Ukrainian song and story is
connected, has had a significance in the history of the Ukraine which
has not been forgotten in the unwritten traditions of the people. How
many cultural and warlike memories are connected with the Black Sea!
How much Ukrainian blood has mingled with its waters!
The Black Sea is not large (450,000 square kilometers). It is a
landlocked sea, situated between Europe and Asia, and connected with
the Mediterranean Sea by the narrow Straits of the Bosphorus and the
Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora, which, geologically speaking, is a
basin formed by subsidence. Great subsidences of the earth’s surface
created the deep basin of the Pontus. The Pontus was a part of the
extensive upper Miocene and Sarmatian inland sea, which slightly
flooded large districts of the present European continent as far as the
Vienna basin. Toward the end of the tertiary period, this inland sea
shrank and separated into single sea basins. The Pontian basin became
connected with the Mediterranean Sea later, in the latter part of the
diluvial period, by means of great subsidences of recent date.
The present morphology of the Pontus is in full accord with this
genesis. The northern part, as far as the line of communication between
the Balkan and Yaila Mountains, is a shallow sea of a depth of less
than 200 meters; the so-called bay of Odessa is barely 50 meters deep;
the Sea of Azof, projecting to the northeast, barely 15 meters. But
just on the southern border of the line of plicated mountains, which is
broken at this point, the bottom of the Black Sea declines rapidly to
greater depths (1500 meters) until, declining more gradually now, it
attains the depth of 2245 meters in the center of the oval-shaped main
basin of the Pontus.
The salt content of the Black Sea is much smaller than that of the
ocean, or even of the Mediterranean. The Sea is comparatively small,
and receives a great deal of fresh water from the many and large rivers
of the region which it drains, while the influx of salt water from the
Mediterranean thru the shallow straits cannot be great. The salt
content is on the average 1.8%; only at great depths does it reach
2.2%. The diluted surface layer shows barely 1.5% salt content; the Sea
of Azof hardly 1%. The surface water, containing little salt but a
great deal of air, cannot, because of the greater density of the lower
layers of water, sink far, and this low degree of ventilation accounts
for the fact that the waters of the Black Sea below a depth of 230
meters are saturated with sulphide of hydrogen, and thus preclude any
possibility of organic deep-sea life.
Nevertheless, the Black Sea is notable for its beautiful blue-green
color and the great transparency of its waters. A white disc, on being
submerged, disappeared only at a depth of 77 meters.
The surface temperature of the Black Sea is subject to many
fluctuations; from 27° C in midsummer to 5° C in winter. In severe
winters the Sea is frozen over in the bay of Odessa for a short time;
the Limans and the Sea of Azof regularly for from two to three months.
The Black Sea has been known since hoary antiquity as a dangerous,
stormy sea. The waves, running as high as 10 meters, the short
cross-waves caused by the proximity of the shores, the difficult
approaches to the land, are still a great hindrance to navigation,
especially in the winter time. Not without cause did the Greeks
originally call it “the inhospitable sea,” until the great number of
flourishing Greek settlements on its shores led them to change its name
to “hospitable sea.” Despite this euphemistic name, however, “Pontus
Euxeinos,” the Black Sea has devoured many goods and lives, many Greek
and Roman ships, many Turkish and Genoese galleys, many English and
Russian steamers. And many a little Zaporog vessel sank in the dark
waves of its native sea, “on white cliffs dashed to pieces,” as is
related in the old folk-epics; many a one was driven to far-off hostile
Turkish shores, to the destruction of its crews.
Being a closed interior sea, the Pontus has no noticeable tides. Marked
changes of level are caused by the action of the wind. In the liman of
the Boh, for example, they produce 20 centimeters difference of level
in a day, sometimes even 40 centimeters; in the bay of Yahórlik as much
as 46 centimeters. The Sea of Azof becomes 45 to 90 centimeters deeper
when there is a west wind, up to 1 meter deeper in the case of south
winds, and shallower by an equal amount when the winds are in the
opposite direction. Slight changes of level are dependent also on the
seasons. The Black Sea has its lowest water level in February, when the
region which it drains is covered with snow; the highest in May and
June, as a result of the melting of the snows and the early summer
rains. These fluctuations, however, amount to only 25 cm. The currents
of the Black Sea, too, are inconsiderable, because of its isolation.
Outside of local currents which are caused by winds, we know of only
one greater current, weak in itself, which encircles the Pontian Basin
in a counter clock-wise direction and may be traced to the cyclonal
motion of the air. The same conditions obtain on a smaller scale on the
Sea of Azof and are reflected in the direction of the tongues of land
along the coasts.
Despite the fact that the deep-sea region of the Black Sea is poisoned
with sulphide of hydrogen, it possesses a rich flora and fauna in its
surface layers. Enormous shoals of all kinds of fish—sturgeon, hausen,
sterlet, “kephal,” “bichok,” “balmut,” come to the coast and into the
limans of the river deltas. For this reason the Pontian fishing
industry has been considerable for thousands of years. The extraction
of salt from the limans and salt lakes is also important. Before the
age of the railroad the abundance of fish and salt of the Black Sea
created a special trucking trade in the Ukraine, the so-called Chumaki,
who came to the Pontian strand in whole caravans of oxcarts to take
dried fish and salt in exchange for grain.
The Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea begins at the delta of the Danube
and ends at the western spurs of the Caucasus. The greater part is flat
coast, the smaller, steep coast.
At the northern Kilian arm of the Danube delta, where now the
descendants of the Zaporog Cossacks gain a scanty living thru fishing,
begins the coast of the Ukraine. The steppe approaches the sea with a
steep declivity, which is bordered by a narrow strand of sand and
pebbles. The coast runs evenly as far as the Dnieper delta, without any
indentations. Even the famous port of Odessa is an artificial harbor.
Only at a point where a river, a streamlet, even a balka (step-glen,
ravine) opens into the sea, is the steep incline of the steppe-plateau
broken. We then see before us an enormous pond as it were, at the upper
end of which the water-course enters and the lower end of which is
locked from the sea side by a land-tongue or bar (Kossá, Peresip) as by
a flat dam. This sea-water lake is called liman in Ukrainian.
Wherever a stream of great volume empties into a liman, the bar is
severed at one or more places. These liman deltas are called, in
Ukrainian, hirló. Limans which have such connections with the sea are
broken. Of such a kind are the limans of the Kunduk, Dniester, Boh and
Dnieper. Where a little streamlet discharges which has not a sufficient
volume of water to cover the loss from evaporation of the liman surface
and still retain an excess for keeping open the outlet, then the bar of
the liman is without an opening and the water contains a great deal of
salt. Of this kind are, above all, the limans of Kuyalnik and Khadshibé
near Odessa, the large, deep Tilihúl and many smaller ones. The water
and the mud of such limans possess healing powers, and every summer
thousands of patients travel to the hot shores of the limans to regain
their health.
The limans are simply submerged eroded valleys of steppe rivers which
are now being filled in by alluvial deposits. Therefore, the limans of
all larger rivers are too shallow to serve as good harbors for the
larger sea-going vessels. The liman of the Dniester allows entrance
only to small ships drawing two meters of water; the gigantic Dnieper
liman is only 6 m. deep, and only the Boh liman is accessible to larger
sea-going ships. Systematic dredging, however, could, without a doubt,
bring relief, and would change a number of the limans into profitable
harbors.
Beginning at the liman of the Dnieper, the coast is strongly indented
as far as the bay of Karkinit, but these indentations (Yahórlik,
Tendra, Kharilgach) are closed off by long tongues of land and the
undersea extension of the bar of Bakalsk. The west coast of Crimea is
also a uniform liman coast, increasing constantly in height, however,
toward the south. At the Alma delta the coast becomes steep and has two
excellent harbors, Sevastopol and Balaklava, which are submerged deep
valleys. The southeast coast of the Crimean peninsula is a strongly
marked acclivitous shore. The steep descent of the Yaila Mountains has
been transformed here, thru the abrasive action of the sea, into a
beautiful coastline. Eruptive rock, capable of offering great
resistance, is found here in places, forming picturesque capes, jetties
and crags, between which lie pretty little bays and coves. The
agreeable climate, the clear sky, the good sea-baths and the beautiful
country annually lure to this Ukrainian Riviera thousands of
consumptives and health-seekers. There are rows and rows of
cottage-colonies and mansions.
Beginning at the crescent-shaped bay of Feodosia, the coast again
becomes lower and also has a number of salty lagoons and bars. Of the
same description are the coasts of the Strait of Kerch, leading into
the Sea of Azof, which is 35,000 sq. km. in area. This extremely flat
sea is often compared to a liman. Numerous tongues of land (Biriucha,
Obitochna, Berdianska, Kossa, etc.) jut out here into the sea, showing
very clearly in their direction the effect of the cyclonal motion of
the air. The low coast has an enormous number of limans and lagoons,
e.g., Utluk, Mius, Molochni, Yeski, Akhtirski, Tamanski, Kisiltash,
etc. The most remarkable part of the Sea of Azof, however, is the
Sivash. A bar 111 km. in length shuts the Sivash off from the Sea of
Azof, leaving only a connecting passage of 150 m., near Henichesk. The
curiously ragged banks of red-clay, the salt swamps, lagoons and
islands, the bracken, ill-smelling water, which is salty in summer, and
in a few spots at other times as well, have given the Sivash the name
of Foul Sea (Hnile More).
The eastern part of the Ukraine’s Black Sea coast is a mountainous
cliff-coast again. The plications of the western Caucasus, which
approach the sea obliquely, are here so quickly destroyed by the
powerful abrasive action of the surf, that the erosive action of the
rivers and mountain streams cannot keep pace. Therefore, the crest is
difficult of access and only the two harbors of Novorossiysk and
Gelendshik offer shelter for ships along this part of the coast. But
even this shelter is doubtful, because of the bora-like winds.
As we perceive from this description of the Ukrainian coast, it is not
one which would promote navigation among the inhabitants. Lack of
harbors, isolation, remoteness from the main lines of the world’s
traffic, never could have an encouraging effect upon the development of
navigation among the Ukrainians. Despite all this, however, they
developed very high seafaring qualities in the time of the old Kingdom
of Kiev and later on in the Cossack period, and the present age, too,
has brought a revival of the nautical skill of the Ukrainian coast
population.
GENERAL SURVEY OF THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF UKRAINE
THE UKRAINIAN MOUNTAIN COUNTRY
Glancing at the map of the Ukraine, we perceive at once that in this
country we should seek in vain for such a variety of surface
configuration as is peculiar to Central or Western Europe. In Germany
or France there appear in a comparatively small space the most varied
landscape—chains of high mountains, central chains of mountains,
terrace and hill country, plateaus and plains.
It is different here in our wide Ukraine. One can travel hundreds of
miles in any direction without seeing a change in the character of the
scenery. The uniformity which is typical for Eastern Europe is peculiar
also to the Ukraine. But not to the extent that it is to Great Russia,
where the endlessness of the flat country wearies the eye of the
traveler. For there are in the Ukraine landscapes of high and central
chains of mountains, picturesque hill districts and richly cut
plateaus, marshy plains and steppes strewn with barrows. There is,
then, in the Ukraine, a variety of surface configuration, but on a
large scale, not as in Western or Central Europe, confined in a small
space.
The morphological nucleus of the Ukraine is the closed group of
plateaus, which extends from the country at the foot of the Carpathians
and the Polish part of the Vistula region to the Sea of Azof. Pontian
Plateau or Avratinian Ridge are the commonly used but incorrect names
of this plateau group. The first designation might do, but the second
transfers the name of a little destitute hamlet at the source of the
Sbruch to a territory of hundreds of thousands of square miles. We
shall, therefore, select for this plateau group the name Ukrainian
Plateau Group.
It forms a compact whole between the Carpathians and the Dnieper and is
divided into the following individual sections: The Rostoch, between
the San and Buh Rivers; Volin, between the Boh and the Teterev;
Podolia, between the Dniester and the Boh; the Pocutian—Bessarabian
Plateau, between the Dniester and the Prut; the Dnieper Plateau,
between the Boh and the Dnieper. The plateau character continues at the
rapids section of this river on the left bank, where, at some distance,
the last member of the Ukrainian Plateau Group lies—the Donetz Plateau.
The plateau group of the Ukraine is bordered on the north and south by
two plain districts. The northern district consists of adjoining
lowlands—Pidlassye, Polissye, and the Dnieper plain—and their
extensions along the Donetz; the southern district is made up of the
long stretch of the Pontian steppe-plain, which, in the country at the
foot of the Caucasus, merges into the Caspian desert-steppe.
Beyond the northern plain district, Ukrainian territory does not
extend, except in the Don region, where it embraces the southern spurs
of the Central Russian Plateau.
Besides these plateau and plain regions the Ukraine takes in also parts
of three mountain systems of the European continent. The Ukraine is the
only country of Eastern Europe which extends over into the region of
the European mountains of plication. Parts of the Carpathians, the
little Yaila chain of Crimea, and the western parts of the Caucasus
lie, together with their environs, in Ukrainian territory.
From this general survey of the surface configuration of the Ukraine,
we can easily see that more than nine-tenths of the surface of this
land is taken up by plains and plateaus. Nine-tenths of the Ukrainians
have certainly never seen a mountain and do not even know what one
looks like. Expressive of this circumstance is the fact that in the
wide plateau and plain region of the Ukraine the most insignificant
hills bear the high-sounding name of “mountain.” But, despite this, the
Ukraine also has its share in the three mountain systems of Europe—the
Carpathians, the Yaila, and the Caucasus. All three were formed thru
plication of the rock-layers.
The vast plication-formed mountain range of the Caucasus, even in the
small part belonging to Ukrainian territory, attains an alpine height;
the scenery of the Yaila along the Crimean Riviera is wonderful, but
the Carpathians, altho not as lofty as the Caucasus and not of such
scenic beauty as the Yaila, are the dearest to the heart of the
Ukrainian. For the Ukrainian nation expanded in the Caucasus only a
century ago and has but just reached the Yaila. And the Eastern
Carpathians have for more than a thousand years been a Ukrainian
mountain range.
Still, hardly one-third of the 1300 km. curve of the Carpathians
belongs to Ukrainian national territory. Toward the west the
Carpathians are inhabited by Poles and Slovaks; in the east and south
by the Roumanians.
The boundary-posts of the Ukrainian territory extend in the west beyond
the famous defile of Poprad. From the rounded peaks of the mountain
country where the last Ukrainian villages lie, one sees rising at a
very short distance the imposing range of the Tatra; still nearer lie
the cliffs of the Pienini, famous geologically as well as for their
scenery. In the eastern part of the Carpathian chain, Ukrainian
territory reaches the Prislop pass, which connects the valleys of the
Golden Bistritz and the Visheva (Visso). To the Ukraine, then, belongs
the sandstone district of the Carpathians at that point where it is
highest and most developed. It is called simply the “wooded
Carpathians.”
The western part of the sandstone Carpathians which lies within
Ukrainian territory is called the Low Beskid. It is also known as
Lemkivski Beskid because it is inhabited by the Ukrainian mountain
tribe of the Lemkes. The Low Beskyd extends from the defile of Poprad
to the valleys of the Strviazh River, the Oslava (Lupkiv pass), and the
Laboretz. It is a broad-backed but not a high mountain country. In long
chains, gently undulating mountain ridges stretch from west to east and
southeast. Their slopes are gentle; one can easily walk or even ride
up, and numerous wagon-roads and highways lead straight over the crest
or even along the edge of the crest. The peaks are rounded and of
uniform height, except where an occasional gently vaulted mountain top
rises above the low-hill country. Between gently sloping ranges there
extend, in a longitudinal direction, valleys with watersheds and
communicating passes. Broad, well-developed defiles separate the range
into different sections. The Galician-Hungarian dividing-ridge has only
slight gorges of genuine mountain passes.
The peaks and high passes of the Lower Beskid are insignificant. Only
in the extreme west, on the Poprad and the Torissa, do the peaks reach
a height of 1000 and 1100 m.; further toward the east hardly 700 to 800
m. The important Dukla Pass is hardly 500 m. above sea-level. In the
middle of the Beskid mountain country we even see a great longish strip
of lower country (“the Sianok Lowlands”) whose low hills are less than
300 m. high.
There is a connection between the insignificant height and soft
landscape forms of the Low Beskid and the geological construction and
evolution of the mountain range. This mountain country, like the whole
sandstone-region of the Carpathians, is built up of strongly plicate
and compressed Flysch—a series of sandstones, slates, conglomerates,
clays, etc., of the cretacian and tertiary ages. All these species of
rock occur in this region in thin layers and have little power of
resistance; everywhere the basic mountain ridge is covered with a thick
coat of weathering loam; rock piles are found very seldom. There is
added the fact that all the sandstone Carpathians of the Ukrainian
territory have been evened out by the destructive action of water and
air into a more or less perfect plain. Not until the quaternary was the
“obliterated” range raised anew and transformed into a mountain
district by the action of the rivers which were cutting in again.
The Low Beskid was once covered with great, mixed forests. Now the once
splendid virgin forests are completely thinned and all the ill effects
of forest destruction have visited the poor mountain country. The
fertile soil was washed away on the mountain-sides and heaped up with
rubble and mud in the valley bottoms. The tribe of the Lemkos is
therefore, perhaps, the poorest of all the Ukrainians and is compelled
to seek an existence in distant lands.
In the southern part of the Low Beskid the boundaries of the Ukrainian
nation in Hungary reach the northern part of the Hegyalia-Sovari Ridge,
which, at this point, is 1100 m. high, and is composed of extinct
trachyte volcanoes.
To the east of the Lupkiv Pass begins the second section of the
Ukrainian Carpathians—the High Beskid. It stretches to the southeast as
far as the valleys of the Stri, Opir and Latoritzia Rivers (Pass of
Verezki).
The High Beskid like the Low is composed of a number of parallel,
weakly joined mountain ranges, which run northwest and southeast. The
type of the Rost Mountains is, therefore, even more clearly marked in
this part of the sandstone Carpathians than in the preceding. The
mountain crests are gently sloped, the edge of the crests slightly
curled, the height of the peaks constant, the passes only walled
passes. Toward the southeast, tho, the ridge steadily increases in
height. The highest peaks are Halich (1335 m.), the beautifully
pyramid-shaped rocky Piku (1405 m.) and the massive Polonina ruvna
(1480 m.)
In the Flysch of the High Beskid, two species of sandstone attain
greater power of forming layers and of resisting pressure—the chiefly
upper cretacian Yamna sandstone and the oligocene Magura sandstone. The
former forms beautiful groups of rocks on peaks and precipices. The
cliffs of Noich, with its traces of a rock castle, are the most famous.
The longitudinal valleys are much less developed in the High Beskid
than in the Low. They are traversed only by smaller brooks. All larger
streams like the Strviazh, Dniester and Opir, flow thru well-formed
passes. Expansions of valleys (in regions of soft slate) alternate with
contractions of valleys (in regions of hard sandstone). Most remarkable
are the deeply cut out winding valleys (San, Striy), which offer the
best proof of the former smoothing down and the later raising of the
mountains.
Beautiful beech and evergreen forests still cover large parts of the
High Beskid. Above the tree-line (1200–1300m) we meet for the first
time with the characteristic plant-formation of the Polonini (mountain
pastures) which yield excellent pasturage for large and small cattle
during the summer and create the foundation for a primitive dairy
industry.
Along the southern foot of the High Beskid, and separated from it by a
chain of longitudinal valleys, a long chain of mountains rises above
the neighboring Hungarian plain, bearing the name of Vihorlat (the
Burnt Out). The Rivers Uz (Ungh), Latoritzia and Bershava, have cut the
Vihorlat into four sections. The range is lower than the Beskyd, since
it is less than 1100 m. high, but it is strongly cut up by deep-gorged
valleys, and has steep, rocky precipices, bold rocky summits and pretty
little mountain lakes. The range, which is covered with thick oak
forests, owes its scenic character to its geological composition. The
Vyhorlat is a line of extinct volcanoes, in the old craters of which
the mountain lakes of the region lie. The firm trachyte lava forms
picturesque rock walls and peaks. East of the Verezki Pass begins a new
mountain section, perhaps the most characteristic one in the sandstone
Carpathians. It extends toward the east as far as the passes of the
Prut and the Black Tyssa (Theiss) and the Yablonitza Pass. This part of
the sandstone Carpathians bears the name of Gorgani.
The uniform mountain walls of the Beskid give way here to shorter
mountain ridges, strongly cut up by cross valleys. The main streams of
the northern slope, Opir, Limnitzia—the two Bistritzas—flow thru deep,
picturesque passes; still deeper are the valleys of the mountain
streams which flow into the Theiss, as the Torez, Talabor, etc. It is a
remarkable circumstance that the dividing border ridge is lower than
the ridges facing it on the north and south, which are broken thru by
magnificent passes.
The edge of the Gorgani ridge also shows traces of the old
leveling-surface and has only small gorges, yet it is much more curled
than in the Beskid. The ridge often becomes a sharp edge and the
cone-shaped peaks further break its monotony. The height of the peaks
is much greater than in the Beskyd. On the Galician side the Popadia
attains a height of 1740 m.; Doboshanka, 1760 m.; Visoka, 1810 m.;
Sivula, 1820 m.; in Hungarian territory the Stoh in the picturesque
Bershavi group is 1680 m.; the Blisnitza, in the Svidovez Range, 1890
m., etc.
The ridges and peaks of the Gorgani are covered with seas of sandstone
boulders and are, therefore, difficult of access. The light gray Yamna
sandstone, of great resisting power, appears in this mountain section
in very thick layers, and is the cause of the greater height and the
bolder forms which, in places, are suggestive of high mountain ranges.
The energetic weathering process, aided by the cover of winter snow,
breaks up the mighty sandstone layers into great rocks, boulders,
fragments and rubble. Deep fissures yawn between moss and
lichen-covered boulders, many boulders rock under the foot of the
wanderer, and many of them, thru caving-in and thru accumulation, have
formed natural chambers and hollows. The rocky ridges, covered with
seas of boulders, are Arshizia, the Gorgan peaks, whence comes the name
of the entire mountain range. The seas of boulders and rubble-stone are
called Zekit or Grekhit.
In the highest groups of the Gorgani Range (especially in the Svidovez)
are found also distinct traces of the glacial age, glacial excavations
with small lakes or with swamps that have taken the place of lakes.
A splendid, only slightly thinned dress of virgin forest covers the
Gorgani Chain. The lower forest section is composed of beech, ash and
fir trees, the upper part of pines and stone-pines. The tree limit is
very irregular and vascillates between 1100 and 1600 m. Mountain
pastures are very rare, because of the seas of boulders and
rubble-stone, but there are large and beautiful, tho not easily
accessible, stocks of mountain pines.
The last section of the Ukrainian Carpathians is called Chornohora
(Black Mountains). It extends from the Prut and the Black Theiss to the
Prislop Pass; to the valley of the Visheva and of the Golden Bistritza.
In this wide and long mountain district we find greater morphological
variety than in the mountain sections hitherto discussed. In the wide
zone of the northern foothills, which separate with a distinct edge
from the sub-Carpathian hills and continue into the Bukowina, we find
low ridges and rounded peaks, as in the High Beskid. Only in places on
peaks and valley sides piles of rock are seen. Then toward the interior
of the range follows the wide vale of Zabie, imbedded in soft slate,
and above it rises the mighty chain of the Chornohora, the only part of
the sandstone region of the Carpathians which has high mountain
formations. The chain is composed of the hard magura sandstone, rich in
mica. A whole stretch of peaks here attains a height of 2000 m., the
highest being the Hoverla (2058 m.). Well-formed, partly rocky ribs
branch off from the main ridge on either side. The rock piles of the
Shpitzi, Kisli and Kisi Ulohy, are some of the most imposing rock
formations of the Carpathian sandstone region. Between the rocky ribs,
finely developed glens lie on both sides of the main ridge of the
Chornohora, the beds of the ancient glaciers. Waterfalls dash down the
steep rock walls in silver streams—of particular interest is the
cascade of the Prut under the Hoverla—and down below lie little crater
lakes reflecting the patches of summer snow on the crater walls. Almost
three-fourths of the year the Chornohoras are covered with snow. In
summer the snow almost wholly disappears, and the beautiful carpet of
flowers of the mountain pastures, only occasionally interrupted by dark
green reserves of mountain-pine, spreads out over the ridges and peaks
of the Chornohora. Every summer innumerable herds of cattle, small
Hutzul horses and sheep are seen here. Then an intensive dairy industry
enlivens the peak regions of the range for three months. The lower
regions are still covered with extensive forests; in lower locations we
find mixed forests here; in higher altitudes, almost pure stocks of
pines.
Standing on one of the Chornohora peaks, on the Hoverla for instance,
or the Petros or Pip Ivan, we see, in the near southwest, a new and
strange mountain world. It is the third zone of the Chornohora
Mountains, the mountain land of Marmarosh. Situated in the region of
the headwaters of the Theiss and orographically related to the
Chornohora, the mountains of the Marmarosh are of entirely different
geological composition and have a different morphological appearance.
Gneiss and other kinds of crystalline slate, permotriassic and jurassic
conglomerates and limestones, as well as eruptive rock of older and of
more recent date, lend great geological and morphological variety to
the Marmarosh Mountains. The high mountain character here is even more
marked than in the Chornohoras. Rocky peaks, ridges, mountain walls,
numerous craters, with small glacial lakes, adorn the Marmarosh
mountains, which rise higher than 1900 m.: Pip Ivan, Farko, Mikhalek,
Petros, Troiaga. Toward the southeast the range wanders over into South
Bukowina, where its last boundary-posts, the rocky peaks of Yumalen and
Rareu really stand on Roumanian ground. And in the south, beyond the
Visheva Valley, which divides the settlements of the Ukrainian Hutzuls
from those of the Roumanians, rises the magnificent lofty rampart of
the Rodna Mountains, with its two peaks of 2300 m., Pietrosu and Ineu.
On the outside of the Carpathian curve stretches a hill country of
varying breath, the sub-Carpathian hill-country, in Ukrainian: Pidhirye
or Pidkarpatye. The mountain-edge of the Carpathian, which is at all
points very distinct, rises steeply over the low-hill country at the
foot, along an extended line in the neighborhood of the cities of
Peremishl, Sambir, Drohobich, Striy, Kolomia. The Carpathian rivers
leave the mountains by way of funnel-shaped valleys, bordered by
boulder terraces, and spread their alluvial mounds over the low hill
country. Wide stretches of meadow accompany the river courses; fields
and woodland lie at a distance. The sub-Carpathian hill-country is
built up of miocene gray clays which, along the edge of the
Carpathians, contain an enormous treasure of petroleum, ozokerite,
kitchen salt and potash salts. Boulders lie on the clay, not only along
the rivers, but also on the hilltops—traces of old watercourses, which
transported Carpathian and northern rubble-stone toward the east in the
direction of the Dniester. The yellowish cover of loam and loess lies
over the whole, and its surface-layer, abounding in vegetable soil, is,
in places, very fertile.
The sub-Carpathian hill country reaches to the two sub-Carpathian
plains in the north—the Vistula and the Dniester Plain. Only along the
European main divide a tongue of hill-country projects in the direction
of Lemberg. In the glacial period, watercourses of great volume flowed
directly across this hill-country divide, which, as might be expected,
is now completely cleft by the bifurcation of the Vishnia, depositing
considerable masses of rubble-stone and sand. Thru destruction of
forests, the sands have become subject to wind action and dreary
landscapes of sand-dunes have been formed.
Only the southeastern reaches of the Vistula Plain, extending along the
San River to Peremishl are part of Ukrainian territory. The low loam
bags, which lie between sandy and swampy valleys of the San, form the
only rises of ground in this plain, which borders in the northeast on
the spurs of the Rostoch.
The Dniester Plain extends in a broad ribbon along the river from the
place where it leaves the mountains to the delta of the Striy. Its
western part is a single great swamp region, a one-time large lake. The
rivers flow on flat dams, and when the melting snows come and the rains
of early summer, they overflow their banks and flood the swampy plains
far and near. In some years the swamp region changes into a lake for
days and weeks. In the dry season only a few swamp lakes remain, but
the entire region remains a swamp and produces only a poor sour hay.
Settlements lie only on the high banks of the rivers.
The eastern part of the Dniester Plain extends beyond the great
alluvial mounds of the Striy River, and then reaches over into the
broad valley of the Dniester, which ends in the Podolian Plateau at the
point where the river enters. The eastern Dniester Plain is not very
swampy, and only in places do ravines, swamps, and old river beds
accompany the river course. For the most part pretty meadows, fields
and woods lie on the thick sub-layer of rubble-stone and river-loam.
If the Carpathians represent a primeval section of Ukrainian ground,
the mountain ranges of Crimea and the Caucasus were entirely strange to
the Ukrainians not so very long ago. How many Ukrainian slaves, in the
time of Tartar oppression, cursed the rocky-wall of the Yaila which
separated them from their beloved home. How discontented was the
enslaved remainder of the Zaporogs when transported to the Western
Caucasus.
Now the conditions are quite changed. The great colonizing movement of
the Ukrainians touched the Yaila as much as twenty years ago, and has
extended the frontiers of the Ukrainian settlements along the outer
mountains of the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea. And the once strange,
hostile mountain-worlds have opened their doors to Ukrainian
colonization.
The Yaila Mountains of Crimea are, in comparison with the Carpathians,
a small mountain system hardly 150 km. long and 35 km. wide. They lie
in three parallel ranges, separated by longitudinal valleys, along the
southeast shores of the peninsula. The northern declivities of all the
ridges are gently sloping, the southern ones steep. The southern main
range exceeds a height of 1500 m. with its peaks, Chatirdagh,
Roman-chosh, and Demir Kapu. This main ridge, which declines toward the
sea in steep precipices, is flat and rocky on top, strewn with
rock-craters; it bears the name Yaila and serves as a lean mountain
pasture. Deep gorges cut the rough surface of the summit and divide it
into single table mountains.
The mountains of Crimea, like the Carpathians, are mountains of
plication. They are composed of Jurassic, chalk, and miocene-layers.
The large blocks of lime of the Jurassic, which rest on softer slates
and clays, form the main ridge of the mountains. Besides craters, we
find, in the limestone mountains of the Yaila, impassable furrows
(German Karrenbildungen) and numerous hollows.
Very picturesque is the magnificent precipitous decline of the main
range of the Yaila to the sea. Here the entire southern part of the
range has sunk in great ravines and the resisting power of the eruptive
rocks which appear here has created a coastal mountain landscape of
great beauty. Protected by the mountain wall from northerly winds, a
Mediterranean flora has been able to develop here at the southern foot
of the range, while beautiful leafy forests partly cover the declines
of the mountains.
On the peninsula of Kerch, which forms the eastern extreme of Crimea, a
low steppe-like hill-country extends seemingly as a prolongation of the
Yaila Range. The new tertiary clays are here laid in flat folds, which
are more closely related to the Caucasus. Here, and on the quite
similarly formed Taman peninsula, we find many small cone-shaped mud
volcanoes which emit gases, smoke, and thinly flowing blue-gray mud
from their miniature craters.
The magnificent lofty range of the Caucasus forms the boundary-post of
the Ukraine on the east. Only the western part of the mountain system
lies within Ukrainian territory. We shall, therefore, discuss it quite
briefly.
The Caucasian Mountain system, which is 1100 km. in length, lies like a
huge wall of rock between Europe and Asia. Most geographers consider
the Caucasus as part of the latter continent, which is correct in so
far as these mountains show many characteristics of Asiatic mountain
ranges. First of all they are hard to cross, much harder than the
highest mountains of Europe, the Alps. Along a stretch of 700 km., the
ridge of the Caucasus descends only twice to a level of 3000 m. On the
other hand, the Caucasus is not wide—on the average only 150 km.—and at
the point where the Grusinian army road crosses the range, barely 60
km. Then, the Caucasus, like many mountain ranges of Asia, stretches in
a straight line from the peninsula of Taman to the peninsula of
Apsheron, famous for its abundance of petroleum.
The Caucasus is a plication-formed mountain range composed of folded
crystalline and sedimentary rock of varying ages. Along huge ravines,
the entire southern part of the range has sunk down, so that the
highest crystalline central zone of the range declines directly and
very steeply toward the south. The highest Caucasus peaks are old
extinct volcanoes, set over the basic mountains; the Elbrus (5630 m.),
at the source of the Kuban and the Kasbek (5040 m.), at the source of
the Terek. Proof that the subterranean powers are still active are the
numerous tectonic earthquakes of Transcaucasia.
The main chain of the Caucasus possesses, besides the volcano peaks,
many rocky granite peaks 4000–5000 m. in height, and, besides these,
hundreds of lower peaks, all of which find their counterparts in the
Alps. The present glaciation of the Caucasus is very considerable,
while that of the glacial period was also very extensive and determined
the present mountain forms of the Caucasus. Only the most beautiful
ornament of the one-time glacial landscape is lacking in the
Caucasus—the lakes, which are so abundant in the Alps.
All the larger Caucasus rivers rise as milky glacial brooks in the main
range. Then, by way of deep cross-valleys, they break thru the lower
ranges, which face the main ridge in several rows, and are composed of
sedimentary rock formations of jurassic, cretaceous, and old-tertiary
age. Their crests and peaks become constantly lower and more rounded
toward the north. Beautiful mountain pastures and thick virgin forests,
full of animals that may be hunted, cover the mountains.
In the country at the foot of the Caucasus, a low hill-region is
spread, which consists mainly of new-tertiary layers abounding in
petroleum. At the Ponto-Caspian divide, the hill-district and plateau
of Piatihorsk and Stavropol, which is composed of recent lime
formations, projects from the Caucasus. From a height of 600 m. this
structure declines slowly in flat hills toward the west, north and east
to the Ponto-Caspian steppe-plain, in which lies the famous Manich
Furrow. The Manich, or rather Calaus River rises like the Kuma in the
Plateau of Stavropol and separates, in the Furrow, into two branches.
The one flows thru extended Manich lakes toward the northeast into the
Don River, and, incidentally, into the Sea of Azof; the other turns
toward the south to the Kuma River and the Caspian Sea. But its waters
reach this goal very rarely; the burning sun and the sandy soil of the
Caspian steppe rob the little river of its small supply of water.
THE UKRAINIAN PLATEAU COUNTRY
The Carpathians, the Yaila and the Caucasus, are immovable
boundary-walls, marking the southern borders of the Ukraine. On its
wide surface there are only these narrow zones of mountain country. All
the remaining territory of our fatherland is occupied by plateaus and
plains. Upon these the Ukrainian nation has lived since the dawn of
history. Not cloud-capped highlands, but level, lightly undulating
plateaus, furrowed by picturesque river valleys and immeasurable
plains, are characteristic of the Ukraine.
Between the Carpathians and the Ural Mountains there extends an immense
space which once bore the name of Sarmatian Plain and is now generally
called the Russian Tableland, tho the name East European Lowland would
be geographically the most fitting. In this space, which embraces half
the surface of Europe, only one group of hills in the Pokutia rises
above 500 m., and only one small part of the Podolia above 400 m. The
entire remaining space of Eastern Europe, with slight exceptions, keeps
below the 300 or even 200 m. level.
In the northern part of Eastern Europe, the lands over 200 m. high take
up very little room. Like great flat islands, they rise gently from the
spacious cool lowlands. In Central Europe the surface of the high part
of the flat country is relatively the greatest, but these rises of
ground are so insignificant and the transitions to the low plain so
imperceptible, that the main features of the surface of this part of
Europe were only discovered in the second half of the Nineteenth
Century.
In the Ukrainian south of Eastern Europe the character of the ground
elevations is different. They are the highest of all in Eastern Europe
and separate very distinctly, largely by means of steep edges, from the
surrounding plains. The genuine plateau landscape is the type of
landscape peculiar to the Ukraine.
The Ukrainian plateau group, the real morphological nucleus of the land
about which its borderlands are gathered, extends from the
sub-Carpathian country and the Polish Vistula-region to the Sea of Azof
and the Donetz River. It consists of the following plateaus: Rostoche,
Podolia, Pokutye (Bessarabia), Volhynia, Dnieper Plateau and Donetz
Plateau.
We shall begin our survey of the Ukrainian plateaus with the Podolia.
The Podolian Plateau is the most massive of all the plateaus in the
Ukraine, the highest, and the one possessing the most distinctive
features of a heavily cut high plain.
If, leaving the Carpathians, we overlook the surrounding country from
the edge of the mountain range, we observe behind the wide stretch of
the sub-Carpathian hills and plains, just on the horizon, wide, flat
elevations, which obstruct the horizon in the north. These are the
edges of the Podolian Plateau.
The western boundary of Podolia is formed by the wide valley of the
little Vereshitza River, a valley covered with swampy meadows and large
ponds. On the south and southeast, Podolia is bounded by the valley of
the Dniester River, which is first wide and then narrows down to a
cañon. Between the lower course of the Dniester and the Boh, the
Podolian Plateau gradually leads into the Pontian Steppe-plain. On the
north and northeast, Podolia is bounded by the rocky valley of the Boh
and then by the river divide, which extends toward the west, between
the basins of the Dniester and Dnieper Rivers. Near its limit begins
the well-known steep edge which forms the decline of the Podolian
Plateau to the plain of the Buh. From Brody to Lemberg, the northern
boundary of Podolia is very clearly marked by this steep edge.
Despite its distinct plateau character, Podolia is by no means lacking
in beautiful landscapes. The northern, steep, border of the Plateau
occasionally rises for 200 m. above the swampy Buh plain, and its
height above sea level is in some places 470 m. The whitish-gray
chalk-marl which forms the basis of this land grade glitters from a
distance, exposed thru the action of the water, which flows down the
steep side. The miocene sandstone lying above shows fantastic rock
piles and ravines. Beautiful beech forests are to a great extent still
maintaining themselves on the steep edge. From a distance, everything
produces the illusion of a high forest-covered chain of hills. On
climbing it, however, we see in the south only an unbounded lightly
undulating elevated plain, with flat valleys filling the entire view.
Toward the southwest, too, Podolia declines with a similar steep
border, but this one is neither so uniform nor so high and picturesque.
These steep borders owe their origin to a recent uprising, which has
affected the Podolian Plateau, especially in the west, since the
glacial period. To the same cause the picturesque, beautifully wooded,
eroded hill-country of the Opilye owes its origin, a section which
extends southeast from Lemberg in the regions of Rohatin and Berezani
to the Dniester, and which, with its peaks, reaches a height of 440 m.
Most remarkable, however, is the long chain of rocky hills which
extends from Brody to the southeast toward Kamenetz Podilski. This
chain of hills, which bears the name of Toutri, is marked on all maps
by the wilfully chosen name of Medobori. The limestone rock, which
contains a great amount of fossils, forms fantastic crags on the more
than 400 m. peaks of the hill-chain, which look down upon the land like
old fortresses. The entire chain of hills is a new-tertiary coral and
briozone reef which, after the withdrawal of the sea, remained behind
as a long rock dyke.
Beyond this hilly region the entire Podolian Plateau has a flat,
undulating surface. Beginning as far back as the upper Sereth and
Sbruch we find typical steppe-plains. The farther southwest, the more
flat, undulating and steppe-like sections do we meet, until finally the
Podolian elevation gradually merges in the Pontian steppe-plain.
Much variety and beauty is given to the appearance of the Podolian
landscape by the valleys of the Dniester tributaries on the left. In
their upper parts they are wide and have flat, swampy ground, many
ponds and bogs and gentle valley declines. In its further course the
river begins to cut in more and more deeply, the valley becomes
constantly narrower and deeper and winds on in regular bends, the
valley-sides become higher and steeper, bare walls of rock take the
place of the soft green slopes. We are in a Podolian “yar,” in a
miniature cañon.
In the sides of the yars the geologic history of the Podolia is
engraved in imperishable letters. The river has sawed the plateau thru
as tho with a gigantic saw, and has exposed the various layers of
stone. As a rule they lie nearly horizontally above one another.
The oldest rock species of Podolia are the granite-gneisses, which were
folded and disturbed in pre-cambrian times. The lines of the folds and
breaks stretch principally north to south. Granite composes the rocks
of the Dniester rapids near Yampol and the numerous rapids of the Boh
River, in whose rocky vale this primitive rock formation appears
distinctively. On the granite base, almost horizontally, slightly
turned toward the southwest, lie dark slate and limestone, upper
silurian at first in West Podolia, then the devonic layers, of which
the old red sandstone attracts the eye most of all, because of the dark
red coloring which it gives to the steep walls of the Podolian cañons.
These are followed by chalk layers, and, last of all, by recent
tertiary formation whose gypsums form picturesque groups of rocks on
the heights of the Yari walls. In the mighty gypsum stores of Podolia
may be found many a large, beautiful cave, with wonderful alabaster
stalactites.
All tributaries on the left side of the Dniester, beginning at the
Zolota Lipa, flow into yari-cañons of this sort. The most beautiful and
magnificent is the cañon of the Dniester, whose walls often exceed a
height of 200 m. It cuts thru the high plateau in adventurous windings,
every curve revealing new, beautiful prospects over the high, concave,
steep edge, torn by ravines, and the gently rising convex banks. In
deep gorges the yari of the tributaries open into the yar of the main
stream. Between the defiles stretches the flat, hardly undulating
plain. In the summer only endless waving grain-steppes present
themselves to the view of the traveler, only here and there a little
wood appears on the horizon, or a lone farm. Suddenly the wood seems to
end, the traveler is confronted by a deep, steppe-walled valley, down
the sides of which climbs the road. And below, on the silvery river,
amid the green of the orchards, lies village after village.
The further to the east, the more frequent do the yari become, and the
balkas (gorges) similar to them but smaller; yet these are not so deep
and picturesque. In the regions of Tiraspol Ananiv the entire plateau
surface is very profusely cut by these defiles. In the district of
Ananiv the balkas take up one-seventh of the entire surface. The
plateau is cut up by these water crevasses into innumerable narrow
fens.
The balka, like the yar, owes its existence to the erosive activity of
flowing waters. On the Dniester we see, on both sides of its deep yars,
great masses of old river boulders, which lie on the summit of the
plateau beneath the thick cover of loam. They are boulder deposits of
the pre-glacial Dniester. Later, when the recent raising of the
Ukrainian plateau group began, and it occurred with particular force in
the Podolian Plateau, the rivers cut in, and in the course of thousands
of years formed their present picturesque defiles.
The entire surface of the Podolian Plateau is covered with a thick
mantle of loess, which was formed in the desert and steppe period
following the glacial age. In the manner in which the loess is heaped
up, in the symmetry of the river valleys, whose western declivities are
regularly steeper, in the general arrangement and formation of the
valleys of Podolia, the great influence of winds may be distinctly
recognized.
The uppermost loess layer has been transformed thruout Podolia into the
famous black earth (Chornozem). Hence Podolia has for ages been famous
for its fertility. “In Podolia,” says an old Ukrainian proverb, “bread
grows on the hedgeposts and the hedges are of plashed sausages.” On the
other hand, Podolia suffers greatly from lack of forests. The large
areas of forest which still existed in the 16th and 17th Centuries have
now divided to small woods. The effects of forest destruction were not
slow. Many springs and brooks have dried up, the rivers have
languished, so that in particularly dry summers there is often a dearth
of water. On the other hand, after the cutting down of the forests,
began the destructive activity of the gorges, which extend after every
strong rain and are able in a short time to transform a rich
agricultural district into a maze of ravines.
Between the Podolian Plateau and the hilly sub-Carpathian country lies
the Pocutian-Bessarabian Plateau.
The far-stretching narrow plateau section which lies between the
valleys of the Dniester and the Prut is called Pokutye (land in the
corner) in the west, while in the east the name Bessarabia (properly
Bassarabia) is commonly used. In the west the plateau country reaches
the valleys of the Bistritza and Vorona in the sub-Carpathian region;
in the southeast it passes over into Pontian steppe-plain.
On the Dniester one sees almost no difference between the character of
Podolia on the left bank and of Pocutia or Bessarabia on the right. On
both sides the same valley slopes, composed of the same rock
layers—except that the one on the right bank is more compact, because
the Dniester receives only few and small tributaries on this side. Only
at some distance from the course of the Dniester do the peculiarities
of the Pokutian-Bessarabian Plateau appear to the view.
The western part of the plateau, which bears the name of Pokutye and
extends to the east as far as the hill-group of Berdo-Horodishche, has
a level, very flat, undulating surface. And yet it is a typical
karstenite country, affected by the existence of great strata of
gypsum. The region has a very great number of funnel-shaped depressions
which are called Vertep and are altogether analogous to the Carso
dolomites. They originated thru the dissolving action of the
subterranean water in the gypsum strata. The funnel walls are always
steep on one side, gray gypsum rocks rise like walls over the bottom of
the funnel, which is often occupied by a small lake. Many brooks
disappear in the karstenite funnels, to continue their course as
subterranean streams. Nor does Pokutye lack other marks of a karstenite
region. The action of the subterranean waters has, by dissolving the
gypsum masses, formed large caves, which are famous for their beautiful
stalactites of white alabaster. The best known are the cave of Lokitki,
near Tovmach, and in the neighboring South Podolia, the caves of Bilche
Zolote and the recently discovered magnificent caves of Crivche.
However, the karstenite country of the Pokutye cannot bear comparison
with the karstenite regions of Krain, Istria and Croatia. Gypsum is not
limestone, and its strength is insignificant as compared with strength
of the lime-stone in genuine karstenite regions. A genuine karstenite
formation therefore does not exist in Pokutye, and a thick cover of
clay is only in exceptional cases broken by gypsum rocks.
The Pokutian Plateau is much lower than the Podolian. Only in isolated
places does it attain a height of 370–380 m. and becomes constantly
lower toward the east. But north of Chernivtzi (Czernowitz) it rises to
a height which we look for in vain in all the rest of the Ukrainian
plateau group. The wooded hill-group of the Berdo Horodishche here
reaches 515 m., the greatest height above sea level to be found between
the Carpathians and the Ural. In the east, Berdo Horodishche passes
over into the chain of hills of Khotin, which attains a height of 460
m. and marks the eastern end of the Pocutia. The southeastern long and
wide Bessarabian section of the plateau is divided into far-reaching
narrow marshes by the flat valleys of the Prut and Reut Rivers. The
Prut-Dniester river divide attains a height of 420 m. (Megura hill) in
the headwater region of the Reut south of the city of Bilzi. The
southeastern part of the Bessarabian plateau consists of very numerous
low marshes, which lie between flat valleys. The plateau becomes
constantly lower and flatter and passes imperceptibly over into the
Pontian Steppe-plain.
The third member of the Ukrainian plateau group is the Rostoche.
Looking from the summit of the castle mountain of Lemberg, famous for
its beautiful prospect, we see, just behind the broad valley of the
Poltva River, a chain of high wooded hills which stretch toward the
northeast. They form the spurs of the Rostoche.
The Rostoche, called also the Lemberg-Lublin Ridge, lies, a profusely
cut, hilly, narrow plateau, which is bounded on the one side by the San
and Vistula Plain, on the other side by the low country of the Buh.
Toward the southwest the Rostoche has a steep rim, which, as a matter
of fact, is rather insignificant-looking; toward the east it resolves
itself into parallel hill-ridges, which gradually become lower and
between which lie marshy valleys.
The southern part of the Rostoche, which merges with the Podolian
Plateau near Lemberg and extends to the broad, sandy and marshy glacial
river valley of Tanva toward the northwest, is a plateau transformed
into an erosive hill-country. The highest hills attain a height of 400
m. The river valleys are in general flat; only along the steep borders
of the plateau are they cut deep. The steep western border is very
picturesque, with its deep gorges and loess walls. Many vigorous
springs appear here, among them the well-known Parashka spring, from
which a heavy column of water rises from time to time.
The oldest rock layer of the Rostoche is the chalk-marl. Above it lie,
in almost undisturbed horizontal layers, miocene limestone, sandstone,
clay, sand, Diluvial loam, while sand and broken stone with many
boulders, which are of unmistakable northern origin and were
transported by glaciers and streams of the ice period as far as the
southern part of the Rostoche, form a heavy cover everywhere. The
ground is not very fertile, sand and marl soil being particularly
wide-spread.
The northern part of the Rostoche, beyond the Tanva valley, is a broad,
slightly undulating plateau, which, in its highest part, reaches a
height of only 340 m. The western edge of the plateau is distinct and
steep and declines in places 100 m. to the low country of the Vistula.
Toward the north the plateau surface declines very gradually and merges
almost imperceptibly into the plain of the Pidlassye. The river
valleys, as those of the Buh, Vepr, are broad, flat and marshy.
The geological constitution of the northern Rostoche is almost entirely
similar to that of the southern part. Its soil cover, too, is not very
fertile, and only great woods have survived, especially in the
districts of the old morainic sand and loam. Only in the neighborhood
of the Pidlassye does the soil become more fertile. For the
configuration of surface of the Rostoche, the recent post-glacial
raising of the ground has also been of great significance, altho here
it was not nearly so intensive as in Podolia.
The Volhynian Plateau extends over a broad space between the Buh in the
west and the Teterev in the east, between the swampy plain of the
Polissye in the north and the Dniester-Dnieper watershed and the upper
Boh valley in the south. The Volhynian Plateau does not possess the
compactness of the Podolian or Rostoche Plateau. The swampy lowland of
the Polissye extends along the rivers into the heart of Volhynia,
thereby dividing its plateau country into several sections of different
size. Likewise, the inner structure and geological constitution of
Volhynia is variable. Western Volhynia, situated between the Buh and
Horin Rivers, has a sub-layer of chalk marl, which is capped in places
by layers of clay and sandstone and limestone of recent tertiary date.
Eastern Volhynia lies entirely in the region of the primeval Ukrainian
Horst, whose plicate granite-gneiss sub-layer is covered by old
tertiary deposits. In this tectonically disturbed region we meet with
traces of early volcanic action. Near Berestovetz, Horoshki, etc.,
species of eruptive rock appear as signs of radical disturbances of the
earth’s surface.
The surface soil of Volhynia is black soil only in the south. Beyond
that we find here sandy soil, white earth and loamy soil, as signs of a
one-time glacial covering and the action of fluvio-glacial waters. Many
regions of loamy ground are rich in vegetable soil and not without
considerable fertility.
The lowest part of the Volhynian Plateau is the western part, which
lies between the broad, marshy, flat valleys of the Buh and the Stir.
The slightly undulating, almost level plateau surface, which declines
imperceptibly toward the Polissye, here just attains a height of 200
m., while the next section, between the Stir and the Horin is the
highest part of Volhynia. As an extension of the above-mentioned
northern edge of Podolia, the Kremianetz-Ostroh hill-country intrudes
between the two rivers. Over 400 m. high, near the city of Kremianetz,
it declines toward the north, a steep section torn by gorges and
ravines. Near Dubno, the plateau is cut into a picturesque hill country
with a maximum height of 340 m. The hills of Volhynia have steep, often
rocky declines and flattened rocky peaks. North of Rivne and Lutzk they
finally begin to be lower and more rounded, then they dwindle to a flat
billowy tract of land, until, at the borders of the Polissye, we see
only an almost perfect plain.
Between the Horin and Sluch Rivers, the Volhynian Plateau becomes more
uniform. Its surface is flat, and broad valleys of the rivers which
flow toward the east, forming numerous ponds, part it slightly. Only in
the south is a height of more than 300 m. reached; in the north, where
the granite sub-layer appears everywhere, especially in river valleys,
barely 200 m.
The eastern part of the Volhynian Plateau extends, at first, as a
narrow plateau zone between the valleys of the Boh and the Teterev on
one side and of the Sluch on the other. Then the plateau spreads out
like a fan toward the north. At the source of the Boh and the Sluch,
the plateau reaches a height of 370 m.; at the sources of the Teterev,
340 m. Here the surface is level, except that here and there low,
gently-rounded hills arise. In the broad, northern part, the Volhynian
Plateau becomes much lower and finally separates into individual
plateau islands, as, for example, near Novhorod-Volinsky, Zitomir,
Ovruch, which rise gently from the marshy lowlands.
The valleys of the Volhynian rivers, broad, flat, with gentle slopes
and marshy bottoms, differentiate the Volhynian landscape most strongly
from the Podolian. The Volhynian landscape presents a view of flat,
wooded hills, slowly flowing streams between flat banks, marshes and
marshy meadows, sandy ground—all signs of the proximity of the
Polissye.
The Dnieper Plateau has the outlines of a longish, irregular polygon.
On the northwest it is bounded by the rocky valley of the Teterev, on
the southwest by the Boh River, on the south and southwest by the
Pontian steppe-plain, on the northeast by the Dnieper River.
This great space, however, does not constitute a uniform plateau. The
broad river valleys and broad depressions which traverse the plateau
have parted it into several sections. Only the uniform sub-layer and
the geologic character, as well as the uniform appearance of the
landscape, determine the natural unity of the region.
The sub-layer of the Dnieper Plateau is made up of the primitive
granite-gneiss clod of the Ukrainian horst. The granite-gneiss
formations were folded in the pre-cambrian period. The folds and
quarries stretch principally from north to south, and appear very
distinctly near Zitomir and Korsun, and at the rapids of the Dnieper.
The mesozoic layers also, which lie close to the granite-horst, are
folded at Trekhtimiriv. The tertiary layers, which form a thin cover
over the granite, lie mostly in undisturbed horizontal lines. Only
along the right, steep bank of the Dnieper we see them folded and
broken thru by quarries. In the neighborhood of the Shevchenko barrow
they appear most distinctly.
The occurrence of eruptive rock in the south of the plateau, appearing
in mound-shaped flat hills, is, however, connected only with the old
disturbances in the horst.
This species of rock of the Dnieper Plateau appears almost solely in
the declivities of the valleys and balkas. Otherwise it is covered
everywhere by an immense mantle of loam, loess, and chornozyom. The
glacial deposits, whose southern boundary passes through Zhitomir,
Tarashcha, Chihirin, and Kreminchuk, present, in the territory of the
Dnieper Plateau, examples of genuine fluvio-glacial moraine, as well as
sands of no great depth, and in rather erratic distribution.
The configuration of surface of the Dnieper Plateau is varied enough.
The greatest height (300 m.) is reached south of Berdichiv. Toward the
east and southeast the plateau becomes constantly lower. This lowering,
however, does not proceed regularly, different sections of the plateau
presenting different conditions in this respect.
The section projecting furthest toward the west to the Sob and Ross
Rivers is a level, slightly divided plateau, with a maximum height of
300 m. The tributaries of the Teterev, Irpen and Ross flow slowly in
flat valleys thru whole rows of ponds. Where they enter the plain they
finally have steep granite banks and rocky beds. The plateau section
between the Sob and Ross Rivers in the west and the Siniukha and Huili
Tikich in the east has more valleys. The river valleys and balkas are
deeper, their sides rockier, and thru them the plateau is transformed
in places into chains and groups of flat hills. But this plateau
section is lower than the preceding one, attaining only 260 m. Still
lower is the section between the Siniukha and the Inhuletz. It attains
a height of only 240 m. and is very even. The granite sub-layer appears
here even in the level steppe; the valleys and balkas are cut deep with
rocky bottoms and rocky slopes.
Besides these three sections, the Dnieper plateau embraces two long
strips of plateau which stretch along the right bank of the Dnieper.
The one is surrounded by the Dnieper, Irpen, and Ross Rivers, the other
stretches from the source of the Tiasmin to the rapids of the Dnieper.
The height of these strips of plateau is negligible, the highest points
attaining just 190 m. near Kiev, 240 m. between Trekhtimiriv and Kaniv,
250 m. near Chihirin, and barely 180 m. at the first of the rapids. The
steep declivity with which the plateau strips descend to the Dnieper
plain emphasize the antithesis between plateau and plain in this region
very markedly.
The difference in level surpasses 100 m. near Kiev and Katerinoslav and
150 m. near the Shevchenko barrow, not far from Kaniv. The declivity of
the right bank of the Dnieper is much torn by gorges, and everywhere we
see picturesque rock piles. The steep bank appears, especially to a
plain-dweller, like a chain of mountains and is even called “the
mountains of the Dnieper.” The idea of a “mountain bank” of the
Dnieper, therefore, need not be rejected outright. The aspect of Kiev
and the Shevchenko barrow is one of the most beautiful in the entire
Ukraine.
On ascending this “mountain chain,” however, which appears so imposing
from the left bank of the river, and looking toward the west, we find
before us only a slightly undulating plateau surface, with rounded
dome-shaped hills and deep valleys, belonging to the right-hand
tributaries of the Dnieper.
The nature of the landscape of the Dnieper Plateau is, consequently,
different from that of the Volhynian or Podolian. The lightly
undulating plateau, gradually becoming flatter toward the east and
south and broken up only near the river valleys into flat dome-shaped
hills; the valleys of the rivers, wide, not deep, and yet with rocky
river beds and rocky slopes, with loess gorges and walls; the mighty
Dnieper with its picturesque mountain shores; the never-ending grain
steppes crossed by little woods, mohilas and long, extended old walls
of rock—this is the landscape view of the old Kiev country, the heart
of the Ukraine.
The Dnieper Plateau becomes constantly lower toward the southeast,
without, however, losing its original landscape nature in the least.
Near the Dnieper rapids we see, quite distinctly, that the
miocene-covered sub-layer of granite of the Ukrainian plateau group
stretches straight across the river and is the cause of its rapids. But
the differences in level at that point are no longer different from the
variations in a plain. In the region of the source of the Samara and
along the Donetz the land finally rises above the 200 m. level again.
We are now in the Donetz Plateau.
As near as Isium we confront the first boundary post of the plateau in
the steep chalk rocks of Mt. Kremianetz on the Donetz River. Further
down we see the picturesque rocks of the famous monastery of “the Holy
Hills.” All these are parts of the northern verge of the plateau, which
is its limit on the north. Near Slavianoserbsk and Luhansk this
picturesque border reaches a height of 70 m. The course of the Donetz
also forms the eastern boundary; the southern boundary is formed by the
small strip of the Pontian Plain on the shore of the Sea of Azof; the
western border is denoted by the plain on the left bank of the Dnieper.
The Donetz Plateau stretches in a long flat ridge from N. W. W. to S.
E. E., and extends a flat side-ridge to either side. The longer one
goes southward, almost as far as Mariupol, the other northward to
Bakhmut. The surface of the plateau is very level and declines very
flatly toward all sides. Only light billows of land traverse the steppe
surface, which is strewn with countless tumuli. In the south these
hills often have a core of granite. The river valleys have steep, altho
not high slopes. They divide the uniform surface of the heights but
slightly. From the surface configuration one could never guess that at
this point there was once a mountain range which fell victim to the
exogenous forces of the earth’s water and air blanket. Only an
insignificant part of the surface of the Donetz Plateau lies more than
300 m. high; the highest point, Tovsta Mohila, barely reaching 370 m.
In its inner structure it is entirely different from all other parts of
the Ukrainian group of plateaus. The entire south and west of the
plateau is composed of folded granite-gneiss, of the Azof part of the
horst, capped by a thin tertiary layer, and in many places (especially
between Volnovakha and Kalmius) broken thru by eruptive rock
formations. Next to these, in the north and south of the plateau, lie
limestone, slate, clay and sandstone formations of devonian, carbonic,
permian, jurassic and cretaceous age, folded and broken thru by
ravines. Over this leveled basic range lie the horizontal tertiary
layers. The great development of the coal-containing carbon layers
gives to the monotonous, only recently bared steppe elevation of the
Donetz Plateau, great significance for the industrial life of all
Eastern Europe. The coal-fields of the Donetz Plateau, 23,000 km. in
size, are the richest and most important coal region of the present
Russian Empire. Thanks to these “black diamonds,” a forest of factory
chimneys (sparsely sown as yet, to be sure) has sprung up within the
most recent past in the black steppe, where the anthracite and pit-coal
collieries furnish the desired nourishment. Besides this, the permian
layers of the Donetz Plateau hold great deposits of rock-salt. Here,
too, lie the only quicksilver mines of the Russian Empire in Europe.
Rich copper deposits are being exploited here, besides which we must
mention the occurrence of zinc, silver, lead, and even gold in this
Donetz region, which has not yet been sufficiently explored by the
mining prospector.
The Donetz Plateau forms the easternmost member of the Ukrainian
plateau group, which constantly narrows toward the east. Outside of
this, the group rises only at the southernmost spurs of the Central
Russian Plateau above the 200 m. level. These regions of the Ukraine,
however, we may safely discuss in our description of the Dnieper Plain,
for the transition from this plain to the Central Russian elevation is
so imperceptible and gradual, the plateau character so undecided, that
even from the scientific morphological point of view, one can hardly
find any difference between the plain landscape and the neighboring
combined elevated surfaces.
THE UKRAINIAN PLAIN COUNTRY
The Ukrainian plateau group, which passes thru the Ukraine in its
entire length is hemmed in on both sides by two plain regions. Without
a break they accompany the extended plateau groups in the north and
south, uniting finally on the left bank of the Don and the country
below the Caucasus. The northern plain district accompanies the
northern decline of the Ukrainian horst, concealing a tectonically
disturbed substratum; the southern district accompanies the northern
border of the Black Sea and parts the broken chain of plicate mountains
from the plateau group of the Ukraine.
The northern plain district of the Ukraine joins directly on to the
Polish lowlands, and, indirectly, to the North German lowland.
The first section of the northern plain district is called Pidlassye
(Podlakhia, land on the Polish border). Its northern boundary consists
of the southern limits of the White Russian Plateau; the western
boundary of the flat elevations near Sidlez and Bilsk; on the south the
plain borders on the spurs of the Rostoche; in the east the boundary is
the Buh-Pripet divide, which is only 170 m. high. The surface of the
Pidlassye is very even, only slightly undulating in places on the north
and south borders. The river valleys are very broad and flat. Only the
great forest (the well-known Biloveza forest lies here) and the
water-courses bring variety into the monotonous country. The main
stream of the Pidlassye, the Buh, as well as its tributaries have the
character of genuine lowland rivers. They flow thru their over-great
valleys in great turns, divide into many arms, and form innumerable old
river beds. Besides these we find, in southern Pidlassye, a large
number of lakes and many swamps and moors which mark the sites of
former lakes.
The chalk and tertiary substratum appears only in very few places, the
rest being covered everywhere by sand and loam, which include boulders
and rubble of Finnic-Scandinavian origin. These are traces of the great
(second) glacial period of Northern Europe, which covered the entire
region of the Pidlassye with glacial ice. The lakes are morain-lakes.
The ice of the glacial period did not reach Pidlassye. At that time a
broad primeval river valley formed here as an extension of the primeval
Vistula river valley. In this valley the water from the melting glacier
flowed off to the east toward the lowland of the Polissye.
The Polissye (woodland) is one of the most remarkable lands of Eastern
Europe. Only a low (170 m.) and very flat divide, which is crossed
without difficulty by the Dnieper-Buh ship canal, separates the
Polissye from the Pidlassye. In the north the White Russian Plateau
approaches, in the south the Volhynian, in the east the Polissye
extends beyond the Dnieper to the spurs of the Central Russian Plateau.
The region thus bounded forms an immense flat trough, in the vertical
axis of which the Pripet River flows. The bottom of this trough is very
flat and lies at a height of 120–150 m. Only in places do we find
almost imperceptible rises of ground. The substratum of the Polissye is
composed of chalk marl with numerous holes made by springs (vikno =
window), while in the east oligocene formations also appear. But this
substratum is seen very seldom, all the rest of the Polissye being
covered with diluvial sands and great swamps. The sands take in all the
elevated places and form wandering or wood-covered dunes. These sandy
rises of ground, together with the elevated banks of some of the
rivers, afford the only sites for human abodes. All the remaining land
is marshy wood, genuine forest swamps, bog or moor. The Pripet with its
tributaries, the Stokhod, Stir, Hornin, Ubort, Uz (on the right) and
the Pina, Yassiolda, Sluch, and Ptich (on the left), comprises the
water system of the Polissye. All these rivers flow very slowly and
deposit the mud which they bring from the plateau regions surrounding
the Polissye along their courses. By this means they raise their beds
and their banks more and more, so that all these Polissian rivers flow
upon flat dams. At the time of high water the rivers overflow their
banks and flood the entire lowland far and near. At the time of the
melting of snows in the spring, or of the strong showers in the early
summer, the entire Polissye is transformed into an immense lake, above
whose surface only the flooded forests and the settled sandy elevations
of ground are visible. The spring flood lasts from two to three months,
the summer floods the same length of time, for the water flows off very
slowly because of the slight decline. On the highways and railroads all
traffic is blocked and certain places in the Polissye may be reached
only by water. During the flood period the rivers have often sought new
beds, and this explains the frequency of old river beds and river
branches, which are peculiar to all the Polissian river courses. And,
as reminders of the floods, innumerable pools and marsh lakes remain
behind.
These periodic floods are the main cause of the continuance of the
Polissian swamps. We can find two main types of marshes in the
Polissye. In the west and north of the region, great peat moors, with
pine woods, predominate; in the south and east treeless marsh meadows,
overgrown with willow brush. These are called hala. Many fictions are
told by the inhabitants of the Polissye about the swamps and small
marsh lakes being bottomless. For a long time it was even believed that
the swamps lay lower than the normal surface of the rivers. But exact
measurements have proved these “fairy tales” to be false and have shown
that the swamps of the Polissye are not deep and lie at a higher level
than the rivers. Since 1873 the Russian government has been working to
drain the swamps and reclaim them for civilization. Up to 1898, 6000
kilometers of canals are supposed to have been dug and 32,000 square
kilometers of ground made usable.
The glacial period was of great importance for the surface
configuration of the Polissye. Apart from the traces of the main
glacial period, which are met with frequently in southern Polissye, it
was the third glacial period that was of marked significance. The water
from the Baltic glacier flowed off thru the region of the present
Polissye and formed a large lake with the Dnieper as its outlet. The
deposits of this lake are to be found especially in the south of the
Polissye basin. The lake was then gradually filled in, the northern and
western tributaries bringing more sand, the southern ones mud. At the
same time the Pripet River cut in more deeply, and was, therefore,
constantly more able to carry the waters of the Polissye to the Dnieper
River. Swamps have taken the place of the lake and have gradually
covered the entire land. The many smaller lakes of the region (the
largest of them are Vihonivske Ozero and Knias) are the only remains
and proofs of the one-time great lake. Only at the time of high water
does the Polissye recall the memory of former times.
Dreary is the Polissian landscape. The dark forest in the deep-bottomed
swamps alternate with the open marsh-meadow covered with pools; with
gliding flow the many-armed rivers traverse the gloomy country. On
yellow-white sand-dunes stand a few log-houses amid wretched little
fields and poor meadows, corduroy and brush roads stretching for miles
connect small, very sparsely scattered human settlements.
The Polissye Plain also extends to the left bank of the Dnieper, and
there imperceptibly passes over into a comparatively narrow lowland
district which stretches along the main river of the Ukraine. This is
the third member of the series of plains of the Ukraine—the Dnieper
Plain. It extends toward the southeast as far as the region of the
rapids (porohi) of the Dnieper and rises slowly toward the northeast,
passing over into the Central Russian Plateau. The transition takes
place so imperceptibly that the difference in the nature of the country
only becomes apparent at the furthest bounds of Ukrainian territory,
which practically lie in the southern spurs of the Central Russian
Plateau.
The Dnieper Plain is quite level only along the river itself. Every
year a strip of the plain, in places 10 km. wide, is flooded by the
Dnieper River, wherefore it is full of old river beds and swamps, on
the Desna and near Cherkassy, where the lowland, too, enters upon the
right Dnieper bank, and also of sand-dunes. Near Chernihiv and Uizin
the landscape is quite Polissian and the name Polissye, too, is often
used here to denote the region. Toward the southeast the Polissian
character begins to gradually disappear. Black earth takes the place of
the sandy soil, the forest mantle becomes constantly thinner, and the
flat, undulating steppe-plain, with its innumerable barrows and
plate-shaped depressions of ground, where, in springtime, small steppe
lakes glisten in the sunlight, increases very rapidly.
The river valleys, along which the Dnieper Plain intrudes far into the
Central Russian Plateau, are very wide valley slopes on the right, and
flat slopes on the left side. Sand, swamps and forest terraces cover
the flat valley bottoms, which are flooded every spring.
At the porohs of the Dnieper the country rises much higher than at
Pereyaslav or Kreminchuk, where the Dnieper Plain rises barely 50 m.
above sea-level. At the porohs the landscape on both sides is that of a
low rock-plateau. The picturesque rocks of the Dnieper banks, the
rapids and ledges of rock in the river bed, everywhere remind us that
here the Ukrainian Horst is crossed by the main stream of the Ukraine.
Not until we get down to the Zaporoze (land below the rapids) do we
find the genuine lowland character again—in the Pontian Steppe-plain.
The transition of the Dnieper Plain to the southern spurs of the
Central Russian Plateau is marked only by the rising of the valley
slopes of the tributaries of the Dnieper in this region. Beyond that,
the surface of the high bog, lying between the rivers, remains as flat
and level as on the Dnieper and below the 200 m. level. Moreover, the
spurs of the Central Russian elevation nowhere within Ukrainian
territory attain the level of 300 m. The spur between the Dnieper and
the Desna barely reaches a height of 230–240 m.; near the high Desna
bank, the spur between the Desna and the Sem barely 260 m. About the
sources of the Sem, Psiol and Donetz, the country attains a summit
height of 280 m.; between the upper Donetz and Don only 250–260 m. From
these highest regions the country declines imperceptibly but steadily
toward the southwest, south and southeast.
The general nature of the land in the region of the southern spur of
the Central Russian Plateau is entirely analogous to that of the
neighboring Dnieper Plain, except that the river valleys are more
deeply cut. The right valley-side descends to the river in a steep
slope, furrowed by water rifts. The broad, flat valley bottom is
occupied by river branches and old river beds, marshes and marsh
meadows, sand areas or dunes. The left bank rises very gently, and we
at last come upon the level, or at most slightly undulating surface of
the water-shed, between two rivers. It, in turn, declines suddenly to
the neighboring river and the succession of land-forms begins anew.
This monotony of landscape reminds one of the neighboring Great Russia.
The only variety is afforded here by the details of landscape, which
appear most numerous in this region of the Ukraine.
These are rain water-rifts (in Ukrainian balka, provallia, yaruha). In
this, and often in other plateau and plain lands of the Ukraine, they
become a terrible scourge. The heavy mantle of black soil, loess and
loam favors the formation of water-rifts as well as the loose chalk and
old tertiary strata (marl, sand, clay). The strenuous cutting down of
forest in the past century has given the final impulse to the formation
of such water clefts. In the loose soil, no longer held together by the
forests, the water-rifts grow and spread after every heavy rain with
terrible speed, and may, in a few years, reduce a wealthy farmer to the
beggar’s staff by transforming his most profitable black-soil fields
into a maze of deep, dry ravines. Only a national re-stocking of the
forests could bring the land relief. Especially in the neighborhood of
the high precipitous banks of the rivers, the water-rifts work their
mischief.
The glacial age had no particular significance for the surface
configuration of the Dnieper Plain and the adjacent plateau spurs. Only
in the north Chernihov country we find real traces of the glacier. The
large peninsulas which the southern limit of the glacial boulders forms
along the course of the Dnieper and the Don are by no means to be
regarded as traces of two great glacial tongues. The sand and loam
masses, with enclosed glacial boulders, which are found in the region
of these peninsulas, are of fluvio-glacial origin, and were deposited
by melted ice from the glacier on its way to the Black Sea. The
northern limit of the black soil region is not in the least affected by
these problematic glacial peninsulas.
After the glacial period, however, movements of the earth took place in
the entire Ukrainian plateau group. It rose considerably, and the
erosive action of the rivers began. At the point where the axis of the
Ukrainian horst cuts the Dnieper, we find this rise of ground also in
the Dnieper Plateau. The rapids of the Dnieper were formed at that
time, and, up to the present, the giant river has not succeeded in
leveling its falls.
That tectonic disturbances are not unknown to the Dnieper Plain we
learn from the occurrence of volcanic rock and displacement of the
strata near Isachki, not far from the city of Lokhvitzia, and on Mount
Pivikha, north of Kreminchuk. It seems that along the northeast border
of the Ukrainian horst a greatly disturbed area is hidden beneath more
recent flat-piled rock layers. Great disturbances of the magnetic force
of the earth seem to indicate the same.
The Dnieper Plain forms the last member in the northern plain district
of the Ukraine. The southern plain district which extends along the
northern banks of the Black Sea, from the delta of the Danube into the
Kuban region, has since ancient times borne the accepted name of the
Pontian Steppe-plain. Its old Ukrainian name is simply nis (lowland) or
dike pole (wild field). The steppe-land and the river district, to this
day, bear the famous name of Zaporoze (land below the rapids).
The Pontian steppe-plain is bounded on the north by the spurs of the
Bessarabian, Podolian, Dnieper and Donetz Plateaus. On the south, by
the sea-shore and the country at the foot of the Yaila Mountains, in
Crimea. Past the Danube deltas the steppe-plain merges into the exactly
similar steppe-plain on the Kuban.
The surface of the steppe-plain is exceptionally flat, slightly
undulating only at the northern border, where the transition to the
southern spurs of the Ukrainian plateau group proceeds imperceptibly.
Innumerable barrows (mohyla) are as characteristic of the landscape of
the Pontian Steppe-plain as the flat plate-shaped depressions of the
ground, with small temporary lakes, the swampy flat valleys and the
small salt marshes with their peculiar vegetation.
The many balkas, which divide the steppe-plain into innumerable low
plateaus, do not affect the grand uniformity of the steppe landscape
very much. As in the neighboring plateaus, they are cut in deep, but do
not become visible to the traveler until he comes directly upon them.
The pliocene steppe-lime which predominates in the entire steppe-plain,
covers the sarmatian and Mediterranean strata, and reveals the
crystalline substratum only in the west of the Dnieper in the
neighborhood of the Dnieper Plateau, and forms rocky cornices on the
slopes of the balkas. Lesser tectonic disturbances, in the shape of
anticlinals and synclinals, have affected these youngest tertiary
formations also. They are covered by a mantle of loess and black earth,
which becomes constantly thinner toward the south. The typical
chornozyom gives way, south of the parallel of Kherson, to the brown,
also very fertile steppe-soil, which is accompanied in long stretches,
however, by the saline earth. To the east of the Dnieper, at the
southern spurs of the Donetz Plateau, the crystalline substratum also
appears to a great extent, in banks of rock, in the midst of the
steppe-plain.
Only along the large streams of the steppe country does the nature of
the land change. Their valleys are broad and swampy, covered by the
so-called plavni. Interminable thickets of sedge and seeds, marsh
forest and meadows, together with innumerable river branches, old river
beds, and small lakes, make up a beautiful, fresh, verdant country in
the midst of the boundless steppe, whose vernal dress, resplendent with
blossoms, turns yellow and blackish-brown in summer and fall, from the
fierce glow of the sun.
STREAMS AND RIVERS OF THE UKRAINE
The Ukrainian rivers are genuinely typical of Eastern Europe. The great
uniformity of the surface configuration of the Ukraine is responsible
for the lack of that variety in its own river system which
characterizes the waters of Western and Central Europe. But the great
extent of the land does cause the Ukraine to have mountain, plateau and
lowland streams, so that it does not attain the degree of uniformity in
hydrographic conditions of Russia proper.
The Ukrainian river system concentrates in the Black Sea. From
northwest, north and east, the rivers of the Ukraine tend toward its
sea. Besides, the western boundary lines of the Ukraine lie on the
Baltic slope. There, in Podlakhia, in the Kholmshchina, on the San
River and in the Lemko country, the Ukrainian people has had its seats
since the dawn of its history. In most recent times Ukrainian
colonization has gained also parts of the Caspian slope on the Kuma and
Terek Rivers. But the region drained by the Black Sea surpasses both
the other regions so much in extent and in the size of its rivers, that
the Baltic and Caspian region of the Ukraine dwindle in comparison.
Nature has, therefore, turned the Ukrainian nation toward the south and
southeast to the Black Sea. But, at the same time, she has not denied
the Ukraine a convenient connection with the north and south of the
globe. The main European river divide is, perhaps, nowhere so flat and
so easy to cross as in Ukrainian territory. From the Dniester to the
San (bifurcation of the Vishnia creek near Rudki), from the Pripet to
the Buh and Niemen the passages are easy. Since ancient times portages
have existed here, and in modern times the Pripet has been connected
with the Buh and the Niemen by means of canals (King’s Canal and
Oginski Canal) which, however, are at present entirely antiquated and
almost useless. Besides, the widely branched water system of the
Dnieper outside the Ukraine affords easy passage to the Dvina (Beresina
Canal), Volga and Neva, in White Russian territory. Over these
waterways and the portages lying between them the old path of the
Northmen led from Scandinavia to Constantinople. This most important
aspect of the Ukrainian water system promises at some future time to
bear rich fruit, if the recently-formed plan to build a waterway for
navigation on a large scale, from the Baltic to the Black Sea,
utilizing the course of the Dnieper, should become a reality.
The Baltic watercourses of the Ukraine flow into the Vistula. Several
large Carpathian tributaries originate in Ukrainian territory. Here the
rapid Poprad carries the melted snow of the Tatra to the Dunayetz. The
source of the Visloka also lies in the Ukrainian Lemko country. The
last and largest Carpathian tributary of the Vistula belongs, in
three-fourths of its extent, to Ukrainian territory, namely, the
navigable San. It receives from the Carpathians the Vislok on the left
and the Vihor on the right. The other tributaries of the San on the
left side, the Vishnia, Sklo, Lubachivka and Tanva, come from the
sub-Carpathian country and the Rostoche Plateau.
All the Carpathian tributaries of the Vistula have only at their
sources the character of mountain streams, with swift currents, in
rocky river beds, lined by banks of water-worn material. Even in the
mountains their valleys become wide, covered with banks of pebbles,
sand and loam, and overgrown with willow-brush, and their falls
insignificant. In the sub-Carpathian country the banks become low and
sandy, the stream slow, and the water-level is very unsteady, owing to
the cutting down of forests in the country of the source. In spring,
when the snow melts in the mountains, and at the time of the early
summer rains, there are terrible floods; in dry summers the rivers
dwindle to almost insignificant proportions.
From the Rostoche the Vepr, navigable from Krasnostav down, flows thru
a broad, marshy valley, into the Vistula. The northern declivity of the
Podolian Plateau sends its largest river, the Buh, navigable from Sokal
on, down to the Vistula. This river is really a genuine lowland river.
Its valley is wide and flat, the river winds with its muddy bed thru
forest marshes, thickets of reeds and willow brush, now parting into a
dozen branches, now flowing in a wide bed, past fresh, green meadows
and dark forests. The same lowland character is a common quality of the
left-hand tributaries of the Buh, the Poltva, Rata, Solokia, Krna and
of the Luha on the right hand. The Mukhavetz, Lisna, Nurez and Narva,
on the other hand, are typical woodland streams, which roll their great
mass of water thru the forests of Podlakhia.
The Pontian Rivers of the Ukraine belong to the six great regions
drained respectively by the Danube, Dniester, Boh, Don and Kuban.
Of the great region drained by the Danube, only the Carpathian country
of the sources of the Theiss, Sereth, and Prut lie within Ukrainian
boundaries. The Theiss is formed by the junction of two source-rivers
near the Svidovez and the Chornohora, and collects all the rivers of
the Ukrainian country belonging to Hungary—the Visheva and Isa on the
left, the Torez, Talabor, Velika Rika, Bershava and Bodrochka, which
consists of five source-rivers (the Latoritzia, Uz, Laboretz, Tepla and
Ondava). All these rivers of the Hungarian-Ukrainian mountain country
break their difficult way in deep, picturesque passes, thru
forest-covered mountain chains. Innumerable rafts carry the trunks of
the fallen Carpathian giants into the treeless plains of Hungary. Here,
too, the rivers suddenly lose their mountain character; their currents
become sluggish, their waters turbid, their banks swampy.
Of the Sereth and its tributaries, the Sochava and Moldava, only the
sources belong to Ukrainian national territory. On the other hand, a
considerable part of the Prut country lies within it. The Prut River
rises at the Hoverla, where it forms a beautiful waterfall along the
crater walls. Then it flows in a picturesque defile toward the north,
forms another waterfall at Yaremche, then immediately leaves the
mountains, uniting in the sub-Carpathian hill-country with the roaring
Cheremosh, which also rises in two source-rivers on the slopes of the
Black Mountains and flows in a deeply-cut meandering valley thru the
beautiful Hutzul country. In the sub-Carpathian country the Prut has a
wide, flat valley, taken up in places by marsh meadows. The river winds
down the wide valley in countless twists, forms side branches and old
river beds, and reaches the Danube in the midst of liman-like lakes and
bogs, not far from the swampy delta. Outside of the mountains, the Prut
receives only insignificant tributaries of small volume. Between the
Danube and the Dniester we see only a few miserable little steppe
rivers, emptying into salty or bracken liman lakes (e.g., the Yalpukh
and the Kunduk Rivers).
The important Dniester River attains a length of over 1300 km., and
possesses the greatest variety of distinct sections of river of all the
Ukrainian streams. It originates in the High Beskid, near the village
of Vovche, as a very energetic, wild creek. In a defile it advances
into the sub-Carpathian hill-country, where it has deposited great
masses of rubble. The mountain stream changes rapidly into a lowland
stream and forms great swamps in the Dniester Plain, which, in
high-water time, are converted into large river lakes. From the left
bank, the Dniester here receives the muddy Vereshitza (from the
Rostoche), which forms many ponds, from Western Podolia, the Hnila
Lipa. All the remaining tributaries of this section of the Dnieper come
from the Carpathians, on the left the Strviazh (Strivihor), on the
right the Bistritza, the mighty meandering river Striy with the Opir,
and the Svicha (with the Misunka). All these rivers are mountain
streams, flow in beautiful defiles, and deposit great masses of rubble
on the verge of the Carpathians. Beginning at the delta of the Svicha,
the Dniester Plain becomes a wide, flat-bottomed valley, in which the
river flows along in great bends and receives the Limnitzia and both
the Bistritzas from the Carpathians. Near Nizniv the banks approach
each other very closely and the Dniester enters a yar (cañon), not
leaving its steep sides until near Tiraspol. The Podolian tributaries
of the Dniester on the left side, the Zolota Lipa, Stripa, Sereth,
Zbruch, Smotrich, Ushitza, Murakhva, Yahorlik, roll their turbid waters
in similar cañons toward the Dniester. The Bessarabian tributaries, on
the contrary, have wide, swampy valleys. All these plateau rivers are
slight in volume of water, altho some of them attain considerable
length. Only in the spring, when the snow-blanket melts, do their
waters overflow the banks. In summer the water-level becomes very low,
and the water of the early summer showers is stored up in the many
ponds, which are found in large numbers, in the country about the
sources of these rivers. All these plateau rivers are not even
navigable for rafts; even the little fishers’ boat can hardly find its
way along the muddy shoals.
In its cañons the Dniester River assumes all the characteristics of a
plateau river. Its waters generally take up the entire bottom of the
cañon, leaving very little space for the abodes of men. The incline of
the river is not uniform, but constitutes a series of slight steps.
Sections with rapid currents alternate with quiet depths. The small
brooks which come down the short lateral gorges of the Dniester cañons
bring great masses of loose stones and rubble into the river bed, as a
result of the reckless destruction of forests, and build constantly
growing cones of rubble, which the river must remove slowly and
laboriously. They also form dangerous shoals and hinder the development
of navigation on the Dniester. The river also forms regular rapids,
near Yampil, where a layer of granite stretches clear across the river.
For this reason the Dniester, tho navigable along a stretch of almost
800 km., has not become an important waterway. The navigation of the
Dniester, which becomes more active from Khotin on, is now on the wane.
Eight hundred years ago sea vessels were still able to reach the old
Ukrainian royal city of Halich.
The floods of the Dniester are famous. In the spring, when the snows
melt in the Carpathians, the Dniester Plain is converted into a great
river-lake. The Carpathian tributaries bring the main stream so much
water, that it cannot easily flow off thru the narrow cañon, and so,
floods the whole wide Dniester Valley for weeks. Then there is high
water even in the cañon of the Dniester, but it has little scope.
Near Tiraspol, the Dniester Valley widens out again. Swampy plavni
wilds extend on both sides of the river. In a beautiful, rapidly
growing delta, the Dniester empties into its liman, which it is slowly
filling in with its precipitates. Two narrow outlets (hirló) break thru
the bar of the liman and connect it with the sea.
Between the Dniester and the Boh, not one river finally empties into
the sea. Even the largest rivers of the region, the Little and Big
Kuyalnik and the Tilihul end their courses in limans, which are
entirely closed off by bars. The valleys of these coastal rivers are
narrow, becoming wider at last, when they are about to enter the
limans. The current is always slow and the water often evaporates
completely in the summer.
The Boh, falsely named the Southern Bug, is a real plateau river. It
rises in the village of Kupil, near the source of the Sbruch, on the
Austrian border, and flows as a typical Podolian mud-streamlet, in a
flat valley, covered with ponds and swamps. But, beginning at Mezibiz,
its bed becomes rocky, the valley slopes become high and keep
approaching each other. The Boh Valley gradually becomes a cañon-like
“yar,” altho it is at no point so deep as the Dniester Valley. The
granite-gneiss formations of the Ukrainian horst appear here as
picturesque shore rocks and slopes along the river and form innumerable
rapids (as, for example, Constantinivka) in the river bed. Stony beds
and narrow, rocky valleys are also found in the most important
tributaries of the Boh—the Sob, Siniukha, Inhul on the left; the Kodima
and Chichiclea on the right. All of them have little water, and in dry
summers only a chain of ponds marks the valley road of the river. The
main stream, too, has not much water, being unfit for navigation even
in the time of the spring floods. Only the last 130 kilometers of its
course, from Vosnesensk down, are navigable. At the entrance of the
Inhul the Boh begins to widen considerably, the current becomes slow,
and the depth at Mikolaiv sufficiently great to enable smaller sea
vessels to reach its harbor. Slowly widening, the river gradually turns
into the Buh liman, which has the winding outline of a river and unites
with the great liman of the Dnieper. The entire length of the Boh is
over 750 kilometers.
We now come to the main river of the Ukraine, the majestic Dnieper. To
the Ukrainian people the Dnieper bears the same significance as the
“Matushka Volga” to the Russians, the Vistula to the Poles, and the
Rhine to the Germans. The Dnieper is the sacred river of the Ukraine.
Like a divinity it was honored by the old Polans, the founders of the
ancient Ukrainian state of Kiev; Slavutitza was the name given it by
the Ukrainians of the monarchy. It was esteemed as a father and
provider by the brave Zaporog Cossacks, the champions of Ukrainian
liberty. For many centuries the Dnieper has played an important part in
the folk-lore and literature of the Ukraine, in traditions and
fairy-stories and folk-tales and in thousands of folk-songs; since
ancient times it has been sung by all Ukrainian poets, from the unknown
bard of the epic of Ihor, to the greatest of all Ukrainian poets, Taras
Shevchenko, and so on, down to the youngest generation of the poets of
the Ukraine. To them all, the Dnieper is the symbol of the Ukraine, of
its life, and of its past. Not without cause did Shevchenko ask to be
buried on the mountain shore of the Dnieper, “that I may see the
endless plains and the Dnieper and the crags of its banks and hear the
rushing of the Rushing One.” 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. And we do not wonder that the Dnieper has become the
national sanctuary of the Ukraine. With this river are connected all
the important events of the historical life of the Ukraine. The Dnieper
was the father of the ancient Ukrainian empire of Kiev; by way of the
Dnieper a higher culture made its way into the Ukraine; on the Dnieper
the Ukrainian Cossack element developed, which, after centuries of
subjugation, gave the Ukrainians a new government. The Dnieper River
has, since hoary antiquity, been the most important channel of
intercourse between the North and the South of Eastern Europe; it has
been the means of connecting the Ukraine with the sea and the cultural
realm of Southern Europe. Its present importance, despite the low grade
of culture in Eastern Europe, and despite Russian mismanagement, is
great, and is growing rapidly. And if in the future the river is made
accessible to sea-going vessels and becomes a road for large-scale
navigation, its significance may become almost incalculable.
The Dnieper is the third largest river in Europe, after the Volga and
the Danube. The length of its course is more than 2100 km. The region
it drains includes 527,000 sq. km., not much less than the whole of
France. Among the streams of the globe the Dnieper ranks thirty-second.
If the Dniester possesses some of the properties of a Central European
river, namely, mountainous country at its source and many mountain
tributaries; if the Boh is a genuine plateau river; the Dnieper, on the
other hand, is the real type of a river in Eastern Europe. It rises in
White Russia near the village of Clozove. A little swamp, which was
formerly a small lake, situated at a height of 256 m., forms the source
of the river. Because of this small height of the source, the Dnieper
has, as, in fact, all the Eastern European rivers have, a very
insignificant incline and an average speed of current of 0.4 m. per
second. The source of the Dnieper lies near the sources of the Dvina
and the Volga, as well as the source streams of the Neva.
Near its source the Dnieper is a small, muddy streamlet, which seeks
its way southward in a flat valley, three miles wide, between swamps
and moors. But quickly its volume increases, and, as near the source as
Dorogobuz, the river becomes navigable for smaller vessels. Here it
suddenly turns to the west, both valley slopes, but especially the left
one, become higher and steeper, the valley narrows down to ½ km. But
after a short stretch it becomes wide and swampy again at Smolensk. The
depth of the river is very irregular, the pools (plessa) attaining a
depth of 5 meters, the rapids often less than ½ meter. From Smolensk to
Orsha the Dnieper Valley again becomes hardly 1 kilometer wide, between
high banks. On the left bank picturesque, rocky precipices appear. At
Orsha the Dnieper turns to the south, retaining this direction as far
as Kiev. Down to Shclov the Dnieper Valley remains narrow, with steep
slopes, then it widens slowly but steadily. The depth of the river
reaches 10 meters, but many shoals, great morain boulders and broken
sandstone make navigation difficult. Below Mogilev the spurs of the
White Russian and Central Russian plateaus withdraw from the Dnieper
and show only on the left side. The river reaches the low plain of the
Polissye and flows in majestic turns thru swamps and meadows which are
dotted with old river beds. In this section of its course the Dnieper
receives the Druch and the voluminous, navigable Beresina on the right,
and the navigable Soz on the left. The Dnieper receives an especially
great amount of water from the Beresina. River navigation is doubled
below its entrance, mainly because of innumerable rafts which are
traveling to the treeless South Ukraine and the Black Sea from the
forests of White Russia.
From the mouth of the Soz numerous low islands appear in the bed of the
Dnieper. The river divides into numerous branches. The entire trough
lying between the Dnieper and the Pripet is a labyrinth of river
branches, lakes, old river beds, swamps and fens. Thru the Pripet the
volume of the Dnieper River increases twofold, and very seldom flows
along in a single bed.
The tributaries on the right side, the Teterev and the Irpen, bring the
Dnieper the first remembrances of the Ukrainian plateau country, and
soon its spurs appear on the right river bank. The Dnieper presses
against this bank and forms the picturesque precipices above which
glisten the gilded domes of the ancient churches of Kiev. Here the
Dnieper receives the largest of its tributaries on the left, the
navigable Desna. Thus the formation of the Dnieper River is completed,
its source-rivers, the Pripet, Beresina, the upper Dnieper, the Desna
and the Soz have united to build a majestic stream. Its normal average
width is 600–850 meters near Kiev. During the spring floods, however,
the width of the river exceeds 10 km.; from the high, right bank one
can barely see the woods of the left. All the islands, sand-banks,
swamps, meadows, river branches and old river beds disappear beneath an
interminable mass of yellowish water, rolling slowly toward the south.
Deep into the valleys of the tributary streams the high-water enters,
and receding, leaves behind a layer of fertile river mud. Not without
reason did Herodotus compare the Dnieper with the Nile.
The floods generally occur but once a year—in the spring, when the
snows melt. In this respect the Dnieper differs from the Dniester and
is similar to all the other rivers of Eastern Europe. In the early
summer, at the time of the greatest precipitation in the Dnieper
country, small floods occur only occasionally, because the rain-water
is stored up in the many swamps and moors of the upper Dnieper country.
The spring high-water originates in the great masses of snow, which
remain lying all thru winter, melting and flowing off all at once in
the spring. After an ice-drift lasting 5–12 days, the high-water comes
and lasts a month and a half. It attains its highest level in the
middle of April; at this time the water stands at 3.2 meters above
normal at Mogilev, 2.2. meters at Kiev, 2.6 meters at Kreminchuk, 2
meters at Kherson, 0.3 meters at the delta. The spring floods are at
present becoming greater and more irregular, consequently more
dangerous, too, than they have been previously. The progressive
destruction of forests has contributed most to this condition.
From Kiev down, the Dnieper River turns in a flat curve to the
southeast and retains this direction as far as Katerinoslav. The right
bank remains steadily high, torn by gorges and crowned with rock
formations, with numerous niches, which betray former places of contact
of the river bends. The view, defended especially by Russian scholars,
that the mountain bank of the Dnieper, like that of all other Eastern
European rivers, originated thru the influence of the rotation of the
earth (Baer’s Law), notably does not apply to the Dnieper, for the
plain on the left very distinctly crosses over to the right shore at
three places; at the mouth of the Stuhna below Kiev, between the mouth
of the Ross and Cherkassi, and north of Chihirin. Recent movements of
the crust of the earth, by elevating the Dnieper Plateau in huge
sections, prepared the ground for the mountainous shores; the resulting
steep declivities were attacked and transformed by the river current,
aided by an effective simultaneous action of the winds.
The left bank of the river is very flat, taken up by swamps, lakes, old
river beds and wooded fens. Great wildernesses of reeds cover the
swampy banks of the numerous river arms. Great masses of sand brought
by the tributaries on the left side are thrown up by the steppe winds
and from dune landscapes in various places.
The tributaries of the Dnieper River in this section are of far less
importance than the above mentioned northern ones. From the right side
the river receives the plateau streams Stuhna, Ross and Tiasmin, from
the left the Trubez, the Supo, the Sula with the Udai, the Psiol with
the Khorol, and Holtva, Vorskla and Orel. All these rivers increase the
volume of the main stream only to a slight degree. The width of the
river at the point where it flows along in a single bed is regularly 1
km. on the average; at the narrowest part, to be sure, only 150 meters.
Where the river branches off into several forks, however, the complete
width, even at the time of low-water, is more than 4 km., at high-water
over 8 km. The depth of the river, too, is very changeable. The
tributaries on the left side bring great masses of sand to the main
river bed, forming great banks of sand, which slowly move downward and
cause great changeability of the depth. Over such banks of sand the
depth of the river is hardly 1½ meters, but attains a depth of 12
meters where the river flows in a narrow bed.
Between Kiev and Kreminchuk, the majestic character of the Dnieper
River is most apparent. The slight incline here causes a current of
only one-third the speed of the current of the Volga. With an
impressive calm the waters of the Dnieper flow along; it seems as tho
the mirror-like mass of water were motionless. But soon, above the
mouth of the Psiol, the speed of the current is suddenly tripled, so
that the steamboats must exert their entire force in the up-stream
trip. The low left bank begins slowly to rise; the river valley, up to
this point, wide almost beyond reach of the eye, becomes narrow, the
river forks and islands gradually disappear, and at the mouth of the
Samara both banks approach the stream with steep precipices. The
direction of the river becomes southerly and the section begins where
the Dnieper breaks thru the granite ledge of the Ukrainian horst, the
famous section of its rapids.
Here the Dnieper assumes all the characteristics of a plateau river.
The river valley becomes so narrow that at high-water the river spreads
over the entire valley bottom. The settlements take refuge on the
heights of the steep bank. The granite-gneiss sub-layer appears in
steep precipices and high picturesque rock formations on the valley
slopes. We are confronted with the same cañon-like valley on the
Dnieper, then, as on the Dniester in the Podolian Plateau. Yet there
are certain fundamental differences. The river valley is at most 100
meters deep, and the granite slopes do not form compact valley sides
such as we see in the yars of the Dniester. At every moment the steep
decline is broken by numerous gorges, picturesque foothills; and
jutting cliffs lend to the river landscape of the Dnieper Valley, at
this point, a variety unknown in the yar of the Dniester.
The section of the Dnieper River from the mouth of the Samara to Veliki
Luh, at the mouth of the Konca, forms a river country which is the only
one of its kind in Eastern Europe. It is the section of the Dnieper
rapids. The post-tertiary elevation of the Ukrainian horst, at this
point, has forced the river to dig its bed into the hard granite and
gneiss rocks. Despite great masses of water, the river has not
succeeded in equalizing its incline. For this reason, we find in its
bed innumerable rocky islands, ledges of rock, separate cliffs and
great boulders. In a wild, roaring torrent, the current beats against
these obstacles, creating deep pools and dangerous vortices. But not at
all places was the river destined to saw thru the obstacles in its way.
At many points solid ledges of rock lie right across the river. Its
mass of water falls down over these granite steps in immense
foam-wreathed billows and seethes about innumerable boulders, remains
of already parted ledges. The dull roaring and rumbling can be heard,
even by day, for several miles. These are the rapids of the Dnieper—the
“porohi” and “zabori.”
The porohi are not real waterfalls or cataracts; the incline of the
river in this section is 35 meters for a stretch of 75 km., and is,
therefore, too slight for regular falls. The greatest incline attained
within this stretch of river is 6%. Therefore, only the individual
branches of water between boulders form small falls, while the main
channel only shoots along down-stream in a long, foam-covered streak,
over the inclined surface of the ledges. In summer, the depth above the
rock ledges is barely 1½ meters, while in the spring even the highest
reefs of the rapids disappear beneath the masses of the high-water.
Still, the rapids of the Dnieper are even now a great hindrance to
navigation. Within the porohi section, steamboat navigation is
altogether impossible, and the smaller rowboats or sailboats can risk
it only during the spring floods, and then only the down-trip. Only the
rafts can pass thru the porohi at low-water time, altho with great
danger. The up-stream trip is almost impossible, even in the smallest
vessel, altho, at one time, everyone who desired to join the Zaporog
Cossacks was required to undertake this daring enterprise.
The Russian government has attempted, indeed, to make the rapids of the
river navigable, and has caused a navigable canal to be formed at each
fall, thru blasting of the rock ledges. But these canals have been
planned in so impractical and even faulty a manner that the river
pilots (lotzmani) still use the old “Cossack paths” to a great extent
(the Cosachi khody) to bring river boats and rafts thru the porohi.
The width of the river in the rapids section remains unchanged—1 to 1¾
kilometers. Only at its exit from the porohi, at the so-called Wolf’s
Throat (Vovche horlo), the river narrows down to 160 meters. The quiet
sections between separate rapids are usually very wide and as much as
30 meters deep.
Of genuine rapids (porohi), according to the pilots, who are direct
descendants of the Zaporog Cossacks, there are nine; of the larger
sabori (ledges of rock which do not obstruct the entire width of the
river), six. The first rapids below Katerinoslav are the Kaidac rapids
(Kaidazki porih), with four ledges of rock. Then follow the Yazeva
Sebora, the Little Sursky porih, with two ledges, the dangerous
Lokhanski porih with three ledges, and the Strilcha Sabora, with the
great rocks of Strilcha skela and Kamin Bohatir. The next rapids,
Svonez and the far-sounding Tiahinska Sabora, allow vessels easy
passage, but after passing thru the Dnieper the pilot must exert all
his strength. Even from the Svonez rapids on, one can hear the terrible
roaring and rumbling of the largest of the porohi, the Did
(grandfather) or Nenassitetz (insatiable). Masses of white foam cover
it completely, the water shoots down over the twelve ledges of rock
with the speed of an arrow. The vessel groans and creaks, but flies
thru the porih in three minutes, if it can only escape the dangerous
rock of Krutko or the terrible whirlpool of Peklo (the Hell). Or it may
happen that the ship is dashed to pieces in the Voronova Sabora, which
is full of dangerous reefs.
After the Did and the insignificant Kriva Sabora, comes the Vnuk
(grandchild) or Vovnih, whose four ledges, covered with great billows
and masses of foam, holds many hidden dangers for the sailor. But
“after overcoming the Grandfather and the Grandchild, don’t go to
sleep, for the Awakener will wake you”—meaning the next following Porih
Budilo (Awakener) which also is dangerous for ships. We then come past
the Tavolzanska Sabora, where the beautiful crag (Snieva skela) rises,
to the next to the last porih, Lishni (the Dispensable), with two
insignificant edges of rock, which offer but slight dangers. The last
porih, however, which bears the name of Vilni (free) or Hadiuchi
(serpent falls), is very dangerous for ships and rafts, for the channel
winds in serpentine twists thru the six ledges, and the pilot must
exercise all his skill in order to steer the ship entrusted to him
safely thru the dangerous channel. After this follows the narrow (160
m.) “Wolf’s-Throat” (Vovche horlo), with three great rocks; the small
Javlena Sabora, three dangerous “Robber Rocks” (Kameni Rosbiyniki), and
two granite precipices, Stovli (Pillars), and we come into the Zaporog
country (Zaporoze).
Here the Dnieper valley widens and numerous islands appear in the
stream. The upper ones, for example, Khortizia and Tomakivka, which
were once the site of the first Zaporog Sich, are high, rocky, and
overgrown with forest. Further south the steep left-hand valley slope
recedes far from the river and the so-called Veliki Luh begins. It is a
labyrinth of flat forest and reed-covered alluvial islands, river
branches, old river beds, lakes and swamps. Here were located the
hunting and fishing grounds of the Zaporog Cossacks; here was their
dwelling place, wonderfully fortified by nature and surrounded by an
inaccessible wilderness of forests and waters, and the center of their
military state; of the century-old oaks of the Veliki Luh, the Zaporogs
built their ships, in order to pay their daring visits to the lord of
Islam in his own capital. But the glorious days are past, the warlike
life and activity has disappeared, and strange colonists, whom the
Russian Government has sent here to settle, now occupy the ground on
which the second Ukrainian state originated.
From the many-branched mouth of the Konka (also named Kinska voda) the
Dnieper River turns toward the southwest, which direction it retains
until it disembogues into the sea. From this point on, the river
nowhere flows in a single bed; an enormous number of side arms branch
off from the main arm or unite with it. The broad river valley, whose
right bank continues to be high and rocky for a time, is taken up by
the plavni formation and winds like a broad band of freshly growing
verdure thru the steppe, which stretches out dry and golden-brown in
the hot midsummer. After receiving, as its last tributary, the
steppe-river Inhuletz, it empties with nine arms into its liman, below
Kherson. Of these arms only two are navigable for larger vessels, and
the immense Dnieper liman is at most only 6 meters deep. The river
brings down great masses of sand and mud, and fills up its liman so
rapidly that strenuous dredging is necessary, in order to make it
possible for small sea-vessels to reach the harbor of Kherson.
The Dnieper River brings the Black Sea, on the average, 2000 cu. m. of
water per second. It is navigable, even for large river boats, along a
stretch of 1900 km. The ice-cover lasts 100 days at Kiev; 80 days in
the lower part of its course.
The tributaries of the Dnieper are very numerous and important; their
total length is over 13,000 km. Of those on the right, the Pripet River
is the most important. It gathers in all the waters of the Polissye and
is the typical river of that district. Its length exceeds 650 km.
Rising in the northern spurs of the Volhynian Plateau, very close to
the course of the Buh, it immediately reaches the Polissian Plain and
becomes a navigable river over 50 m. wide and about 6 m. deep. In the
main axis of the Polissian basin the Pripet turns eastward and becomes
about 100 m. wide. The incline of the river is very slight, the number
of turns and river arms enormous. Between swampy woods and moors the
river forms labyrinths of delicate, intricate waterways and stagnant
pools. Near Mosir, where the river turns to the southeast, its width
reaches 450 m., its depth 10 m. Of quite the same type are the
tributaries of the Pripet: the Turia, Stokhod, Stir with the Ikva, the
Horin with the Sluch, the Ubort and the Uz on the right; the Pina,
Yassiolda, Sluch and Ptich on the left. All of them are navigable along
great stretches. The remaining right-hand tributaries of the Dnieper,
the Teterev and the Irpen, have the Polissian character only near their
mouth, otherwise they are purely plateau rivers with rocky beds. The
Teterev is able to transport rafts of logs, while the other rivers of
the Dnieper Plateau, as for example, the Ross (altho greater than the
Teterev) and the Tiasmin, are entirely unfit for navigation, as a
result of their rocky beds and their small volume in summer. The last
large Dnieper tributary, the steppe-river Inhuletz, altho barely 100
km. shorter than the Pripet, is, for the same reasons, only capable of
carrying logs in the last 150 km. of its much-twisted course.
Of the left-hand tributaries of the Dnieper only the northern ones
possess a sufficient volume of water to be navigable. The Soz, which is
550 kilometers in length, becomes as wide as 150 meters, and is
navigable for a stretch of nearly 360 kilometers. The Desna is the
longest of all the Dnieper tributaries (1000 km.). It rises near
Yelnia, on the Central Russian Plateau, and flows in a broad
symmetrical valley, which it floods in places every spring to the
extent of 10 kilometers. The normal width of the river at low-water is
160 meters; the depth is 6 meters. Despite many shallows and
sand-banks, the Desna is capable of bearing rafts along a stretch of
250 kilometers, and is navigable for 700 kilometers even for the larger
river boats. Of the Ukrainian tributaries of the Desna, the most
important is the Sem, which is 650 km. long and navigable for 500
kilometers.
All the other left-hand tributaries of the Dnieper flow in broad
valleys, with high right slopes and low left slopes, covered with
stagnant waters, marshy meadows and areas of sand. But, altho they all
look very imposing at the time of the spring floods, yet, neither the
Sula with its high wooded banks, nor the Psiol with its 670 km. of
length, neither the Vorscla flowing along between sandbanks and dunes,
nor the Orel sliding slowly along with its twisted course—none of these
have any significance for navigation. Only the steppe-river Samara,
flowing between granite banks, is capable of floating rafts along a
short stretch. There was a time, however, in which all these rivers
were navigable, even for ships of considerable size. Great old anchors
and wreckage of ships, which are found in the beds and banks of these
rivers, are sufficient proof of this fact. The cause of the present
condition may be sought in the destruction of forest in the drainage
country. The spring floods, increased from this cause, develop
considerable destructive activity, filling up the river bed with masses
of sand and mud, floating brushes and stumps of trees. The decreased
volume of water in the dry season, due to the drying up of the swamps
and springs, can not transport these deposits further, and the river
becomes unfit for any sort of navigation.
The Don (Din) is the fourth in the series of rivers of Europe. It is
over 1800 kilometers long, but the country it drains is smaller in area
by 100,000 square kilometers than that of the Dnieper. Hardly
one-fourth of the Don country belongs to the Ukraine, and even less of
its course. For this reason it was long considered as a border stream
of the Ukraine on the east, until the past century extended the
boundaries of Ukrainian territory into the Kuban region and to the
Caspian Sea.
The Don rises in Lake Ivan-Ozero, which has also an outlet to the Aka
on the Central Russian elevation of ground. Its valley is at first
deeply cut, its bed rocky. Then the valley widens and becomes
symmetrical, the left bank becomes flat and swampy, covered in places
by wide areas of sand. In the source region the direction of the river
is south as far as Korotniak, then the river turns to the southeast,
forms a sharp bend at the mouth of the Ilovla, approaching to within 60
km. of the Volga. Then the Don repeats on a small scale the direction
of the course of the Dnieper, turns toward the southwest, and
disembogues in thirty arms, of which only three are navigable and only
one accessible to sea-vessels, into the Sea of Azof. Its delta region
is very rich in fish and is growing very rapidly. The general volume of
the Don is twice as small as that of the Dnieper and is subject to many
vacillations. During the spring floods the water-level reaches 6–7 m.
above the normal and the river becomes as much as 10 km. wide. At the
time of low-water, on the other hand, the river, despite its width (in
the lower part of its course) of 200 to 400 m. and depths of 2–16 m.,
is full of sandbanks and shallows, so that navigation on the Don is but
slightly developed, altho more than 1300 km. of its course may be
considered fit for floating rafts of logs and 300 km. for ships. The
freezing-time lasts on the average 100 days.
Of the left-hand tributaries of the Don, the Voronizh, Bitiuh, Khoper,
Medveditza, and the Manich (famous, because of its bifurcation) are the
most important. Of the right-hand tributaries only one, the Donetz, is
important. Its entire course belongs to Ukrainian national territory.
It is 1000 km. long, and, in its southerly and then south-easterly
direction, entirely analogous to the Dnieper and the Don. The Donetz
flows in a broad valley and washes beautiful white cliffs along the
steep right bank, crowned with dark forests. The Donetz is capable of
floating rafts along a stretch of over 300 km., and is navigable for
200 km. more.
Of the steppe-rivers which tend toward the Sea of Azof from the east,
only the Yeia reaches its goal. All the rest end their courses in
lagoons.
The last great river of the Ukraine is the Kuban, 800 km. long. It
rises in the glaciers of the Elbrus and flows, a roaring mountain
stream, in a narrow and deep rocky defile. A great number of the
mountain streams of the northern Caucasus slope empty into the Kuban
and make it a stream of considerable volume. In the Stavropol hill
country the Kuban turns in a widely-drawn curve toward the west. Its
valley becomes broad and flat, covered with bogs, swampy forests and
wildernesses of reeds. From the left side it receives a number of
tributaries from the Caucasus, the most important being the Laba and
the Bila. In the midst of immense plavni, lakes and limans, the Kuban
forms its many-armed delta, which carries its waters partly to the
Black Sea, partly to the Sea of Azof, and embraces the peninsula of
Taman.
The Kuban always has a large volume, the floods coming in the early
summer, when the snow blanket of the Caucasus melts. Navigation is
greatly injured because of banks of sand and rubble, brush and
tree-stumps, but is, nevertheless, possible for a distance of over 350
km.
THE UKRAINIAN CLIMATE
The great uniformity of Eastern Europe, in respect to its morphology,
we find repeated in its climatic conditions. But, to the same extent
that the attentive investigator, upon close observation, finds several
independent morphological individualities within the Eastern European
low country, he will also observe important climatic differences in
this great half-continent.
The Central European climatic zone stops at the western borders of the
Ukraine. Similarly, the cool Eastern European continental climate,
which rules over all of White and Great Russia, embraces only
insignificant borderlands in the north of Ukrainian territory. The
Ukrainian climate assumes an entirely independent position. It is more
continental than that of Central Europe and differs from that of Great
Russia in its greater mildness. The Ukraine shares with France the
advantage that in its territory the direct transition from the
temperate climate of Eastern Europe to the Mediterranean climate of
Southern Europe takes place.
The thermal conditions of the Ukraine, despite its great size, are very
uniform. The yearly averages fluctuate between +6° and +9° C. Ternopil,
in Podolia, and Vovchansk, in the Kharkov country, have the same yearly
temperature of +6.3°, Pinsk +6.7°, Kiev and Kharkiv +6.8°, Lviv
(Lemberg) and Poltava +6.9°. The differences are confined within a
space of 1°C. Chernivtzi (Czernowitz) in the Bukowina, Yelisavet in the
Kherson region, and Luhan in the Donetz region have an annual
temperature of 7.6° or 7.7°, Katerinoslav on the Dnieper, Tahanroh on
the Sea of Azof, and Stavropol in the sub-Caucasus country 8.3° or
8.2°. This great coincidence of yearly averages in so widely separated
places is all the more surprising, since the mean temperature falls
considerably directly behind the borders of the Ukraine. Thus, Kursk
has only +5.2°, Voroniz +5.4°.
Not until we reach the southern borders of the Ukraine does the mean
temperature rise considerably. Odessa and Kishiniv have +9.8°, Mikolaiv
+9.7°, Simferopol +10.1°, Sevastopol +12.2°, Katerinodar +12.1°,
Novorossiysk +12°, Yalta +13.4° mean annual temperature. The last-named
place actually lies in the narrow belt of the Mediterranean climate, on
the southern slope of the Yaila Mountains.
Comparing the annual averages of the Ukraine with those of different
places in Western and Central Europe, the latter appear relatively much
higher. London, situated in the same geographical latitude as Kursk has
an annual temperature almost twice as high (+10.3°). London is on the
average even a little warmer than Simferopol, which actually lies 650
km. nearer the equator. Brussels lies a little more north than Kiev,
yet it is in the mean warmer than Odessa.
The cause of this unfavorable relation is the severe winter of the
Ukraine. The mean temperature of January is +3.5° in London, +2° in
Brussels, +1.2° in Frankfort a m., -1.2° in Prague, -3.3° in Cracow. In
the Ukraine the January means are much lower. Lemberg has -4.6°, Kiev
has -6.2°, Kharkiv -8.3°, Luhan -8°, Vovchansk -7.7°, Katerinoslav
-7.4°, etc. To be sure this is not remarkable when compared with the
January temperatures of even the south of Great Russia, where the
winter suggests polar conditions, but the antithesis to the winter
climate of Western and Central Europe is striking. Hammerfest, the
northernmost city of the earth, is one degree warmer than Kiev in
January and even a little warmer than Lemberg.
On the other hand, the summer of the Ukraine is even warmer than that
of Western and Central Europe. The July mean of London is +17.9° C., of
Brussels 18°, Lemberg the same, but Kiev has as much as 19.2°, Kharkiv
20.9°. The differences in the summer temperatures are much smaller,
however, than the differences in the winter temperatures—hence the
comparatively low annual mean in the Ukraine.
These figures clearly show the continental character of the Ukrainian
climate. The influences of the Atlantic Ocean, which still strongly
dominate the climate of Central Europe, become slight in the Ukraine.
Particularly, the southern part of the Ukraine is almost unaffected by
the mitigating influence of a nearby ocean, and the necessary result is
the low winter-temperatures. But the continental character of the
Ukrainian climate is, nevertheless, not so strongly marked as that of
the Russian or Siberian climate. Kamishin, Semipalatinsk,
Blagovieshchensk, situated on the same degree of latitude as Kiev, have
a January mean of -11.6°, 17.5° and -25.4°, and a July mean of +24.1°,
+22.2° and +21.3°, respectively. The influences of the Black Sea, altho
in general not great, are at least unmistakable in the coastal region
of the Ukraine.
The difference between the mean of the coldest and that of the warmest
month is slighter in the Ukraine than in Russia or Siberia, to be sure,
but it is, at any rate, considerable. Only in the Mediterranean climate
of Southern Crimea does the difference amount to as little as 20°. The
rest of Crimea, the sub-Caucasian country and the northwestern part of
the Ukraine as far as Kiev and Uman have a difference of 20°-25°,
Lemberg, for example, 22.6°, Pinsk 24°, Chernivtzi 25.1°, Kiev 25.2°.
On the other hand, the southern and the entire eastern part of the
Ukraine, especially east of the Dnieper, shows a considerable
difference, from 25° to 30°, as for example, Kiev 25.4°, Odessa and
Mikolaiv 26.3°, Poltava 27.3°, Kharkiv and Tahanroh over 29°, Luhan and
Katerinoslav 30.4°.
The winter appears severe in the entire Ukraine, with the exception of
Crimea and the sub-Caucasian country.
The January mean temperature of -4° to -8° then obtains in the entire
wide territory. Lemberg has -4.3°, Tarnopol -5.5°, Chernivtzi -5.1°,
Kiev -6.2°, Vovchansk -7.7°, Katerinoslav -7.4°, Mikolaiv -4.3°,
Tahanroh -6.7°, Luhan -8°. Even the southern lands of the Ukraine have
a low mean for January, for example, Odessa -3.7° (Kishiniv -3.5°),
while Kamenetz owes its exceptionally high mean, -3.3°, to its
sheltered location in a “yar.” The January isotherms run from northwest
to southeast in Ukrainian territory, in a wide curve, which becomes
increasingly flat toward the southeast. For this reason the cold in the
Ukraine grows in intensity not in a northern but in a northeastern
direction. The mean annual minimum almost everywhere exceeds -20°
(Lemberg -19.2°, Chernivtzi -21.1°, Tarnopol -23.4°, Kiev -23.2°,
Mikolaiv -21.4°, Luhan -28.4°). The absolute extremes attain very high
values. The absolute minimum amounts to -30° in Mikolaiv and Odessa,
-33.1° in Kiev, -34° in Ternopil, -35° in Lemberg and Czernowitz,
-40.8° in Luhan.
The Ukrainian winter is far less variable than the Central European or
even the Russian. Only in the northwestern borderlands of the Ukraine
does a thaw, brought by the Atlantic winds, frequently appear. The
duration of the frost on the Pontian shore is at most two months, in
the Pontian steppe-plain and the southern spurs of the plateau groups
three months, in all the rest of the Ukraine three and a half. Only in
the northeastern borderlands of the Ukraine, located on the spurs of
the Central Russian elevation and the Donetz, does the frost period
extend over four months.
In Southern Ukraine the winter is followed directly by a sunny spring,
with dry east winds, which partly degenerate into sand-storms
(sukhovi). Everywhere else in the Ukraine wet, sloppy weather follows
the steps of the receding winter. Toward the northwest it continues
longer and longer. The sloppy weather of spring consists of a
constantly varying succession of frost, thaw, snowstorm, rain and
sunshine, ending in the southern part of the Ukraine usually in the
middle of April, in the northern and northwestern part at the end of
April or even at the beginning of May. The actual spring following
thereon is very short thruout the Ukraine and usually lasts three
weeks, except in the northwest, where it continues thru the entire
month of May. The mean April temperature is everywhere higher than the
annual mean (Lemberg +7.8°, Tarnopol and Kiev +6.9°, Czernowitz and
Odessa +8.6°, Luhan -8.1°). But the month of May is quite as warm as
July in England. On the other hand, we find May frosts in the entire
Ukraine as far as the shores of the Black Sea, altho they do not appear
so destructive here as in Russia proper.
The Ukrainian summer is everywhere marked by considerable heat. Only in
the northwest corner of the Ukraine (Rostoche, Pidlassye, Polissye,
Volhynia) is the summer moderately warm (Lemberg +19.1°, Ternopil
+18.7°, Pinsk +18°).
The July temperature of all the rest of the Ukraine is much higher than
this. The July isotherm of +20°, like all the July isotherms of the
Ukraine, runs in a northeast direction past the source of the Sbruch
and the mouth of the Pripet, and the further we advance from this line
towards the southeast, the hotter the summers we find. On the lower
Dniester and Dnieper the mean July temperature exceeds +23°. Following
are a number of July means: Czernowitz +20.1°, Kiev +19.2°, Vovchansk
+20.3°, Odessa +22.6°, Katerinoslav and Mikolaiv +23°, Luhan +22.4°,
Tahanroh +22.8°. The strongest degrees of heat are +37° to +43°, and
the mean annual maxima are +30.3° for Ternopil, +31.1° for Lemberg,
+32.7° for Czernowitz, +32.1° for Kiev, +35.2° for Mikolaiv, +35.5° for
Luhan. The duration of the heat period with temperatures of +20° and
over is two months southeast of a line which runs near Kishiniv,
Poltava and Kharkiv, one month southeast of the line of Mohiliv, Kaniv
and Kursk. The total duration of the summer is only in the northwest of
the Ukraine as short as three months; otherwise it is four, and on the
Black Sea even four and a half.
The autumn of the Ukraine is regularly very beautiful and comparatively
warm. The month of October has a mean of temperature higher than the
annual (Lemberg +8.5°, Ternopil +7.7°, Czernowitz +9°, Kiev +7.5°,
Vovchansk +7°, Katerinoslav +9.7°, Luhan +8.4°, Odessa +11°, Mikolaiv
+9.7°, Tahanroh +9.1°). But even in October the warm sunny days are
followed by night frosts. The moist autumnal weather which begins the
transition to winter lasts as much as two months in the northwest;
beyond that, one to one and a half months. The mean date of the
earliest frost is October 19th for Kiev, October 11th for Luhan,
October 28th for Micolaiv, and November 10th for Odessa.
A different position, climatically, is that of Crimea, the
sub-Caucasian country, as well as the mountain islands of the
Carpathians, the Yaila and the Caucasus. In the temperature conditions
of Crimea and the sub-Caucasus country, the influence of their
southerly location and the proximity of the sea is everywhere apparent.
The mean temperature is everywhere higher than +10° (Simferopol +10.1°,
Sevastopol +12.2°, Katerinodar +12.1°). The winter is short and
comparatively mild (January mean of Simferopol +0.8°, Sevastopol +1.8°,
Katerinodar +2.1°, Stavropol -4.7°), but very variable. The degrees of
frost are sometimes quite high (Sevastopol -16.9°, Stavropol -25.6° as
absolute minima), but the frost period is short (one to two months).
The spring begins in March with full force; in May follows the
five-months’ summer. The July means are very high, especially in the
sub-Caucasus country, the heat period lasting everywhere more than two
months. (July mean of Simferopol +28°, Sevastopol 33.1°, Stavropol
+20°, Katerinodar +25.3°). The long autumn also is very mild.
South of the Yaila and Caucasus Mountains, on the shore of the Black
Sea, lies a narrow strip of land which actually shows Mediterranean
climatic characteristics. The winter lasts less than a month and is
very mild (January mean of Yalta +3.5°, altho the absolute minimum is
-13°), and, as in Novorossiysk, cold, bora-like gusts of wind are
common in times of heavy cold. After a long spring follows a
six-months’ summer, which passes imperceptibly into a mild autumn.
The climate of the mountains of the Ukraine has been but little
investigated. In the entire Ukrainian territory there is not a single
meteorological observatory. The general characteristics of mountain
climate, its greater uniformity, the smaller difference between the
warmest and coldest months, the belated beginning of all the seasons,
etc., may be found in all the mountains of the Ukraine.
Only the climate of the Ukrainian Carpathians is somewhat better known.
The dreariest climate is that of the Beskyds and the Gorgani. The
five-months’ winter and long periods of sloppy weather in the spring
and in the fall encroach upon the short summer. The Chornohora chain,
despite the greater height of its peaks, upon which the snow in
sheltered places remains lying thru the entire summer, has a much
milder and pleasanter climate. The influence of the warm summer of the
adjacent plain regions limits the duration of the sloppy weather in
spring and autumn. For this reason, the mountain valleys have a short
but very beautiful spring, a warm summer, and a wonderful mild autumn.
The mountain pastures have in place of the summer only a three months’
spring.
In the Yaila Mountains, as a result of their small size and height, the
characteristics of typical mountain climate are lacking, but in the
Caucasus we find them in their highest development. The analogy to the
Alps is perfect, but the influence of the continental steppe climate of
the surrounding country is unmistakable, expressing itself in the
position of the various climatic regions, in the height of the snow
limit, in the development of the glacial covering, etc., very
distinctly and very differently than in the Alps, which are surrounded
by countries with a climate of a different kind.
We now come to the second group of climatic phenomena, pressure and
wind conditions. The Ukraine may, in this respect, be divided into two
great regions. The line of high pressure which separates these parts,
called by Voiekoff the great axis of Europe, extends from the bend of
the Volga, near Tsaritsin, over the porohi section of the Dnieper at
Katerinoslav to Kishinev. North of this line, west winds prevail,
bringing Atlantic air into Northern Ukraine. In the south, east winds
prevail, bearing the influences of the Asiatic steppe climate. This
wind divide is most distinct in winter. In the northern part of the
Ukraine we find chiefly west and southwest winds, which mitigate the
frosts and cause precipitations of rainfall; in the southern part dry,
cold east winds prevail, increasing the cold. Sometimes the east wind
increases to a snowstorm (metelitzia, fuga) which whirls up terrible
masses of snow, filling the air with snowflakes until absolutely
nothing can be seen, and causes terrific destruction. Herds of a
thousand head fall victim to its icy breath, even in the steppes of
Crimea, and woe to the traveler who is caught in a snowstorm in the
steppe.
In November and December, in Southern Ukraine, moist, warm south winds
frequently come up from the Pontus. But the absolute balance is on the
side of the freezing east winds, to which is to be ascribed the severe
winter climate of Southern Ukraine. The northern half of the Ukraine as
a rule, is seldom reached by the east winds, the northwestern corner
very seldom. Their occasional appearance is accompanied by heavy frosts
with fair weather.
In the spring, east and south winds blow, especially over Southern
Ukraine. They often change to heavy sand-storms (sukhovi) very harmful
to the crops, which carry clouds of sand, with which they form
miniature dunes as high as 30 cm. The east and south winds, at such
times, penetrate even into Northern Ukraine, altho with the exception
of the northwest corner.
In the summer, on the other hand, the west, northwest, and southwest
winds hold a decided balance over the east winds, even in Southern
Ukraine. They bring moist Atlantic air and rain into the entire land
and mitigate the heat. The occasional east winds increase the heat and
bring periods of drought, but usually not until August, when they are
rather frequent. In September all the winds are weak thruout the
Ukraine, with high pressure. That is why the fall is so beautiful too.
Then, in October and November, follows the gradual transition to the
winter wind conditions.
The third group of atmospheric phenomena, humidity and precipitation,
possesses the same great uniformity in Ukrainian territory as the other
two elements of the climate. The humidity of the air in the Ukraine is
in general slight. It is greatest in the forest-covered partly swampy
West and Northwest. Toward the southeast the humidity in the Ukraine
constantly decreases. Fogs appear seldom and are only light, so that
the antithesis to Western and Central Europe, as well as Russia, is
striking. The light night and morning fogs which appear, especially in
the latter part of summer and in the fall, only contribute to the
beautification of the landscape, by flooding the depressions of land
like a sea. Cloud-formation is much slighter in the Ukraine than in
Western or Central Europe, or in Russia proper, the dreary Muscovite
country. The greatest number of clouded days occurs in the western and
northwestern part of the Ukraine; toward the southeast and east the
number of such days dwindles continuously. The least amount of cloudy
weather occurs in the month of August. In September and October the
increase is very slight. November and December are much cloudier and
January is most cloudy all over the Ukraine. After that the cloudy
weather lessens considerably at first, then slowly, until August.
The atmospheric precipitations in the Ukraine are in general
insignificant, except in the Carpathian and Caucasus regions. The
Ukraine has less rainfall than Central or Western Europe. The Atlantic
Ocean, the most important source of the precipitations in Europe, lies
far distant, and the cyclonal systems on their way east drop their
collected moisture upon Western and Central Europe. For the Ukraine,
and particularly for the eastern part of it, there is, therefore, very
little left. In this connection the Black Sea has only a local
significance, and the evaporation of water from the rivers, lakes and
swamps, from the plants and the ground, is hardly worth considering,
except as it happens in the summer.
The great amounts of precipitation are to be found in the mountains of
the Ukraine, where rising currents of air help along the condensation
of the water vapor. Even in the Low Beskid the precipitation exceeds
1000 mm. (Yasliska 1170 mm.), in the Gorgani and Chornohora we find in
large areas, especially on the southern slope, a precipitation of over
1200 mm., in a few places 1400 mm. (Kobiletzka Polana 1377 mm., Bradula
1419 mm.). The amount of precipitation is still large in the entire
Pidhirye, but at only a short distance it decreases considerably.
Lemberg has only 735 mm. of rainfall, the southern part of the Rostoche
as much as 900 mm. in places, since the western edges act like chains
of mountains to the west winds. But Czernowitz, near as it is, has only
619 mm. and the Podolia on the Dniester still less. The Khotin lying in
the yar of this river has only 300 mm., which best illustrates the
significance of local conditions. At a greater distance from the curve
of the Carpathians the amount of precipitation shows a slow but regular
decrease toward the southeast. Only in the northern part of the
Rostoche and the northwestern part of Podolia does the amount of
precipitation attain 600 mm., while further toward the south and east a
wide zone stretches out with only 500–600 mm. (Pinsk 581 mm., Kiev 534
mm., Uman 546 mm., Poltava 532 mm.). Another wide zone, which extends
from the mouth of the Dniester to the bend of the Don, has a
precipitation of between 400 and 500 mm. (Kharkiv 465 mm., Katerinoslav
475 mm., Kishinev 471 mm., Yelisavet 444 mm., Odessa 408 mm.). The next
narrow zone of the Pontian and Crimean steppe has a precipitation of
less than 400 mm. (Mikolaiv 360 mm., Sevastopol 386 mm., Luhan 379
mm.), a corner of Crimea on the peninsula of Tarkhankut has even barely
more than 200 mm.
The Yaila Mountain Range is too small to have any marked influence on
the increase in the amount of precipitation. Yalta has only 508 mm.
precipitation. On the other hand, the influence of the Caucasus is very
great. The sub-Caucasus Kuban region, to be sure, has only 400–500 mm.
precipitation, Stavropol 720 mm., Novorossysk 691 mm. However, the
amount of precipitation on the southwestern side of the Caucasus
Mountains increases uncommonly. At the borders of Ukrainian territory,
Sochi has not less than 2071 mm.
From this account we see clearly enough that, in comparison with
Central and Western Europe, the Ukraine is rather poor in rainfall,
especially in the southeast. But the distribution of the precipitations
among the seasons is so favorable that most of them fall at the time
they are most needed, namely, in the early part of summer. The entire
Ukraine lies within the area of the summer rains, only the narrow strip
of the south coast of Crimea and the Caucasus are within the area of
the winter rains.
The reason of the preponderance of the summer rains lies in the western
and northwestern Atlantic winds, which, in that season, have easy
access far into the southeastern part of the Ukraine. These winds bring
so much moisture into the Ukraine that almost two-thirds of the annual
rainfall belongs to May, June and July. The month with the greatest
amount of precipitation for the entire Ukraine is June. Only the
Polissye, Northwestern Volhynia and the western part of the Kiev
territory show the heaviest precipitation in July, since, in these
regions of forests and swamps, evaporation is heaviest at this time of
greatest heat.
The summer rains of the Ukraine differ from those of Central or Western
Europe in their heaviness. Only in the Western Ukraine are the summer
rains of the type of gentle rains that are uniform for an entire
country; in the south and east they appear as cloudbursts in heavy
showers. In Samashcani, in Bessarabia, there have been times when 200
mm. of rain fell in a single day, in Korovintzi in the Poltava region,
5 mm. in one minute. In the Pontian steppes all rain falls in the form
of heavy showers. The water flows off quickly and evaporates rapidly,
before it is able to thoroughly saturate the ground.
Electric discharges and hailstorms occur in close connection with the
summer rains, most frequently in June, less so in July and in May. They
usually come from the southwest in the afternoon hours. Most of these
storms originate in the Carpathian Mountains and reach Volhynia and
Kiev, but do not cross the Dnieper. The Caucasus, too, has very many
storms. Hailstorms are most frequent in Galicia and Volhynia and the
western part of the Kiev regions; very rare in the southeast.
In August the amount of rainfall slowly decreases; in September and
October still more, and so it continues until December. January is the
month of least rainfall for the entire Ukraine (only one-fourth of the
June figure), and this circumstance is of particularly great
significance for the southern and eastern parts of the Ukraine. For
this reason the cover of snow in the Ukraine is much less than in
Central Europe or Muscovy, besides which, it is often disturbed by
snowstorms. The slight snow-cover melts down quickly in the spring,
without saturating the soil well, and without requiring much warmth.
This explains the rapid rise of heat in the Ukrainian spring.
From January until the end of April the amount of rainfall again grows
slowly but steadily, reaching its maximum in June.
The southern part of Crimea and the Caucasian shore have just the
opposite annual distribution of the precipitations. Under the influence
of the moist Pontian winds, the greatest amount of rain falls in
December and January, while the spring and summer have very little
rain. These characteristics of the Mediterranean climate, the rainy
winter after the dry summer, are all the more striking, since the
opposite condition prevails on the other side of the Yaila and Caucasus
Mountains.
From this account of the Ukrainian climate we see that this climate
retains an entirely independent position as against that of Central
Europe or Russia. The Ukrainian climate is characterized by an annual
amplitude of 20° to 30°, a mean annual temperature of from +6° to +12°,
a July mean of from +19° to +24°, and a January mean of from 0° to 8°,
with predominant summer rains and a generally insignificant cover of
snow. The difference from the Russian climate is, consequently, quite
considerable. The Russian climate forms the transition to the polar,
that of the Ukraine to the Mediterranean climate.
Nature has provided the Ukraine with a pleasant, very wholesome
climate. On the whole temperate, it does not lack heavy frosts and
considerable degrees of heat, which harden the Ukrainian to any
inclemencies of the weather. The differences of the seasons cause a
pleasant variety, strong winds clear the atmosphere and bring motion
into nature, the rains are everywhere sufficient for the growth of
vegetation and the carrying on of the most important occupation of the
Ukraine—agriculture. The great uniformity of this Ukrainian climate has
recently caused the French geographer, de Martonne, to set it up as one
of the types of climate of the globe.
FLORA AND FAUNA OF UKRAINE
Eastern European bigness characterizes also the organic life of the
Ukraine. But it follows, from the location of the country, that the
Ukraine has a much more varied plant and animal geography than the
proper Russian territory, despite the latter’s much greater extent.
In the Ukraine, the borders of three main divisions of plant-geography
of Europe meet—the Mediterranean division, the steppe region, and the
forest region, with their transition regions. Besides, we meet in the
Ukraine three mountain regions—the Carpathian, the Crimean, and the
Caucasian. In respect to flora, the Ukraine possesses only a few
endemic species. To be sure the great ice period covered only
comparatively small areas of the Ukraine with its glacier, but the
polar flora undoubtedly prevailed in the entire country at that time.
After the withdrawal of the glacier, steppes first appeared in its
place, which then, especially in the Northwest, were forced to make
room for a forest flora that had immigrated from Central Europe and
Siberia. Hence, despite the considerable area of the Ukraine, so few
endemic species.
Since those primeval days, only a very few natural changes have
occurred in the vegetation of the Ukraine. However, man, thru his
cultural activity, has wrought many changes in the plant-world of the
country.
The forest region occupies barely one-fifth of the Ukrainian territory,
only the northwestern and northern borderlands. The southeastern border
of the forest region extends from the Prut and Dniester on the western
boundary of Pokutye and Podolia in a curve to the source of the Buh,
then near the northern boundary of the Dnieper Plateau east as far as
Kiev, and thence toward the northeast as far as the source of the Aka.
This boundary, however, is not sharp. In numerous peninsulas the
compact forest penetrates the adjacent transition region toward the
southeast. On the other hand, this forest boundary coincides almost
exactly with the northern boundary of the black soil. The soil of the
forest region is in general poor. Only in higher places we find fertile
turf; beyond that sandy soil and the podsol, rich in quartz,
predominate.
The prevailing plant formation in this region is the forest. It once
covered the entire region and was thinned to any great extent only
within the last two centuries. What these primeval forests were like we
can now tell in only a few districts of the Polissye and in the famous
virgin forest of Biloveza, which lies in the extreme northwest corner
of the Ukrainian territory. Here we see the primeval forest in its
mighty size and beauty. In wind-fallen woods, several meters high,
rotten, decaying stumps cover the ground. Their roots stand up high
into the air above swampy holes and vast masses of rotting remains of
plants. Above this swampy fen rise, like a vast mass of pillars, the
knotty trunks of century-old oaks and lindens, ash and aspen, and the
slender pine and fir. High above the ground their branches intertwine.
All strive up toward the sun, for a continuous semi-darkness reigns
below. Shrub and herb vegetation thrives only in clearings; beyond that
only last year’s leaves, needles, and a mysteriously glowing decay
cover the ground. Dead silence, only occasionally broken by the
hammering of a woodpecker or by the timid voice of a bird, reigns
everywhere, making all the more impressive the mighty roaring of the
lofty crowns in the storm.
As to their composition, the woods of the Ukrainian forest region are
mixed, altho local conditions cause one or the other species of tree to
predominate. The Ukrainian forest region may be divided into two
regions by a line running thru Lublin southeast toward Lutzk. Southwest
of this line extends the Central European forest zone, northeast of it
the Northern European forest zone.
The Central European forest zone embraces the entire Pidhirye in the
Ukraine, the southern part of the Rostoche, and the western spurs of
Volhynia and Podolia. It is distinguished by a greater variety of tree
species. Here, upon damp, loamy hills, entire forests of beech are
found, on the Carpathian foothills the pine, and singly or in small
groups, the larch, the yew, the maple, etc. In the Northern European
zone all these trees disappear, due to the increasing continentality of
the climate. The predominating species of tree here is the pine, which
forms large woods everywhere on sandy soil, then the birch, which
always accompanies the pine, the fir on sandy soil, the oak and white
beech on loamy soil. There is an admixture of a considerable number of
alders on swampy ground, aspens, lindens, elms, maples, ash and wild
apple, pear and cherry trees. Hazel bushes, willow (salix caprea),
mountain ash, raspberry and blackberry bushes comprise the thick
underbrush in these mixed forests, and contribute a great deal to the
beauty of the woods, together with grass and herb vegetation,
especially in numerous clearings. In truer evergreen forests the
underbrush usually is very poor.
There are a great many swamp forests in the Ukrainian forest region. In
the Carpathian foothills they are called lasi, and are quite common
there, but in the Polissye they are most widely developed. There they
are usually composed of pines, with which, however, the swampy ground
does not agree very well. The alders and willows, however, grow all the
better.
The second important formation of the forest region are the luhi. They
usually stretch thru the wide, flat river valleys of the region. These
are luxurious meadows with a beautiful growth of grass and herbs set
with single trees and clusters of trees. In dry places the oak usually
grows, in damp places the alder.
The third typical plant formation is that of the swamps. They are
widely developed in the forest region of the Ukraine, especially in the
flat river valleys of the Rostoche and Volhynia. Polissye is the
greatest swamp country in Europe. Regular moors, made up of peat
mosses, alternate even in the Polissye region with meadow moors, in
which swamp grass and herb vegetation predominates.
The forest region has played a significant part in the history of the
Ukraine. When the Turkish nomad tribes, using the steppe district of
the Ukraine as a convenient military road, destroyed the work of
Ukrainian civilization in the steppe region, the Ukrainian people
retreated into the forests and swamps of the north and west, advancing
toward the southeast again, at the proper moment, to reinhabit the
ravaged and desolated lands. This circle of events repeated itself
frequently in the history of the Ukraine.
Today the woods of the Ukraine forest region are greatly thinned, so
that they take up more than one-third of the total surface only in the
Polissye. Cutting down and rooting up of the woods some centuries ago
was, without a doubt, an important part of the work of civilization.
But now things are different. Now the forest is considered a very
important part of a well organized cultural section, and is, therefore,
carefully preserved in the truly civilized lands of Europe. In the
beautiful forests of the Ukraine, however, a reckless exploitation is
going on, and the evil results are already apparent, especially in the
sparsely wooded borders of the forest region, as well as in the entire
country surrounding the steppe. The rivers have become small in volume
of water, the sources dried up, and the ravines annually transform
thousands of hectares into desert land. And this is happening in the
granary of Europe, which some 300 years ago made foreign travelers
marvel at its incredible fertility.
All the rest of the Ukraine, as far as the foothills of the Yaila and
the Caucasus, is occupied by the steppe region. The limits of this
region, as we have said, are not distinct. In peninsula and island
formations the forest penetrates toward the southeast. In this
direction the forest islands become constantly rarer and smaller, so
that the Russian plant-geographers have felt called upon to insert two
transition zones between the real forest and the real steppe—the zone
of the exterior steppe and the zone of the transitional steppe. The
actual steppe region is supposed to begin at the line which extends
thru Kishinev and Katerinoslav to the bend of the Don. This division
may be criticized, however, since it at most, fits present conditions
brought about in the last 200 years by the destruction of forests on
the part of men. The historical sources of the Ukraine tell of large
woodlands, which, in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries, still extended
along the sources of the Inhul and Inhuletz, along the Tasmin, on the
river divides between the left-hand tributaries of the Dnieper, etc.
They were not forest terraces, not mere strips of woods confined to
river valleys; they covered the divides far and wide, as well as the
broad tableau sheds lying between rivers. For this reason care must be
taken in sketching the boundaries of the steppe. We therefore
comprehend both the above mentioned transition zones into one, for
which we would suggest the name luhi zone, because the luh, a meadow
studded with scattered groups of trees and little groves, must have
been the predominating plant formation of this transition country.
The typical soil of the transition country, as well as of the steppe
region, is the black earth (Ukr. chornozem, Russ. chernozyom). Every
Ukrainian is familiar with this blackish, ever fertile soil, which
cannot be duplicated the world over and which makes the Ukraine the
granary of Russia. The black earth is a product of the transformation
of loess, with a strong admixture of the products of decomposition of
plants. In places it attains a depth of 2 m. and over.
The black-earth region extends longitudinally thru the Ukraine,
embracing over three-fourths of its territory. The northern boundary of
the black-earth region passes from Lemberg along the north border of
the Podolian and Dnieper Plateau as far as Kiev, and then northeast to
the bend of the Aka, south of Kaluga. The southern boundary describes a
line drawn thru the Boh and Dnieper deltas to their limans and the city
of Mariupol. The entire Kuban plain and the plateau of Stavropol also
belong to the region of black earth. Along the northern border of the
black-earth region extends a transition zone of about 100 kilometers
width, whose black earth contains 4 to 6% decaying plant matter. South
of this lies the wide main area of the black earth with 6 to 10%
decaying matter. On the sea and along the lower Dnieper the region ends
with another transition zone, whose brownish black earth contains 4 to
6% of decaying matter. On the Sea of Azof and in Southern Crimea the
brown dry steppe soil, with numerous islands of saline soil
(solonchaki) and a peculiar vegetation, inclined to absorb salt,
prevails. These are present also in the remaining black earth region,
and there are also islands and strips of saline earth along the rivers
and the seashore.
In the steppe region, the steppe is not the only plant formation. Above
all we must differentiate between the meadow-steppe of the transition
zone and the real steppe of the south, as well as the desert steppe in
some districts of Crimea and the Caucasus. Besides this shrub
formation, meadow-woods (luhi) and real forests are found in the steppe
region.
In the vegetation of the meadow-steppe, grasses and herbs take the
first place. Of the grasses the stippa species are the most
characteristic (tirsa, kovil); of the herbs, the lily-like growths. The
growth of grass in the northern part of the steppe region is very
luxuriant and thick, and attains great heights, altho the times in
which a rider and his horse might disappear in the grass belong to the
past. High weeds and thistles (buriani, bodiaki) form thickets of great
luxuriance. In the spring, when the fresh young grass begins to sprout
up and the blossoming herbs convert the steppe into a carpet of
flowers, when everything is resplendent with the fulness of life and
beauty, then the Ukrainian steppe presents a wonderful picture. But
this picture is not lasting. The heat and the drought transform the
fresh, green, primitive color into yellow and brown. Grasses and herbs
wither and die away, and only the roots and seeds preserve the living
power of the plant, surviving the autumnal drought and the severe cold
of winter, once more to wrap the steppe in its bridal gown in the
spring.
In the southern part of the steppe region the plant covering is not so
luxurious as in the north, and the grasses and herbs grow in isolated
little bushes, between which the bare ground of the steppe remains
visible. The saline earth appears much oftener, with its gray-green
vegetation of salt plants, and we often find sand areas, which begin to
suggest the desert steppes of the Caspian steppe country.
A characteristic plant formation in the entire steppe region is
comprised by the bushes (bairaki, chahari), which generally consist of
heavily tangled thickets of wild cherry (prunus chamaecerasus,
vishennik), spiral (tavolha), snowball (calina), almond shrub
(amygdalus nana, bobovnik), etc. They generally grow in the steppe
balkas, or near them, and cover extended areas.
The Ukrainian steppe, despite contrary current opinion, does not lack
tree growth. In the region of the real steppe, to be sure, we meet only
forest terraces, which extend along the river courses, but in the
transition zone we still find woods and groves, which not only appear
in river valleys, but also cover the plateaus between these. The oak,
the white beech, the maple, the poplar, the wild apple and pear trees,
are the chief representatives of the tree species of the woods of this
section. Even the pine ventures as far as the district of Kharkiv.
Besides the forest terraces, the rivers of the steppe region are
accompanied by the formation of the so-called plavni. They are thickets
of sedge and reeds, with luxuriant willow and alder growth; in drier
places, which are flooded only during high-water time, real oak forests
are added. With pleasure the eye of the traveler, wearied by the
uniformity of the steppe, rests upon them.
As to the origin of the steppes of the Ukraine, scholars differ. Every
one of them thinks he has found the only correct explanation. In
reality, the origin and preservation of the Ukrainian steppes can be
traced to the combined action of various causes. In the first place
there is the continental dry climate. The amount of rainfall is too
slight for the development of forest-flora; the drought of the summer
and fall too long.
A minor cause is the salt content of the steppe-soil, which, however,
is apparent only in places. On the other hand, the shape of the ground
is very important. Where the land is level, where the dry steppe winds
have free play and the rainwater cannot easily dissolve and wash away
the salt of the soil, the steppe prevails. Where the land is cut by
river valleys and balkas, however, there is more shelter from wind,
more moisture, and no salt in the soil, so that conditions are given
which are favorable for the development of tree vegetation. For this
reason not only the valleys of the rivers, but also the balkas, which
but seldom carry water, have always had tree growth, and even woods and
groves. The trees which are planted there thrive very well, while
attempts at cultivation in the real level steppe almost regularly fail.
The most important foundation for the existence of steppes, however, is
their character as remains of the old post-glacial steppe formation.
Since the beginnings of the alluvial epoch, its territory is being won
by the forest, which is constantly pushing forward toward the south and
southeast, using the river valleys as the main lines of advance. In
this advance toward the south, the forest has now been stopped by man
before it was able to reach the shore of the Black Sea and the Sea of
Azof.
Man has wrought many changes in the steppe region. In the first place
he has entered into the struggle between the woods and the steppe in
opposition to the woods. The ancient Ukrainians of the Kiev state
rooted out great areas of forest and reclaimed them for civilization.
On the other hand, the nomad tribes, roaming the steppes ever since man
can remember, repeatedly destroyed forests with fire, in order to
obtain good pasture for their herds and to break down the best defense
of the agricultural Ukrainian population. In the 16th Century began the
deforestation of the transition zone thru the progressing colonization
movement of the Ukrainians, under the protection of the Cossack
organization. But even in the 18th Century there were still great
forests in the transition zone, which have since entirely disappeared.
The intensive colonization movement of the 19th Century put an end to
them. At the same time the hand of man attacked the steppe formation.
Today only very small parcels of steppe are in their original
condition. The steppe grasses have yielded place to an increasingly
intensive cultivation of grain grasses; the place of the natural steppe
has been usurped by the cultivated steppe, with its waving fields of
grain and inevitable dreary stubble fields. With the progressive
destruction of forests this cultivated steppe of man’s fields
constantly moves toward the north and west of the Ukraine, favoring the
accompanying migration of the steppe-plants and steppe animals into
Central Europe.
Entirely independent is the position of the Ukrainian flora in the
southern slope of the Yaila and the Caucasus. They belong really to the
Mediterranean Sea region. The mild climate here has matured a flora of
an entirely southern type, with many evergreen trees and shrubs
peculiar to the Mediterranean region. Yet the vegetation of this
district can only be considered as the advance guard of the real
Mediterranean vegetation, for the representatives of the northern flora
by far predominate over the southern species of plants, particularly in
the forests which develop in higher altitudes.
Besides the just discussed plant-geographical regions and zones of the
plain, the Ukraine has three mountain regions—the Carpathian, the
Crimean and the Caucasian.
The foot of the Carpathians is covered by mixed and leafy forests.
White beech, birch, linden, aspen and pine comprise these forests. At
one time the oak predominated here, as it still does on the southern
slope of the mountain range. On higher ridges of the Low and High
Beskid, mixed forests of beech and fir are found. At the upper tree
limit of the High Beskid the beech appears almost exclusively in forest
formation. The trees become constantly smaller and more gnarled, and at
a height of 1000 m. we meet only beech brush. On the southern side of
the mountain range pure beech woods prevail.
In the Gorgani we soon distinguish two forest zones. The lower one has
principally beech woods, with an admixture of firs and maples; the
upper one consists almost entirely of fir woods. Their upper limit
usually lies at a height of from 1500 to 1600 m., but the zekoti (seas
of sandstone boulders), which cover all the higher peaks and ridges,
reduce the upper tree limit a great deal in some places.
In the Chornohory, a similar division of the forest zone prevails. Oak
forests, with thick underbrush, cover the foot of the range on both
slopes. Above the oak woods lies the zone of mixed forests, in which
white and red beech, birch, ash, maple and firs predominate. Above the
height of 1300 m. lies the upper tree zone, which is made up of stocks
of fir entirely. The upper tree limit lies at a height of 1700 m. The
milder climate of the Chornohory matures a much more luxurious and a
richer vegetation than in other parts of the Ukrainian Carpathians.
In the forest zones of the Carpathians, great complex primeval forests
have survived to a great extent. They lie in inaccessible places, which
the bandit axe of the professional forest destroyer has not yet
penetrated. The Carpathian virgin forest is, perhaps, the most
beautiful plant formation of the Ukraine. Giant firs, as much as 60 m.
in height and six feet thick, raise their dark green slender pyramids
above rocky slopes and immense wind-fallen woods, in which the modern
firs lie in piles. Thick shrubbery covers the clearings, while in the
eternal semi-darkness of the thickets, on rocky ground covered with
needles, just an occasional pillow of moss may be found.
A second plant-formation of the Carpathians is that of the
dwarf-shrubs. They develop above the forest limit and cover wide areas
in the Gorgani and Chornohori. Mountain fir (zerep), accompanied by
juniper (in the Beskyds and Gorgani) and by dwarf-alder bushes (lelich,
in the Chornohory), in thickets which are impassible in places. The
formerly widely distributed stone pine has become rare, since its
fragrant wood is preferred by the mountain-dwellers for all sorts of
woodwork.
The third plant formation of the Carpathians are their mountain meadows
(polonini). They lie above the forest limit and begin to appear at the
source of the San. Toward the southeast they become constantly more
luxuriant and more frequent. The grass and herb growth of the polonini
is very varied and rich, especially in the so-called zarinki, that is,
parts of the mountain meadows where hay is made. The polonini are of
great importance to the inhabitants of the mountains. Great herds of
horses, cattle and sheep remain here all summer. The polonini are
peopled, and a life of great privation—a hard life but free—develops in
primitive dairy huts, with never dying camp-fires.
In the mountains of Crimea we find, in the main, the same arrangement
of plant zones. At some height above sea-level the forest zone begins.
White and red beech, oak, and two species of pine appear here in
forests. Only on the broad peak surfaces we find poor mountain meadows
with thick but short grasses. The name of these mountain pastures
(yaila) has been transferred to the entire mountain chain.
In the Caucasus we find, within Ukrainian territory, only the forest
zone of this mountain system. The forests often attain a height of 2500
m., and consist of various kinds of oak, beech, elms, linden, maple and
ash. Above the forest limit we meet with a low shrub formation and the
beautiful, wonderfully rich grass and herb growth which cover the
mountain meadows of the Caucasus, rising, at a height of 2900–3500 m.,
to the snow border.
The animal-geographical conditions of the Ukraine are much simpler than
the plant-geographical. The Ukraine, like the rest of Europe, belongs
to the holarctic region, and despite the extent of the land, only
slight differences in the fauna are found, these being due to the
floral and morphological differences of the mountains, forests and
steppes of the Ukraine.
Since the ice age, the animal world of the Ukraine has experienced no
lesser changes than the plant world. In the ice period many mighty
beasts of prey (cave bear, cave lion, cave hyena, etc.) lived here,
besides thick-skinned animals (mammoth, rhinoceros), together with the
ancestors of the present animal world and various polar forms. All
these animals are either altogether extinct, or they followed the
receding glacier to the north. On the other hand, together with the
post glacial steppe, a steppe-fauna spread out from south and east,
which then gradually had to make way for the forest fauna advancing
southward with the forests.
From this time on, the Ukrainian fauna suffered only very slight
natural changes. On the other hand, the artificial changes produced by
the hand of man have been all the greater. Many species which were
dangerous as beasts of prey or useful for food or skins, have either
been entirely exterminated by man or greatly limited in their spread.
In destroying the forests and putting cultivated steppes and fields in
their place, he has, to a great extent, beaten the way to the heart of
Central Europe for the animals of the steppe. But his activity has been
rather to exterminate than to change, and he has destroyed the once
wonderful animal life of the Ukraine.
Of the higher animal life of the Ukraine on the middle and lower
Dnieper, we are told, in a historical source, almost incredible facts
prevailing about the middle of the 16th Century. “The Ukraine is so
rich in game that bisons, wild horses and deer are hunted merely for
the sake of their skins. Of their meat only the choicest cuts of chine
and loin are used, all other parts thrown away. Hinds and young boars
are not hunted at all. Roes and wild boars wander in great herds from
the steppes into the woods in winter, returning to the steppes in
summer. During this season they are killed by the thousands. On all the
rivers, streamlets, brooks, live innumerable beaver colonies. The bird
world is so remarkably rich that enormous quantities of wild goose,
wild duck, crane and swan eggs and young ones are gathered. In the
rivers, such great shoals of fish swarm in the spring that the fishing
spear thrown in stands upright.” Another chronicler, of the 17th
Century, tells that he was present when a single throw of the net at
the mouth of the Orel brought 2000 fish to light, of which the smallest
was one foot long.
Of the cat family, the lynx and the wildcat have become very rare and
are met with only in the Carpathians and the Caucasus; the lynx also in
the Polissye country. The bear, formerly very frequent thruout the
Ukraine, is now also confined to these three regions. On the other
hand, wolves, foxes, badgers, martens, polecats and all sorts of small
animals of prey have survived, altho in very much smaller numbers. Of
the large plant-eating animals the bison (thanks only to the unusual
care on the part of the government) has survived in the primeval forest
of Biloveza, the moose-deer only in the Polissye, the stag only in the
Carpathians and the Caucasus. On the other hand, there are still a
great many roes and wild boars in the woods. Of the rodents the hare is
still common everywhere, while the beaver, which at one time inhabited
all the rivers of the Ukraine, is now confined to the most inaccessible
swamps of the Polissye and the Caucasian tributaries of the Kuban. The
bird kingdom, too, has become much poorer in species. Large birds of
prey, like eagles and hawks, nest only in the Carpathians and in the
Caucasus—very seldom in the woods of the plain. The heath fowl and
grouse seek the most inaccessible thickets, and even the number of
small insect and grain-feeders has been greatly reduced. Of the
waterfowl, wild ducks, wild geese, coot, diving birds, etc., are still
very numerous. Cranes and herons are rare. The former wealth of fish is
ruined and no one takes care of the artificial raising of fish. To be
sure, much fish is still caught, especially in the Dnieper and Don
systems, mainly pike, tench, carp, crucian, shad, etc., and trout in
the mountain streams; but of the abundance of even the comparatively
recent past, there is no trace. Sturgeon, sterlet and other sea fish,
which formerly came in great swarms up the Dniester, Boh and Dnieper,
are only seldom found today.
The steppe region has lost even more of its animal wealth. Above all,
the rich higher animal life of the transition zones, which as late as
the 18th Century provided food for the populous Zaporog Sich, has quite
disappeared. The tarpani (wild horses), which still inhabited the
steppe in great herds in the 17th Century, are now completely
exterminated. Saiga antelopes (saihaki), once generally distributed
thruout the steppe region of the Ukraine, have retreated to the Caspian
steppe. The smaller game and the bird world have suffered far less, but
the activity of man, who has changed the steppes into fields and
pastures, has been fatal to them too. The bustard, sandpiper, partridge
and grouse, which formerly inhabited the steppe brush in great numbers
have become rare. The same may be said of the bird-world of the
watercourses and swamps which once inhabited the river districts of the
steppe in immense swarms. The insectivorous birds, too, have decreased,
and the harmful insects are increasing at a terrible rate. Only the
locust pest, which formerly caused great damage in agriculture, is now
almost gone.
But, in spite of the war of extermination which man is waging against
the animal world of the steppe, animal species are found which were
well able to adapt themselves to the new circumstances, have become
accustomed to man and have found plenty of food in the fields of the
cultivated steppe (field-mice, marmot, ground squirrels, etc.). They
have increased greatly and have migrated toward the west and north,
causing great damage to farming.
As we must dispense with a scientific discussion of the flora and fauna
of the Ukraine, we shall only report a few essential facts about the
useful plants and domestic animals.
The Ukraine, according to its soil and its climate, is the richest
grain country of Europe. For wheat the conditions in the Ukraine are
the most favorable, especially in the southern half of the black-earth
region. Rye is raised more widely in the north and northwest; barley
everywhere, but on a large scale only in the south; oats in the north
and in the Carpathians, where it is often used to make bread. Buckwheat
is distributed chiefly on the northern edge of the black-earth region;
millet thrives well in the entire Chornozyom region. Corn is raised on
a large scale only in the southwest and in the sub-Caucasus country.
Of pod plants, peas and beans are especially imported; they are raised
not only in vegetable gardens but also in fields. Of the tuberous
plants, the potato is generally distributed only in the western part of
the Ukraine and increases in importance but slowly in the rest of the
country. Sugar beets are cultivated on great areas of the Volhynian,
Podolian and Dnieper Plateaus. Vegetable culture embraces all the
vegetables of Central Europe, but is not especially developed. On the
other hand, water melons, cantaloupe, cucumbers (particularly in the
Southern Ukraine) are raised in special plantations (bashtani). Hemp,
flax, rape-seed, sunflower, are generally distributed, and poppy is
cultivated not only in gardens but also in fields. Tobacco culture is
very important in the Ukraine, particularly in the Dnieper Plain.
Thanks to the warm summer and fall, the Ukrainian climate is well
fitted for fruit culture. The orchard is a necessity to the Ukrainian
farmer and is planted and cared for even under difficult conditions.
Fruit culture flourishes particularly in Pokutye, Podolia (where the
more tender species of apple and pear, as well as apricots, thrive in
the Dniester valley), in Bessarabia, in Crimea and the sub-Caucasus
country, where even peaches and grapes are added. The northern limit of
the vine extends along the Dniester, then thru Kamenetz and
Katerinoslav to the bend of the Don. Wine-culture has its main regions
in Bessarabia, in Crimea and in the sub-Caucasus country, altho South
Podolia and the Dnieper valley in the old Zaporog country do not lack
vineyards.
The domestic animals are the same in the Ukraine as in Central Europe.
Only in the extreme south camels and buffaloes are added. The horned
cattle belong chiefly to the so-called Ukrainian breed, which is
distinguished by its gray color and its size, and is bony and
strong-limbed. It is very well fitted for work and is rich in milk. On
the southwest borders of the Ukraine the Hungarian great-horned breed
is widely distributed. In recent times the pure Holland, Tirol and
Swiss breeds are continually spreading. The horses of the Ukraine
belong to various mixed breeds. The most beautiful breed of horses, the
Ukrainian, has been raised by the Zaporog Cossacks. It is of medium
size, very strong and fleet, very enduring and useful for any sort of
work. The Chornomoric variety is now being raised by the Kuban Cossacks
and is rightfully famed thruout Eastern Europe for its high qualities.
Very efficient, too, is the Hutzulian breed of mountain horses, small
of stature but very strong, unsurpassed for mountain roads and
foot-ways. The peasant horses of Galicia, Volhynia, etc., are, despite
their unseemly outward appearance, really created for the rough roads
of their land.
Donkeys and mules are rarities in the Ukraine, also very few goats are
kept. In sheep, however, the Ukraine is the richest country in Europe.
Not only native breeds (among them the justly famous reshetilivka, as
it is called), but also foreign merino sheep are raised, especially in
the steppes of the Ukraine. Hog raising is very highly developed.
Usually Polish hogs are raised in Western Ukraine, Russian short-eared
hogs in the eastern part, and in Southern Ukraine, southern crinkled
hogs. In barnyard fowl the Ukraine is the richest land in Eastern
Europe. Also bee culture is very important, especially in the Dnieper
Plain. Silkworm culture, however, is not very important, altho the
mulberry trees find favorable climatic conditions thruout the Ukraine.
BOOK II
ANTHROPOGEOGRAPHY
ETHNOGRAPHIC BOUNDARIES OF UKRAINE
NUMBER AND GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF UKRAINIANS
To give the ethnographic boundaries of a Western or Central European
nation is very easy, for they have long since been determined and
investigated, and it would be hard to find anyone who might try to
efface or disregard them, least of all to falsify them. But with the
Ukrainians it is quite different. They possess neither political
independence, as for example, the Germans, French, Italians, etc., nor
political influence, as for instance, the Poles and Czechs in Austria.
The Ukrainians inhabit parts of two states, Austria-Hungary and Russia,
and have some political significance in the former, while in the latter
they are not even recognized as a racial entity.
Accordingly, the real boundaries of the National territory of the
Ukraine are insufficiently known. They are best known within Austrian
territory, altho the statistics, especially those of Galicia, are very
poor. Even less exact in respect to the distribution of the Ukrainians
are the Hungarian statistics. In Russia the condition is worst of all.
The first real census here was taken on January 28, 1897. All earlier
calculations and estimates are of very questionable worth. For
instance, all the Pinchuks, the Ukrainian inhabitants of the Polissye,
have been erroneously counted with the White Russians, the Ukrainians
in the vicinity of Mhilin and Starodub with the Great Russians.
Besides, very many Ukrainians were registered under the general heading
of “Russians.”
For this reason, it is impossible at the present time to give the
boundaries of the Ukrainian racial territory as exactly as those of the
Western and Central European countries. The boundaries here given,
however, are drawn from official statistical sources, and only very
conspicuous and generally acknowledged errors have been corrected.
The western boundary of the compact Ukrainian national territory begins
on the shores of the Black Sea at the delta of the Danube, where part
of the descendants of the Zaporogs are still devoted to their
traditional vocation of fishing. Here the neighbors of the Ukrainians
are the Roumanians and Bulgarians. The Ukrainian-Roumanian boundary
line then goes thru Bessarabia, Bukowina, and Northeastern Hungary.
In Bessarabia the border passes thru Ismail, Bilhorod, the mouth of the
Dniester at its liman, then up the Dniester to Dubosari, running in
adventurous windings past Orhiev and Bilzi until it reaches the
Prut-Dniester divide, and leaving this province near Novoselitza.
Innumerable ethnographic islands lie on both sides of this boundary;
Roumanians on Ukrainian territory and Ukrainians on Roumanian
territory. Only within the past centuries has the land been settled
more thickly and the main body of Roumanians has been so dotted with
this medley of races as to form a veritable ethnographic mosaic.
In the Bukowina, the boundary of the Ukrainian territory, running along
the national border at first, reaches the cities of Sereth and
Radivtzi. Then it turns with a sharp bend to Chernivtzi and passes in a
wide curve toward the southwest and west, thru Storozhinetz, Vikiv,
Moldavitsia and Kirlibaba to the White Cheremosh, where it extends over
into Hungary. In the Bukowina, too, the ethnographic boundary of the
Ukrainians is not of great antiquity (the Cheremosh region excluded).
The boundary is all the older in Hungary, for the Ukrainian people have
had a place here since the early middle ages. This boundary extends
along the Visheva, and then the Tissa, past Sihot to Vishkiv. At this
place the border crosses to the left bank of the river and, passing
along the Gutin Mountain Ridge, reaches the river Tur near Polad. Here
the Roumanian-Ukrainian boundary ends and the neighboring country of
the Magyars begins.
The boundary of Ukrainian territory here runs in a generally northeast
direction, touching Uylak, Beregszasz, Mukachiv (Munkacs), Uzhorod
(Unghvar), Bardiiv (Bartfa), Sabiniv (Kis Szeben), Kesmark. At Lublau
the boundary crosses the Poprad River and reaches Galicia. Between
Unghvar and Bartfeld, the Slovaks become the neighbors of the
Ukrainians. The boundary between Slovaks and Ukrainians is very
indistinct, and only the investigations of Hnatiúk and Tomashivsky have
succeeded in determining it and in proving that thru the centuries the
borders of Ukrainian territory have been subject to comparatively
slight changes.
In Galicia, the Ukrainians are neighbors to the Poles. The Polish rule
of over 500 years’ duration, has forced the Ukrainian element eastward
to a great extent into the hill country and the plain. Only in the
mountains has the Ukrainian element preserved itself and the Ukrainian
territory here forms a peninsula extending far to the west.
The Ukrainian-Polish boundary in Galicia begins at the village of
Shlakhtova, west of the Poprad Pass, and extends eastward, touching the
small towns of Pivnichna, Hribov, Horlitzi, Zmigrod, Dukla, Rimanov,
Zarshin, as far as Sianik, whence it follows the general direction of
the San as far as Dubetzco. Here it turns toward the northeast, reaches
the San River again near Radimno, and runs along the left shore past
Yaroslav, Siniava, Lezaisk, reaching Russian-Poland at Tarnogrod.
In Russian Poland, the Ukrainians inhabit the newly-created Government
of Kholm, and for five centuries they have had to ward off the eastward
expansion of the Poles. Nevertheless, the Polonizing of the country
began to progress under Russian rule, as a result of the inconsiderate
Russification policy of the authorities and the sympathy of the
Ukrainian population with the Greek-Catholic faith, ruthlessly
suppressed by the Russians, to which the Ukrainians of the Kholm
country still belonged half a century ago, a sympathy which is not yet
extinct.
The boundary line between Poles and Ukrainians in the Kholm country
has, on both sides, a more or less wide zone of a mixed population and
numerous ethnographic islands. It passes thru Tarnogrod, Bilhoray,
Shteshebreshin, Zamostye, Krasnostav, Lubartiv, Radin, Lukiv, Sokoliv,
Dorohichin and Bilsk, reaching the Narev River in the Government of
Grodno. Here the borders of the Ukrainian and the Polish national
territory meet the White Russian border and the northern border of the
Ukraine begins.
The Ukrainian-White Russian boundary extends thru the Governments of
Grodno and Minsk, at first along the Narev River, up to its source in
the Biloveza Forest. Then the line passes Pruzani over to the Yassiolda
River, turning off near Poriche toward the northeast and reaching the
lake of Vihonivske Ozero. From here it turns toward the southeast and
reaches the Pripet River at the mouth of the Zna. Then this river forms
the boundary up to where it joins with the Dnieper. Only below Mosir
the White Russians push forward in an obtuse salient to the right bank
of the Pripet. It should be observed that the White Russians along the
boundary described form a transition in respect to language and
ethnology between the real White Russians and the real Ukrainians, who,
in this region, are called Pinchuki. The transition zone is 30 to 50
kilometers in width.
The Dnieper forms the boundary of the Ukraine only along a short
stretch in the Government of Chernihiv, from the mouth of the Pripet to
the mouth of the Sol near Loüv. Then the border runs northeast past
Novosibkiv, Nove misto and Suraz, as far as Mhlin, where the White
Russian country ceases and the Russian begins.
To sketch accurately the boundary of the Ukraine toward Muscovy is not
easy, even tho there is by no means a gradual transition here, as there
is on the White Russian border. The boundary of the Ukraine is even
much more sharply defined here than in the region where it separates
the Ukrainians from the Poles, Roumanians and Magyars. But it is hard
to determine without detailed investigation on the spot, for the
official Russian statistics have been compiled very much in favor of
the ruling race. In addition, it must be observed that the districts
along this border were not thickly settled until the 17th and 18th
Centuries. The settlers came from the Ukraine on the one side and from
Muscovy on the other, and established themselves in separate
settlements. To this day a purely Ukrainian village or small town often
borders on one made up entirely of Russians, and the number of
ethnographic islands is rather large on both sides.
The boundary of the compact Ukrainian territory in the Governments of
Kursk and Voronizh passes thru Putivil, Rilsk, Sudza, Miropilia,
Oboian, the sources of the Psiol, and Vorskla, Bilhorod, Korocha, Stari
Oskol, Novi Oskol, and Biriuch, and reaches the Don River near
Ostrohosk. The Don forms a smaller part of the border of the Ukraine
than the Dnieper. The boundary line leaves the river at the mouth of
the Icorez, cuts the Bitiuh River and, passing Baturlinivka and
Novokhopersk, reaches the Khoper River in the country of the Don
Cossacks. Here begins the eastern boundary of the Ukrainian country. It
extends first along the Khoper River southward, crosses the Don
perpendicularly at the mouth of the Khoper, passes along the Kalitva
and the Donetz, crossing the Don for the third time near Novocherkask,
and, pursuing a wide curve along the Sal River, reaches Lake Manich.
Right opposite, on the left bank of the Don, the Ukrainians confront
the Kalmucks, the advance guard of the sub-Caucasian and Caucasian
medley of races. Among these thinly scattered and culturally inferior
tribes, a strong flood of Ukrainian and Russian colonization has been
pouring in the course of the past century. The Ukrainian element is
gradually predominating in the entire region of Ciscaucasia and is
constantly pushing forward toward the east and southeast. New islands
of Ukrainian-speaking people are forming and are growing constantly and
uniting to form larger complexes.
From Lake Manich, the border of the Ukraine country runs southward thru
the district of Medveza of the Government of Stavropol, as far as the
sources of the great Yahorlik. Then it turns eastward past Stavropol,
Alexandrivsk and Novohrihoryvsk. In a narrow strip the Ukrainians here
reach the Caspian Sea. It was only suggested in the census of 1897, but
proved beyond doubt by the reports of the new settlements of the
Ukrainian element in these regions, that the Ukrainian area here shows
a great increase.
The southern boundary of the Ukraine in the Caucasian lands passes thru
the Terek, Kuban and Black Sea Governments by way of Nalchic,
Piatihorsk, Labinsk and Maikop, reaching the shore of the Black Sea
between Tuapse and Sochi. In this region the Ukrainians have as
neighbors besides the Russians, the Kalmucks, Kirgizians, Norgaians,
Chechenians, Cabardines, Circassians, Abkhasians and Caucasian Tartars.
The further course of the southern border of the Ukraine, as far as the
delta of the Danube, is indicated on the whole by the coasts of the
Black Sea and the Sea of Azof. Only Crimea has, until recently,
remained outside the ethnographic confines of the Ukraine. To the
extent that the Crimean Tartars have begun to emigrate to Turkey,
however, the Ukrainian element has gained strength thru constant
reinforcements from the Central Ukrainian districts, so that today only
the mountain region and the south coast of Crimea are considered Tartar
country.
These boundaries enclose the compact country which is inhabited by the
Ukrainians. This country includes North and West Bukowina, Northeastern
Hungary, East Galicia and the southwestern part of West Galicia, the
newly-created Government of Kholm (the eastern districts of the
Governments of Lublin and Sidlez in Russian Poland), the southern part
of Grodno and Minsk, all of Volhynia, Podolia, Kiev and Kherson,
besides the southeastern and northwestern districts of Bessarabia. To
the left of the Dnieper, the borders of the Ukraine include the
Governments of Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Katerinoslav, Tauria (with
the exception of the Yaila) and the entire Kuban region, the chains of
high mountains excepted. In addition, the following belong to the
territory of Ukraine: The southern third of the Government of Kursk,
the southern half of Voroniz, the western third of the Don Cossack
country, the southern half of Stavropol, the northern border of the
Terek region, and, finally, the northwestern part of the Government of
the Black Sea. For Europe it is a very spacious territory, being second
in size only to the Russian (Muscovite) national territory. The area of
the Ukrainian national territory is 850,000 square kilometers, of which
only 75,000 square kilometers lie within the borders of the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the remaining country of 775,000 square
kilometers being subject to Russian rule.
Beyond this compact Ukrainian national territory, the Ukrainians live
in numerous great homogeneous patches, scattered over wide areas of the
Old and New Worlds. In Bessarabia we meet with a whole series of these
Ukrainian language areas or islands along the Prut River and the
Russian-Roumanian boundary, in the Roumanian Dobrudja, and in the delta
of the Danube. In the Bukowina there are Ukrainian language islands at
Suchava and Kimpolung, in Hungary in the Backza, at Nyregihatza,
Nagi-Caroli, Göllnitz, etc., in the Kholm country between Lukov and
Zelekhov, between Sidletz and Kaluszin, and near Sokolov. Along the
White Russian border, where the transition is gradual, no real language
islands are found in the intervening zone before mentioned. We find all
the more of them in Ukrainian-Russian borderlands, where the two
nationalities are very sharply separated and there are no transitions.
In the Government of Kursk we find a whole chain of well-defined
Ukrainian language islands in the midst of the Russian territory; at
Fatiez, between Dmitriev and Oboian, and also at the sources of the
Sem. In the Government of Voroniz there are several language islands at
Siemlansk and Borisoglebsk. A few scattered Ukrainian settlements
extend to the district of Tambov and Yelez. The Don country, for a long
time practically closed to settlers because of its Cossack
organization, was a valuable thoroughfare for the Ukrainian
colonization movement in its expansion in the central Volga district.
Here there lived (1910) over 600,000 Ukrainians in the Governments of
Saratov, Samara and Astrakhan. Here lie, in closest proximity to
numerous German colonies, great Ukrainian language islands, near
Balashov, Atkarsk, Balanda, on the Eman and Medveditza, at Nikolaievsk,
Khvalinsk, Samara and Boguruslan. From Khvalinsk on, the Ukrainian
colonies on the left bank of the Volga take up as much space as the
Russian. We find the Ukrainian colonies here opposite Saratov,
Kamishin, Dubivka, Chorni Yar, and at Zarev. Besides these there are,
at a greater distance from the Volga, Ukrainian language islands in the
country around the source of the Yeruslan and the Great Usen, on Lakes
Elton and Baskunchak, on the Ilovla and the Yergeni hills. In the
Orenburg Government, on the Ural River, more than 50,000 Ukrainian
colonists now dwell. In general, the Ukrainians in the year of 1897
comprised 13% of the population of the Government of Astrakhan
(District of Zarev 38%, Chornoyar 43%), more than 7% in the Government
of Saratov, nearly 5% in Samara. At present, considering the active
Ukrainian colonization of the past decades, these percentages must be
much greater.
In the Caucasus lands we likewise find a goodly number of Ukrainian
Colonies. According to the results of the census of 1897 the Ukrainians
comprised 17 to 19% of the “Russian” population in the Governments of
Erivan, Kutais, Daghestan and Kars, 7,5% in Tiflis and 5% in
Yelisavetpol and in Baku each.
Thru the Volga and Caucasus lands, the tide of Ukrainian emigrants
reached Russian Central Asia. The establishment of Ukrainian
settlements in this region only began toward the end of the past
century and has continued to this day. In the year 1897 the Ukrainians
already comprised 29% of the “Russian” population in the province of
Sir Daria and 23% in the province of Akmolinsk. In the Provinces of
Transkaspia, Siemiriechensk, Turgai, Samarkand and Ferghana, the
Ukrainians comprised 10% to 20% of the “Russian” population; in the
Province of Siemipalatinsk, 5%.
But Ukrainian colonization in Siberia appears on the largest scale of
all. In a long line of thousands of kilometers, Ukrainian language
islands and detached colonies stretch along the southern border of this
land of tomorrow. The highest percentages of Ukrainians are found among
the “Russian” population of the coast province near Vladivostok (over
29%) and the Province of Amur (over 20%), the greatest absolute numbers
in the southern districts of the Governments of Tomsk, Tobolsk and
Yeniseysk.
Besides these colonies and language islands in Eurasia, we find
settlements of considerable size in America. More than half a million
Ukrainians are scattered in small groups over the spacious area of the
United States. They are, for the most part, mine and factory workers,
who usually return, with the earnings they have saved, to their
fatherland. Pennsylvania is especially rich in Ukrainian emigrants, who
sometimes take root here, but usually lose their nationality in the
second generation. Agricultural colonies have been established by the
Ukrainians in Canada. Here we find Ukrainian language islands of some
size in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and smaller groups of
settlements in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. The number of the
Ukrainians in Canada exceeds 200,000, and the steady character and
compactness of the settlements preserve the Ukrainian element from
rapid denationalization. The same kind of agricultural colonies have
been established by the Ukrainian peasants in Brazil. They are located
chiefly in the State of Parana, also in detached groups in Rio Grande
do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo, as well as in the adjacent lands
of Argentina. These rapidly increasing settlers, about 60,000 in
number, form an important cultural element here among the indolent
Luso-Brazilians.
But we do not desire, in this small work, to write a geography of the
Ukrainian colonies. All are branches severed from the mother-tree,
which, considering the low grade of culture of the settlers, must
sooner or later be assimilated by the foreign race. Only the Asiatic
colonies have some (though rather slight) prospects of preserving their
national individuality into the remote future. The constant addition of
new arrivals from the home country, as well as the higher culture of
the Ukrainian people as opposed to the Russian masses, will preserve
the Ukrainian colonists in Asia from rapid denationalization.
What is the total number of Ukrainians, and how many of them live in
the compact Ukrainian national territory?
The answer to this question is not easy—for the same reasons which do
not permit us to draw accurately the boundaries of the Ukrainian
country. The political subjugation of the Ukraine on the one hand, and
the size of the nation and its territory on the other, cause the ruling
governments to falsify the statistics, thus concealing the true state
of affairs. To a great extent, also, the ignorance of the organs
performing the census bear the blame for the unreliability of the
statistics collected in Ukrainian territory. The Ukrainians are either
simply registered as members of another (usually the ruling)
nationality, or forced, by various means, to deny their inherited
nationality.
In Hungary entire villages are sometimes set down as Magyar, Slovak or
Roumanian, altho their population is wholly, or for the most part,
Ukrainian. In the Bukowina, too, a great many Ukrainians are registered
as Roumanians. In Galicia, all Roman-Catholic Ukrainians are regularly
entered as Poles, altho, as a rule, they have not even a mastery of the
Polish language. Nevertheless, the Austro-Hungarian statistics allow
the possibility of determining very closely the true condition. The
Russian census of 1897, which gives us the sole materials for
statistics on a racial basis in the Ukraine, was carried out greatly to
the disadvantage of the Ukrainian element. In the cities, only the
smallest minority of the Ukrainians are registered as such, all the
rest being counted as Russians. The same has been the case in all the
Ukrainian colonies and language islands scattered thru the great space
of the gigantic Russian Empire. Even so, we are omitting from
consideration those Ukrainians who, because of lack of national
consciousness or for fear of persecution, have denied their
nationality.
Despite all these shortcomings of the official statistics, we shall
make their statements the basis of our calculations. Only the most
marked falsifications or errors can be considered and corrected. As the
basis of our calculations, we shall take the figures of the census in
Austria and Hungary of the year 1910, as well as the Russian
calculations of the same year. As the latter lack any statement as to
the relative proportions or percentages of the nationalities, we must
apply the percentages of the enumeration of 1897 to the totals of 1910.
This process, of course, gives us only approximate values, but it is
the only available method.
We shall begin our statistical view of the Ukrainian lands with
Northeastern Hungary. Here the Ukrainians inhabit a compact territory
of over 14,000 square kilometers. The greatest part of it lies in the
Carpathian Mountains and includes the northern three-quarters of the
County of Marmarosh, the northeastern half of the County of Ungh, the
northern borderlands of the Counties of Semplen and Sharosh, and the
northeastern borderlands of the County of Zips. The total number of
Ukrainians in Hungary was 470,000 in 1910, a number which, because of
the insufficient Hungarian statistics, may be confidently raised to a
half a million, if we consider the fact that even the doctored
Greek-Catholic figures of the eighties gave approximately the latter
number. The percentages of the Ukrainians in different counties,
according to official reckoning, are as follows: In Marmorosh 46%,
Uhocha 39%, Bereg 46%, Ungh 36%, Sharosh 20%, Semplen 11%, Zips 8%. In
the east the Roumanians form small scattered language islands, in the
west the Slovaks. Amid the Ukrainian population, scattered, but in
considerable numbers, live Jews; in the cities, Magyars and Germans
besides. The Ukrainians inhabit all the mountainous, sparsely settled
parts of the counties, hence the percentage of them is small, despite
the extent of the country they inhabit. The Ukrainian people in Upper
Hungary consist almost exclusively of peasants and petty bourgeois. The
lack of national schools causes illiteracy to grow rampant. The upper
strata of the people are three-fourths denationalized; the common
people are stifled in ignorance, and in the consequent poor economic
conditions, which the Hungarian Government is vainly trying to relieve.
In the Bukowina the Ukrainians, over 300,000 in number (38% of the
total population of the land), inhabit a region of 5000 square
kilometers, situated mostly in the mountainous parts of the country.
The Ukrainians inhabit the following districts: Zastavna (80%),
Vashkivtzi (83%), Viznitza (78%), Kitzman (87%), and Chernivtzi (55%),
half the District of Sereth (42%), a third of the District of
Storozhinetz (26%), besides parts of the Districts of Kimpolung,
Radautz and Suchava. Amid the Ukrainian population a great many Jews
are settled, scattered, and in the cities many Germans, Roumanians,
Armenians and Poles besides. The degree of education and the economic
state of the Bukowina Ukrainians are incomparably better than those of
the Ukrainians of Hungary. From the rural population a numerous
educated class has sprung, which has taken the lead of the masses in
the economic and political struggle.
In Galicia (78,500 square kilometers, 8 million inhabitants) the
Ukrainians, 3,210,000, that is 40% of the total population (with 59% of
Poles and 1% of Germans) occupy a compact space of 56,000 square
kilometers, in which they comprise 59% of the population. These figures
are taken from the census of the year 1910, which, because of its
partisan compilation, is perhaps unique among the civilized states of
Europe. For not only are all the Jews (who speak a German jargon)
listed as Poles, but also all the Ukrainians of Roman-Catholic faith,
of whom there is more than half a million, and 170,000 pure Ukrainians
of Greek-Catholic (united) faith. Basing our calculations, not on these
statistics of the vernacular, but on the statistics of faith, which,
too, are not unobjectionable, we obtain the following results: For the
Greek-Catholic Ukrainians 3,380,000 (42%), for the Roman-Catholic Poles
3,730,000 (47%), and for the Jews 870,000 (11%). According to religious
convictions, then, Ukrainian East Galicia would contain 62% of
Ukrainians, over 25% (1,350,000) Poles, and over 12% (660,000) Jews. As
a matter of fact, the number of Ukrainians in Galicia, according to the
investigations of Dr. Okhrimovich, should be raised to at least
3,500,000, and, adding the Roman-Catholic Ukrainians of East Galicia,
the number is 4,000,000. We shall retain the figure 3,380,000, however,
but for the following view of the districts, the percentages will be
taken from the much more justly compiled census of the year 1900. The
greatest percentage of the Ukrainian population, that is 75–90%, is
found in the Carpathian Districts of Turka, Stari Sambir, Kossiv,
Pechenizin; the sub-Carpathian Districts of Bohorodchani, Kalush,
Zidachiv; the Pocutian Districts of Sniatin and Horodenka, besides the
District of Yavoriv in the Rostoche. The percentage of Ukrainians
vacillates between 67 and 75% in the Districts of Lisko, Dobromil,
Striy, Dolina, Nadvirna, Tovmach, Salishchiki, Borshchiv, Rohatin,
Bibrka, Zovkva and Rava. More than three-fifths of the population
(60–66%) is made up of Ukrainians in the Districts of Drohobich,
Sambir, Rudki, Mostiska, Horodok, Kolomiya, Sokal, Kaminka, Brody,
Sbaraz Zolochiv, Peremishlani, Berezani, Pidhaytzi, Chorytkiv, and
Husiatin; 50–60% Ukrainians are found in the Districts of Chesaniv,
Peremishl, Sianik, Ternopil, Skalat, Terebovla, Buchach and
Stanislaviv. In only two districts the percentage of Ukrainians falls
below 50%: in the districts of Lemberg (49%) and Yaroslav (41%). In the
city of Lemberg the Ukrainians comprise only one-fifth of the
population, and in other larger cities of East Galicia, too, their
percentage is not great. Consequently, the total percentages of the
Ukrainians in the districts are influenced very unfavorably thru the
addition of the city population. Besides, the East Galician cities,
inhabited chiefly by Jews and Poles, are the chief centers of the
Polonizing efforts. Only in the most recent times is the percentage of
Ukrainians in the larger cities of East Galicia becoming greater, as a
result of the continued flocking in of the Ukrainian rural population.
In the fifty smaller cities of East Galicia, on the other hand, the
Ukrainians comprise absolute majorities, e.g., Yavoriv, Horodenka,
Tismenitza.
In West Galicia only the District of Horlitzi (Gorlice) has more than
25% Ukrainians, the remaining four (Yaslo, New Sandetz, Krosno, Hribov)
only 10–20%.
The Ukrainian population of Galicia consists nine-tenths of peasants
and petty bourgeois. From them a numerous educated class has sprung in
the past century, which has taken the political and cultural leadership
of the masses. For this reason, too, national consciousness has
advanced most among the Ukrainians of Galicia.
In the compass of the Russian State the Ukrainians occupy a compact
national territory of almost 775,000 square kilometers. The actual size
of this territory will be accurately determined only when we possess an
accurate ethnographic map of the Ukraine. Until then the size of the
various Ukrainian sections can only be estimated.
The following statistical information is taken from the calculation of
1910, the percentage of Ukrainians from the Russian census of 1897. But
the Pinchuks, in the Government of Minsk, were counted as belonging to
the Ukrainians by the common opinion of all Russian and non-Russian
ethnographers, altho the official statistics have designated them as
White Russian.
We shall begin at the western border region, at the Kholmshchina (Kholm
land), which was recently organized by the Russian Government as an
independent Government apart from Russian Poland, and includes the
eastern areas of the Governments of Lublin and Sidletz. In the
Government of Lublin (16,800 square kilometers, 1,500,000 inhabitants)
the Ukrainians comprise 17% of the population (250,000), in the
Government of Sidletz 14% (140,000). The region inhabited by the
Ukrainians in both Governments together, amounts to 10,000 square
kilometers. Poles and Jews inhabit not only the cities in the Kholm
country, but to a great extent villages as well, and comprise a
considerable percentage of the population near the western border of
the Ukraine. The percentage figures of the Ukrainians and Poles (in
parentheses) are in the various districts of the Government of Lublin:
Hrubeshiv 66 (24), Tomashiv 52 (37), Kholm 38 (38), Bilhoray 22 (68),
Zamostye 9 (83), Krasnostav 6 (83); in the districts of the Government
of Sidletz: Vlodava 64 (20), Bila 48 (38), Konstantiniv 22 (55), Radin
5 (87). In these districts the Jews comprise 5–13% of the population,
the Germans 14% in the District of Kholm. The number of Ukrainians in
the generally Polish-Jewish cities is not insignificant, even
comprising the absolute majority in Hrubeshiv.
In the Government of Grodno (38,600 square kilometers 1,950,000
inhabitants), the Ukrainians comprise 23% of the population and inhabit
the districts of Berestia (81% Ukrainians), Kobrin (83%), Bilsk (42%
relative majority), and the border of Pruzani (7%), altogether 14,000
square kilometers, with a Ukrainian population of 440,000. The Poles
and White Russians comprise 2–3% in the first two of these districts,
the Poles 37% in the District of Bilsk, the White Russians 79% in
Pruzani, the Jews 9–11% in all districts.
In the Government of Minsk (91,000 square kilometers, 2,800,000
inhabitants), the Ukrainians (Pinchuks) comprise 14% of the population.
They inhabit the entire District of Pinsk and the half of the District
of Mosiv, situated on the right bank of the Pripet River, altogether
17,000 square kilometers, with a Ukrainian population of 390,000.
The Government of Volhynia (71,700 square kilometers, 3,850,000
inhabitants) is a central Ukrainian region. The Ukrainians (2,700,000)
here comprise over 70% of the population, the Jews 13%, the Poles over
6%, the Germans about 6%, the Russians 3%, the Czechs 1%. These foreign
peoples live scattered, or as colonists, and chiefly in the cities of
Volhynia, in all of which (Kremianetz excepted) they are more numerous
than the Ukrainians. In the country it is different. The percentages of
Ukrainians in the districts of Volhynia are very high: Kovel 86%,
Ovruch 87%, Ostroh 85%, Zaslav 82%, Kremianetz 84%, Starokonstantiniv
80%. Somewhat smaller are the percentages in the following districts:
Zitomir 73%, Dubno 73%, Volodimir Volinsky 68%, Rivne 65%, Lutzk 62%.
In the Government of Kiev (51,000 square kilometers, 4,570,000
inhabitants) the Ukrainians comprise over 79% (3,620,000) of the
population. This percentage takes into account the city population, of
which the majority are Jews and “Russians.” In the districts, as
Chihirin, Svenihorodka, Uman, Tarashcha, the percentage of Ukrainians
exceeds 90%, in Radomishl 80%. The chief foreign element are the Jews
(12%), then the Russians (over 6%), and the Poles (2%). In the city of
Kiev the Ukrainians comprise more than one-fifth of the population, as
much as the Jews and Poles together. An absolute Ukrainian majority
exists in the cities of Vassilkiv, Kaniv, Tarashcha, Zvenihorodka and
Chihirin. In Berdichiv, Cherkassi, Uman, Lipovetz, Skvira and Radomishl
the Jews predominate.
The Government of Podolia (42,000 square kilometers, 3,740,000
inhabitants) has over 81% of its population Ukrainian (3,030,000). In
some districts the percentage is much higher, as for example in the
District of Mohiliv, 89%. The Jews are the largest foreign element
(12%) then the Russians (3%), and the Poles (2%), who live principally
in the cities. Only the smaller Podolian cities, e.g., Olhopol, Yampol,
Stara Ushitza, Khmelnik, have a Ukrainian majority. In Haisin,
Vinnitza, Litin and Bar the number of Ukrainians equals the number of
Jews; in Kamenetz, Balta, Bratzlav, Letichiv, Mohiliv and Proskuriv the
Jews predominate.
The Government of Kherson (71,000 square kilometers, 3,500,000
inhabitants), just as the three last discussed, is part of the compact
Ukrainian national territory, altho the population of this region
appears much more mixed. The Ukrainians (1,640,000) here comprise
barely 54% of the population. The chief cause of this is the fact that
in the large cities of this Government, Jews and Russians predominate,
and then there are a great many Roumanian, German and Bulgarian
colonies. Despite this, however, the Ukrainians constitute an absolute
majority in most of the districts (e.g., the District of Alexandria 88%
of Ukrainians, Yelisavet 73%, Kherson 70%, Ananiiv 63%), a relative
majority in the rest (Odessa 47%, Tiraspol 38%). The Russians comprise
more than 21% of the population, the Jews 12%, the Roumanians over 5%
(District of Tiraspol 27%), the Germans nearly 5%, the Bulgarians and
Poles 1% each. Odessa is a city of many languages. Russians and Jews
predominate; the Ukrainians comprise barely one-eleventh of the
population, besides which there are Germans, Roumanians, Bulgarians,
Poles, Greeks, French, English, Albanians, etc. In Mikolaiv the
Ukrainians are only one-thirteenth of the population, in Kherson
one-fifth, in Yelisavet one-fourth. In the following cities the
Ukrainians possess an absolute majority over the Russians: Alexandria,
Ananiiv, Bobrinetz, Vosnesensk, Olviopol, Ochakiv, Berislav, Dubosari.
The Government of Bessarabia (46,000 square kilometers, 2,440,000
inhabitants) has only its northwest tip and its coastal region within
Ukrainian national territory. The Ukrainians (460,000) comprise barely
20% of the population of this Government, which consists principally of
Roumanians. The territory inhabited by the Ukrainians amounts to 10,000
square kilometers. The Ukrainians comprise an absolute majority only in
the District of Khotin (56%), along with 25% Roumanians and 13% Jews.
In the District of Akerman the Ukrainians make up 24% of the
population, the Bulgarians the same, the Germans and the Roumanians 18%
each, the Turks 4%. The Ukrainians settle on the sea-coast and the
Dniester. In the District of Ismail there are 17% Ukrainians, 47%
Roumanians, 11% Bulgarians, 9% Turks, 3% Germans; in the District of
Soroki 17% Ukrainians, 67% Roumanians, 11% Jews. In other districts of
Bessarabia there are much fewer Ukrainians; in the district of Biltzi
12%, Benderi 9%, Orhiiv 6%, Kishinev only 2%. In the cities Jews,
Russians and Roumanians predominate. The Ukrainians possess an absolute
majority only in Akerman, a relative majority in Ismail and Kilia.
In our survey of the Ukraine on the left Dnieper bank we shall begin
with the border regions, coming gradually to the central parts.
In the Government of Kursk the Ukrainians (670,000) comprise over 22%
of the population and inhabit the following districts: Putivl (55%
Ukrainians), Hraivoron (61%), Novo Oskol (56%), and the southern parts
of Sudga (44%), Rilsk (33%), Korocha (35%), Bilhorod (24%). Besides
that, the Ukrainians are scattered in large and small language islands
over the Districts of Oboian (12%), Stari Oskol (9%), and Lhov (5%).
The area of the compact Ukrainian territory in the Government of Kursk
may be estimated at 12,000 square kilometers. The only neighbors and
co-inhabitants of the Ukrainians here are the Russians, who, even in
many cities of the purely Ukrainian territory, comprise majorities.
However, there are a number of Ukrainian cities in the Kursk country.
Miropilia has 98%, Sudza 65% Ukrainians, Hraivoron and Korocha are half
Ukrainian.
In the next following border region, the Government of Voroniz (65,000
square kilometers, 3,360,000 inhabitants), the Ukrainians inhabit the
Districts of Ostrohosh (94% Ukrainians), Bohucha (83%), Biriuch (70%),
Valuiki (53%), and the southern parts of Pavlovsk (43%), Bobrovsk
(17%), Korotoiak (17%), Novokhopersk (16%). Ukrainian language islands
are found chiefly in the District of Semliansk (4%). The total
percentage of Ukrainians in the Government of Voroniz is 36%, their
number over 1,210,000, the surface they inhabit 29,000 square
kilometers. 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
lands of Poltava and Kharkiv, so the Ukrainian parts of the Don country
touch the central Ukrainian lands of Kharkiv and Katerinoslav. The
Ukrainians (980,000) comprise 28% of the population of the Don country
and inhabit 45,000 square kilometers. Most thickly populated by
Ukrainians are the southern districts: Tahanroh (69%), Rostiv (52%),
the western half of the Donetz District (40%). The statistics show far
less Ukrainians in the Districts of Cherkask (23%) and Sal (31%). In
the Districts of Don I (12%), Don II (4%), Ust Medvedinsk (11%), Khoper
(7%), the Ukrainians form language islands in the midst of a Russian
population. In the District of Sal the relative majority is credited to
the Kalmucks (39%), but beyond that only Russians are the neighbors of
the Ukrainians. But all this data is not unobjectionable. It has long
been an established fact that the lower “Don Cossacks” are for the most
part of Ukrainian nationality. At the same time we see, from the
official census of 1897, that none of the Don Cossacks were counted as
members of the Ukrainian nation. In the cities of the Don country the
number of Ukrainians is very small, e.g., in Rostiv hardly greater than
one-fifth. Only the city of Osiv (Azof) is predominantly Ukrainian.
The Kuban country (92,000 square kilometers, 2,630,000 inhabitants) has
a relative Ukrainian majority (over 47% = 1,250,000), along with 44%
Russians and 9% Caucasus races.
In this land the purely Ukrainian country embraces over 56,000 square
kilometers. Three of the districts have an absolute Ukrainian majority:
Yask (81%), Temriuk (79%), and Katerinodar (57% Ukrainians, 27%
Russians, 11% Circassians). In the Caucasian District there are 47% of
Ukrainians and as many Russians, in the District of Maikop 31%
Ukrainians, 58% Russians, 6% Circassians, 2% Kabardines, in the Labinsk
District 28% Ukrainians, 77% Russians, in the District of Batalpashinsk
28% Ukrainians, 39% Russians, 13% Karachaians, 5% Abkhasians, 4%
Kabardines, 3% Nogaians, 2% Circassians. It should be observed,
however, that perhaps nowhere have so many Ukrainians been entered as
Russians in the census as in these very Caucasian lands. For this
reason the entire Kuban country may be considered Ukrainian territory,
except the chains of high mountains.
In the Government of Stavropol (60,000 square kilometers, 1,230,000
inhabitants) the Ukrainians comprise 37% (450,000). They inhabit a
region of nearly 22,000 square kilometers in the west and south of the
Government, where the border of the Ukrainian settlements, which
reaches the Caspian Sea, begins. The District of Medveza has 48%
Ukrainians (in the west), the District of Stavropol 13% (in the extreme
south), the District of Olexandrivsk 40%, Novotvihoriiosk 54% (chiefly
in their southern halves). The neighbors here are Russians and
Nogaians.
In the Terek region (69,000 square kilometers, 1,183,000 inhabitants)
the Ukrainians officially comprise only 5% of the population (50,000),
altho it is generally known that an appreciable part of the Terek
Cossacks belongs to the Ukrainian nation. A large percentage of
Ukrainians (14%) is found only in the District of Piatihorsk; outside
of that the Ukrainians are united in a narrow seam of settlements
extending to the Caspian Sea. 29% of the population in the Terek region
is Russian; the absolute majority is made up by various Caucasian races
(Kabardines, Tatars, Ossetians, Ingushians, Chechenians, Avaro-andians,
Kumikians, Nogaians).
The small Government of the Black Sea (7000 square kilometers, 130,000
inhabitants) has only 16% Ukrainians who live, 10,000 in number, in the
northwestern part of the extended coast region. In the District of
Tuapse there are 27% Ukrainians; in the District of Sochi 8%. Their
neighbors are Russians, who do not form an absolute majority at any
place, then Armenians, Circassians, Greeks, Turks, etc.
The most important border country in the south, however, is, without
doubt, the Government of Tauria (60,000 square kilometers, 1,800,000
inhabitants). The Ukrainians here comprise the relative majority of the
population (42%—790,000), with 28% Russians, 13% Crimean Tatars, over
5% Germans, about 5% Jews, about 3% Bulgarians, about 1% Armenians,
etc. The Ukrainians comprise an absolute majority in the Districts of
Dniprovsk (76%), Berdiansk (64%), and Melitopol (57%), and large
minorities in the Districts of Eupatoria (27%) and Perekop (24%), the
northern parts of which they inhabit. The entire mainland part of the
Government and the northern part of the Crimean peninsula, consequently
belong, without doubt, to the compact Ukrainian national territory,
while the number of Ukrainians in the southern regions of Crimea
appears much smaller (District of Feodosia 13%, Simferopol 10%, Yalta
2%). The chief foreign element in Tauria is composed of Russians
(Dniprovsk 16%, Melitopol 32%, Berdiansk 18%, Perekop 24%, Eupatoria
17%), and Tatars (Yalta 71%, Simferopol 51%, Feodosia 45%, Eupatoria
40%, Perekop 24%). To the extent that the Tatars emigrate to Turkey,
however, the settled area and the number of the Ukrainians of Tauria
constantly increase, so that the time does not seem far off when the
Ukrainian element will have gained the entire Crimean peninsula for its
national territory. Besides, one must entertain strong doubts
concerning the actual number of the Russians mentioned in the
statistics, for the Rittich map of 1878 gives almost no Ukrainians in
Tauria, and calls even the mainland parts of Tauria Russian. And twenty
years later came the just-mentioned figures of the official statistics.
We may then, confidently consider the entire Government of Tauria a
Ukrainian district, with considerable colonization by foreign-speaking
people. The most important of the foreign settlers are without a doubt
the Germans. They are 24% of the population in the District of Perekop,
12% in Eupatoria, 8% in Berdiansk, 5% in Melitopol; the Bulgarians make
up 10% of the population in Berdiansk.
Next to be considered, after these borderlands, are the four central
regions of the Ukraine which lie on the left bank of the Dnieper. In
the Government of Katerinoslav (63,000 square kilometers, 3,060,000
inhabitants) the Ukrainians 2,110,000 in number, comprise 69% of the
total population, with 17% Russians, 5% Jews, 4% Germans, 2% Greeks, 1%
each of Tatars, White Russians and Poles. Detached districts of the
land have very high percentages of Ukrainians, e.g., District of
Novomoskovsk 94%, Verkhnodniprovsk 91%, Olexandrivsk 86%, Pavlohrad
83%. In the large cities the number of the foreign elements is very
great, hence, the District of Katerinoslav has 74% Ukrainians, and when
the city is counted in, only 56% Ukrainians, with 21% Russians, 13%
Jews, 6% Germans, 2% Poles. The smallest percentage of Ukrainians is
found in the southeastern districts of the region, where populous
settlements of foreign elements exist. The District of Bakhmut, for
instance, has 58% Ukrainians with 32% Russians, the District of
Slavianoserbsk 55% Ukrainians besides 42% Russians, the District of
Mariupol 51% Ukrainians besides 20% Greeks. In the City of Katerinoslav
the Ukrainians comprise barely one-seventh of the population, while in
Olexandrivsk, Verkhnodniprovsk, Novomoskovsk and Bakhmut, they
predominate over the Russians, and are equal to them in Slaviansk and
Pavlohrad.
In the Government of Kharkiv (54,000 square kilometers, 3,250,000
inhabitants) the Ukrainians make up 70% of the total population, or
2,275,000. As a result of considerable Russian colonization (28%),
forming several language islands in the midst of Ukrainian territory,
the percentage of Ukrainians in several districts varies appreciably
(e.g., Smiiv 66%, Vovchansk 75%, Starobilsk 84%, Kupiansk 87%). But we
note for the first time, here, the remarkable fact that in all the
district cities the Ukrainians are much more numerous than the
Russians. Only in the capital city, Kharkiv, are they in the minority,
and comprise little more than one-fourth the population.
The Government of Poltava (50,000 square kilometers, 3,580,000
inhabitants) may be considered the heart of the Ukraine. The Ukrainians
here comprise 95% of the population, or 3,410,000, beside 4% Jews and
1% Russians. The percentage in detached districts varies between 88%
(District of Konstantinohrad) and 99% (District of Sinkiv). The
Russians and Jews live principally in the cities, where they are always
second to the Ukrainians, however, except in the city of Kreminchuk,
where the Jews comprise the majority.
In the Government of Chernihiv (25,000 square kilometers, 2,980,000
inhabitants) the Ukrainians comprise 86% of the population (2,450,000),
beside 5% White Russians, 5% Jews, and 4% Russians. With the exception
of the northern districts, Suraz (Ukrainians 19%, White Russians 67%,
Russians 11%), Novosibkiv (Ukrainians 66%, Russians 30%, White Russians
2%), and Starodub (Ukrainians 75%, Russians 22%), all the districts of
the region have from 88% (Horodnia) to 99% (Krolevetz) of Ukrainians.
All the district cities, except Novosibkiv, Starodub, Suraz and Mhlin,
have an absolute Ukrainian majority; the capital, Chernihiv, only a
relative one.
The number of Ukrainians within the compact national territory in
Russia, then, amounts to almost 28½ millions. Excluded in this estimate
are the Ukrainians of the Government of Astrakhan (190,000), Saratov
(220,000), Samara (150,000), Orenburg (50,000), as well as the
Ukrainians of all Asiatic-Russian lands, whose number is not placed too
high at 500,000. We may therefore estimate the number of Ukrainians in
the entire Russian Empire as 29½ millions.
This figure, which was gained thru a critical survey of the statistical
material of the individual administrative units of Russia, is
approached with remarkable closeness by the figure which may be gotten
in another, more general way. In the year of 1897 the number of
Ukrainians in the Russian Empire was 22,400,000; that is, 17.4% of the
total population of 129,000,000. Applying the same percentage to the
numerical estimate of 1910, we get 28,900,000 Ukrainians in a total
Russian population of 166,000,000. Adding the Pinchuks (390,000) who,
in the official statistics were erroneously counted as White Russians,
we receive for the number of Ukrainians of Russia (1910) 29,300,000.
Now, adding up all the Ukrainians of the globe, we receive (for 1910)
an amount of 34½ millions; 32,700,000 of it in the compact Ukrainian
country. This figure is a minimum value, for in calculating it the
intentional errors of the official statistics were taken into the
bargain. Nevertheless, this figure shows us that the Ukrainians occupy
the sixth place, numerically, among the nations of Europe, the five
above them being the Germans, Russians, French, English and Italians.
Among the Slavic races they stand in the second place.
How this great numerical strength of the Ukrainian nation can be
brought into harmony with its political and economic weakness we shall
try to show in the sections following. Now let us turn briefly to the
density of population of the Ukraine.
The 850,000 square kilometers of solid Ukrainian national territory are
inhabited by approximately forty-five million people (1910), of whom,
according to official estimates, 73% are Ukrainians. The general
density of the Ukraine, consequently, amounts to 53 inhabitants to the
square kilometer. The Ukraine is also the transition from the thickly
populated countries of Central Europe to the thinly-peopled northeast
and east of the globe. This transition may easily be followed out
within the Ukraine also. The western border regions are the most
thickly settled. Galicia has a density of 102, the Government of Lublin
90, the Government of Kiev 90, Podolia 89, Bukowina 77, Poltava 72. We
see a wide zone of dense population, then, extending along the 50th
parallel of latitude, from the Carpathians to the Dnieper. To the north
of it, the first more thinly peopled zone extends: Sidletz 69, Grodno
51, Minsk 39, Volhynia 54, Chernihiv 57, Kursk 65, Voroniz 51. On the
south of the thickly peopled zone lies the second more sparsely settled
zone: Bessarabia 53, Kherson 49, Tauria 31, Katerinoslav 48. Most
thinly settled, however, are the eastern borderlands of the Ukraine:
Kuban 28, Don and Stavropol each 21, Chornomoria and the Terek region
each 17.
Within these extensive regions, too, the density of population varies
greatly. Sometimes districts very close together have a widely
different density. These differences, however, are largely only seeming
differences and are caused by the city populations. 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. Considering only the rural population, however,
these figures sink to 81 and 75 respectively. Therefore, the District
of Kaniv with its 117 inhabitants to the square verst, (113, or not
reckoning in the inhabitants of the cities), appears to be the
best-populated district of the Russian Ukraine. Many districts besides,
in Podolia, Kiev, Poltava, Kharkiv and South Volhynia (without counting
the cities), have a density of 75 and 100, while other districts of the
same region vary between 50 and 75. In the forest swamp regions of
Northern Ukraine the density figure falls a great deal. The District of
Ovruch, in Northern Volhynia, attains a density of only 29; the
Polissian Districts of Pinsk and Mosir 26 and 17 respectively. The
steppe country of Southern Ukraine is likewise very thinly settled in
places. The density of population of most of the districts of Southern
Ukraine varies between 30 and 50, but the Districts of Eupatoria and
Perekop, for example, have only 11 inhabitants per square verst, the
second Don District 12, the Sal only 6, the District of Batalpashinsk
in the sub-Caucasian country only 17.
From these figures we see that the Ukraine, as regards its density, is
a genuine Eastern European land. But in comparing its density of
population with that of the Russian Empire, or even of Russia in
Europe, we perceive that the Ukraine is the most thickly settled part
of the giant Russian Empire, after Poland. Even the most thinly settled
southeastern border regions have a greater population to the square
kilometer than Russia’s average (25 per square kilometer). Almost
one-fourth of the enormous human reservoirs of Russia are found on
Ukrainian territory. And yet the Ukraine, despite its great size, is
only one-twenty-ninth of the giant Russian Empire.
From these figures we see, furthermore, that trade, industry and
commerce have, to this day, been unable to influence the density of
population of the Ukraine. The Ukraine has remained in the original
stage of development, in which only the age of settlement and the
fertility of the soil form the basis for increase in the density of
population. The history of the Ukraine has, to this day, influenced the
country’s density of population. The former central districts of the
old Ukrainian state of Kiev and Halich are still the most thickly
settled; the southern and eastern border regions, which have suffered
most from the 500 years of the Tartar scourge, the most thinly settled.
This is the reason that Galicia, one of the poorest regions of the
Ukraine in natural resources, where industry and trade are so little
developed, is at the same time the most thickly populated region.
Similarly primitive, and betraying a low grade of culture, is the
relation between the city and country population of the Ukraine. Only a
very insignificant fraction of the population inhabits the cities and
towns of the Ukraine. In Galicia (1910) only 14½% of the population
lives in places whose population is more than 5,000; only 9½% in cities
of over 10,000. Similar conditions prevail in Russian Ukraine. Very
rarely does the city population exceed 10% of the total number of
people, usually keeping below this percentage, which is typical for all
of Russia. Podolia has only 7% city population, Volhynia 8%, Chernihiv
9%, Poltava 10%, Kuban 11%, Katerinoslav 12%, Kiev 13%, and Kharkiv
14%. Only the regions colonized within the last century in Southern
Ukraine, with their large cities, have a large percentage of city
population (Tauria 20%, Kherson 29%).
More glaringly still does the low grade of culture of the Ukraine stand
out when we give the percentage of the Ukrainian population in the
cities of the Ukraine. Only in Galicia do 14% of the Ukrainian people
of the country live in the cities. In the Government of Kharkiv only
10% of the Ukrainians of the district belong to the city population, in
Kherson only 9%, in Kuban 8%, in Chernihiv 7%, Poltava 6%, Tauria 5%,
Kiev and Katerinoslav each 4%, in Podolia 3%, and in Volhynia actually
only 2%. It is true that, especially in the cities, the official
estimates were “made” very unfavorably to the Ukrainian element, but,
nevertheless, they show clearly enough that the Ukrainian people,
clinging to their agrarian state, have left the cities, those centers
of cultural and economic life, in the hands of foreign elements. Only
within very recent years have these conditions begun to improve. 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.
THE UKRAINIAN NATION AS AN ANTHROPOGEOGRAPHIC UNIT
GENERAL SURVEY
In the first chapter of our little book we mentioned the reasons which
compel us to regard the Ukraine as a physico-geographic whole. We
emphasized the fact that the geographic units of the great uniform
country of Eastern Europe could not, for obvious natural reasons,
appear so well-defined and individualized as the different sections of
Western and Central Europe. The same is true of the anthropogeographic
conditions of Eastern Europe as well.
The anthropogeography of Eastern Europe is so unfamiliar a part of
geographic science that even such pioneer geographers as Ratzel,
Kirchhoff and Hettner entirely misunderstood and misrepresented the
anthropogeographic conditions of Russia, and especially the racial
conditions of this giant empire.
There are two reasons for the universal ignorance of the
anthropogeographic conditions of Russia which exists even in the ranks
of renowned scholars. The first cause lies in the sources from which
scholars, and subsequently publicists, draw their knowledge of the
subject. Now the official Russian sources on the basis of which an
anthropogeography of Eastern Europe would have to be written are not
immune from serious criticism. The ranks of Russian scholars have
always worked in the interests of the Russian political idea, and
latterly, caught by the mighty wave of Pan-Slavic-Russian nationalism,
they are doing their best to represent as actual fact whatever Russian
governmental politics would desire to be fact. Russian geography,
ethnography, statistics, history, have always worked in accordance with
approved “unifying” designs. Hence, European learning involuntarily
sees all that exists and is coming into existence in Russia thru the
spectacles put on it by official Russia. The same official Russia comes
to meet the European traveler upon every step of his journey, and
guides him in such a way that he may be sure not to see below the
general official Russian varnish what is actual and true. Besides,
there is the Russian censorship, which even now, after the introduction
of the constitution, takes very good care to veil everything from the
view of the outside world, which, in the interest of the Russian
political idea, should remain hidden.
The second cause of ignorance as to the anthropogeography of Russia
lies in the subject itself. The Eastern European family of races
inhabiting Russia is so different from that of Western and Central
Europe in its evolution and composition, that the anthropogeographical
laws and methods which (as far as civilized peoples are concerned) are
based upon Western European conditions, do not apply in the least in
Eastern Europe. A difficulty confronts anthropogeography here,
analogous to the difficulty which confronted geologic science when,
fitted out with European stratigraphy, it sought to explore South
Africa or India. The geologists, as representatives of a natural
science, were readily able to find the way out, but the
anthropogeographers, whose field is more that of a psychic science,
have lost themselves in false assumptions and in commonplaces.
We must not wonder, therefore, if every critical reader of the
preceding chapter is assailed by a host of questions: Why in the world
are the Ukrainians, this second largest Slavic nation of the whole
world, so utterly unknown? Perhaps Ukraine is only an ethnographic
conception, and the Ukrainians only a branch of the Russian race, just
as the Bavarians or Saxons are branches of the German people? Or are
the terms “Ukraine,” “Ukrainian”, only outgrowths of the idle
imagination of a few belated enthusiasts, who rave about a glorious
past and a brilliant future, and represent what they are striving after
as a fait accompli, and so forth.
Such questions, based upon deep ignorance of the anthropogeography and
history of Eastern Europe, come up in this very 20th Century, even in
the learned circles of scholars, publicists and politicians. To answer
these and similar questions correctly, this little book has been
written.
The Ukrainians are quite as independent a Slavic nation as the Czechs,
Poles, White Russians, Russians, Serbs or Bulgarians. The historic
roots of the Ukrainian nation extend just as far back into the early
middle ages as the roots of the German, French or English nations. The
old Ukrainian Empire of Kiev is of the same age as the Holy Roman
Empire of the German Nation. But, while the evolution of the great
European nations was steady and uninterrupted, the Ukrainian Nation was
hindered in its development by reason of its geographical position on
the threshold of Asia. The Mongolian attack in the 13th Century
shattered the state of Kiev and introduced the 500 years’ Tartar
scourge. Weakened by the continual expeditions and slave-hunts of the
Crimean Tatars, the Ukraine fell under the rule of Lithuania and
Poland, who not only could not relieve the land of the Tatar menace but
even added national, social and religious pressure. The instinct of
self-preservation led the Ukrainian nation, in that troubled time, to
create the splendid military organization of the Ukrainian Cossacks,
and about the middle of the 17th Century, in a victorious war, to shake
off the Polish yoke. Thus, the second Ukrainian state, the Cossack
Republic, came into existence. By the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654) it
was ceded as a vassal state to Russia, which was related to it in
religious faith. But Russia broke the treaties of suzerainty, shared
the desolated Ukrainian land with Poland, and, after a century and a
half, changed the autonomy of the Ukraine into abject serfdom. After
Russia, in the partitions of Poland, had united almost the entire
Ukrainian territory under its rule (with the exception of Eastern
Galicia, Northwestern Bukowina, and Northeastern Hungary), it set all
forces to work to destroy the national independence of the Ukrainians
as well. In the 17th and 18th Centuries the Ukrainian Nation lost its
upper classes—the aristocracy, the lesser nobility, the wealthy
burghers—first thru Polonization, then thru Russification. It had left
only its minor clergy, its lower middle class, and a completely
downtrodden peasantry. Thus, at the end of the 18th Century, it seemed
as if the last hour of the Ukrainian people had struck.
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.”
This complete agreement of both nations, whose giant states fought for
two centuries for domination in Eastern Europe, may be easily
understood. The Ukraine has always 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. So that it seemed an easy matter to the mighty
neighbor nations to even deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation, to
hold up its development, and gradually to absorb it.
The Poles, since their country lost its independence, have made heroic
attempts to win back their freedom by armed uprisings. Despite all
defeats, they have never given up their hopes of re-establishing the
Polish Kingdom. But these hopes were never confined to the ethnographic
territory of the Polish nation. The future Polish Kingdom was to have
the old boundaries of the historic Poland—the Baltic and the Black Sea.
Hence, the geographical conception of Poland, even to the scientific
Polish geographers, still includes, besides the entire Polish
ethnographic territory, Lithuania, White Russia and all of the Ukraine,
as far as the Dnieper River and the Black Sea.
How could this historico-geographical conception of Poland be made to
harmonize with the ethnographic conception of the Ukraine? The solution
of this question seemed very easy to the Polish scholars and
politicians. They simply proved that the Ukrainians constituted a part
of the Polish nation, that their language was a provincial dialect of
the Polish language, and that only the religious faith, a number of
manners and customs, songs, etc., were slightly different from those of
the Poles; these slight differences the common country folk might
retain, likewise the educated Ukrainian might be permitted to keep his
language and customs in private life, but in his political sentiments,
in his culture, in his literary language, he must be and remain a Pole.
This Polish solution of the Ukrainian question is derived from the
Polish “state-idea” of a Polish Empire extending from the Baltic to the
Black Sea. Despite the fact that the history of the national relations
of Eastern Europe clearly proved this solution false in the second half
of the 19th Century, the opinion prevails in all important Polish
circles, that the Ukrainian people merely constitutes an ethnographic
mass which shall make a good foundation for the expansion of Polish
culture and power.
This Polish theory in the Ukrainian question has not been detrimental
to the development of the Ukrainian nation. That the Ukrainians are not
a Polish people was quite clear to every Ukrainian at the very
beginning of the relations of the two nations (11th Century). Among the
masses the feeling of independence was always lively and strong, and
only those of the educated Ukrainians credited Polonophile theories,
who were the few members of Polish secret societies, plots, uprisings
(1831, 1863), etc. Polonization, in former centuries, demanded many
victims from among the educated Ukrainians; in the past half a century
it has only very slight successes to show, altho the Ukrainians of
Galicia still continue to be under the political and cultural influence
of the Poles.
Much more dangerous for the Ukrainians was the other solution of the
Ukrainian question. It, too, is derived from a state-idea, namely, from
the idea of a Russian state which should unite all Slavdom, or at
least, all of the one-time Empire of Vladimir the Great, under its
scepter. In order to attain this end the “Theory of the Unity of the
Russian Nation” was formed, as far back as the times of Peter the
Great, who transformed the old Muscovite Czar state into an imperial
Russian government, and later this doctrine was further developed.
According to this theory the Russian nation consists of three tribes:
the Great Russians, the Little Russians, and the White Russians, whose
tongues differ from one another only dialectically. A common literary
language, Russian, connects all the tribes; race, customs, history,
political aspirations are the same for all three. Ukraine, Ukrainian,
are only local names, which, however, bear a strong taint of
separatism, and must, therefore, appear dangerous and inadmissible.
In the spirit of this theory of the unity of the Russian nation, the
politics of the Russian state have, for more than two centuries, aimed
incessantly to hinder the development of the Ukrainian nation, by means
of the most ruthless oppression, and to degrade it to an ethnographic
mass which, thru its increasing denationalization, should strengthen
the Russian state and support its political expansion.
In a later section we shall be able to follow the individual phases of
Russian state politics in regard to the Ukraine. We shall turn, now, to
consider the great injury which the Russian unity theory has done to
the progress of the Ukrainians as a nation.
The internal injury of the Russian unity theory to the Ukrainian
peasantry is comparatively slight. The Ukrainian peasant in Russia is
much more highly conscious of his national individuality as opposed to
the Russian than as opposed to the Pole. The ethnologic culture of the
Ukrainian peasantry is so much higher than that of the Russian, that
the Ukrainian looks down with contempt upon the “rough Katzap.” This,
as it were, ethnologic feeling of independence has protected the
Ukrainian peasantry from Russification, not only within its national
territory, but even in its distant Siberian or Turkestan colonies. Only
a small part of the so-called village aristocracy, e.g., pensioned
soldiers, village mayors, notaries, former city workmen who have learnt
some Russian, try to murder the Russian language and to pass for
Russians. The same is true of a part of the city proletariat. But the
great mass is opposed to the Russian language and customs, and
preserves its national individuality unchanged.
Far more serious injuries has the Russian unity theory caused among the
upper classes of the Ukrainian nation. For the sake of office, honors
and gifts of land, the Ukrainian nobility has, in the last two
centuries, permitted itself to be Russified for the most part; likewise
a host of government officials, military men, clergymen, etc. In the
second half of the 19th Century the Russification of the educated
Ukrainian circles has slackened its pace, altho, even now, there are in
Russia a great many of the educated Ukrainians by birth who are
completely Russified and the worst enemies of their own nation.
The Russian unity theory, in the sixties of the 19th Century, found its
way into Austria-Hungary too, and founded the so-called “Russophile
Party.” Its educated retainers, with few exceptions, do not even
command the Russian language. Nevertheless, they call themselves
Russians, propagate “the unity of the Russian People from the
Carpathians to the Kamchatka,” and call their Ukrainian mother-tongue
“a dialect of the Carpathian herdsmen and swineherds.” They speak and
write a remarkable jargon consisting of Ukrainian, Russian and
Church-Slavic words (the so-called Yazichiye); only in very recent
years have they begun to use a bad Russian. Supported by considerable
subsidies of money from Russia, the educated Russophiles are developing
an active agitation among the peasants of Eastern Galicia, the Bukowina
and Northeastern Hungary. The Russophile peasants of these countries,
whose number is insignificant, to be sure, constitute a remarkable type
of a seduced mass. They also try to speak the Yazichiye, use the
old-fashioned “thousand-year-old” orthography, which is entirely
analogous to the Russian and, at least, partly hides the differences
between the Ukrainian and Russian languages, live in the illusion that
the Czar speaks the same language that they speak, use the Russian
national colors, and hate everything Ukrainian with the passion of the
renegade.
These internal injuries of the Russian unity theory and the Russophile
tide it has created are becoming slighter year by year. Ukrainian
national consciousness is continually growing in the masses of the
Ukrainian nation, and the Russophile wave would long since have
disappeared if it were not for the Russian subsidies, and if certain
Polish circles, frightened by the rapid advance of the Ukrainian
national idea, were not working with all their might to prevent the
fall of Russophilism.
Much more important are the external injuries done to the Ukrainian
national idea by the Russian unity theory. They may be expressed in a
single sentence: As a result of the absolutism of the Russian unity
theory in the history, geography and statistics of Eastern Europe, the
civilized world does not know that there exists in Europe a large
country which is called “Ukraina,” and that in this country there lives
a nation with a separate individuality, a nation of over thirty million
souls, which bears the name “Ukrainians.”
It is true that, from time to time, since the beginning of the present
century, magazine articles and pamphlets in various leading languages
have appeared, which aim to inform the world about the Ukraine and the
Ukrainian people. But these journalistic efforts have only an ephemeral
value. Politicians only occasionally interest themselves in the
Ukrainian question when it is brought to their notice. And scholars,
however well-disposed, can not give such publications preference over
the official Russian sources.
The young Ukrainian learning has thus far been unable to spread true
information on the Ukrainian nation, and to establish the Ukrainian
nation in the scientific world as an independent unit among the Slavic
nations. Only in the historical field the independent position of the
Ukrainians among the nations of Eastern Europe has been demonstrated,
thanks to the compositions of a Kostomariv, Antonovich, Drahomaniv,
Hrushevsky. In the fields of philology, anthropology, ethnology,
ethnography and folk-lore, there are many treatises relating to these
sciences, but there is no systematic exposition of the Ukrainian nation
as a uniform whole in relation to these branches of science. In the
anthropogeographic field the present lines constitute the first effort.
In addition, all these treatises have appeared only in Ukrainian or
Russian, and, consequently, remain inaccessible to the overwhelming
majority of the European world of scholarship.
For these reasons science must depend upon the official statements. The
official Russian geography considers the Ukrainians only as one of the
three tribes of the unified Russian people. The official Russian
statistics report this to the world. Hence, German, French and English
geographic science, too, usually accounts for the Ukrainians as
Russians. The names Kleinrussen, Petits Russes, Little Russians, do not
mean an independent nation, but a tribe of the Russian nation. Such
erroneous views may be found in all the general encyclopedias and
lexicons, in all handbooks of geography and statistics. The
Austro-Hungarian Ukrainians, who are mentioned in the official
statistics as Ruthenians, are also to a great extent taken for a part
of the Russian people which differs from the mass of Russians only in
its Catholic faith, or more remarkably still, for an entirely
independent little nation called Ruthenia, and differing both from the
Little Russians and the Russians.
The results of such ignorance of the Ukrainian Nation in the scientific
world are disastrous for the Ukrainians. Every appearance of the
Ukrainians in the political and cultural arena remains enigmatic to the
whole world. Enigmatic remains the struggle of the Ukrainians against
Russia and particularly against its Russification policy. In case after
case it is explained by far-fetched political, social and economic
causes, but never by national-cultural reasons. For almost no one in
Europe knows that in the Ukraine a great independent nation is
struggling for its national life, and not a political or social party
for its significance in the state. The struggle of the Austrian
Ukrainians against the predominance of the Poles in Galicia seems
hardly more reasonable to the foreigner than the striving of the
Russian Ukrainians. Most incomprehensible here appears the struggle of
the Ukrainians against the Russophile movements. For a long time it was
regarded as insincere, or even as non-existing, and this circumstance
has brought the Ukrainians innumerable political injuries.
From these briefly stated observations we see what obstacles are
impeding the Ukrainians in their efforts to bring their Ukrainian
nation to a point where it will be respected as an element of equal
worth with the other nations of Europe. The two neighboring nations,
the Polish and the Russian, politically and culturally stronger, are
trying to divide the Ukrainians between themselves, and are refusing
them the right to exist as an independent nation. Against these
appetites for conquest the comparatively small army of educated
Ukrainians is fighting with might and main, supported semi-consciously
by the mass of the Ukrainian People. The Ukrainian peasantry has for
centuries defied all attacks upon its ethnographic-national
independence. It refuses, even in its most distant Eastern Siberian
colonies, to be assimilated by the Russians. This characteristic has
made the Ukrainians the subject of a proverb with their Russian
neighbors: “Khakhol vsyegda khakhol”—the Ukrainian remains a Ukrainian
everywhere.
In the following sections we shall discuss briefly all the foundations
of the independence of the Ukrainians as a nation. The chief
foundations of an independent nation are, proceeding from the less
important to the most important: Independent anthropological
characteristics, a distinct, independent language, uniform
historico-political traditions and aspirations for the future, an
independent culture, and, especially, a compact geographical territory.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE UKRAINIANS
Anthropology is a comparatively recent science. Barely a century has
elapsed since the beginning of its serious work. The material thus far
collected by anthropological science, while it might seem immense to
some, is, nevertheless, still small, and what is even more important,
irregular. Concerning some races and peoples the science has many
thousands of measurements at its command, while other races and peoples
are known from very few measurements. For this reason the science of
anthropology is still a long way removed from an exact knowledge and
perfect description of different races and peoples. Even in Europe,
where anthropological investigations have been based on a study of the
greatest number of human individuals, the distribution of various
anthropological racial characteristics in different peoples and tribes
of the continent were, until recently, very hard to interpret and to
understand. It is the pioneer work of investigation of Deniker, Hamy
and others, that has made it possible to divide the population of
Europe into so-called anthropological races.
Pure-blooded peoples, all of whose individuals possess the same
anthropological characteristics, exist nowhere. Hardly in the most
inaccessible corners of the globe, are small primitive peoples found
who approach the ideal of pure-bloodedness. The great civilized peoples
of the earth are all of them more or less heterogeneous peoples, and
show no uniform anthropological type. This is true especially of the
Western and Central European cultured peoples: French, English,
Spanish, Italians, even Germans. Continued commixtures, which can
certainly be proved historically, have entirely eradicated the original
anthropological characteristics of these civilized nations. No wonder,
then, that anthropogeography, in view of these most apparent examples,
has almost given up designating anthropological characteristics as the
characteristics of nations.
But, in considering an Eastern European nation, such misgivings of
anthropogeographical science cannot be justified. Just as the
physico-geographic conditions of Western and Central Europe are
measured by other standards than those of Eastern Europe, so the
anthropogeographical problems of this region, too, must be approached
differently. Just as the physico-geographical variety of Western and
Central Europe gives way to Eastern European uniformity in Ukrainian
territory, so the anthropological variety gives place to greater unity.
Vast areas of the Ukraine, even without any great natural hindrance,
were always unfavorable to separation into classes, and did not
encourage the development of physical differences. And foreign
admixtures are almost out of the question. For the foreign peoples
which, since the earliest beginnings of history, traversed or even
dominated the region of the Ukraine, were first of all too small in
number to make any noticeable impression on the anthropological type of
the Ukrainians. And, besides that, the foreign races—almost all nomad
peoples—came into the land as fierce enemies, with whom there existed
no voluntary peaceful relations. For these reasons the Ukrainian nation
reveals a much greater uniformity in its anthropological aspect than
the nations of Western and Central Europe, which, in the course of
history, were visited by innumerable peoples of the most varied
anthropological types, who stayed there and were assimilated. If,
therefore, in these peoples, anthropological characteristics can have
no particular significance, the matter is quite different with the
Ukrainians and many other Eastern European nations. Here,
anthropological peculiarities still have considerable weight as
distinguishing characteristics of nations.
Investigations concerning the anthropology of the Ukrainians began more
than half a century ago. But they were made, without any system, in
different regions of the great national territory selected, quite
without a plan, and for a long time gave no acceptable results. Not
until the 20th Century was enough material gathered to at least make it
possible to determine the main anthropological type of the Ukrainians.
The most important investigators in this field are: Hopernitsky,
Protzenko, Welker, Popov, Hilchenko, Krasnov, Petrov, Erckert, Emme,
Talko Hrincewich, Diebold, Biloyid, Anuchin, Ivanovsky, Vovk and
Rakovsky.
To be sure, according to these investigations, the Ukrainians, too, are
anthropologically a mixed race, just as the other nations of Europe.
But the formation of this mixed race took place in a very distant
prehistoric past and later admixtures have been too insignificant to
visibly change the original racial type of the Ukrainians. From the
Vislok to the Kuban, from the Pripet to the Black Sea, the Ukrainian
people constitute a uniform anthropological type. This type has
preserved itself in its purest state in one wide zone which embraces
the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountain lands, Pokutye, Podolia, Dnieper
Plateau and Dnieper Plain, the Donetz Plateau and the Kuban
sub-Caucasus country. Tall stature, with long legs and broad shoulders,
strongly pigmented complexion, dark, rich, curly hair, rounded head and
long face with a high and broad brow, dark eyes, straight nose,
strongly developed elongated lower part of the face, medium mouth and
small ears; that is the type. Outside the described main zone of
distribution of the Ukrainian racial type, these characteristics become
less and less sharply defined, altho at all parts of the ethnographic
boundary the anthropological differences of the Ukrainians from their
neighbors, especially from the Poles, White Russians and Russians, are
very clearly marked.
The mean stature of the Ukrainians is 1670 mm. Consequently the
Ukrainians are among the tallest peoples of Europe, and in this respect
they surpass their neighboring nations by a great deal. The average
height of the White Russians is only 1651 mm., the Poles 1654 mm., the
Russian 1657 mm., of 100 individuals among the Ukrainians, 53 are
taller than the average, 47 shorter; among the Poles and Russians 51%
taller and 49% shorter. Right here we see a great difference between
the Ukrainians and their neighbors, as well as a great similarity of
these three peoples.
The tall stature of the pure Ukrainian racial type is pretty regular in
the above-mentioned main zone. The tallest stature is that of the Kuban
Ukrainians of the sub-Caucasus country (1701 mm.). It is due to the
fact that the Ukrainians of that region are, to a great extent,
descendants of the Zaporog Cossacks, who for centuries represented the
flower of the physical power of the Ukrainian people. Barely below that
is the stature of the Hutzuls (1693 mm.), of the Podolians, Volhynians
and Dnieper dwellers. In Central Galicia, Podlakhia, Polissye, in the
Don country, that is in direct proximity to the Poles, White Russians
and Russians, the stature of the Ukrainians decreases appreciably. But,
even in these border countries, the Ukrainian people form a strong
contrast, with their higher stature, to their neighbors, especially to
the Russians, with their heavy mixture of the small grown
Finnish-Mongolian elements. Anuchin emphasizes expressly that in those
parts in any Russian “Government” into which the smallest tip of
Ukrainian territory extends, the average height of the recruits is
noticeably increased. Because of their fine stature many Ukrainians in
Russia are stationed in the regiments of the guard.
In the Ukrainians, the tall slender form is coupled with breadth of
shoulders and great chest-measurement. From the material gathered by
Ivanosky, it is evident that in this respect the Ukrainians surpass all
their neighbors. The average chest-measurement of the Ukrainians is
55.04% of the length of the body, of the Poles 54.11, of the White
Russians 53.84, of the Russians only 52.18.
In respect of length of arms and legs, the Ukrainians again occupy an
independent position among the nations of Eastern Europe. In the White
Russians, the length of the arms is 45.1% of the length of the body, in
the Poles and Ukrainians 45.7, in the Russians 46.0. The length of the
legs is greatest in the Ukrainians (53.6%), much less in the Poles
(52.1) and White Russians (51.7), and least in the Russians (50.5),
which again indicates considerable mixture of Finnish-Mongolian blood.
(The length of leg of the Mordvines is only 49%, that of the Altaic
Tartars 48.6).
The most important anthropological characteristic was for a long time
thought to be the shape of the skull. The Ukrainians belong (as do all
Slavs, for that matter) to the class of Brachicephalites (short heads).
The average skull index in the Ukrainians amounts to 83.2. Among the
neighboring peoples, the Poles (82.1) are least short-headed, then
follow the Russians, almost the same as the Poles (namely 82.3), and
then further away the Ukrainians (83.2). The greatest
Brachicephalousness appears in the White Russians (85.1). The height of
the skull is greatest in the Ukrainians (70.3), smaller in the Russians
(70.1), smallest in the White Russians (66.1).
The skull index of the Ukrainians shows a similar territorial
distribution as the stature. The greatest brachicephalousness is found
in the Hutzuls; it decreases continually as we go northeast and east,
so that in the Don and Kuban region the skull index is smallest.
Besides, the shortness of head of the Ukrainians decreases regularly on
the Polish and Russian borders, as a result of centuries of proximity.
In the Russians the shortness of head is much less marked than in the
Ukrainians, because of the Finnish strain, in the Poles because of the
commixture with Finns and a primeval European long-headed and
light-haired race.
Just as in the shape of the skull, so also in the form of the nose, the
Ukrainians reveal distinct differences from their neighbors. In the
Ukrainians the nose is usually straight and thin. The nasal index is
67.7, and consequently somewhat greater than in the Poles (66.2). Then
follow the Russians (68.5) and the White Russians (69.2).
The width of the face in the Ukrainians is on the average 180, that of
the Poles 181, of the Russians 182, of the White Russians 186; the
facial index in the Ukrainians 78.1, in the White Russians 76.2, in the
Poles 76.3, in the Russians 76.7. Here, too, we note the great
difference of the Ukrainians from their neighbors and the similarity of
these to one another.
The color of hair and eyes is by far not so sure an anthropological
characteristic as the above-mentioned, yet constitutes an important
complement. In this respect, too, the position of the Ukrainians among
their neighbor nations is just as independent as in regard to the above
discussed characteristics. Among the Ukrainians dark shades
predominate, so that out of 100 individuals only 29.5% have light hair
and eyes, 35% medium color, and 35% dark. In the Russians the
percentages run 37% light, 41% medium, 22% dark; in the Poles 35%
light, 46% medium and only 19% dark. Thus the light type is much more
common in the neighboring races than in the Ukrainians.
In the distribution of color of eyes and hair in the Ukrainians the
same territorial law holds as in the distribution of stature and shape
of skull. In the main zone of the Ukrainian racial type, but especially
in the southwest, the color of hair and eyes is most characteristically
represented. Near the Polish, White Russian and Russian borders, the
Ukrainian type loses much of its peculiarity.
This short anthropological sketch of the Ukrainians, despite its scanty
and general character, enables us to perceive very clearly that the
Ukrainians show extremely little anthropological similarity to the
Poles, White Russians and Russians. On the other hand, all of these
neighboring races of the Ukrainians are very similar, and closely
related to each other. The Pole, the White Russian and the Russian,
stand very close to one another, while the Ukrainian is very different
from all his neighbors and, from an anthropological point of view,
holds an entirely independent position.
The vanity of the impression that the Ukrainians are Polonized Russians
or Russified Poles, therefore, becomes apparent at once. The “unity
theories,” Polish and Russian, which are based on perverted historical
and philological phrases, are here opposed by a natural science, with
its exact results of investigations.
But anthropology discredits not only these theories which are still
dominating European science. Several Polish historians have recently
evolved a new theory of the origin of the Ukrainians and spread it thru
Europe. According to this theory the Ukrainians are a mixture of Slavs
and the Mongolian-Turkish nomad tribes which traversed and commanded
the Ukrainian steppes for centuries; they are a semi-nomadic steppe
people, incapable of culture, whose development might bring with it the
greatest dangers for European civilization.
The science of anthropology, however, robs this theory of its very
foundation. The Mongolian-Turkish nomad tribes were almost all
distinguished by low stature, short legs, long arms and round heads.
The same characteristics should therefore appear very distinctly in the
Ukrainian racial type. But the Ukrainians have a higher stature than
any of the neighboring peoples, the longest legs, and arms of medium
length. And the brachicephalousness of the Ukrainians is least just in
the east, where mixing with the Mongolian tribes could proceed most
easily.
The anthropological type of the Ukrainians, then, reveals complete
individuality as opposed to the Polish, White Russian and Russian type,
and betrays no noticeable trace of a Mongolian admixture. The
difference of the Ukrainian type from the types of other Eastern Slavs
caught the attention of the great geographer, Reclus, in the eighties
of the past century. At that time he noticed the closer relationship of
the Ukrainians to the Southern Slavs. Toward the end of the 19th
Century, Hamy divided all the Slavs into two large groups, a tall
brachicephalous group with dark hair, and a short, less brachicephalous
group with light hair. In the first group he included the Serbians,
Croatians, Slovenes, Czechs and Ukrainians; in the second the
Polabians, Poles, White Russians and Russians. A similar division was
accepted also by Deniker. According to his view the Ukrainians belong
to the so-called Adriatic (Dinaric) Race, while the Poles and the
Russians belong to the two closely related races, the Vistula Race and
the Oriental Race, respectively. The Adriatic Race has recently come to
be considered by many the specifically Slavic Race. However, it has
remained comparatively pure only in the case of the Southern Slavs and
the Ukrainians, while the Northern Slavic races reveal strong foreign
admixtures.
Anthropology shows us, in the Ukrainians, a finely grown, physically
sturdy race of men. Another characteristic of the Ukrainian People is
its great fecundity. Wherever the Ukrainian People has not yet
degenerated thru social pressure and the spread of pauperism, it shows
remarkably high birth figures, which, despite the high infant mortality
resulting from the low grade of culture, occasion a very rapid increase
in population. The birth rate and rate of increase (1900–1904) for the
central districts of the Ukraine in European Russia are on the average
yearly: Volhynia 4.5% and 2%, Podolia 4.3% and 1.8%, Kiev 4% and 1.4%,
Kherson 4.5% and 2%, Tauria 4.2% and 1.9%, Katerinoslav 5.6% and 2.8%,
Chernihiv 4.6% and 2%, Poltava 4.3% and 1.9%, Kharkiv 4.9% and 2%.
Galicia, in the early years of the century, has had a yearly increase
in population of 1.6 to 1.8%. These figures, which are much higher than
the corresponding figures in Polish or Russian national territory,
constitute one of the less agreeable facts which enable us to look with
confidence toward the future of the Ukrainian nation. For the greater
increase of the Ukrainians is not due to a higher state of culture of
the neighbor nations. The Polish and Russian peasantry is not only not
superior to the Ukrainian in respect to culture, but, on the contrary,
inferior. The greater increase of the Ukrainians is connected only with
their superior racial qualities.
THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE
Language is not an absolutely necessary distinguishing characteristic
of a nation, as is shown by the examples of the Swiss, the North
Americans, and the Spanish and Portuguese daughter-nations in America.
If the Ukrainians, determining to be considered an independent nation,
had the remaining characteristics of an independent nation, they would
certainly be one even if their language were identical with the
Russian, White Russian or Polish.
But, in this regard, the Ukrainians are in the favorable position of
really calling an independent language their own. To be sure, the
opinion has been to a great extent spread thruout Europe that the
Ukrainian language is a rural dialect of the Polish language, and
official Russia is still encouraging the view that there is only a
“Little Russian dialect” of the Russian language; European science and
publicism opened the doors to both the above-mentioned unity theories,
and the Russian unity theory has become the solely dominating one even
in German science.
Slavic philology passes a different judgment. With the exception of a
few Pan-Russian philologists (Florinsky, etc.), who, as a matter of
fact, are not capable philologists at all, the entire philological
profession is decided on the point that the Ukrainian language is
related to the Russian and the Polish only to the extent that the
Serbian and Bulgarian are, for instance, or the Polish and Czechic. The
investigations of Miklosich, Malinovsky, Dahl, Maksimovich, Potebnia,
Zitetsky, Ohonovsky, Shakhmatov, Broch, Baudouin de Courtenay,
Fortunatov, Korsh, Krimsky, Satotsky, and others, have proved beyond a
doubt that the Ukrainian language is not a dialect of the Russian
language, but an independent language of equal rank with the Russian.
The same opinion has been expressed most forcibly by the St. Petersburg
Academy of Sciences in its famous official decision, “Concerning the
Removal of the Restrictions on Little Russian Publications, St.
Petersburg, 1905.” The Academy emphasized expressly that the Russian
and Ukrainian languages are two independent languages of equal rank.
The Russian written language is not built up on a general East Slavic,
but only on a Great Russian foundation. Hence, it cannot be forced upon
the Ukrainians, since they have a completely developed written language
at their command.
It is very likely that, in a far distant prehistoric time, all Eastern
Slavic tribes, the ancestors of the present Ukrainians, White Russians
and Russians, spoke a common tongue. But soon after the beginnings of
historical life in Eastern Europe we see these Slavic races divided
lingually into three groups. In the 11th Century, the differences
between the language spoken in Kiev or Halich on the one hand, and
Vladimir on the Klasma or Sugdal on the other, were already distinct.
The political unification of all the Eastern Slavic tribes in the Kiev
Empire could not eradicate these differences between North and South,
and they are very evident in the literary monuments of that time. The
disruption of the Empire of Kiev into loosely connected principalities,
the formation of the Muscovite political center, the decline of
Kiev—all went to strengthen the lingual antitheses between the
ancestors of the Ukrainians and those of the Russians. The Tatar
oppression finally separated the Muscovite group permanently from the
Ukrainian, forcing each to lead a separate historical life. The Ukraine
fell under Lithuanian, then Polish rule; Muscovy gradually developed
into the Russian Empire. The differences in language, which in the 14th
Century were already appreciable, increased so strongly thru the
independent development of each language that in the 18th Century, when
Russia received the greatest part of the Ukraine beneath her dominion,
the Russian and Ukrainian languages confronted one another as entirely
independent languages.
According to the investigations of Stotzky and Gartner, the Ukrainian
language, from a philological point of view, is related to the Russian
only to about the same extent that it is related to the Polish or
Czechic. Of all Slavic languages the nearest to the Ukrainian is the
Serbo-Croatian. From this it follows that the Ukrainians must at one
time have had a much closer community with the Serbo-Croations than
with the Russians.
We see here a fine example of how relationship of languages goes hand
in hand with anthropological relationship. (Incidentally, proof is
herewith presented that the anthropological characteristics in the
peoples of Eastern Europe have an entirely different significance from
the same in Western and Central Europe). This coincidence of two
sciences, entirely independent of one another, causes the Ukrainians to
appear to us a very peculiar independent unit in the Slavic family of
races. Only the restriction of the knowledge of Ukrainian among
Slavists, the interpretation of Eastern European history always from
the Russian point of view, the common church language, which, for a
long time, was the basis of the written language as well, the
unfortunate confusion due to the name Russ, Russki, which as ancient
state designations for the Empire of Kiev were usurped by the Muscovite
Empire and applied to all Eastern Slavic nations; these things have
made it possible to conceal the real state of affairs from the eyes of
European science and have helped establish the Russian unity theory.
That the Ukrainian language is independent and entirely different from
Russian or Polish is known to every illiterate peasant from one end of
the Ukraine to the other. He does not understand the Pole and the
Russian; likewise his language is unintelligible to a Pole or Russian.
Polish is the more easily understood by the uneducated Ukrainian, since
the living together of the Poles and Ukrainians for centuries in the
Polish-Lithuanian state resulted in important influences in both
directions, especially in the vocabulary. But Russian, with its strange
vocabulary and phonetic character, different manner of word-building,
declension and conjugation, is for a Ukrainian a difficult foreign
language. How much trouble must the Ukrainian peasantry endure at every
step because the unintelligible Russian language is used exclusively in
administration, court, school and church! The educated Ukrainian who
has been trained in Russian schools has had much trouble to learn his
Russian, and he never has so complete a command of it that a Russian
could not immediately recognize “the Khakhol in him.” For an educated
Ukrainian trained outside of Russia, Russian is as hard to learn, if
not more so, than the Polish, Czechic or Serbian. Such obvious facts
convince us of the independence of the Ukrainian language, perhaps,
more forcibly than the arguments of learned philologists.
The Ukrainian language, like every other great European language, is
not uniform. Because of the great extent of the Ukrainian territory and
the great population, favorable conditions have always been present for
the formation of dialects and idioms. The Ukrainian language has four
dialects,—the South Ukrainian, the North Ukrainian, the Galician (Red
Ruthenian), and the Carpathian mountain dialect. The South Ukrainian
dialect embraces the south of the region of Kiev, Kursk, Voroniz, the
entire regions of Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Katerinoslav, Tauria, Don
and Kuban. It possesses three idioms;—the northern, which constitutes
the basis of the present Ukrainian literary language, the central, and
the southern or steppe idiom. The North Ukrainian dialect includes the
Chernihov country, the northern part of the Kiev district, Northern
Volhynia, the Polissye along the Pripet, and the northern part of the
Pidlassye. Its idioms are the Chernihov, the North Ukrainian proper,
the Polissian, and the Black Ruthenian. The Galician or Ruthenian
dialect takes in: Galicia (outside of the mountains), the Kholm region,
Southern Volhynia and Western Podolia, and possesses two idioms,—the
Podolian-Volhynian and the Galician (Dniester) idiom. The Carpathian
Mountain dialect includes the entire Ukrainian Carpathian country and
has four idioms,—the Hutzulian, the Boikish, the Lemko idiom, and the
Slovak-Ruthenian border-idiom.
The Ukrainian dialects and idioms differ very little from one another,
as indeed is the case with all the dialects and idioms of all the
Slavic languages. A comparison of the Ukrainian dialects and idioms
with the German, for instance, is entirely impossible. The Kuban
Cossack or the Boiko, an Ukrainian inhabitant of Polissye or of
Bessarabia, understand one another without the slightest difficulty.
Only the Lemko idiom and Ruthenian-Slovak border-idiom show greater
differences than other Ukrainian idioms. Beyond that, a great
uniformity of language prevails thruout the wide areas of the Ukraine.
A popular tale taken on a phonograph in the Kuban sub-Caucasus country
is heard with the same understanding in a peasants’ reading society in
the neighborhood of Peremishl, as if it came from a neighboring
village, instead of a border country of the Ukraine thousands of
kilometers distant. The same folk-songs, proverbs and fairy tales are
found in Pidlassye and along the Manich, at Chernihiv and Odessa, on
the Don and on the Dniester.
The Ukrainian language is distinguished by advantages which insure it a
high place among Slavic languages. The great wealth of vowels, the full
tone, the softness and flexibility, the transition of many vowels to
the i-sound, the absence of the massing of several consonants in one
syllable, make Ukrainian the most melodious Slavic language. After the
Italian language the Ukrainian is best adapted for singing. Most
important, however, is the great richness of the Ukrainian language.
This richness is all the more remarkable in that it did not come about
thru centuries of development of the language in literature and
science. The common people have collected and preserved the treasures
of the Ukrainian language. While the vocabulary of an English farmer,
according to Ratzel, does not include more than three hundred words,
the Ukrainian peasant uses as many thousands. And, incidentally, the
purity of the language is remarkable. Barely a few borrowed words have
been introduced into the language of the people thru the centuries of
contact with neighboring peoples. They disappear entirely amid the
wealth of pure Ukrainian words. What interests us geographers and
natural scientists most of all is the wonderful wealth of the
colloquial language in very striking names for surface forms, natural
phenomena, plants and animals. The construction and codification of the
Ukrainian terminology of natural sciences and geography was, therefore,
very easy. The infant science of the Ukraine possesses a terminology
which, for example, far surpasses the Russian.
The most important proofs of the independence of the Ukrainian language
are Ukrainian literature and Ukrainian science. The Ukrainian language
has given proof, thru its development of a thousand years, that it is
capable of giving expression to the loftiest products of human feeling
and human intellect.
Ukrainian national literature cannot possibly be compared with the
literature of a Provençal or Low German dialect, which represents the
daily life of a small group of people. Ukrainian Literature is the
versatile literature of a great nation; a literature which looks back
upon a history of a thousand years and continues to develop in spite of
all obstacles. A strong foundation is furnished it in the remarkably
rich, popular poetry, which has not a counterpart in the entire
civilized world.
Ukrainian Literature holds a high place among Slavic literatures. Only
Russian and Polish Literature surpass it in the number and greatness of
their works.
The history of almost a thousand years of Ukrainian Literature begins
at the time of the fullest development of the Kiev Empire, when the
so-called Chronicle of Nestor originated, the Galician-Volhynian
Chronicle, the powerful Epic of Igor and other important monuments of
Ukrainian Literature (the works of Ilarion, Serapion, Kirilo Turivsky,
etc.). Their language is built up upon the Church-Slavonic dialect, but
presents great linguistic departures, as early as the 11th Century,
from the literary works simultaneously produced in the Russian
territory to the north.
This promising beginning of the old Ukrainian Literature was almost
completely crushed by five centuries of Tatar barbarism. The continuous
state of war, the loss of their independent political organization, the
crushing foreign yoke, permitted only a weak vegetating of Ukrainian
Literature for five centuries. Legal, theological, philosophical and
polemic literary monuments and the beginnings of the drama, written in
a Macaronic language made up of a mixture of Ukrainian and
Church-Slavonic, can at the most be considered proof that the educated
Ukrainians of that time had too little leisure and opportunity to
devote themselves to artistic literature.
But these times of decline of the written literature are at once the
times of the greatest flourishing of the unwritten literature of the
people. The old pre-christian religious and secular songs and tales
were not forgotten, and the active, warlike life of the nation created
an immense mass of epic folk-lore dumy, which was sung by by wandering
minstrels (kobzar, bandurist). Toward the end of the 18th Century, when
the political and national destruction of the Ukrainian nation seemed
inevitable, the Ukrainian popular literature reached such a high stage
of development that it awoke the educated classes of the nation to new
literary life.
Through the introduction of the pure popular speech into Ukrainian
Literature (by Kotlarevsky, in 1798), and thru the great influence of
the popular literature, the foundation was laid for an unanticipated
rise of Ukrainian Literature. In the course of the 19th Century the
history of Ukrainian Literature has a number of great poets and prose
writers to show, who would be a credit even to the greatest literatures
of the world (Shevchenko, Vovchok, Kulish, Fedkovich, Franko, Mirni,
Kotsiubinsky, Vinnichenko and others), as well as a considerable number
of lesser poets. Great versatility characterizes the works of Ukrainian
Literature in the 19th Century, and in the 20th Century its development
in all directions is making giant strides.
The second half of the 19th Century was also marked by a very active
study of the sciences, leading to the founding of two learned bodies
very much along the plan of the so-called “Academies” (in Lemberg and
Kiev). In every branch of human knowledge the Ukrainians can already
point to publications, books and dissertations in their own language.
The versatility and richness of Ukrainian Literature assure it a
prominent place among Slavonic literatures, thus furnishing proof, if
any is needed, that the Ukrainian language is not a mere dialect, but a
civilized language in every sense of the word; and the testimony of
Ukrainian scholarship strengthens the case beyond a doubt. For surely
nobody could discuss problems of higher mathematics, biology or
geomorphology in a dialect analogous to the Provençal or Low German.
The rise of the Ukrainian literary language from the speech of the
common people makes clear that it will be an admirable means of
educating the race, in view of its well-known intelligence, into an
enlightened and progressive nation. But the Russian government has been
thoroughly aware of this, and for fear of national separatism, has left
no stone unturned in its efforts to stop the development of Ukrainian
Literature and, finally, by the famous ukase of the Czar of the year
1876 has forbidden absolutely the publication of any writings in the
Ukrainian language. None but a really living and significant literature
could have survived these thirty years (1876–1905) of repression, and
Ukrainian Literature has stood the test!
HISTORICO-POLITICAL TRADITIONS AND ASPIRATIONS OF THE UKRAINIANS
Anthropological and lingual distinguishing characteristics are not
sufficient to make a race into a nation. An individual nation, whether
it be a Staatsnation or a Kulturnation, must have its own historical
tradition, its own sacrifices and heroes, its own historical griefs and
joys. These are the basis of the united aspiration to an ideal of the
future, of that constant plebiscite which E. Renan regards as the thing
which makes a race into a 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. And in this connection I do not mean the educated
Ukrainians who know the history of their country, but the illiterate
peasant, who recalls in his songs the naval expeditions to
Constantinople, the old princes of the Kiev dynasty, the hetmans, and
the great commanders of the Cossack period.
It is the historico-political tradition, living even in the lowest
ranks of the nation, that gives the Ukrainians their most important
indications of separate national existence. And, had it not been for
the dense ignorance that prevails in Western Europe regarding the
history of the eastern half of the continent, and for the advertising
carried on to this very day by Russian scholars in behalf of their
propaganda for “Russian” history, which has worked its way into all the
history books, this real condition of affairs could never have been
obscured so long. We shall now attempt to determine the main lines of
the Ukrainian historical tradition, basing our exposition on the works
of Kostomariv, Antonovich, Drahomaniv, Hrushevsky and others.
The historical life of the Ukrainian Nation has been of an entirely
different type from that of the Poles or Russians. Hence, the
historical traditions and, consequently, the present political
aspirations of the three nations, are entirely different.
The Ukrainian historical tradition has its roots in the ancient Kingdom
of Kiev. Altho the historians of Eastern Europe are still undecided as
to whether the so-called Old Russian Kingdom was founded by the
Varangians in the present Northern Russia, or by the Eastern Slavic
tribes of the south in Kiev, I have no doubt that the latter view
should be approved. Anthropogeography knows no instance of a pirate
band, at most a few thousand strong, which, within a few decades, could
constitute a kingdom embracing half a continent. The Normans, to be
sure, were able to found governments in Normandy, Naples and Sicily;
they were even able to conquer the England of their day and to settle
there, because everywhere they could take advantage of already existing
state organizations and modify them to suit their purpose. Whenever the
state organization was just in its beginnings, as for instance, in
their own country, the Normans exhibited no particular capacity for
state-organization.
The ancient Kingdom of Kiev, which is called “Old Russian” in all
historical works, was a state organized by the southern group of the
Eastern Slavic races, particularly the Polan race around Kiev. The
tribal chiefs, who had grown rich thru commercial relations with
Byzantium, founded the State of Kiev. This government was already in
existence in the beginning of the 9th Century. With the aid of
mercenaries from Scandinavia (Varangians) who, since the middle of the
9th Century, had been serving in the armies of the princes of Kiev, the
Kingdom during the 10th Century gave remarkable evidences of a very
unusual activity of expansion. The Northern Slavic tribes, the forbears
of the Russians of today, were subjugated, the nomadic tribes of the
steppes were driven back, commercial and cultural relations were
established with the Byzantine Empire. In the year 988 the Great Prince
of Kiev (Vladimir the Great), together with all his peoples accepted
Greek Christianity—with Slavic rites. There ensued, especially under
his successor, Yaroslav the wise, a great advance in the material and
spiritual civilization of the ancient Ukrainians.
The fact that the ancient state of Kiev, as well as its civilization,
was produced by the ancient Ukrainians, is evident, not only from the
fact that the most ancient literary monuments of Kiev already show
specifically Ukrainian peculiarities of language. A still more
important piece of evidence is the constitution of the Kingdom of Kiev,
which originated thru the amalgamation of the newly organized royal
power with the original republican constitution of the Ukrainians.
The ancient clan constitution has been of as fundamental importance for
the historico-political tradition of the Ukraine as the Kingdom of Kiev
itself.
All the power of government rested originally in the hands of the
general assembly of all freemen, whose decrees were executed by elected
officials, consisting in part of the war-chieftains (probably the later
princes). In the ancient Kingdom of Kiev there was constant opposition
between the power of the princes, which originated later and rested on
military might, and the power of the clan assembly, sanctioned by long
tradition. The Prince, his retainers, and the Boyar nobility, which
gradually developed out of the body of retainers, were never liked by
the people. The Kingdom of Kiev grew out of the union of trade, and was
a union which at that time was necessary. The governmental system
established by the princes of the Kiev dynasty, on foreign models, was
inherently alien to the original social-political system of the
Ukrainian People, so that the amalgamation of these two elements was
difficult, in fact, almost impossible.
Altho, as time passed, the General Assembly (viche—a name that is
applied to all political assemblies of the Ukrainians to this day)
partly regained their former power, and, altho at the same time various
provisions of the original constitution sifted into the new
governmental organization, monarchy, nevertheless, always remained
something extraneous and unpleasant to the people. There is no wonder,
therefore, that the State of Kiev never attained a power in keeping
with its great territory and population. The people ostensibly
supported everything which tended to weaken the power of the
government. Thru the entire existence of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev,
its Great Princes were forced to wrestle with the Boyar nobility and
the people for absolute power. This limitation of the monarchic power
turned out to be a disaster for the Kingdom of Kiev. By applying the
practice of succession to the throne, in accordance with a principle
known as that of “seniority,” there resulted the formation of numerous
petty principalities, all rather loosely, perhaps only nominally,
subject to the authority of the Great Prince of Kiev. The Boyar caste
and the people were very persistent in their labors to aid in the
formation and maintenance of these petty principalities thruout the
southern portion of the Kingdom of Kiev.
At the same time, it is very probable that if the ancient State of Kiev
had survived a longer time, the Ukrainian People would gradually have
become accustomed to a constitution founded on caste and privilege. It
would also have been possible, as early as the Middle Ages, for the
Ukrainian People to attain a constitutional monarchy. But things
happened differently.
The Kingdom, weakened by partitions, was soon confronted by a powerful
enemy in the young Muscovite State which was formed by the northern
petty principalities of the Kingdom. In a series of bloody wars with
the Muscovite State, Kiev was so permanently weakened that the
headquarters of Ukrainian political life had to be shifted southward,
in the 13th Century, to Halich on the Dniester.
Then, the situation of this Kiev country was such as to expose it to
continuous invasion on the part of the nomadic warlike tribes which
infested the steppes of the Ukraine. But the nation managed to hold
them in check during this weary term of warfare. When, however, the
hosts of the Mongol potentate, Djingis Khan, appeared in the Pontian
steppes, the resources of Kiev and Halich were no longer equal to the
pressure. In the three days’ battle on the Kalka (1224) their army was
annihilated, and in 1240 the city of Kiev was razed to the ground. The
principality (later kingdom) of Halich survived it by almost a century,
but could not withstand the continued aggressions of the Tatars on the
one side and of the Poles and Lithuanians on the other; in 1340 it was
incorporated with Poland by right of succession, and thus ended the
first national organization of the Ukrainian People. All the Ukraine,
excepting the forest regions in the northwest, had been completely
devastated.
The Polish-Lithuanian state treated the Ukraine as conquered territory.
Being now dissenters in the midst of a Catholic state, the Ukrainian
nobles were limited in their prerogatives, and deserted their faith and
their nationality, in order to have a share in the golden freedom of
Poland. The burgher class was tyrannized (as was the practice all over
Poland); the peasant became a serf. The splendid task of an
ecclesiastical union with Rome was solved (Florence, 1439; Brest 1596)
in an unsatisfactory manner and bore little fruit at the time. Every
Ukrainian was made to feel the iron hand of the Polish government, and
their dissatisfaction expressed itself in numerous rebellions. And yet
the Polish-Lithuanian State was far too weak to protect the Ukraine
against the onslaughts of the Tatars. Every year these hordes of riders
sallied forth from the Crimea, pushing their invasions even as far as
Galicia and Volhynia, devastating the country and depopulating it by
seizures of slaves, conducted according to a systematic plan. The
victims of this slave trade filled the markets of the Orient for
centuries.
It was inevitable that this sorely-tried nation should take steps to
defend itself. And its efforts were successful in that they led to the
formation of a new independent state, but unsuccessful in that they
exhausted its resources and later had a tragical outcome.
The constant state of warfare on the Tatar border forced the Ukrainian
population in those parts to adopt a policy of continual
“Preparedness.” These fighting people of the marshes led a precarious
life, but they had access to the virgin lands of the borders with all
their natural treasures, and the exploiting Polish officials did not
dare venture forth into these dangerous districts. These armed farmers,
hunters and fishermen led an independent life and called themselves
Cossacks, i.e., “free warriors.”
In the 16th Century there arose among these Ukrainian Cossacks a
military state organization, the center of which was a strongly
fortified position below the rapids of the Dnieper (the Zaporog Sich).
The Zaporog warrior state, compared by some to a religious order of
knights (because of their compulsory celibacy and their wars against
unbelievers), by others to a communistic republic, shows us most
clearly what has always been the goal of the Ukrainian “political
idea.” In the Zaporog organization, absolute equality of all citizens
in all political and social rights prevailed above all else. All
authority was vested in the General Assembly of all the Zaporogs, and
their decisions were enforced by elective officers who were, at the
same time, officers of the army. The liberty of the individual was very
great, but had to yield to the will of the whole. And when, in time of
war, the General Assembly delegated unlimited dictatorial power to the
highest official, the Hetman, it gave him a degree of authority with
which the power of any one of the absolute rulers of Europe at the time
could not be compared.
In the aristocratic state organization of Poland there was no room for
such a lawless democratic state as that of the Zaporogs was in Polish
eyes. The entire Ukrainian nation regarded the Zaporog Cossacks as
their natural defenders against the terrible Tatar peril, and likewise
as their sole hope as opposed to the oppression practiced by the Poles.
An ominous discontent prevailed thruout the Ukraine, and after the
Poles had naturally taken severe measures, a number of Cossack revolts
occurred in rapid succession, beginning toward the end of the 16th
Century and filling the first half of the 17th. In these revolts the
Cossacks were supported by the oppressed peasantry. But the Polish
Kingdom was rather deficient, always, as far as its standing army was
concerned, and was obliged to appeal to the Ukrainian Cossack
organization, which it could not possibly destroy, to aid in its wars
against the Turks, the Russians and the Swedes.
Finally, in 1648, the Ukrainian Cossacks, aided by the entire people,
from the Dnieper to the San, raised the standard of rebellion, and
under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, succeeded in annihilating
the Polish armies. Thus the Ukrainian Nation fought for and won its
independence again after three hundred years of a foreign yoke.
Khmelnitsky, after his victory over the Poles, extended the Cossack
organization beyond the narrow bounds of the Zaporoze, over the entire
huge area of the Ukraine.
Surrounded by enemies on all sides, the new state needed calm and quiet
to enable it to achieve the necessary internal organization. Much time
was needed to organize the new order completely in so enormous a
country, to bring to a successful conclusion the fight against the
Polish social-political order, which had prevailed here so long and was
so different from the Ukrainian. It required much time to work out new
constitutional forms, which were inevitable, now that the Zaporog
organization was extended over great areas. Khmelnitsky negotiated with
all the surrounding governments and peoples, with the Poles, the
Transylvanians, the Swedes, the Turks, and finally, in 1654, concluded
the treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, with which they were related by
ties of religion. This treaty provided that the Ukraine should retain a
complete autonomy, as well as their Cossack organization, the latter
under the suzerainty of the Czar. The Hetman, who was to be elected by
the votes of the General Assembly, was even to retain the right of
conducting an independent foreign policy.
But Russia had no mind to respect the treaty that bound it in dual
alliance with the warlike Ukrainian nation. The democratic form of
government in the Ukraine was an abomination to Russia, just as it was
to aristocratic Poland.
Once the Cossack republic was under the control of Moscow, the Russian
government felt that not a stone must be left unturned to destroy this
dangerous national organism. Taking advantage of the untimely death of
Khmelnitsky (1657), and the incompetence of his immediate successors,
Russia began her political machinations in the Ukraine. The Cossack
generals were inspired with prejudice against the Hetman, the common
Cossacks against their superior officers, and the common people against
all who were wealthy and in authority; huge sums of money were spent,
successfully, and vast tracts of land granted as fiefs; and Russia thus
fished in troubled waters to very good advantage. At every successive
election of a new Hetman the autonomy of the Ukraine was cut down, and
in the Peace of Andrussovo (1667) with Poland, the country was
partitioned. Of the two sections, one, that nearest to Poland, which
had been dreadfully devastated and depopulated, was ceded to that
country, and this section very soon lost its Ukrainian form of
government and its Cossack organization. The section on the other side,
the left side, east of the Dnieper, under its dashing Hetman, Mazeppa,
made an effort, during the Scandinavian War, to throw off the Russian
yoke. Mazeppa made an alliance with Charles XII of Sweden. But the
Battle of Poltava (1709) buried all his hopes. He had to flee to Turkey
with Charles XII, and the Ukrainian rebellion was put down by Peter the
Great with the most frightful atrocities, and finally the guaranteed
autonomy of the Ukraine was abolished. To be sure, the title of Hetman
was again introduced after the death of Peter the Great, but it had
only a wretched semblance of life. Even this shadow of autonomy was
destroyed in 1764; in 1775 the last bulwark of the Ukraine, the Zaporog
Sich, fell into the hands of the Russians thru treachery, and was
destroyed by them. The peasants became serfs.
Russia thus succeeded, in the course of about a century and a half, in
completely wiping out the later, second Ukrainian state. The devious
policy Russia was simultaneously carrying on in Poland, led also to the
latter’s downfall. In the successive partitions of Poland (1772–1795),
the entire part of that nation which was inhabited by Ukrainians, with
the exception of Eastern Galicia and the Bukowina, which fell to
Austria, became the property of Russia.
But Russia was not satisfied with political domination alone. Russia
already understood, in the 17th Century, that the Ukrainians differed
entirely from the Russians in language, customs and views of life. The
Russian government, therefore, inaugurated a policy of rigid repression
of all these points of difference. As early as 1680 it prohibited any
use of the Ukrainian language in ecclesiastical literature. In 1720,
the printing of any Ukrainian books at all was forbidden. All Ukrainian
schools were closed. In the middle of the 18th Century there were, in
the province of Chernihov, 866 schools that had been founded during the
period of Ukrainian autonomy; sixty years later not one of these was in
existence. This, together with the attempt to introduce the Russian
language, which none of them understands, is the cause of the
overwhelming percentage of analphabets among the Ukrainians. The
Ukrainian orthodox church, which enjoyed absolute autonomy, with a sort
of loose subordination to the Patriarch of Constantinople, was made
subject to the Patriarch of Moscow (later to the Holy Synod) and became
completely Russified. The Greek-United faith, which had many adherents
in the Western Ukraine, was completely suppressed by the Russian
government, and all who confessed it were obliged, by the most terrible
persecutions, to “return to the orthodox belief.” The Ukrainian people
became completely estranged from their former national church, which
now is a tool wielded for purposes of Russification.
The bloody wars for independence which the Ukrainian nation waged
against Poland and Russia consequently brought no realization of its
political ideals of liberty, equality, and a constitutional, democratic
form of government. Instead came a terrible political, social and
national oppression, which threatened to bring about the downfall of
the tortured nation.
But the Russification of the Ukraine seemed to be making very little
headway. To be sure, many educated Ukrainians, for the sake of personal
advantage or for other considerations, did renounce their nationality,
and some in fact, like Gogol, became great lights of Russian
Literature. Yet there always remained the feeling of national
independence, together with a living historical tradition, which
continued to groan despite all obstacles. The rise of Ukrainian
Literature did most to aid this great movement.
The idea of working for national independence was revived first in the
Russian Ukraine, and found its logical starting point in the tradition
of the one-time autonomy of the country. As early as the forties of the
19th Century, the national ideology of the modern Ukrainian movement
was complete in all essential respects. It then made its way very
rapidly to the Austrian Ukraine, and Galicia, particularly, soon became
a national Piedmont to the Ukrainian people, who were so ruthlessly
oppressed in Russia.
The present-day political efforts of the Ukrainian nation are a direct
continuation of the former efforts, and a logical result of the
historical tradition of the Ukraine. The ideal of these efforts was,
and is, liberty and equality and the participation of all in government
and legislation. Not until the present time has this ideal ceased to be
an anachronism; only the present has opened to the Ukrainian nation a
field of political activity; only in the present have these forms of
political life, which the Ukrainian nation strove for, without success,
so many centuries, become the common possession of the entire civilized
world. Hence, we may look with confidence toward the future. Now, at
last, the times have come in which the Ukrainian nation may freely
develop its political life; the times in which the political ideals
which have been sacred to this nation for centuries, have become the
common goal of civilized humanity.
The idea of the revival of the Ukrainian state developed gradually from
a movement with modest aims to one of larger aims. It was generally
recognized that the free development of the Ukrainian Nation could take
place only outside of Russia. Hence, in the 20th Century, an
independent democratic Ukraine, enclosed in its ethnographic
boundaries, became the highest national ideal. Toward this goal all
political parties of the Ukraine are striving today. The path leading
to this goal is the fight for the autonomy of the Ukrainian territory
in the frame of the states dominating it. In Russia, the efforts of the
Ukrainians are almost hopeless. On the other hand, the Ukrainians place
much hope in Austria, who has afforded her Ukrainians opportunities for
political and cultural development.
The historico-political traditions of the Ukrainians are entirely
different from those of the nations adjacent to them. The Polish
tradition is a tradition of a one-time great kingdom, which was
probably built up upon a local constitution similar to that of the
oldest Ukrainian State. But fate permitted Poland to live thru the
sorrowful period of partitions and civil wars, while, at the same time,
the old Kingdom of Kiev was destroyed by the Mongols. Poland
consolidated into a strong united kingdom, western influences destroyed
the old local constitution entirely, the common people became serfs,
and the classes of the aristocracy, nobility and bourgeoisie were
formed. Thru wars, and particularly thru its union with Lithuania,
Poland increased considerably in size, for a time including almost the
entire bridge of land between the Baltic and the Black Seas, and, in
the 15th Century, became the most powerful state of Eastern Europe. At
that time the Poles became the dominant race over the Lithuanians,
White Russians, and Ukrainians. The entire ideology of the dominant
caste became a characteristic of the Poles. In this very property of a
ruling people lies the basis of the aristocratic nature of the
historico-political tradition of the Poles. This aristocratic quality
has a more important foundation in the historical development of Polish
society. The middle class in Poland declined very rapidly, and the
nobility and the magnates dominated the entire political, social and
intellectual life of the country, so that Polish society, in the last
centuries of the existence of the Polish kingdom, was purely
aristocratic, and was supported on the backs of the completely
submerged peasant and middle classes. Even tho, in the patrician
republic, when the power of the kings was extremely limited, mobocracy
or even anarchy very often prevailed, these forms also were
aristocratic. This aristocratic tradition is responsible for the fact
that democratic currents still find little encouragement among the
Poles. Even the social democrats are obsessed with the Great-Polish
state-idea.
From these facts, we perceive that the historico-political traditions
of the Poles are entirely different from those of the Ukrainians. Just
as great is the difference in their present aspirations. The Poles,
with an endurance that is worthy of admiration, and awakens universal
sympathy, are striving for the reorganization of their independent
state. But not with ethnographic boundaries like the Ukrainians, but
with ancient historical boundaries from the Baltic to the Dnieper and
the Black Sea. To attain this goal, the Poles are trying, above all, to
hinder the adjacent peoples, the Lithuanians, White Russians and
Ukrainians, in their national progress, and, whenever possible, to
assimilate them. These efforts are responsible for the very sharp
conflicts of the present day between the one-time rulers and their
one-time subjects.
The Russian historico-political traditions are quite as different from
and as opposed to those of the Ukrainians as the Polish, but in another
direction. The Muscovite State was created out of the petty
principalities which the ancient Kiev dynasty had founded among the
Eastern Slavic races and the Finnish tribes of the north. From the
blending of the Slavs and the Finns came the foundation of the present
Russian or Great Russian (Muscovite) Nation. The name “Russian” was
derived from the name of the dynasty. But the state was in reality
simply Muscovite, for the Muscovite people gave this state a substance
which was entirely different from the substance of the old Kingdom of
Kiev. As early as the 12th Century we observe the Muscovite people
striving for centralization and absolute power for the princes in their
state. It was to the advantage of the prince to undermine the influence
of the Boyar nobility and the clergy, and to attain absolute or even
despotic power in the state. Not equal rights and liberty for all
citizens as with the Ukrainians, or for certain classes as with the
Poles, but the despotic authority of the Great Prince (later Czar), is
the basis of the historico-political tradition of the Russian people.
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. For a comparison of the three adjacent states,
the second half of the 16th Century affords the best illustration. At
the same time that the radical-democratic Cossack republic originated
in the Ukraine, and Poland was a paradise of golden freedom for the
aristocrats and the nobility, with a powerless kingship and a
suppressed people, we witness in Russia the bloody orgies of the
despotism of Ivan the Terrible.
The historico-political tradition of the Russian people places the Czar
only slightly below God. The entire people, without class distinction,
are slaves (kholopi) of the Czar, his property. The individual counts
for nothing; everything must be sacrificed to the general good, which
is embodied in the Czar. The reforms of Peter the Great, altho they
gave Russia the external appearance of a civilized state, had no
significance for the historico-political tradition of Russia. At most,
they even strengthened the prestige of the absolute rule of the Czar,
thru arguments repeated after the Western European absolutism. Even the
Russian revolution of 1905 could not weaken this historico-political
tradition. At best the revolution undermined its significance in some
spheres of the Russian intelligenzia (numerically small). And, even in
these spheres, it meant only the modification of the authority for
which the Russian national spirit retains an immutable respect.
The present-day aspirations of the Russian Nation are hardly definite
in their outlines. Nevertheless, it can already be clearly seen that
they will follow the beaten path of the century-old tradition. The
greatest possible expansion and strengthening of the Empire and the
assimilation of all foreign peoples (including the Ukrainians too),
will constitute the main substance of these aspirations. The Muscovite
world has always been extremely intolerant of divergencies in faith,
language and customs. This intolerance has always existed, and always
will exist, even tho it may sometimes conceal itself behind a very
cleverly adjusted mantle of commonplaces.
UKRAINIAN CULTURE
When we speak of culture as a distinguishing mark of a specific nation,
we mean, of course, not culture in the widest sense of the word, but
those well-known cultural peculiarities which characterise every
European nation.
The Ukraine lies wholly within the confines of the greater European
cultural community. But its distance from the great culture-centers of
Western and Central Europe has, of course, not been without profound
effect. The Ukraine is at a low stage of culture, and must be measured
by Eastern European standards.
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. The very low stage of material culture, to which the
economic conditions of the country bear the best witness, is
characteristic of the Ukraine in its entire extent. The intellectual
culture of the people appears frightfully low. The number who know how
to read are 172 out of a thousand in Volhynia, 155 in Podolia, 181 in
Kiev, 259 in Kherson, 184 in Chernihiv, 169 in Poltava, 168 in Kharkiv,
215 in Katerinoslav, 279 in Tauria, and 168 in Kuban. These hopeless
figures, to be sure, are only a result of the exclusive use of the
Russian language, which is unintelligible to the Ukrainians, in all the
schools. Even in the first school-year, it is not permitted to explain
the most unintelligible words of the foreign language in Ukrainian.
This frightfully low grade of education of the people permits of no
progress in the economic life of the country. Even the most
well-meaning efforts of the government or the Zemstvo, break on the
brazen wall of illiteracy and ignorance of the Russian language. And
Ukrainian books of instruction and information are forbidden as
dangerous to the state. No wonder, then, that the Ukrainian farmer
tills his field, raises his cattle, carries on his home industries,
cures his ills, etc., just as his forefathers used to do. There is a
small number of the educated who are still cultivating literature and
art, feebly enough for the size of the nation—but how could one speak
of a distinct, independent culture here?
And yet it exists. For the low stage of culture which every foreign
tourist, who only knows the railroads and cities, immediately notices,
applies only to the culture created in the Ukraine by the ruling
foreign peoples, together with the small mass of Ukrainian
intelligenzia. (The intellectual culture of the Ukrainian educated
classes will be discussed later). In the same way, every hasty observer
would consider the Ukrainian peasant as a semi-European, standing on a
very low level of culture. And yet this illiterate peasant possesses an
individual popular culture, far exceeding the popular cultures of the
Poles, Russians and White Russians. The settlements, buildings,
costumes, the nourishment and mode of life of the Ukrainian peasant
stand much higher than those of the Russian, White Russian and Polish
peasant. Hence, the Ukrainian peasant easily and completely assimilates
all peasant settlers in his own land. The rich ethnological life, the
unwritten popular literature and popular music which, perhaps, have no
counterpart in Europe, the highly developed popular art and standard of
living, preserve the Ukrainian peasant from denationalization, even in
his most distant colonies. The power of opposition to Russification is
particularly great. The Ukrainian peasant never enters into mixed
marriages with the Russian muzhik, and hardly ever lives in the same
village with him. The ethnological culture of the Ukrainian people is,
by all means, original and peculiar; entirely different from the
popular cultures of all the neighboring peoples.
Even in prehistoric times, Ukrainian territory was the seat of a very
high culture, the remains of which, now brought to light, astonish the
investigator thru their loftiness and beauty. In ancient times the
early Greek cultural influences flourished in the Southern Ukraine,
then the Roman, and in the Middle Ages the Byzantine. Byzantine culture
had a great influence upon ancient Ukrainian culture, and its traces
may still be seen in the popular costume and in ornamentation.
The most important element in Ukrainian culture, however, is entirely
peculiar, and independent of these influences. The entire view of life
of the common man, to this day, has its roots in the pre-Christian
culture of the ancient Ukraine. The entire creative faculty of the
spirit of the nation has its source there; all the customs and manners
and very many of the songs and sayings. Christianity did not destroy
the old view of life in the Ukraine, but was adapted to it. This
accommodation was all the easier, because the character of the ancient
faith and philosophy of life of the Ukrainian people were not so gloomy
and cruel as was the case with many of the other peoples of Europe.
Outside of the prehistoric, Byzantine and Christian body of culture, we
observe extremely few foreign influences in the popular culture of the
Ukraine. It is highly independent and individualized. The Polish and
Muscovite influences are very insignificant, and appear only here and
there in the borderlands of the Ukraine.
It would require the giving of a detailed ethnological description of
the Ukrainian people if we wished to draw a complete picture of its
peculiar culture. Such a description has no place in geography, and
certainly none in a book of such general nature as this. Therefore, I
shall discuss but briefly the various phases of the popular culture of
the Ukraine, so that in this respect, too, the independent position of
the Ukrainians among the peoples of Eastern Europe may appear in the
proper light.
The Ukrainian villages (with the exception of the mountain villages,
which consist of a long irregular line of farms) are always built
picturesquely, in pretty places. The huts of a typical Ukrainian
village are always surrounded by orchards, which is hardly ever the
case among the Russians and White Russians, and very rarely so among
the Poles. These neighbors of the Ukrainians plant orchards only in the
few regions where professional fruit-growing has developed. In a
Ukrainian village, the green of the orchards is considered absolutely
necessary. The Russian will not endure trees in the neighborhood of his
hut; they obstruct his view. In the Ukraine an orchard is an
indispensable constituent part of even the poorest peasant homestead.
And the separate farms, in which very much of the spirit of the
glorious national past still lives, are hidden in the fresh green of
fruit orchards and apiaries.
The Ukrainian house is built of wood only in the mountains and other
wooded areas. In all other regions it is made of clay and covered with
straw. The front windows are always built facing the south. In this
way, different sides of the houses face the street, and in general,
too, street life does not play so important a part in a Ukrainian
village as it does in Polish, White Russian or Russian villages. The
Ukrainian houses are always well fenced in, altho not so strongly and
so high as the Russian houses in the forest zone, or as the White
Russian houses. They usually stand (except in Western Podolia) rather
far apart. Thus, the danger of fire is less than in the Russian
villages of the Chornozyom region, where the huts lie very close
together. As a result, the insurance companies, for instance, charge
smaller premiums in the Governments of Kursk and Voroniz for insuring
Ukrainian village properties than for Russian.
The general external appearance of the Ukrainian huts, which are always
well whitewashed and have flower gardens before the windows, is very
picturesque, and contrasts to advantage with the dwellings of the
neighboring races, especially the miserable and dirty Russian “izbas.”
All the houses of the Ukrainians, excepting, of course, the poorest
huts, are divided by a vestibule into two parts. The division into two
we do not find in the typical huts of the Poles and White Russians. A
further characteristic in which the Ukrainian house differs from the
houses of the neighboring peoples, is its comparative cleanliness.
Particularly does it differ in this respect from the Russian izbas,
which are regularly full of various insects and parasites, where sheep
and pigs, and, in winter, even the large cattle, live comfortably
together with the human inhabitants. The well-known authority on the
Russian village, Novikov, relates a very characteristic little story in
this connection. Several Russian families settled in a Ukrainian
village. Naturally, cattle were kept in the living room. And when the
Ukrainian village elders expressly forbade the keeping of cattle in the
huts, the Russians moved out, because they could not become accustomed
to the Ukrainian orderliness. It happens very seldom that the Russians
live together with the Ukrainians in one and the same village. In such
a case, the Russian part of the village lies separate, on the other
side of a ravine, a creek, or a rivulet. In the regions of mixed
nationality we see, adjoining one another, purely Ukrainian and purely
Russian villages.
The interior arrangement of the houses and the arrangement of the
barnyard differentiate the Ukrainian very sharply from his neighbor.
Still more decidedly does he show his individuality in his dress. The
mode of dress is quite varied thruout the great area of the Ukraine,
and yet we observe everywhere a distinctness of type and individuality
as opposed to the dress of neighboring peoples. Only the dress of the
Polissye people bears some trace of White Russian influence, on the
western border of Polish influence, in Kuban of Caucasian influence
(Russian influence appears nowhere). But all these influences are
slight. Ukrainian dress is always original and esthetic. No one can
wonder, therefore, that the Ukrainian costume is surviving longer than
the Polish, White Russian and Russian, and is giving way very slowly to
the costume of the cities.
The description of even the main types of Ukrainian costume would take
us too far afield; similarly, we cannot discuss the diet of the people
in detail, altho in this respect, too, the Ukrainian race retains its
definite individuality, those cases excepted, of course, in which
economic strain forces the people to be satisfied with “international”
potatoes and bread.
We now come to the intellectual culture of the Ukrainian people. If the
material culture of the Ukrainians, despite its originality and
independence is not at a strikingly higher level than that of the
neighboring peoples, the intellectual culture of the Ukrainian people
certainly far outstrips all the others.
The Ukrainian peasant is distinguished, above all, by his earnest and
sedate appearance. Beside the lively Pole and the active Russian, the
Ukrainian seems slow, even lazy. This characteristic, which is in part
only superficial, comes from the general view of life of the
Ukrainians. According to the view of the Ukrainian, life is not merely
a terrible struggle for existence, opposing man to hard necessity at
every turn; life, in itself, is the object of contemplation, life
affords possibilities for pleasure and feeling, life is beautiful, and
its esthetic aspect must, at all times and in all places, be highly
respected. We find a similar view among the peoples of antiquity. In
the present time, this view is very unpractical for nations with wide
spheres of activity. At all events this characteristic of the Ukrainian
people is the sign of an old, lofty, individual culture, and here, too,
is the origin of the noted “aristocratic democracy” of the Ukrainians.
Other foundations of the individuality of the Ukrainian are the results
of the gloomy historical past of the nation. It is the origin, first of
all, of the generally melancholy individuality, taciturnity, suspicion,
scepticism, and even a certain indifference to daily life. The ultimate
foundations of the individualism of the Ukrainian are derived from his
historico-political traditions; preference for extreme individualism,
liberty, equality and popular government. Proceeding from these
fundamentals, all the typical characteristics of the Ukrainians may be
logically explained with ease.
The family relations reflect the peculiarity of the Ukrainian people
very clearly. The comparatively high ancient culture, coupled with
individualism and a love of liberty, does not permit the development of
absolute power in the head of the family (as is the case among the
Poles and Russians). Likewise the position of woman is much higher in
the Ukrainian people than in the Polish or Russian. In innumerable
cases the woman is the real head of the household. Far less often does
this state of affairs occur among the Poles, and only by exception
among the Russians. A daughter is never married off against her will
among the Ukrainians; she has human rights in the matter. Among the
Russians, this business is in the hands of the father, who takes the
so-called kladka for his daughter, that is, he sells her to whomever he
pleases. Grown sons among the Ukrainians, as soon as they are married,
are presented by their fathers with a house and an independent farm.
The dwelling under one roof of a composite family (a family clan), as
is usual among the Russians, is almost impossible among the Ukrainians,
and is of exceedingly rare occurrence. The father has no absolute power
in this case (as among the Russians) to prevent discord in the family.
It is part of the peculiarity of the Ukrainians that they seldom form
friendships, but these are all the more lasting, altho reserved and
rarely intimate. The Russians make friends among one another very
easily, but they separate very easily, too, and become violent enemies.
The Poles form close friendships easily and are true friends, too.
Enmity is terrible among the Russians; among the Poles and Ukrainians
it is less bitter, and is, moreover, less lasting. The capacity for
association is very considerable in the Ukrainians. All such
association is based on complete equality in the division of labor and
profit. A foreman is elected and his orders are obeyed, but he receives
an equal share of the profits and works together with the rest. Among
the Russians, the bolshak selects his workmen himself, does not work,
and is simply an overseer. Still he receives the greatest part of the
profits, Among the Poles the capacity for association is but slightly
developed.
At this juncture we may also discuss the relation of the Ukrainians to
their communities. The Ukrainian community (hromada) is a voluntary
union of freemen for the sake of common safety and the general good.
Beyond this purpose the Ukrainian hromada possesses no power, for it
might limit the individual desires of some one of the hromada members.
For this reason, for example, common ownership of land which has been
introduced, following the Russian model, chiefly in the left half of
the Ukraine, is an abomination in the eyes of the Ukrainian people, and
is ruining them, economically, to a much greater extent than the
division of the land in the case of individual ownership. The Russian
“mir” is something entirely different. It is a miniature absolute
state, altho it appears in the garb of a communistic republic. The mir
is completely a part of the Russian national spirit, and the Russian
muzhik obeys the will of the mir unquestioningly, altho its will
enslaves his own.
The general relation to other people has become a matter of fixed form
to the Ukrainians; a form developed in the course of centuries. The
ancient culture and the individualistic cult have produced social forms
among the Ukrainian peasantry which sometimes remind one of ancient
court-forms. The proximity and influence of cities and other centers of
“culture” have, to a great extent, spoiled this peasant ceremonial. But
in certain large areas of the Ukraine it may still be observed in its
full development. Great delicacy, courtesy and attention to others,
coupled with unselfish hospitality, these are the general substance of
the social forms of our peasants. These social forms are entirely
different from the rough manners of the Polish or Muscovite peasants,
which, in addition, have been spoiled by the demoralizing influence of
the cities.
The relation of the Ukrainian people to religion is also original and
entirely different from that of all the adjacent nations. To the
Ukrainian, the essence of his faith, its ethical substance, is the
important factor. This he feels deeply and respects in himself and
others. Dogmas and rites are less significant in the Ukrainian’s
conception of religion. Hence, despite differences in faith, not the
slightest disharmony exists between the great mass of the orthodox
Ukrainians of Russia and the Bukowina, and the 4,000,000 Greek-Catholic
Ukrainians of Galicia and Hungary. From the ancient culture and
consideration of the individual comes, also, the great tolerance of the
Ukrainians toward other religions, a tolerance which we do not find
among the Poles and Russians. The spirit of the Ukrainians has,
likewise, been very indifferent toward all sects and roskols. Among the
Poles, sects flourished very luxuriantly in the 16th Century; among the
Russians, there are to this day any number of sects, often very curious
ones, and more are constantly arising. Among the Ukrainians, a single
sect has been formed, the so-called stunda (a sort of Baptist creed).
This sect is not the result of rite formalism, however, but merely an
effect of the Russification of the Ukrainian national church. In order
to be able to pray to God in their mother-tongue, more than a million
of the Ukrainian peasantry is persevering in this faith, which came
over from adjacent German colonies, despite harsh persecution on the
part of the Russian clergy and government.
The worth of Ukrainian culture appears, in its most beautiful and its
highest form, in the unwritten literature of the people. The
philosophical feeling of the Ukrainian people finds expression in
thousands and thousands of pregnant proverbs and parables, the like of
which we do not find even in the most advanced nations of Europe. They
reflect the great soul of the Ukrainian people and its worldly wisdom.
But the national genius of the Ukrainians has risen to the greatest
height in their popular poetry. Neither the Russian nor the Polish
popular poetry can bear comparison with the Ukrainian. Beginning with
the historical epics (dumy) and the extremely ancient and yet living
songs of worship, as for example, Christmas songs (kolady), New Years’
songs (shchedrivki), spring songs (vessilni), harvest songs
(obzinkovi), down to the little songs for particular occasions (e.g.
shumki, kozachki, kolomiyki), we find in all the productions of
Ukrainian popular epic and lyric poetry, a rich content and a great
perfection of form. In all of it the sympathy for nature,
spiritualization of nature, and a lively comprehension of her moods, is
superb; in all of it we find a fantastic but warm dreaminess; in all of
it we find the glorification of the loftiest and purest feelings of the
human soul. A glowing love of country reveals itself to us everywhere,
but particularly in innumerable Cossack songs, a heartrending longing
for a glorious past, a glorification, altho not without criticism, of
their heroes. In their love-songs we find not a trace of sexuality; not
the physical, but the spiritual beauty of woman is glorified above all.
Even in jesting songs, and further, even in ribald songs, there is a
great deal of anacreontic grace. And, at the same time, what beauty of
diction, what wonderful agreement of content and form! No one would
believe that this neglected, and for so many centuries, suppressed and
tormented people could scatter so many pearls of true poetic
inspiration thru its unhappy land.
This peculiarity of the poetical creative spirit enables us, just as do
the other elements of culture, to recognize the vast difference between
the Ukrainian and the Russian people. The Russian folk songs are
smaller in number and variety, form and content. Sympathetic
appreciation of nature is scant. The imagination either rises to
supernatural heights or sinks to mere trifling. Criminal monstrosities
and the spirit of destruction are glorified as objects of national
worship. The conception of love is sensual, the jesting and ribald
songs disgusting.
Like their popular poetry, the popular music of the Ukrainians far
surpasses the popular music of the neighboring peoples, and differs
from them very noticeably. Polish popular music is just as poor as
Polish popular poetry, and almost thruout possesses a cheerful major
character. Russian popular music has many minor elements in addition to
the major elements. But the Russian popular melodies are quite
different from the Ukrainian. They are either boisterously joyous or
hopelessly sad. The differences in the character of the melodies are so
great that one need not be a specialist to be able to tell at once
whether a melody is Ukrainian or Russian.
Popular art, in our people, is entirely original and much more highly
advanced than in the neighboring peoples. The remains of the ancient
popular painting are still in existence in the left half of the
Ukraine. Wood carving has developed to a highly artistic form among the
Hutzuls (there are the well-known peasant-artists Shkriblak,
Mehedinyuk, and others). The chief field of Ukrainian popular art,
however, is decoration. Two fundamental types are used; a geometric
pattern with the crossing of straight and broken lines, and a natural
pattern, which is modelled after parts of plants (as leaves, flowers,
etc.). In the embroideries, cloths and glass bead-work, we find such an
esthetic play of colors, that even tho each individual color is
glaring, the whole has a very picturesque and harmonious effect. The
decorative art of the Russians is much lower. It is based on animal
motifs or entire objects, e.g., whole plants, houses, etc., and evinces
an outspoken preference for glaring colors, which are so combined,
however, as to shock the eye. Among the Poles, the art of ornamentation
is very slightly developed. As for colors, they prefer the gaudy, not
many at a time; usually, blue is combined with bright red.
For the sake of completeness, we must still say something about
Ukrainian manners and customs. In this aspect, too, the Ukrainian
peasantry is richer than its neighbors. Only the White Russians are not
far behind them. The entire life of a Ukrainian peasant, in itself full
of need and poverty, is, nevertheless, full of poetic and deeply
significant usages and customs, from the cradle to the grave. Birth,
christening, marriage, death, all are combined with various symbolic
usages, particularly the wedding, so rich in ceremonies and songs, so
different in its entire substance from the Russian or Polish. The
entire year of the Ukrainian constitutes one great cycle of holidays,
with which a host of ceremonies are connected, most of which have come
down from pre-Christian times. We find similar ceremonies among the
White Russians, some also among the Poles, e.g., Christmas songs, songs
of the seasons, but among the Russians, on the other hand, we find no
parallel to the Ukrainian conditions. Among the Russians, neither the
Christmas songs (kolady) are customary, nor the ceremonies of Christmas
eve (bohata kutya), neither the midwinter festival (shchedri vechir),
with its songs (shchedrivki), nor the spring holidays (yur russalchin
velikden) and spring songs (vesnianki), nor the feast of the solstice
(kupalo), nor the autumn ceremonies on the feast-days of St. Andrew or
St. Katherine, etc. The entire essence of the popular metaphysics of
the Ukrainians is quite foreign to the Russians, and almost entirely so
to the Poles. Only the White Russians form a certain analogy, but,
among them, pure superstition outweighs customs and ceremonies in
importance.
Sufficient facts have been given to make clear to the reader the
complete originality and independence of Ukrainian popular culture. We
now come to a brief survey of the cultural efforts of the educated
Ukrainians.
The number of educated Ukrainians is comparatively small. Hardly a
century has passed since the intelligence of the nation awoke to new
life, yet, in its hands lies the development of the national culture in
the widest sense of the word. The disproportion between the magnitude
of the task and the small number of the workers for culture, is at once
apparent. And yet the results of the work, in spite of obstacles on
every side, have grown in volume.
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 Ukrainians, for a long time after the loss
of their first state and the decline of their ancient culture, found no
line along which they could develop their national culture
independently. For centuries they vacillated between the cultures of
Poland and Russia. To this day, now that the conditions are much
better, one may still find among the Ukrainians individuals who,
culturally, are Poles or Russians, and only speak and feel as
Ukrainians. Such a condition is very sad, and causes the Ukraine untold
injury—most of all in the field of material culture, which, in both
these neighboring nations, is very incomplete. Agriculture, mining,
trade and commerce, are on a much lower plane among the Poles than in
Western Europe. And what is to be said of the Russians, who are a mere
parody of a cultured nation in almost every field, altho they possess
so great a political organization? No one need be surprised that
material culture is of so low a grade in the Ukraine. On the other
hand, it has become clear to every intelligent Ukrainian, that the
development of material culture is possible only thru Western European
influence, by sending Ukrainian engineers, manufacturing specialists,
merchants and farmers, to Western and Central Europe to learn their
business.
In the field of Ukrainian mental culture, the chief influences to be
considered are Polish and Russian. In this field, Polish culture is
comparatively very high. It possesses a very rich literature,
considerable science and art, and very definite principles of life. The
influence of Polish culture is limited almost exclusively to Galicia at
the present time. But it was very strong until very recent years, when
it began to decrease. At one time, however, the entire Ukraine,
particularly the right half, was emphatically under the influence of
Polish culture for centuries (16th to the 18th Century).
There is one element in the spiritual culture of the Poles which
certainly deserves to be, and is, imitated by the Ukrainians. It is the
tone of national patriotism, the love for the nation, its present and
its past, which is everywhere evident. Hence, modern Polish literature
must be a model for Ukrainian literature in its tendencies and its
sentiments. But, beyond its patriotic tone, Polish culture is not
appropriate for the Ukrainian people. It is aristocratic, by reason of
its descent and its philosophy of the universe. It is far removed from
the mass of the people it should represent. In spite of all efforts,
the Polish culture of the educated classes has been unable to establish
an organic connection with the common people of Poland. It has been
built up above the masses and has not grown out of them. To build up
Ukrainian culture entirely after the model of Polish culture, would
mean to tear it from its life-giving roots in the soul of the people.
That it would be deadly to Ukrainian culture, the Ukrainians have
perceived for a long time.
Russian culture is much more dangerous to the Ukrainian people than
Polish. In its material aspect it is of a very low grade. In the
spiritual field it possesses a very rich literature and a noteworthy
science and art. The spiritual culture of Russia now dominates all of
the Russian Ukraine, and has, to a great extent, become prevalent even
among those educated Ukrainians in Russia who possess real national
consciousness.
This very circumstance constitutes a great danger for the development
of Ukrainian culture. For, let the Muscovite conquest extend over the
Ukrainians, even in the cultural field, and there is an end of all the
independence of the Ukrainian element, and its beautiful language will
be, in fact, degraded to a peasant dialect. But a still greater danger
lies in the quality of the Russian cultural influence. The first evil
characteristic of Russian culture is the complete lack of national and
patriotic sentiment, which is absolutely necessary for an aspiring
culture like the Ukrainian. Russian culture is infecting the Ukrainians
with an ominous national indifference. Another unfavorable
characteristic of all Russian culture, is the fact that it is
undemocratic thru and thru, and very far removed from the Russian
people. The Russian people did not create this culture; the educated,
in producing it, took nothing from the people. An intelligent man,
brought up in the atmosphere of Russian culture, is unspeakably distant
from the Russian people, so that it is impossible for him to work at
the task of enlightening them. The views of the Russian “lovers of the
people” (narodniki), or of a Tolstoy, concerning the common people and
its soul, simply offend us thru their unexampled ignorance of the
peculiarities and customs of the common people.
A culture so far removed from the people as the Russian can bring no
benefit to the Ukrainians. We observe this, best of all, in the
condition of the muzhik, to whom the educated Russian has never been
able to find an approach, and now the latter looks on indifferently,
while the masses sink deeper and deeper down into the abyss of
intellectual and spiritual darkness. To guide the common people along
the path of organic social-political and economic progress, is a task
which an intellect permeated with Russian culture can never perform.
The last Russian revolution, and the beginning of the era of
constitutional government for Russia, have furnished the best proof for
the truth of this assertion.
The other chief characteristic of Russian culture is its manifest
superficiality. Hidden beneath a thin veneer of Western European
amenities lies coarse barbarism. The external manners of the educated
Russian very often strike one by the coarseness, lack of restraint and
brutal recklessness accompanying them. We see, then, that even the
external forms of European culture have only been outwardly assumed by
the Russians. Still poorer is their condition with respect to the
things of the spirit. We have observed to what a slight degree the
Russians have been able to assimilate the material culture of Europe.
The same holds for spiritual culture. Russian literature, particularly
the latest, has brought ethical elements of the most questionable worth
into the world’s literature. (Artzibashev and others). Russian science,
altho it can point to some great names and has unlimited means at its
disposal, stands far behind German, English or French science. In
Russian science, everything is done for the sake of effect, without
thoroness, without method, hence fatal gaps appear. Let us consider,
for example, our science of geography. Hardly a year passes in which
the Russian government does not send one or more great scientific
expeditions to Asia or to the North Pole. Each expedition hands in
volumes of scientific results, and, at the same time, the surface
configuration of the most populous and culturally most advanced regions
of European Russia, for example, is barely known in its main aspects.
The best geography of Russia was written by the Frenchman Reclus. A
modern, really scientific geography of Russia does not exist.
Even more emphatically does the superficiality of Russian culture
appear in social and political questions. These two directions of human
thought have, in most recent times, become very popular in all Russian
society. But what an abyss separates a European from a Russian in this
field! In Europe the theses of the social sciences or of politics are
the result of life. They are adjusted to life conditions and treated
critically. In Russia they are lifeless dogmas, about which Russian
scholars of the 20th Century dispute with the same heat and in the same
manner as their ancestors, a few hundred years ago, disputed as to
whether the Hallelujah should be sung twice or three times, whether the
confession of faith should read “born, not created” or “born and not
created,” whether one should say, “God have mercy upon us” or “Oh God,
have mercy upon us,” whether one should use two fingers in crossing
oneself or three, and so on. Naturally, at that time religious
questions were the fashion. Today it is social questions. And what does
it amount to? Rampant doctrinism, the eternal use of banal
commonplaces, an immature setting up of principles. And the result
is—extreme unwieldiness of Russian society in internal politics and in
parliamentarism, in social and national work, together with a deep
scorn of the depraved West (gnili zapad).
With this superficiality of Russian culture, its most evil
characteristic is connected; the decline of family life and a certain
moral perverseness. This phenomenon is commonly met with in all peoples
who have but recently come in contact with Western European culture.
The bad qualities of a high civilization are always assumed first, the
good qualities slowly. In this field the Russians have far outstripped
their European models.
The above facts suffice to prove that Russian cultural influences are
dangerous for the Ukrainian people. The severe, rigid materialistic
character of the Russian people will, without any doubt, enable it to
outlast the storm and stress period of the present Russian culture, and
guide it to a splendid future. But for the Ukrainian people, with its
sentimental, gentle character, the assuming of Russian culture would be
a deadly poison. Even supposing that the Ukrainian people might survive
such an experiment, a thing which is not likely, it would forever
remain a miserable appendage of the Russian nation.
And besides, such an experiment is entirely unnecessary. Either we say,
“We are Ukrainians, an independent race and different from the
Russians,” and build up our culture quite independently, or we say, “We
are ‘Little Russians,’ one of the three tribes of Great Russia and of
its high culture,” and, in that case, we may calmly lie down on the
world renowned Ukrainian stove. For then it does not pay even to work
at the development of our language. A third alternative does not exist.
At present, however, the former view is generally predominant among the
intelligenzia of the land, and the fact that many intelligent
Ukrainians are permeated with Russian culture is due, not to an ideal
conviction, but only to the powerful influence of the Russian schools
and the Russian cities. How do these educated people stand beneath the
Ukrainian peasant who, even on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, does
not exchange his individual Ukrainian popular culture for the Russian,
and deserves the scornful, but in our eyes very commendable saying of
the Russians, “Khakhol vyesdie kharkhol!”
If, then, we are to remain a really independent nation, there is only
one avenue open to Ukrainian culture, and that is to follow the culture
of Western Europe step by step, to seek its models among the Germans,
Scandinavians, English and French. And this entire development we must
base upon the broad foundation of our high popular culture. Let us
consider with what piety the really cultural nations of Europe preserve
the little remains of their popular culture. Their few usages or
superstitions, their little body of folk-songs! How much richer than
they are we in all our misery! The Ukrainian people spoke a mighty
first word thru Kotlarevsky a century ago; it then found the first
diamond upon its path, the pure language of the people. Unfortunately,
no Ukrainian has yet arisen who could speak just as mighty a second
word by finding ways and means of lifting the treasures of the home
culture of the land, and enabling the entire nation to work at the task
of using them to advantage. This “apostle of truth and science,” as he
is called by Shevchenko, has not appeared, altho he has had several
ancestors, like Drahomaniv. But there are already very many Ukrainians
who would place their seal upon the declaration: “that the 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.”
Hence, the way lay clearly indicated for the Ukrainians of the 19th and
20th Century. Ethnological investigations and the scientific study of
folk-lore have been taken up very eagerly by Ukrainian scholars, so
that in this particular field, recent Ukrainian science, perhaps, ranks
highest in all Slavic science. In no other cultured nation of Europe is
the life of the educated elements so permeated with the influences of
the nation’s own popular culture. The Ukrainian cultural movement is
hardly a century old, and yet it has results to show which, even today,
guarantee the cultural independence of the Ukrainian nation. Active
relations with Central and Western European cultures have been
established, which may become of incalculable effect in the further
development of Ukrainian culture.
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SOIL AND THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE
The geographical situation of the Ukraine is the same today as it was a
thousand years ago. If the theories which call the present Ukrainian
territory the original home of the Aryans are true, the Ukrainians must
be considered the primeval autochthones. The limits of the Ukrainian
nation, too, are almost the same today as they were a thousand years
ago, altho, in the meantime, great shifts have taken place. Only in the
west, the Ukrainians have lost a strip about 30 kilometers wide to the
Poles, thru the Polonization movement, which has been advancing
eastward since 1340. In this section the Ukrainian element has survived
only in the mountains. The northern border, next to the White Russians,
which, since primitive times, has consisted of great forests and
swamps, has always remained without changes of any kind. On the other
hand, the part of the northern border east of the Dnieper, and still
more the eastern and southern borders, have been subject to radical
changes in the course of Ukrainian history.
The old Ukrainian state of Kiev rapidly developed a far-flung expansive
movement, and soon covered almost all of Eastern Europe. In the south,
the old Kingdom of Kiev, and together with it the southern tribes of
East Slavs (the ancestors of the present Ukrainians) reached the delta
of the Danube and the Black Sea and the foothills of the Caucasus,
where, in the present Kuban district, the old province and petty
principality of Tmutorokan was situated. How far to the north the
southern East Slavic tribes then extended we can not tell exactly. But
it is very improbable that they extended beyond the woods and swamps of
the Polissye.
Even at that time, a thousand years ago, the geographical position of
the Ukraine, on the edge of Europe and the steppe-country of Central
Asia, proved itself dangerous. From the beginning of the Middle Ages
on, innumerable tribes of Turkish-Tatar origin, came crowding out of
the Central Asiatic steppes westward, thru the steppes of Southern
Ukraine. The Ukraine had to be the first of all the countries of Europe
to withstand the attack of these hordes. The first Ukrainian conqueror,
Sviatoslav, who destroyed the state of the Khazars and Bulgars and
defeated other weak hordes, was killed in the struggle with the
Pechenegs. Volodimir the Great was forced to fight these nomads under
the very walls of his capital. These wars with nomad tribes, which
began before the Ukraine appeared in the arena of history, lasted from
this time until the end of the 18th Century, with varying fortunes. At
times the balance of power was on the side of the Ukraine, and then
Ukrainian colonization advanced victoriously to the south and east as
far as the Black Sea. At other times the nomads were victorious, and
the eastern and southern boundaries of the Ukraine receded north and
west. The great chains of fortifications and border walls erected by
the Great Princes of Kiev, on the southeast borders of the Ukraine,
were of no avail. At the time of the greatest extent of the Tatar
attacks (15th to 16th Century) almost all the left half of the Ukraine
was a wilderness, and in the right half Kiev was a border fortress. All
the southern Dnieper country, the Boh country and Eastern Podolia, was
at that time a sparsely-peopled borderland, and constantly exposed to
the dangers of Tatar attacks. At that time Ukrainian territory was
confined to the Polissye, the northern part of Chernihiv, Volhynia,
Western Podolia, Eastern Galicia and Podlakhia, and only small, very
thinly populated border strips of the adjacent regions. These
fluctuations in the boundaries of the Ukraine have no parallel in the
history of Europe, and show most clearly in what difficult straits the
Ukrainian nation was forced to live for centuries.
The proximity of nomadic Asia for a time greatly weakened the
influences of the proximity of another neighbor—the Black Sea. The
Black Sea was, for the Ukraine, the means of intercourse with
Byzantium, the greatest cultural center of Europe in the Middle Ages.
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. In those days Kiev or Halich
surpassed London or Paris in wealth and commercial importance.
The relations with the sea and with Byzantium kept growing ever more
difficult for the Ukraine to maintain, however, as a result of the ever
growing pressure of the nomad hordes. Finally, in the 13th Century,
came the Tatar invasions. These have best demonstrated the significance
of the geographical situation of the Ukraine. The ancient Ukrainian
state had to be the first to withstand the Mongol attack. After the
defeat, the Ukraine was the first of all the countries of Europe to be
desolated by fire and sword. It is true that the strong resistance of
the Ukraine effectively stopped the Tatar pressure, and Europe has this
circumstance to thank for its escape from the fate of Asia in the 13th
Century, three-fourths of which was conquered by the Mongols of Djingis
Khan. The Ukrainian state fought a whole century longer with the
Tatars, but could not hold their own after that. The Ukraine was
systematically devastated by the Tatars, and in the struggle with them
the entire military power of the Ukraine was spent. At the same time
the neighbors on the north and west—the Poles and Lithuanians—were able
to develop freely behind the protecting back of the Ukraine, and to
increase their powers. Finally the Poles annexed Eastern Galicia, and
the rest of the Ukrainians faced the choice of either joining
themselves to the Lithuanians, whose upper classes were at that time,
culturally, entirely Ukrainian, or to place themselves beneath the
Muscovite yoke. They chose the first. In 1569 the Lublin Union joined
the Ukraine to Poland. All these things are the unhappy results of the
geographical situation of the land on the threshold of Europe and Asia.
A long time following the loss of Ukrainian political independence, the
sad results of the geographical situation of the country continued. The
constant attacks of Tatars and Turks, the millions of Ukrainian slaves
in the slave-markets of the Orient, had to continue for many centuries
to be the source of the oriental world, which was fast hurrying toward
its fall. But soon the geographical situation of the Ukraine began to
work positively too. The geographical situation, together with other
natural factors, became one of the main causes for the formation of the
Ukrainian Cossack organization. This is not the place to discuss at
length the significance of the Cossack organization for the Ukraine; we
are only emphasizing the fact that the Cossack organization alone has
preserved the Ukraine from complete downfall.
The Cossack organization, as a product of geographical situation, has a
parallel only in the familiar North American backwoodsmen, prairie
hunters and pioneers who constituted the advance guard of European
civilization on their continent. Yet this analogy is a very weak and
incomplete one. The Zaporog Cossacks can in no way be compared either
with the Volga, Don or Ural Cossacks, who were chiefly brigands, or
with the Austro-Hungarian border-soldiers, who were a state
organization. The Ukrainian Cossack organization represented the
efforts for liberty and independence of the entire Ukrainian people,
and, finally, led up to the revival of Ukrainian political life in the
form of an independent hetman state. To be sure, the territory of this
hetman state embraced barely one-half of the Ukraine, but it
constituted a region about which a Piedmont of independence for the
entire Ukraine might grow up.
Since the last decades of the 18th Century, the geographical situation
of the Ukraine on the threshold of two continents has been growing from
an unfavorable position to one that may be described as very favorable.
It was for the most part with Ukrainian forces that Russia finally
destroyed the nomads of the Ukrainian steppes. This fact has been of
great significance for the Ukraine. Since that time the vast, tho
almost imperceptible, colonization movement of the Ukrainian people to
the east, southeast and south, has been in progress. This movement
extended the Ukrainian boundaries twice within a single century. For
the second time, and in a peaceful way, the Ukraine reached the delta
of the Danube, the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. All
this is only an outcome of its geographical situation. In another
situation the Ukrainians could not so easily dispose of unsettled
lands. This expansion of the Ukrainian people has by no means reached
its maximum, but it has surely passed its climax. To be sure, the
migration of the Ukrainian element to the east and south is still very
large, but there are no longer so many uninhabited districts open to
settlement as in former times, and the emigration in masses has had to
stop.
Nevertheless, the geographical situation opens a very fine prospect for
later Ukrainian colonial expansion. Ciscaucasia and many regions on the
lower Volga and Ural are, culturally considered, really a bonum
nullius. Russian colonization is directed to other regions, chiefly for
climatic reasons, and other competing races need hardly be considered
because of their smallness. Even at present the Ukrainians constitute a
very noteworthy minority; in the sub-Caucasian country most probably an
absolute majority. In the course of a few decades of rather
unsystematic colonization, extensive regions of the sub-Caucasian
country, with their wealth of natural resources, will become Ukrainian;
the entire Kuban region already is part of the compact national
territory of the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainian language has become an
international language for the small mountain races of the Western
Caucasus.
The geographical situation of the Ukraine on the threshold of Asia is
distinctly favorable to the immigration of Ukrainians into Central Asia
and Southern Siberia. In a strip of thousands of kilometers, chains of
Ukrainian settlements extend along the southern border of Siberia to
the Japan Sea. Along this immeasurable strip the number of Ukrainian
settlements is continually growing. This colonization, which leads tens
of thousands of Ukrainian peasant-settlers to the far east every year,
has attracted the attention of wider circles only within the last two
decades. In reality it is much older, for as early as the seventies of
the past century, German explorers found Ukrainian colonies at the
northern base of the Altai and on the Chinese border, etc. The
establishment of these old and new colonies of the Ukrainians in Asia
is proceeding in all quietude, and is quite analogous to that splendid
colonization movement of the Ukrainians at the beginning of the 19th
Century, which, at one time, quite imperceptibly doubled the national
territory of the Ukrainians.
Yet the colonial expansion of the last century brought the Ukrainian
nation many disadvantages along with the advantages. For more than a
century it drained the entire energy of the nation and deprived it of
tens of thousands of the most active and energetic individuals every
year. All the strength of the nation was turned to the one task of
settling new lands and cultivating them according to ancient usage.
From this cause, the political idea and the cultural efforts of the
Ukrainians have suffered very keenly.
After the Ukrainian territory had again reached the Black Sea, as a
result of colonial expansion, the Black Sea regained its ancient
significance to the Ukrainians. Of course, there is no longer any such
cultural center on the Pontus as Byzantium once was, and Turkish
domination has deprived the formerly highly cultured districts on the
shores of the Black Sea of all their ancient civilization. But the sea
has retained its capacity for promoting culture, and, after many
centuries, once more gave the Ukrainians direct connection with the
wide world. To be sure, the Black Sea is closed by nature and by
international treaties, and the Russian Government, intentionally or
unintentionally, has never particularly encouraged the development of
Pontian navigation; and, to be sure, the Black Sea lies far distant
from the main commercial thorofares of the world. But all these
disadvantages of the Black Sea may lose much of their weight in a short
time. The materialization of the splendid project to connect the Baltic
and the Black Sea by means of a canal, including the Dvina and the
Dnieper, navigable by large vessels, can not be far off. After the
carrying out of this project the isolation of the Black Sea will be
lessened, and an important channel of sea-navigation will run across
the entire Ukraine. Pontian navigation must sooner or later experience
a great advance, for it is a natural necessity for the productive
hinterland and for the entire Ukrainian shore people, who have always
exhibited considerable skill as seamen. The Ukrainians already
constitute more than two-thirds of the crews of all Russian trade and
warships on the Black Sea. With the strengthening of the constitutional
regime in Russia, the obstacles which have been placed in the way of
Pontian navigation by the Russian government in favor of Baltic
navigation must disappear of themselves.
Finally, the great commercial thorofares of the world are beginning to
move nearer to Ukrainian territory as the cultural development of the
Orient advances. As the European influences in the Iran, in Syria and
Mesopotamia begin to grow, new projects for an overland connection of
Europe with India continually arise. At present the Bagdad Railroad is
the center of interest, and soon the Persian railroad projects will
claim attention. But the shortest and easiest overland route from
Europe to India must cross the length of the Ukraine, touching Kiev and
Kharkiv, going past the deltas of the Volga and Ural and the Aral Sea,
along the Amu, and thru Afghanistan and the Punjab. When this route is
once established the Ukraine will attain a great commercial
significance as the right of way of one of the world’s most important
commercial highways. Then, only, will the importance of the Dnieper and
Don, the Black Sea, the Sea of Azof and the Caspian Sea, as bearers of
the main commercial road, be indeed realized.
Everyone can readily understand that in this case the political
significance of the Ukraine would also be very great. Even now this
land is an invaluable possession to Russia. Only the possession of the
Ukraine makes possible for Russia access to the Black Sea and permits
her to gravitate toward the straits, to win influence on the Balkan
peninsula, to threaten Turkey and the Mediterranean, to dominate the
Caucasus country, to oppress Persia and seek the nearest way to the
Indian Ocean. And when once the overland route to India goes thru
Ukrainian territory, the Ukraine will command over a thousand
kilometers of this important road and begin to be a prime factor in
world politics. 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.
Another element of the geographical situation of the Ukraine, which
should not be underestimated, is the fact that the Ukraine is so remote
from all the cultural centers of Europe. We indicated briefly, above,
of what great importance was the short, direct connection of the
Ukraine with the Byzantine cultural center. Only during this short
period did the historical fate of the Ukraine permit the land to have
direct relations with an important culture center. 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. Only Poland allowed a few elements of Western European culture
to sift thru into the Ukraine. But the lack of Polish political and
social organization did not allow Western European culture to take firm
root in Poland. The Ukraine could, therefore, receive only a little of
the Western European wealth of culture thru this channel. Until well
into the 18th Century, Russia stood upon a much lower grade of culture
than the Ukraine. And altho Russia very soon reached and surpassed her
rival, the Ukraine has, to this day, received nothing worth while from
Russia. The Ukraine even suffered great loss, culturally, from its
union with Russia. The White Russians, the Roumanians, the Slovaks, the
Magyars, were never so far advanced, culturally, as to be able to teach
the Ukrainians anything. The centers of Western and Central European
culture—Germany, Scandinavia, France and England—are so far distant
from the Ukraine that they can exert only slight and indirect influence
upon its cultural progress. The low state of culture of the Ukraine,
consequently, springs chiefly from its geographical situation.
The second geographical element, surface formation, has had as strong
an influence upon the Ukrainian people as the geographical situation.
The chief factor in the surface configuration of the Ukraine is the
great preponderance of plains and plateaus. These take up nine-tenths
of the area of the Ukraine. The difference in level of the ground is
from 200 to 300 meters. Such slight variations in height are of great
significance as far as anthropogeographical conditions are concerned.
The most important characteristic of level countries such as this, is
the complete lack of such obstacles as might make good natural
boundaries. And the lack of good natural boundaries is very strongly
felt in the history of all lowland peoples.
This lack the Ukrainians have always felt very deeply. With the
exception of the Black Sea, which was once the boundary of the ancient
Ukrainian Kingdom of Kiev and now forms the southern boundary of the
Ukraine, and, with the exception, also, of the forest swamps of the
Polissye, the Ukraine never possessed, and does not now possess, any
good natural boundaries. Neither the Carpathians nor the Caucasus have
provided the Ukraine with a distinct natural boundary line. The borders
and borderlands of the Ukraine lie open, were always easily accessible
to all conquerors, and made the defense of their political independence
much harder for the Ukrainians than it has been for any other nation of
Europe. To be sure, the lack of obstacles on the borders made it very
easy for the Ukrainian Kingdom to extend its limits, as the rapid and
appreciable growth of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev best proves. But
later, unfortunately, this favorable surface formation was taken
advantage of with much greater gain by the Tatars, Lithuanians, Poles
and Russians, to the ruin of the Ukraine. The facility of military
campaigns and of territorial conquests, two favorable foundations for
the development of great land-conquering nations, and at the same time
typical anthropogeographical characteristics of low countries, have
played an active part in the history of the Ukraine. The pressure of
various races, which is a characteristic of plain countries, is another
condition the Ukraine had to face. From the Cimmerians to the Turks,
how many races have inhabited the steppes of the Ukraine!
In the present times of highly developed intercourse, natural obstacles
are losing much of their value, and, for the same reason, the
disadvantages of low countries are becoming less serious. It is true
that the Ukraine is hard to defend strategically, and an enemy wishing
to attack Russia in the Ukraine would place her in a very precarious
position. But the lack of pronounced natural lines of defense is also
peculiar to the eastern border of Germany, for example, or the northern
border of France. Apart from these strategic elements, the Ukrainian
plain country and plateau country has nothing but advantages. The
migration of the Ukrainian people has always been very easy, and the
growth of Ukrainian territory has been unhindered because of the
openness of the borders.
The lowland character of the Ukraine is important not merely in respect
to borders. The lack of obstacles within the country in the way of
highlands always favored easy travel in all directions. The building of
the roads met with no obstacles, and was able to proceed in straight
lines. In the present days of high-roads and railways, this is a very
important characteristic of the land. Unfortunately it has never been
taken advantage of. The railroads of the Ukraine tend toward unknown
Russian centers, without consideration of the natural centers of the
country. Hence its insufficient importance for traffic.
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 lack of natural differences within the country has brought
with it the lack of differences among the inhabitants, and it is well
known that such differences enrich the ability and the character of the
entire nation considerably. Hence, the lack of those necessary
conditions of development and progress has always had a profound
influence in the Ukraine, while we meet such favorable conditions at
every step in the small areas of Central Europe, with their smaller
supply of natural wealth. Melancholy and indifference, these typical
marks of the lowland peoples, have always been characteristic of the
Ukrainians also. And these types are not favorable to the development
of culture. Only the present time of easy communications are capable of
weakening the bad influence of the uniformity of surface of the Ukraine
to any marked degree.
Yet, not all the typical characteristics of a lowland country are
common to the Ukrainians. Above all, they lack, and always have lacked,
the capacity for the development of great political strength, the
capacity for centralization; in a word, the capacity for state
organizing. This characteristic of the lowland peoples, which is very
strongly developed among the Russians, more weakly in the Poles, has
always been very poorly bred in the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians have
possessed the tendency, peculiar to all lowland peoples, to level its
aspirations, to divert them to one side, but never to the subordination
of their individuality to the interests of the state. Only when the
general equality of all citizens of the state opens to every man an
equal field for the activity of his personal ego, have the Ukrainians
been able to do the state-idea justice and to embody it very finely.
They have given the best proof of this in the Zaporog Cossack
organization. This fact gives us the only hope that the Ukrainians may
yet become an organized nation in modern times. The present manner of
national life is what the Ukrainians wished to have centuries ago—much
too early, of course.
In view of the great uniformity, every rise of land is significant.
Slight elevations, chains of hills, river valleys, even swamps and
forests appear in the Ukraine as important boundaries, lines of
defence, foundations for cities and castles, fortified places, lookout
stations, etc. Even the many barrows (mohili, kurhani) have played an
important part in the history of the Ukraine.
The anthropogeographical significance of the Ukrainian mountains is in
general slight, altho we find all the typical influences of the
mountains in the mountain tribes of the Ukrainians. Great physical
endurance, coupled with a feeling for liberty and independence, great
personal courage, great love of country, etc., have always
distinguished the Ukrainian mountain dwellers.
The Ukrainian Carpathians are, to this day, one of the most thinly
settled regions of the Ukraine, chiefly for the reason that it was
always a passive region, which was not considered in political life.
Great historical movements hardly ever touched the Carpathians. For
many centuries they remained almost devoid of human life. Hence, the
Carpathians played hardly any part as a border defence of the Ukrainian
state organizations. Mountain chains usually are of very great
importance as a defence for individual tribes or entire races. The
Carpathians, with their great ease of passage, especially in the
Ukrainian part, have been of no significance in this respect. They did
provide effective protection for the Walachian shepherds thru many
centuries. These shepherds led a nomad life with their flocks on the
Carpathian pastures, and left proof of their presence in numerous names
of mountains, rivers and villages. The Carpathians also provided
shelter for the numerous Ukrainian fugitives who fled from oppressive
serfdom and formed bands of half-political freebooters, friends of the
lowly, and warriors against the lords (oprishki). The brigandage
peculiar to all mountain regions flourished also in the Carpathians.
But no state originated in the Carpathians. The Alps were the
foundation of Switzerland, and played a part in the formation of the
Austrian state. The Carpathians have given the Ukraine nothing, apart
from occasional passing shelter.
At this point we must emphasize another anthropogeographical
characteristic of the mountains. It is the general poverty of their
inhabitants and their consequent desire, under compulsion, to seek
expansion. The inhabitants of the Ukrainian Carpathians, about the
middle of the 19th Century, were in a serious economic condition
because of the small amount of productive ground. Need came first to
the Lemkos, then to the Boikes, and last to the Hutzuls. Above all, it
partly divested the mountain population of the then predominating
industry of cattle raising. The Lemkos at first carried on a lively
trade in wagon grease thruout the southern part of Eastern Europe, then
they turned to harvest work, in the surrounding lowlands, and last to
the annual emigration to America. The Boikes first carried on trade in
salt, then changed to the fruit trade, which they are carrying on
today, down as far as Warsaw and Moscow. Very lately, the annual
emigration to America has been depleting their ranks also. The Hutzuls
have but just begun to resort to emigration. They hire out less
frequently for agricultural work than for the lumber industry, in which
they are very skilful. Their highly developed domestic industry, which
borders on the artistic, might provide them with rich support, but it
is rather hindered than advanced by the determining factors of the
land.
In presenting the general influence of the ground formation on the
people, we must also consider the anthropogeographical significance of
the geological conditions of the country. They should not be
underestimated, as one might expect, while to overestimate them, as
some scholars have done, by even referring anthropological
characteristics back to the geological composition of the country, is
quite as bad; at all events very many of the living conditions of the
inhabitants are dependent upon the geological make-up of the land. We
shall skip over the great importance of the geological composition of
the country for the surface formations which it determines. We shall
pay attention only to the direct geological influences.
The Ukraine possesses very great mineral treasures. The most important
mineral deposits for the present time, namely, coal, iron, salt and
petroleum, are very large in the Ukraine. Of all these mineral
treasures, however, only the salt deposits have had an historical
significance, since far back in the period of the Kingdoms of Kiev and
Halich they furthered active trade and commerce, and later favored the
development of the Chumak organization. The other mineral treasure
attained a greater importance only in the past century. When one
considers today that the Ukraine furnishes almost three-fourths of the
coal and iron output of Russia, one can readily believe that the
Ukraine might some day become as great an industrial country as
Germany, England or Belgium. A single glance at the mining map of the
Ukraine soon shows us, however, how small the regions containing this
abundance of mineral wealth are in proportion to the entire territory.
Then everyone can understand what the geological composition of the
country means. It condemns the Ukraine forever to remain an
agricultural country, altho it also permits the development of a
considerable industry in several centers.
The same path of future development is outlined for the Ukraine by its
fertile soil. Almost three-fourths of the Ukrainian territory lies
within the Eastern European black-earth zone. The chornozyom, one of
the most fertile species of earth on the globe, makes the Ukraine the
most fruitful land of Europe. We need not wonder, therefore, that the
Ukrainians have, to this day, remained almost entirely an agricultural
people. The fertility of the soil must also remain the greatest wealth
of the land into the remotest future. Now that the greatest grain lands
of the earth, the American prairies and pampas, the Australian
border-steppes, etc., have been almost entirely subjected to
cultivation, the extensive market production of grain must, in the
nearest future, give way to intensive production. Then the importance
of the Ukrainian black earth, which has maintained its great fertility
for thousands of years, will become even greater than it is today; and
even today the Ukraine must be considered one of the main centers of
grain production.
The fertility of the Ukrainian soil has had several unfavorable as well
as favorable results. Like a promised land, the Ukraine has always
lured foreign conquerors and colonists. Its fertility has brought the
Ukraine much war and trouble. For centuries the fertile ground of the
Ukraine gave its own people only a part of its rich produce. To this
day the foreign landowners and grain merchants demand the greater part
of the harvest, while the native people of the Ukraine, who have dwelt
in the land since time out of mind, can hardly reserve enough for
themselves to keep from dying of hunger.
The fertile Ukrainian ground has exerted another important unfavorable
influence over the Ukrainian people. The great fertility of its fields
has caused a certain indifference and carelessness in planting among
the Ukrainian peasants. To be sure, the Ukrainian is a better farmer
than the White Russian, Russian or Roumanian. But for centuries he has
been accustomed to depend on the fertility of his native soil and is,
therefore, far behind the progressive farmer of Central or Western
Europe. Antiquated methods of planting have until recently prevailed in
the Ukraine without the slightest change. At the same time the ground
has become scant, and progressive methods of cultivation must be
adopted in order to get as much as possible out of the land and to
balance the relative diminution of the cultivation area.
The geological conditions have also exerted a great deal of influence
over the buildings and roads of the Ukraine. Clay houses, covered with
straw, are still typical for the Ukraine today. Only in the most recent
times brick houses, covered with shingle, are beginning to appear in
the Ukrainian villages. Stone buildings were not original with the
Ukraine, and were only adopted with the higher grade of culture. The
cause of this is not the lack of building material. Almost everywhere
in the Ukraine good building-stone is found beneath the thick cover of
loose earth. But the abundance of clay always showed the nearer and
easier way—clay huts. Even this small matter has had an unhappy
influence upon the fate of the Ukraine. The ancient Ukrainian cities
consisted chiefly of wood and clay buildings and were fortified by
means of earthworks, palisades and clay covered wooden towers. Walled
houses and circular walls were very rare. This condition made the
defence of the cities and castles, even against the attacks of nomadic
tribes, very difficult. The ancient Ukrainian State would not have been
destroyed so soon if it had had an abundance of strongly fortified
walled cities.
The black earth and clay sub-layer of the Ukraine has, since the most
ancient times, been an unfavorable influence as far as the quality of
its roads are concerned. Outside of the negligence of the Polish and
the Russian State, which alternated in the domination of the Ukrainian
territory, natural conditions, too, have had a great deal to do with
the roads in the Ukraine. The stone lay far below the loose cover of
clay; it was used very rarely for building purposes; hence the idea of
plastering the roads with stones could hardly occur to anyone.
We shall now consider the anthropogeographical significance of the
Ukrainian bodies of water. Of the importance of the Black Sea we have
already spoken. The Ukrainian people lived in close connection with
this sea in the days of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev, as well as in the
days of the Cossack organization. But the lack of well-developed coast,
of harbors and islands, have prevented the development of the
Ukrainians into a seafaring nation, altho favorable tendencies were not
lacking. The smallness and isolation of the Black Sea could not favor
the development of navigation. The frequency of dangerous storms had a
deterring effect, altho they strengthened the courage of the sailors.
Then again, the smallness of the sea made the use of small vessels
sufficient, which could more readily find shelter at any time or at any
point along the coast, with its few harbors, than larger ships. These
circumstances have hindered the development of extensive navigation for
long distance traffic. Hence, the Ukrainians, altho in certain periods
of their history they gained a not inconsiderable familiarity with the
sea, could not rise to a genuine seafaring people.
Much stronger ties connect the Ukrainian people with the rivers of its
territory. The rivers have an anthropogeographical significance chiefly
as ways of travel. The great main streams of the Ukraine, particularly
the Dnieper and the Dniester, have always had the character of a
transition between rivers and arms of the sea. At the time of the
ancient Kingdom of Kiev, seafaring vessels sailing up the Dniester
reached the royal city of Halich, and, in the time of the Cossacks, the
Zaporog boats were pursued by the Turkish galleys as far as the rapids
of the Dnieper. As far as ancient navigation was concerned, there was
very little difference between river and sea; rivers were simply the
extension of sea routes. In the ancient Ukraine, the Varangians were
the first to use them in this sense. Their route “from the Varangian
Land to Greece,” which later became one of the main paths of the old
Kingdom of Kiev, led from the Baltic to the Black Sea by way of rivers
and portages. These wanderings of the Varangians in the Ukrainian water
system are of great historical significance. For altho we are now
almost certain that the Varangians were not the founders of the Kingdom
of Kiev, it cannot be denied that they played a great part in the
forming of it.
Rivers are natural, and therefore, also the easiest and cheapest roads.
Especially in countries of great area, as the United States, Russia and
the Ukraine, the importance of rivers as roadways is very great. Rivers
connect the nations. The Dniester and the Dnieper connected the Ukraine
with the sea, with the highly-cultured Constantinople, with the entire
Mediterranean and Oriental world of culture. The Dnieper, thru its much
branched water-web, connected the Ukraine directly with Poland and
White Russia, and indirectly with the Baltic Sea and Northern Europe.
Even today, altho the canals connecting the Dnieper with the Vistula,
Niemen, and Dvina are entirely neglected, the Dnieper River plays a
very significant part as a great vein of traffic connecting different
lands, peoples and producing regions. It may become more important
still if it is made accessible to sea vessels and connects two distant
seas.
In the Cossack period a considerable portion of the Ukrainians became a
river people. The life and work of the Zaporog Sich depended entirely
upon the Dnieper River. It protected, fed and clothed them. So strongly
were the Zaporogs bound to the Dnieper, so necessary did the great
river become to them, that all attempts to found new Zaporog centers on
other rivers simply failed. We need not wonder, then, that the Dnieper
is celebrated in all the Cossack songs as a sacred possession of the
nation.
Closely connected with the character of rivers as roadways, is their
importance as the directing lines of the movements of races. The
history of the Ukraine tells us how the ancient Kingdom of Kiev
penetrated toward the south along the Dnieper, and how the Kingdom of
Halich reached the delta of the Danube by way of the Dniester and Prut.
Most likely the first expansion of the Ukrainians proceeded along the
Dniester, Boh and Dnieper, southward. At the time of the great shifts
of the Ukrainian southeast border, the advance of the Ukrainians was
always directed southeast, their retreat always northwest. The history
of the 16th Century shows plainly how the first pioneers of the new
colonization movement—the Cossacks—pushed along the Dnieper, toward the
southeast, into the steppe region. Altho it is a commonplace, yet it
may be established without doubt that the whole Ukrainian nation took
its way southeast along the Ukrainian rivers. To this day the national
territory of the Ukraine is advancing irresistibly in that direction.
But not only with the southeast has Nature connected the Ukraine.
Important borderlands of the Ukrainian territory—Central Galicia, the
region of Kholm, Podlakhia, Western Volhynia—with their river system,
belong to the Baltic slope. At the same time, the transition from the
Pontian river system to the Baltic system is very easy, the divides
flat and low. The easy transition from the Dniester to the San and Buh,
from the Pripet to the Vistula and the Niemen, was of great importance
in the past, when western influences could easily penetrate these
Ukrainian borderlands, and is of great importance in the present. If,
in the near future, the now antiquated canals are improved and new ones
built, the Ukraine will have as good connections with the west as it
has with the east. Then the Ukraine may, from a hydrographic point of
view, gain great importance as a transition country of important
waterways.
By no means accidental is the remarkable fact that the Ukraine has no
hydrographic connection with the northeast, the real Muscovite country.
Of the country drained by the Don, only the region of the Donetz (which
also flows southeast) and the mouth of the main stream belong to the
territory of the Ukraine, and that only since a relatively short time.
Outside of the Don region the Ukraine has no hydrographic connections
with the Muscovite country, which has always had different directions,
different channels of traffic, and different centers of waterways.
Modern geography does not consider rivers good natural boundaries, and
does not believe in their powers of separation. In the Ukraine, rivers
have played almost no part as boundaries. Even the Pripet, surrounded
as it is with inaccessible swamps, does not make a good natural
boundary between the Ukraine and White Russia. The ethnographic
influences on both sides, and even the political boundaries are hardly
considered. Nor could the rivers be important lasting obstacles;
instead of separating they are more likely to connect individuals, and
even whole nations. Only as passing, momentary obstacles, they were of
importance to the Ukraine in the innumerable wars which were waged on
Ukrainian soil, and much Ukrainian blood was carried by them to the
sea.
We now come to the relations between climate and people of the Ukraine.
The situation of the Ukraine at an equal distance from the equator and
the pole, on the southeast border of the European continent, which is
so very favored climatically, has given the country one of the finest
climates of the temperate zone. The hot summer permits of an extensive
exploitation of the ground, the severe winter hardens the body and
strengthens the soul, strong winds clear the atmosphere and bring
motion into nature. The amount of rainfall is sufficient for the
vegetable world, and is as far removed from the superabundance of damp
Western Europe, as from the deadly dryness of the Asiatic steppes.
As for the general influence of the Ukrainian climate upon the people,
it is in the main similar to that of Western and Central Europe. The
Ukrainians are one of the northern peoples of Europe, and they show it
by the difficulty with which they become acclimated to the tropical
conditions of Brazil and Argentina. There conditions are much worse for
the Ukrainians than for the Spaniards, Portuguese and Italians, but at
least better than for the English or Scandinavians. The Ukrainian is
already accustomed to a hot and long summer in his native land. He
accustoms himself quickly and easily to the cold Siberian climate,
because the frosts in the Ukraine, despite the short frost period, are
very severe. For climatic reasons then, the colonial capacity of the
Ukrainians must be even better than that of most of the peoples of
Western or Central Europe.
The climate of the Ukraine, which we have discussed in a preceding
chapter, is very uniform thruout the entire great territory, with the
exception of the southern borders. This homogeneity is favorable on the
one hand, because it advances the homogeneity of the people,
unfavorable on the other hand, because differences in climate as a rule
enliven and quicken the course of history of a country. The variations
in character of the people and in the mode of living due to the
differences in climate give countless impulses to development and to
progress.
Despite the general uniformity of the climate, we do find appreciable
differences when we compare the northern border regions of our country
with the southern ones. The Ukraine has the same climatic peculiarity
as France on a small scale, the transition of the temperate to the
Mediterranean climate without sharply defined boundaries. In this way
some difference of products does arise, which advances the development
of trade and commerce.
In our description of the Ukrainian climate, we emphasized its peculiar
position as compared with the climates of the adjacent districts of
Eastern Europe. Just beyond the borders of the Ukraine, to the north
and east, the annual temperature becomes lower and the duration and
severity of the winter suddenly becomes very much greater. The
Muscovite climate and that of the Ukraine would not be ranked together
by anyone who understands anything about the matter. And yet the
renowned historian and publicist, Leroy Beaulieu, considers a uniform
climate as one of the chief causes of the unity of Russia. In January,
he writes, one may ride in a sleigh from Astrakhan to Archangel; the
Sea of Azof and the Caspian Sea freeze over just as the White Sea or
the Finnish Gulf, the Dnieper as well as the Dvina; the winter wraps
north and south in one vast blanket of snow every year. Less strong are
the ties formed by the summer, but there is a preponderance of unifying
circumstances.
Such statements can come only from one who has no conception of
climatology and anthropogeography. On such premises no conclusions may
be based, except by persons who have previously constructed a
hypothesis and now wish at all costs, to prove its validity. For it is
certainly generally known that the same winter covers all Scandinavia,
Poland, Germany and Northern France together with the same white
mantle. In the winter-time one may travel by sleigh not only from
Astrakhan to Archangel, but also to Irkutsk in one direction and to
Stockholm in the other, and even to Paris. Not only the Dnieper
freezes, but also the Vistula, the Oder, the Elbe, and sometimes even
the Seine. If we consider ice and snow as the basis of “unification,”
very little of Europe remains. For not only in snow and ice should we
seek signs of uniformity in climate, but in its general character, in
the community of all climatic characteristics. It is true that the
Ukraine is part of the Eastern European climatic province, but in this
province we may also include almost all of Sweden, almost all of
Poland, a part of Austria-Hungary and Prussia, and Supan adds all of
Western Siberia, Caucasia and Turkestan as well. Every geographer
understands that so great a climatic province must be divided into
smaller districts even in climatology, not to mention the details of
daily life. Every inhabitant of Southern Russia, whether a Ukrainian or
not, feels the difference of the Ukrainian climate from that of St.
Petersburg or Moscow very keenly. There is hardly a Russian author who
does not describe the fine climate of the Ukraine as wonderfully mild
compared to the inhospitable climate of his native land. How keenly,
then, does a Ukrainian feel the difference in the two climates, who is
forced to live in the cold Muscovite country.
The climatic difference is illustrated more clearly still when we
consider the matter from the climatological side. Voyekov, the great
Russian climato pzeshasiemlogist, expressly the slight cover of snow in
the Ukraine, the relatively high temperature of the warmer periods of
the winter, and the abnormally warm spring, which is due to the
lightness of the snow-cover, which requires only a little of the spring
warmth to melt it. The snow cover of Poland, Lithuania or Northeastern
Germany is much more similar to that of Muscovy than the Ukrainian. The
January isotherms in the Ukraine switch over from the N. to S.
direction to the N. W. to S. E. direction. The isotherm of the typical
Russian winter (January -8 to -10°) avoids the region of the Ukraine
entirely. It is true that the Dnieper and Dniester have the same amount
of ice as the Volga or the Dvina. But here the main consideration
should be the period of freezing; the Dvina is covered over for 190
days, the Volga 160, the Dnieper in the Ukraine only 80 to 100 days,
the Dniester 70 days. These are certainly greater differences. Still
greater differences between the Ukrainian and the Muscovite climates
become evident when we compare the length of the winter, or the time
suitable for work outdoors. In Great Russia this time is at most four
months; in the Ukraine, at least six and a half; and in its southern
borderlands even nine months. Such differences play a great part in the
life of the people. The time of the winter obstructions and enforced
idleness is twice as great in Russia as in the Ukraine. The struggle
with the cold takes on forms in the Ukraine which are entirely
analogous to the Western European forms. In the Muscovite country we
observe polar elements in the winter-life of the people. The Ukrainian
winter does not depress the people, does not bore them to death, but
only steels their bodies in the struggle with the cold and gives them
the desired rest after the summer’s heat. The winter is the time of the
most intensive social life among the Ukrainian peasantry.
The spring of the Ukraine, warm and sunny, has quite a different
influence upon people to that of the cool, damp Russian or Polish
spring. The sunny climate of the spring and the cloudlessness of the
summer have produced in the Ukrainian a quiet, fundamentally cheerful
temper. Yet, we find in him none of the gaiety which is characteristic
of the people of the south as compared with the people of the north,
but rather a quiet melancholy. It is just the Russians or the Poles
that are of a much gayer sort than the Ukrainians, livelier, more
easy-going in their social life, more frolicsome; not the Ukrainians,
but the Russians and Poles, are the very ones that are vying with one
another for the epithet of the “Frenchmen of the North” or “of the
East,” respectively. (This remarkable fact is due, in the first place,
to the unhappy history of the Ukraine). But, on the other hand, the
melancholy of the Ukrainians is quiet, while the occasional melancholy
of the Russians turns into despair and pessimism.
The Ukrainian summer and fall, warm and beautiful, has made the
Ukrainian, in contrast with the Russian, a farmer par excellence. The
warmth of these seasons is very similar to Southern European
conditions, and gives to the life of the Ukrainian people many southern
characteristics. The life in open communion with Nature, the
accessibility of her organic treasures, is much more pronounced in the
Ukraine than in Russia, White Russia or Poland. In the warm seasons the
Ukrainian lives much of the time outside his house. In the day he works
continuously in the field or in the garden, and even at night he
usually sleeps outdoors in the orchard or the yard. If the fields are
at a distance from the village, a large part of the population of the
place camp out in the open fields for several days during harvest time.
These are all characteristics of the life of the south. Yet we see in
our people no real characteristics of the people of the south. Despite
all this, the Ukrainian is much more domestic than the Russian, more
frugal and more temperate; the “extravagant Russian nature” is entirely
foreign to him. We have already seen that the Ukrainians do not have
gay manners, and in like manner their activity of thought is less than
that of the northern peoples, the Russians and the Poles. Yet the depth
of thought of the Ukrainians is much greater, and their popular poetry
incomparably deeper than that of the Russians or Poles. Dreaminess and
reserve of character is much greater in the Ukrainians who live in the
south than in the Poles and Russians who live in the north. All these
are the effects of a sorrowful past. Only in one respect do the
Ukrainians bear out their southern type of character; in their great
abilities and their generally rich intellectual gifts. Every
unprejudiced observer must admit that the Ukrainian peasant, almost the
only typical representative of our nation, surpasses almost all his
neighbors in his natural accomplishments.
The laziness and weakness of will peculiar to the southern nations
compared to the northern, have not developed into a typical
characteristic among the Ukrainians. The often remarkable indifference
of the Ukrainian is rather an outgrowth of sad historical events than
of the climate and the nature of the land in general. At most one might
blame the great fertility of the black soil. For the faith in this
fertility is almost never misplaced and favors the indifference of the
peasant. On the other hand, the five hundred years of Tatar oppression
were actually able to produce an inherited indifference. And why strive
and work, when at any moment the Tatar hordes might come and take or
burn everything?
Despite this historically inherited indifference, as we may call it,
the laziness peculiar to southerners cannot be ascribed to the
Ukrainians. They are better farmers than all their neighbors, with the
single exception of those who adopted progressive farming, as, for
example, the Prussian Poles. Domestic industry is also well developed
among the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainian seasonal workers are actually
sought after, especially in Germany, and earn a great deal. The
Ukrainian harvest-worker is more sought after and better paid than the
Russian. He works slowly but methodically, and achieves good results.
The Ukrainian colonists find tolerable living conditions in places in
which the Russian starves to death or from which he flees.
In like manner weakness of will is not a real peculiarity of the
Ukrainians, in spite of their southern location. The thousand years’
struggle with piratical Asia, the independent establishment of two
great state organizations, especially the second, after three centuries
of slavery, the new awakening in the 19th Century under such difficult
and hostile conditions, the splendid colonial expansion—all this speaks
rather for great energy than for weakness of will. It is certainly true
that in our people, oppressed by centuries of serfdom, energy and
strength of character must hide beneath a thick crust of indifference,
and our educated people find their energy weakened by the bad influence
of foreign cultures. But these facts show most clearly that an enormous
amount of energy and willpower is latent in the Ukrainian people,
which, to this day, however, has not been properly developed.
Among historians and anthropogeographers it is a much used commonplace
that the northern peoples always appear as conquerors who subjugate the
southern peoples, and that they are always the founders of states in
their particular climatic zones. The Germans overthrew the Roman
Empire, the Northern Frenchmen founded the French state, the Northern
Spaniards the Spanish, the Northern Italians, the Italian state, and
the North Germans united Germany. It is natural, therefore, that this
commonplace should be applied also in Eastern Europe. The “Northern”
Russians have, by the natural necessity of history, “united” the
“southern” Russians. The same explanation should be accepted as a
necessity by the Ukrainians, and nothing should be done to resist this
condition!
In reality this commonplace, like so many others, is false. The
Ukrainians, as we have already observed, possess no such
characteristics, as opposed to the Russians, as a southern race
possesses with regard to a northern neighbor. To be sure, the Russian
state now dominates the Ukraine. But the present Russian state is,
after all, only a branch of the ancient Ukrainian Kingdom of Kiev. The
ancient Ukrainian Kingdom subjugated the present Russian territory,
organized it as a state, even partly colonized it, and gave it a ruling
dynasty. The ancient Ukrainian state tradition was usurped by the
Muscovite states, and gave them all the prestige which the Muscovite
possesses. It was only the Tatar invasion that entirely held up the
political development of the Ukraine, and, at the same time, favored
the development of the Muscovite Empire. Only the Tatar invasion
brought Moscow the supremacy over the Ukraine which Russia still
enjoys. It was a foreign conquest, which has nothing to do with
climatic influences. The very name of Russia only came into use in the
time of Peter the Great!
From this survey of climatic influences, it appears, unequivocally,
that the Ukrainians cannot be classed with the so-called southern
peoples. The Ukrainians have all the characteristics of the races of
the North Temperate Zone, who are the representatives of the European
culture of today. The growth of national consciousness and of culture
will, without a doubt, raise the Ukrainians to the standard of the
European family of cultured nations. The nature of the country has, by
means of its influences, given them all the necessary prerequisites.
The significance of the flora and fauna, for a lowland 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.
Even among the Ukrainians themselves, the opinion is very widespread
that they are a steppe-people. The enemies of the Ukraine have largely
represented them in the eyes of Europe as a semi-nomadic steppe-people,
devoid of all culture, which thru their growth and development might
threaten the cultural treasures of Europe. These views, tho based
partly upon the great part the steppe has played in the history of the
Ukraine, and partly upon the unquestionable fact that three-fourths of
the present Ukrainian territory lies within the steppe region of
Eastern Europe, are, nevertheless, incorrect. For, a glance at the
floral map of Europe is enough to show that the so-called old Ukraine,
that is, the original Ukrainian territory, lies almost completely
within the forest region. That means Galicia, Kholm, Western Podolia,
Western Volhynia, Kiev, Chernihiv, etc. From here the most ancient
Ukrainian colonization advanced to the Black Sea, only to lose all the
steppe districts again upon the sudden nomad attack. For centuries the
steppes of the present Ukraine were the stamping-ground of
Mongolian-Turkish nomad tribes. The Cossack organization at last
wrested great areas from them, and made these accessible to Ukrainian
colonization. And only the last colonial expansion of the Ukrainians
has been able to reach the Pontian shore again. The Ukrainians, then,
were originally a forest and wood-meadow people. They have become in
part a steppe people, but only thru their latest colonial expansion.
And, just as today we would not call the English or the North Americans
steppe peoples, merely because they colonized the American prairies and
now inhabit them, so we can no more call the Ukrainians a steppe
people, merely because they have colonized the Southern European
steppes.
Not the steppe, but the forest and the wood-meadow are the native
floral conditions of the Ukrainian. In the forest zone and in the
adjacent parts of the forest-meadow zone, the seed of the Kiev State
originated. In its expansion, this state first of all embraced the
forest regions of the Ukraine, while the steppe regions were conquered
later and kept under the dominion of the state for a comparatively
short time only. The second center of the old Ukrainian historic life
also lies within the forest zone of the Ukraine, namely, the
Galician-Volhynian. Even the center of Ukrainian historical life that
extended farthest into the steppe, the Zaporog Sich, was dependent for
its existence upon the great wooded areas of the Veliki Luh on the
Dnieper and its tributaries, and thus bound to the forest country.
The pronounced inclination of the Ukrainian people to agriculture, from
the most ancient times down to the present, is another proof that it is
a forest people, paradoxical tho it may seem. For it is an undisputed
fact that, altho the steppes have apparently been most favorable to the
cultivation of the grain grasses, and altho the present main centers of
the grain production of the world lie in the steppe country of the
prairies, pampas, Ukraine, yet nowhere in the whole world have the
steppes brought forth an agricultural people. No steppe-people,
anywhere, ever began agriculture of its own accord. The forest peoples
had to teach the steppe-races agriculture in the first place. Only in
case of bitter necessity do the inhabitants of the steppes take to the
plough, and never has agriculture become part of their system to them.
How great was the part of the Ukrainian forest region in the past life
of the nation has already been suggested in Book I. Only to the forests
does the Ukrainian nation owe its preservation during the Tatar
attacks. The forests were the only refuge of the people, to the forest
zone the inhabitants of the steppes retreated whenever the steppes were
threatened by the nomads, moving back again at a favorable opportunity.
The Ukrainian forests have also been of great importance as boundaries.
The function of the forest to form important boundaries for races on a
low grade of culture is familiar to anthropogeography. In Ukrainian
history, too, this characteristic of the forests has appeared
prominently. The forests of the Ukrainian Polissye were of great
importance for the fencing-off of the East Slavic tribes, and by
forming a wide zone, difficult of passage, separating the East Slavic
tribes of the south from those of the north and west, they have
contributed a great deal to the formation of the three East Slavic
nations of today. In the days of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev, the
centers in which the Muscovite nation later developed bore the name of
Salissye (land behind the forest). There was a Pereyaslav Saliski,
Vladimir Saliski, etc.
The significance of the forest as a boundary has also made itself felt
in the internal history of the Ukraine. For the grade of culture upon
which the Ukraine remained thruout the Middle Ages and in the early
centuries of the modern era, the forests constituted good boundaries.
The forest divided the population into small groups, which lived apart
in separate clearings, every group living its own life. The forest made
communication difficult and did not permit the organization of a
powerful central state. The forest character of the old Ukraine was the
natural chief cause of the formation of principalities in the ancient
Kingdom of Kiev, and advanced that fateful particularism. It is not by
mere accident that Kiev lies on the border of the forest zone of the
Ukraine. Together with other causes, the thinner forests were an aid to
the more rapid development of the Kiev principality, and made it the
natural starting point for the great expansion under the reigns of
Oleh, Sviatoslav, Volodimir.
From his original territory the Ukrainian took with him his great
preference for trees, a love of trees which causes the white huts of a
typical Ukrainian village to be bordered with the fresh green of
leaves. The green of the trees in which the Ukrainian huts disappear,
enables us immediately to differentiate a Ukrainian from a Russian
village, which seems to be afraid of trees.
Consequently, the steppe is not originally native to the Ukrainian. The
words of the Cossack song, “The steppes so wide, the joyous land” were
not composed until the latter days of the Cossack organization. For
centuries the steppe meant to the Ukrainian the terrible, mysterious,
“wild field,” from which at every moment the nomad hosts, like a swarm
of locusts, invaded the Ukraine. The struggles of the Kingdom of Kiev
with the nomads show an anthropogeographer very plainly the reason of
their final failure. The ancient Ukrainians, being forest dwellers,
simply could not successfully fight the riders on the natural steppe or
the artificial steppe of their own fields. The ancient Ukrainians did
not feel at home in the steppe. A long evolution was necessary before
the Ukrainians adapted themselves to the steppe, and the beginning of
this adaptation was the Ukrainian Cossack organization. Not until after
the formation and development of the Cossack organization could the
Ukrainian people successfully advance into the steppe zone and colonize
it. Yet the denser settlement of the steppes did not take place until
toward the end of the 18th Century. Some of these early Ukrainian
settlements have, to this day, not lost the character of new colonies.
But these steppe districts were colonized by so great a mass of
Ukrainian colonists, and they increased so rapidly in the fertile
country, that today more than half the Ukrainians live in the steppe
zone, and thereby favor the widespread commonplace that the Ukrainians
are a steppe people.
The wealth of its flora and fauna very soon enabled the Ukraine to
prosper. Very early it was called a land “where milk and honey flows.”
This natural wealth of the organic world possessed the greater worth
for the reason that it was not soon exhausted, and offered, as it still
offers, to the population, an opportunity for constant work, enduring
activity and steady development. The natural treasures of the Ukrainian
territory are not the treasures of tropical countries which favor
laziness, but the treasures of a more thrifty Nature, which require
constant work to properly exploit them.
Man has changed the natural conditions of the flora and fauna of the
Ukraine to a great extent. These changes are not as fundamental as in
Western and Central Europe, but they have a great anthropogeographical
significance. The forest zone of the Ukraine is thinned even beyond the
normal and in places destroyed. The artificial steppe of the cultivated
land has penetrated very far to the north and west. Certain plant
species have become rare, others have entirely disappeared, while, on
the other hand, new ones have been acclimated. The original wealth of
game of the Ukraine is a thing of the past now, and the great abundance
of fish is almost all gone. On the other hand, man has increased the
number of domestic animals enormously.
All these conditions give to the Ukraine characteristics of a
cultivated country. As we shall see further on, the degree of
exploitation of natural resources is still very low, much lower than in
the genuinely cultured countries of Europe.
Despite all this, the Ukraine must be considered a land exceptionally
endowed with riches by Nature. Up to the present day this has been a
misfortune, for from all sides strangers have come in to take with full
hands of the riches of the Ukraine.
But the time has come, at last, in which the possibility lies in the
hands of the Ukrainian people to make use in the future of the rich
resources of the Ukrainian land for themselves.
ECONOMIC-GEOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF UKRAINE
To give a lucid economic-geographical view of the Ukraine today is very
difficult—almost impossible. The Ukrainian territory is divided among
three states, and nowhere does the Ukrainian country form unbroken
administrative units. Consequently, the official statistics cannot give
an exact picture of the economic conditions of the Ukraine. The
following attempt, also, can lay no claim to accuracy. A very
heterogeneous and incomplete mass of material has made it impossible to
attain the desired accuracy and uniformity.
The Ukraine differs from the cultural countries of Central and Western
Europe first, in that its settlement is not yet complete, so to say.
Only the northwestern regions of the “Old Ukraine” possess a sufficient
density of population. The entire south and east are thinly, in places
even very thinly, peopled. And the complete exploitation of the natural
resources is still a far way off, even in the most thickly settled
parts of the Western Ukraine.
In our economic-geographical survey of the Ukraine, we shall begin with
the most primitive branches of the exploitation of natural resources
and proceed from them to those that are more advanced.
HUNTING AND FISHING
The most primitive way of exploiting the natural resources of a country
has always, and everywhere, been hunting and fishing. Both played a
great part in the economic life of the Ukraine a thousand years ago.
Our ancient chronicles contain many reports of the great abundance of
game and fish in the Ukrainian land, and of their great importance for
the population. Five centuries of Tatar warfare effectively interrupted
the exploitation of these natural treasures, and even in the 16th and
17th Century the Ukraine still aroused the amazement of travelers from
foreign lands, thru its great wealth of game and fish. In these
centuries, hunting and fishing were among the main branches of industry
of the Cossack border population of the Ukraine. As late as the second
half of the 18th Century, hunting and fishing were still two of the
main sources of industry of the Zaporog Sich. But soon agriculture
began to gain ground in the regions ruled by it, the density of the
population increased, and with it the fundamental strength of the
Zaporog organization. This circumstance seemed threatening to the
Russian government, and was the chief motive for the destruction of the
Sich.
Today hunting has almost no significance in the economic life of the
Ukraine. Altho in the year 1906, in Galicia, 500 stags, about 10,000
roes, over 2000 boars, about 90,000 rabbits, over 8000 pheasants,
50,000 partridges, 30,000 quail, 10,000 woodcocks, and 14,000 wild
ducks were killed, the figures for other countries at the same time
were much higher; in Bohemia which is more thickly populated there were
brought down more than 800,000 rabbits, 1,000,000 partridges, etc.
These figures show that in Galicia the natural wealth of game has
declined considerably, while the artificial conservation of game has
not yet begun. In the Austro-Hungarian part of the Ukraine, hunting has
become a mere diversion of the upper classes—a mere sport. The hunting
monopoly of the upper classes even bring to the country folk serious
disadvantages, for boars and stags cause great damage to agriculture,
especially in the Boiko and Hutzul country, and it is forbidden to keep
them off. This circumstance encourages poaching, which in many
districts is quite common. The extermination of beasts of prey, bears,
wolves, lynx and wildcats is as a rule, undertaken only in occasional
general chases, but the Ukrainian mountain-dwellers are very well able,
despite all game laws, to defend themselves and their herds effectively
from these wild animals. In 1906 more than 9000 foxes were brought down
in Galicia.
In the Russian Ukraine the economic importance of hunting is as slight
as in Austria-Hungary. Nowhere in this region do we find a developed,
profitable hunting industry. Even in the Polissye hunting is not very
important and is at most an avocation for a few forest settlers. Here
rabbits, roes, boars, elk, grouse, wild fowl and water-game are
sometimes hunted. Bison and beaver hunting is now very strictly
forbidden. Many foxes and badgers are killed and a relatively large
number of bears and wolves. Volhynia is much poorer in game, and still
poorer are Podolia, and the districts of Kiev, Poltava and Kharkiv. In
all the places, the most that one can get a shot at, aside from wild
fowl, is rabbits and foxes, and sometimes wolves. In the forests and
swamps of the Chernihov country there is a somewhat greater abundance
of game. Hunting is most important, relatively, in the southern part of
the Ukraine, on the Black Sea border and in the Caucasus lands. Besides
roes, rabbits, and foxes, there are hunted in the steppes: wolves,
sayga-antelopes and wild dogs; and in the Caucasus: bison, stags,
bears, and lynx. The number of steppe and waterfowl, e.g., bustards,
partridge, quail, wild geese and wild ducks, and of mountain fowl, as
pheasants, mountain-quail, and grouse, is still considerable.
Collecting the eggs of waterfowl is still a remunerative occupation. On
the shores of the Caspian Sea 130,000 Caspian seals are killed every
year.
Of much greater importance than hunting is the fishing industry. It is
only a weak reminiscence of what it once was, yet it remains to this
day an important economic element. The Ukrainian fishing industry is
carried on in three regions: on the high sea, in the river-mouths, and
in the interior of the land, in rivers, lakes and ponds.
The actual sea-fishing industry attains relatively slight results, on
the average 24½ million kilograms a year. On the Black Sea, along the
shores of Bessarabia, Kherson and Tauria, a great amount of mackerel,
sardines, herrings and sturgeon-like fish are caught. The main
fisheries of the northern Pontian shore are situated at the Kinburn
bar, at the island of Tendva, in the Bay of Karkinit, at Cape
Tarkhankut, at Eupatoria, Balaklava, Yalta, Sudak, and Theodosia.
Fishing on the high seas, because of its great cost, is undertaken only
by the large enterprising companies, who hire the Ukrainian fishing
companies (artili) for the entire summer. Of late, fishing on a small
scale has begun to develop. The small fishermen catch chiefly mackerel,
which are then salted, or, less often, smoked. They also go after the
small but savory Black Sea oysters, of which an average number of one
million a year are gathered.
Far greater profit is yielded by the fisheries at the mouths of the
rivers, in the limans, and particularly on the largest liman of all,
the Sea of Azof. The annual yield here attains an average of 140
million kilograms. At the mouths of the Danube the chief fishing center
is Vilkiv. Toward the end of the 19th century there lived at this place
900 independent fisherman, who sometimes united to form artils. Here
they catch chiefly sturgeon and other fish of the sturgeon class (on
the average 30,000 a year), and four and a half million of Pontian
herrings. At the mouths of the Dniester, Boh and Dnieper, chiefly river
fish are caught. Herrings and sturgeon-like fish are of minor
consequence here. The fishermen in this region are always organized
either in artils, in which the profits are shared equally among the
members, or in so-called takhvi, which are hired by the entrepreneurs.
The chief center of the fishing trade and of the putting up of canned
fish, is Odessa. Yet the Bay of Odessa cannot compare with the Sea of
Azof in fish production. The average value of the annual haul here
exceeded a million rubles in the latter years of the 19th Century. Over
11 million kilograms of sturgeon-like fish and other large fish,
besides 7 million herrings, were caught here annually. In some winters
more than 70,000 fishermen, with 20,000 to 30,000 horses and oxen,
gather on the frozen Sea of Azof. With gigantic nets, which are
sometimes nearly two kilometers long, a very profitable fishing
industry is carried on here. Important fishing centers, with great
freezing plants and works for salting and smoking, are situated in Osiv
(Azof) and Kerch. The members of the fisher artils come principally
from the Poltava and Kharkiv country.
The Ukrainians may also claim a rather prominent part in the fishing
industry of the Caspian Sea, which yields more than half a billion
kilograms of fish annually. The Ukrainian Caspian fishermen come from
Ukrainian colonies on the Volga, and from the eastern parts of the
Ukraine proper.
The interior fishing industry on the rivers, lakes and ponds now has
only slight significance. On the Dniester and Dnieper on the Pripet,
Desna, Sula and Orel, and on the Donetz there still exist here and
there fisher-artils, but the fish are caught only for local use. In the
Polissye region the fishing industry still yields some profit, e.g., in
the District of Mosir about 40,000 rubles a year, in the District of
Pinsk only 3500 rubles. Lake Knias yields 10,000 rubles worth of fish
annually. All of Galicia yields about 1,500,000 kilograms a year, of
which two-thirds are contributed by the Ukrainian part of the country.
In examining the fishing industry of the Ukraine one cannot escape
reminiscences that are painful. Everywhere a ruthless system of pillage
and waste is carried on. The excessively fine meshes of the nets catch
the young broods of fish with the old, and these are either sold for a
few kopeks a pound or simply thrown away. The fish which come up the
rivers to spawn are ruthlessly intercepted. A closed season or region
barely exists, except on paper. We need not wonder, therefore, that the
abundance of fish in the Ukraine is rapidly decreasing, and fishing is
losing its importance more and more. Not a soul thinks of a rational
method of breeding fish, of increasing the stock of fish in the
streams. In Galicia a start has been made, but thus far the results are
very slight. And yet the Ukraine, being an almost exclusively
agricultural country, where there is no factory sewage to poison the
rivers, could very easily recover its fame as a land abounding in fish.
The related industry of crab-fishing is not developed in the Ukraine,
altho the Jewish dealers of Eastern Galicia send whole wagon-loads of
crabs from Galician and Russian Podolia to the west. The old Zaporog
regions have been famous since ancient times for their abundance of
crabs. In Oleshki there also exists a drying-plant for crabs’ tails.
From this short survey of the hunting and fishing industry of the
Ukraine, we perceive that these branches of industry play only a small
part in the economic life of the Ukrainian population. A further proof
of this fact is the small percentage of the population which engages in
this work. This percentage amounts to 0.2% in the Russian-Ukraine; in
the Austrian Ukraine it must be much smaller still.
FORESTRY
How extensive the wooded area of the Ukraine is cannot be determined
exactly without detailed investigation, for the same reason that
statistical figures concerning the Ukraine in other fields are
difficult to determine. An approximate calculation of the forest
surface gives us an area of over 110,000 square kilometers, that is 13%
of the entire surface of the country. These figures show us that the
Ukraine is one of the more sparsely-wooded countries of Europe. Of all
the larger territories of our continent, only England, with its 4%, is
poorer in forests. There remain only smaller territories, as Portugal
(2.8%), the Netherlands (8%), Denmark (8.3%), Greece (9.3%). So old a
land of culture as France still possesses 15.8% forest surface, Germany
25.9%, Hungary 27.4%, Austria 32.7%, Russia 38.8%. Among the large
territories, the United States stand nearest to the Ukraine as far as
their forest area (10.3%) is concerned.
The causes of the comparative lack of forests in the Ukraine are to be
sought, first of all, in the fact that it includes large parts of the
steppe region of Eastern Europe. The percentage of forest land in the
various regions of the Ukraine show us this most clearly. The mountain
regions still retain the highest proportion of forest. The Bukowina has
42% of forest (District of Kimpolung 78%), the Ukrainian region of
Northeastern Hungary about 40% (Marmarosh 62%). Then come the Ukrainian
regions of the forest zone: Polissye, from Minsk down 38.2%, Volhynia
29.6%, Galicia 25.4%, Grodno 25.5, Podlakhia, starting from Lublin,
25.1%, from Sidletz 19.8%. In the same class, as far as forest area is
concerned, the Kuban region seems to stand. Besides the heavily wooded
mountain region, this division includes the luhi in the foothill
country and the treeless steppes; hence the percentage comes out very
small—19.8%. The transition between the forest and the steppe zone is
indicated by the following series: Kiev 18%, Chernihiv 15%, Podolia
10.9%, Kharkiv 8.5% of forest area. The steppe regions of the Ukraine
have very little forest land: Kursk 7.1%, Voroniz 6.8%, Bessarabia
5.8%, Tauria (Yaila forests) 5.7%, Poltava 4.7%, Katerinoslav 2.4%, the
Don region the same, Kherson 1.4%, Stavropol 0.3%.
In this distribution of forest we see a certain analogy between the
Ukraine and the United States. Here the steppes are treeless, there it
is the prairies. Here the forest predominates in the Carpathians, there
in the Appalachians; here, just as there, we have zones of transition
from forest regions to the steppes. But there is another point of
similarity between the Ukraine and the United States—the ruthless
exploitation and waste in forestry. This criminal waste is the second
main cause for the lack of forests of the Ukraine. It began in the 16th
Century and it still continues today. Historical sources mention great
forest formations, even in those regions of the Ukraine which are now
poor in forests. The “Great Forest” (veliki luh) in the Zaporog land,
the “Black Forest” at the sources of the Inhul, the large forests of
the Poltava and Kharkiv region, the Derevlan jungles, the gigantic
forests on the Buh and Vislok, in the Rostoche, all have either
entirely disappeared from the earth’s surface or have changed into
miserable remnants, which, at any moment, may fall a final victim to
human greed. A host of geographical names, in regions which are almost
entirely treeless today, point to former forests. Thick, primitive oak
trunks are found in the beds of rivers which flow only thru the
treeless steppe-region. In five decades, in the second half of the 19th
Century, the forest area of the Government of Kharkiv decreased from
10.9% to 8.5%, in Poltava from 13% to 4.7%, Chernihiv from 17.1% to
15%. Detailed investigations of the ground have proved that the forest
area of the District of Poltava was originally 34% (now 7%), of the
District of Romny 28% (now 9%) and of the District of Lubni 30% (now
4%). Similar conditions of forest devastation prevail everywhere in the
Ukraine. Thus, the forest area of Galicia, for example, has decreased
by 2000 square kilometers, i.e., almost 3% of the total surface area of
the country, in the course of the last century.
We have already frequently called attention to the sad results of this
criminal waste for the entire land. But, because of the low grade of
culture of the nations dominating the Ukraine, the Polish nation and
the Russian, no attention is paid to the fatal results of forest
destruction. The forests are recklessly cut down for lumber, and year
by year the scarcity of wood is being felt in most regions of the
Ukraine. Only in Podlakhia, Volhynia, Polissye, and in the mountain
regions of the Ukraine, is there no scarcity of wood. The three cubic
meters of wood which, on the average, are due every inhabitant of the
Ukraine, are not easily accessible to more than one-fifth of the
Ukrainians. At the same time, the forests of the Ukraine are, as a
rule, badly managed. Even in the Austro-Hungarian parts of the Ukraine
there are very few professional foresters; in Galicia for example, 250
to 800. Conditions are still worse in the Russian-Ukraine.
Consequently, the forest does not grow up again very well, and a great
deal of wood is simply ruined. This happens chiefly in the mountain
forests of the Carpathians, where hundreds of thousands of cubic meters
of wood decay every year. In the regions which are poor in forests, the
products of the woods are carefully and economically used, so that, for
instance, from one hectare of forest in the Poltava region, 11.5 cubic
meters of wood are produced every year; in the region of Katerinoslav,
7 cubic meters. Of the production of the Ukrainian forest, building
wood constitutes only a comparatively small part. There is a crushing
preponderance of firewood, especially in the regions which are poor in
forests. Building wood, in large quantities, comes from the forests of
the Polissye and of the Carpathians only. The export of building wood
from Galicia and the Bukowina reached a million and a half cubic meters
annually at the end of the century. The export of wood from the
Polissye, starting from Minsk, exceeded 900,000 cubic meters. The
complete production of Galicia in the year 1900 was 3,660,000 cubic
meters of building wood and an equal quantity of firewood.
The reclaiming of forests, even in the Austrian Ukraine, where it is
required by law, is not properly administered. It is still worse in the
Russian Ukraine. Hence, the forest surface of the Ukraine is constantly
decreasing instead of remaining unchanged or even increasing, as
usually happens in the cultured lands of Europe. And yet, the Ukraine
is one of those countries in which the forest problem is a life
problem.
The Ukrainian people engage in the Ukrainian lumber industry only as
labor-power, while the money profit goes to strangers—great landowners
or middlemen. The forest-area which is in the possession of Ukrainian
peasants is very small, even in Galicia, where at the time of the
removal of the labor tax system, at least small patches of forest came
into the possession of the peasant communities. Almost all the forests
of the Ukraine belong to the large landowners, the clergy and the
national lands.
The lumber industry and the industrial exploitation of the forest
products engages but a slight part of the Ukrainian people. In the
Russian Ukraine the percentage of such workers is barely 0.1%. In this
percentage, however, the entire mass of Ukrainian peasants which seeks
its incidental profit in forest work, is not considered. In the
Carpathian regions of the Ukraine this percentage increases a
hundredfold and more.
AGRICULTURE
Since the very first beginnings of the history of the Ukraine, the main
occupation of its people has been, and has remained to this day,
agriculture. To give a complete picture of Ukrainian agriculture is
beyond the scope of our little book. Even a detailed economic study
could not do justice to this task. Hence, we shall have to limit
ourselves to its most important phases.
Almost nine-tenths of the Ukrainian people are engaged in agriculture.
In the Russian Ukraine, the agricultural percentage of the population,
according to official estimate, is 86.4%. This figure is probably
correct for the Austrian-Ukraine as well, altho the biased calculations
of Buzek place the percentage of farmers among the Ukrainians of
Galicia at 94.4%. These figures show us very clearly the significance
of agriculture in the economic life of the Ukraine. Now, a person
seeing these figures and knowing the fertility of the Ukraine might
easily imagine that agriculture here stands upon a high plane. Such a
view, however, would be entirely false. Agriculture is on a very very
low plane in the Ukraine.
Yet the causes of this sad state of affairs do not lie in the nature of
the land. The climate of the Ukraine favors the cultivation of grains
as no other does. Barely one small part of the steppe-zone is
unfavorable to agriculture, because of its frequent periods of drought.
The soil of the Ukraine is one of the most fertile on the whole globe.
More than three-fourths of the Ukraine lies in the Black Earth Region,
and many varieties of soil in the northwestern part of the Ukraine are
by no means without value and at least equal to the best soils of
Germany. Not in Nature, but in the cultural conditions, lie the causes
of the low grade of Ukrainian agriculture.
The first and main cause is the lack of enlightenment among the people
of the Ukraine. The Ukraine peasant cultivates his field entirely after
the manner of his forefathers, which may have proved excellent a
hundred years ago, and actually did make the Ukrainian peasant appear
as the best farmer among his neighbors of other races, but they fail
completely in these days of intensive cultivation of the soil. The
illiteracy of the Ukrainian peasant renders almost inaccessible to him
all the great progress of agricultural science. The old methods of
cultivation, the primitive agricultural implements, waste his energy
and his stock of living resources. The use of agricultural machines,
which may be of great significance even in intensive farming on a small
scale, is almost unknown to the Ukrainian peasant. The progressive
amelioration of the soil and the national rotation of crops is not at
all of wide application. And all efforts at enlightening the Ukrainian
peasantry are hindered as much as possible by the governments
dominating them, by their Polish and their Russian masters.
The highest level, relatively, in agriculture, is attained by the
western borderlands of the Ukraine, Podlakhia, the Khohos country, and
Galicia. The poorer quality of the soil has always required more
intensive cultivation here. Besides, the influences of advanced methods
of cultivation sifted thru more easily here, whether indirectly thru
the Polish territory, or directly thru the influence of the German
colonies. The greater enlightenment of the Ukrainian peasants of
Galicia has brought it about that they now regularly apply rational
rotation of crops and fertilization of the soil, even with artificial
fertilizers, and possess pretty good agricultural implements. The
three-field system has disappeared almost everywhere in this region,
and continues in use only in the most fertile parts of Podolia. In the
mountains, on the other hand, making land arable by means of fires
followed immediately by planting, is still a procedure frequently met
with. In the Polissye region burning is still frequently applied, but
the two-field and three-field systems are used more frequently. On the
same principle, agriculture is carried on in the northern parts of
Volhynia, Kiev and Chernihiv. In the southern parts of these districts,
as well as in Podolia, Poltava and Kharkiv, the three-field system
predominates. Manuring is usually confined to small plots directly
adjoining the farmhouse. Here, too, however, an advance to rational
rotation of crops and to the multi-field system is undeniable. In the
steppe zone the method of cultivation becomes more careless and the
so-called fallow-system prevails. The steppe soil is cultivated for a
number of years and then left lying fallow for some time. In very
recent years, however, even the steppe-peasant has had to face the hard
necessity of going on to the intensive methods of cultivation.
The agricultural implements of the Ukrainian peasants have undergone a
great change. The primitive wooden plough, without metal mounting, has
been retained only in places, in the Polissye region and the Carpathian
country, more as a relic of the fathers than as an agricultural
implement. In the entire central zone of the Ukraine, the typical
Ukrainian plough, made of wood, with strong iron fittings, is used.
Iron ploughs are rapidly coming into use. In the southern steppe zone
of the Ukraine, the peasant has by far the best implements. Iron
ploughs of different kinds are used here, in imitation of the German
colonists, while sowing, harvesting, and also threshing machines are
found as the property of large farmers or of agricultural co-operative
associations.
It is possible, then, to note a certain progress in Ukrainian
agriculture. The Russian and White Russian peasant is much more badly
off, but the Ukrainian peasant, too, has a long way to go in order to
reach the level of even the Ukrainian large landowners. Various
agricultural co-operative associations are working to raise the
standard of agriculture among the Ukrainian peasantry. One of these
co-operative associations has 90 branches, 1100 local groups, and
27,000 members—the Eastern Galician “Silsky Hospodar.” Such
associations would, if not hindered in their development (especially by
the Russian Government), become of great importance in raising the
level of the agricultural industry of the Ukraine, that ancient granary
of Europe.
The second cause of the sad condition of Ukrainian agriculture lies in
their unsound property conditions. The foreign conquerors, who were
continually attracted by the fertility of the Ukrainian land, after
taking possession of the land, divided it among their upper classes.
The foreign conquerors have succeeded in denationalizing the Ukrainian
nobility, have succeeded even in developing the republican Cossack
organization into a new class of landowners and, very largely in
russifying them. Foreign rule in the Ukraine has always supported
foreign ownership of land on a large scale, and the Ukrainian peasant
must be satisfied with small, mediocre and widely scattered bits of
land.
Now for a few corroborative figures. In the Ukrainian part of Galicia
the large estates embrace 40.3% of the total area. In the Governments
of Chernihiv, Poltava and Kharkiv, the proportion of peasant-owned land
is still rather large (53%, 52%, 59%), because here the property of
descendants of the old-time Cossacks is included. Far worse are the
conditions in other parts of the Ukraine. In Volhynia the peasant-owned
land constitutes only 40% of the area, in Podolia 48%, in Kiev 46%, in
Kherson 37%, in Katerinoslav 45%, in Tauria 37%, while in the Polissian
Government of Minsk the peasants retain only 28% of the land.
The results of such unsound property conditions are fatal to the
ever-increasing density of the peasant population. Land-famine has
become chronic all thru the Ukraine. The parcelling out of the large
estates which began with such fine results in Galicia a few years ago
has now come to a halt, and the Stolypin radical agrarian reform in the
Russian Ukraine has thus far only slight results to show. To be sure,
the amount of property of the medium landowners is decreasing, but the
giant estates are not only not losing ground, but even show a steady,
tho gradual, growth.
As a result of the ever increasing scarcity of land, the Ukrainian
peasants are splitting up their property more and more, trying to rent
as much land as possible from the large landowners, and seeking
subsidiary occupations in domestic work; but a large percentage find it
necessary to leave their fatherland and to seek homes in Caucasia,
Turkestan, Siberia, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. And this sad fact
need not amaze us. For, while the foreign colonists who settled in
Southern Ukraine upon the invitation of Catherine II were given 65
hectares of land per head, the Ukrainian peasant, after the abolition
of serfdom, in 1861, was given a maximum of 3½ hectares, and in many
cases only 1½ hectares per head. In half a century the rural population
has doubled, while the area of cultivation has not increased
perceptibly at all. Thus, there existed in the Government of Poltava,
as early as twenty years ago, more than 60% of peasant-farms with an
area of cultivation of only 1.3 desiatins, while another four percent
of estates occupied more than 5 desiatins. How can one speak of
progressive farming under such property conditions? Those 60% of
peasant farms resemble very closely the sort of plots occupied by
cottagers or squatters. And the consequence: 62% of the emigrants who
emigrated to Russian Asia in 1910 came from the Ukrainian governments,
that “granary” of Russia. And not only from the thickly populated
districts of Kiev or Poltava, but also from the comparatively thinly
populated, very fertile districts of the Ukraine—from Kherson,
Katerinoslav and Tauria.
The third reason for the sad condition of Ukrainian agriculture, is the
community ownership of land established in the Eastern Ukraine. The
basis of their system, which is in vogue everywhere in Great-Russia, is
that the land is not owned by the individual peasant, but by the entire
community, which apportions it among its individual members. This
Muscovite property system is unbearable to the Ukrainian peasant and
causes him to neglect his land, since it does not really belong to him.
It does not pay him at all to cultivate the ground better than his
neighbor, since, in the new apportionment, the carefully improved patch
may fall to someone else.
If, therefore, despite all these unfavorable conditions, the
agricultural production of the Ukraine and its exports of food stuffs
are very great, this fact is due, above all, to the great fertility of
the Ukrainian soil and the economic policy of the large landowners,
who, in spite of the frequent danger of famine in their own country,
continue to export the products of their great estates beyond the
borders of the land.
After these general observations, we proceed to a short survey of
agriculture in the Ukraine. None of the European countries (with the
exception of Russia) possesses as great an area under cultivation as
the Ukraine. It amounts to more than 45 million hectares, that is, more
than 32% of the area of cultivation of European Russia, which is six
times as large as the Ukraine. The proportion of the area of
cultivation in the Ukraine is nearly 53% of the total area of the
country. In this respect the Ukraine is surpassed only by France (56%).
In Germany, the proportion is only 48.6%, in Austria 36.8%, in Hungary
43.1%, in Russia 26.2%. To be sure, the proportion of the cultivated
area is very different in different districts of the Ukraine. The most
agricultural land is found in the steppe and transition regions:
Kherson 78%, Poltava 75%, Kursk 74%, Kharkiv 71%, Voroniz and
Katerinoslav 69% each, Podolia and Tauria 64% each, Bessarabia 61%,
Kiev 57%, Chernihiv 55%. The forest regions possess much less farm
land: Galicia 48%, Grodno 40%, Volhynia 37%, Minsk 24%, etc. Besides
this, the farm land within each of the above mentioned regions is
diversely distributed. In Galicia, for example, the area of cultivation
is apportioned as follows: In Eastern Podolia 75–80%, in Western
Podolia 60–75%, in Pidhirye only 20–30%, in the Hutzul country only
10%, of the total area. Similar conditions prevail in the Bukowina, in
Upper Hungary, Caucasia. In the level regions of the Ukraine these
local differences are slighter.
To calculate the general agricultural production of the Ukraine is
difficult, if not impossible. By combining various reports, we get, for
the yearly average in the beginning of the 20th Century, a grand total
of 150 million metric hundred weights. (This number, however, includes
only the wheat, rye, and barley production.) In this respect, the
Ukraine surpasses all the countries of Europe except Russia. Its
production is greater than that of Austria, Hungary or of France, to
say nothing of other European States.
Following are several figures about the harvest yield of the Central
regions of the Ukraine in 1910. Volhynia produced 73.4 million puds (1
pud = 16.4 kilograms), Kiev 113.4, Podolia 115.9, Kherson 188.6,
Chernihiv 40, Poltava 113.6, Kharkiv 95.9, Katerinoslav 194.9, Tauria
138.3, Kuban 214.4 million puds. The total yield of the central regions
of the Ukraine (without the borderlands, which also produce a great
deal, as for example, parts of Kursk, Voroniz, the Don region, etc.)
totalled 215 million metric hundred weights, and was, consequently, six
times as great as the harvest yield of Russian Poland, and comprised
39% of the total production of European Russia and over 33% that of the
entire Russian Empire. If we consider now that the Russian Ukraine
comprises only a twenty-ninth part of the gigantic Russian Empire and
barely one-fourth of its population, we recognize the great importance
attached to the Ukraine as the granary of Russia.
Among the species of grain grown in the Ukraine, wheat is without doubt
of the first importance. In the Southern Ukraine wheat takes up half
the area of cultivation, decreasing rapidly toward the north and west.
In the Government of Kherson the wheat fields cover 51% of the
cultivated surface, in Katerinoslav 50%, in Tauria and in the Don
region 49%, in Bessarabia 36%, in Podolia 30%, in Kharkiv 29%, in
Poltava and in Kiev 22%, in Galicia 14%, in Volhynia 11%, in Grodno 4%,
in Minsk 3%, in Chernihiv only 1%. In Kiev, Podolia, Volhynia, Galicia,
more winter wheat is raised; in the Southern Ukraine, more summer
wheat. The mean annual yield per hectare is 10½ hl. for winter wheat
and 7½ hl. for summer wheat. The mean annual yield of wheat in the
first decade of the 20th Century in Russian Ukraine was 68 million
metric quintals, that is, over 46% of the production of European
Russia. (In Eastern Galicia it was 1.9 million q.). The chief centers
of wheat production in the Ukraine are Kuban (17 million q.),
Katerinoslav (12.4 million q.), Kherson (12.4 million q.), Tauria (9
million q.), Poltava (6.3 million q.), Podolia (5.8 million q.),
Kharkiv (4.9 million q.), Kiev (4.2 million q.), Stavropol (3.3 million
q.), and Volhynia (2.7 million q.). Wheat is one of the chief exports
of the Ukraine.
Rye is cultivated chiefly in the northern and western districts of the
Ukraine, where it is the chief grain used for breadmaking. In
Chernihiv, Minsk and Grodno, rye takes up 48% of the farm land, in
Volhynia 38%, in Poltava 3%, in Kharkiv 29%, in Kiev 28%, in the Don
region 22%, in Katerinoslav and Podolia 19%, in Tauria 18%, in Kherson
and Galicia 17%, in Bessarabia only 7%. Rye (almost everywhere winter
rye) yields on the average 10½ hl. per hectare. The chief districts of
production are Poltava (55 million q.), Volhynia (4.9 million q.), Kiev
(4.8 million q.). The total rye output of the Ukraine is as high as 42
million q., that is, over 20% of the Russian output.
Barley is raised mostly in the Southern Ukraine, where it takes up 28%
of the farm land in Tauria, 26% in Katerinoslav, 21% in Kharkiv and
Kherson, 18% in Bessarabia, 17% in the Don regions. The chief districts
of production are Katerinoslav (9.2 million q.), Kherson (7.9 million
q.), and Kuban (6.9 million q.) Barley is also an important export of
the Southern Ukraine. In other regions of the Ukraine less barley is
raised, e.g., in Poltava 13%, in Polissye and in Galicia 9%. The barley
production of the Russian Ukraine amounts to 49 million q., therefore
61% of the Russian production of barley.
The importance of the remaining grains is, of course, comparatively
slight. Oats take up on the average 16% of the farm land in the Ukraine
(21% in the Polissye region, 17% in Galicia, 16% in Chernihiv, 11% in
Kharkiv and Poltava, 5% in Southern Ukraine). The total production is
28 million q. Kiev, Volhynia and Poltava take first rank. As a bread
cereal, oats are of some importance only among the Carpathian people of
the Ukraine. The Eastern Galician oats production amounts to 4.5
million q. Spelt is raised very seldom and then only along the western
borders of the Ukraine. Buckwheat is of the greatest importance in the
Chernihiv country (about 27% of the farm area and a yield of 0.8
million q. a year), and Kiev, Volhynia, and Poltava each produce almost
as much. In other regions of the Ukraine, buckwheat is raised much less
frequently (7% in Polissye, 2% in Galicia), in the southern part of the
Ukraine almost none at all. Millet is raised chiefly in the Government
of Kiev (10% of the farm-land, 2.3 million q. annual production) and
Voroniz (9%). In Kharkiv and Poltava the amount of land used for millet
is only 4%, in Galicia 1%. In Kherson the cultivation of the
Chugara-millet has been begun. The chief region of Indian corn
cultivation is Bessarabia, where this crop takes up 32% of the area of
cultivation. Indian corn is also grown in the adjacent regions of
Podolia (7%), Kherson (3%), Galicia (3%), and the Bukowina, playing an
important part in feeding the population in these regions. The chief
regions of corn production are Podolia (1.8 million q.), the Ukrainian
part of Bessarabia and Kherson (each 1.1 million q.) and Southeastern
Galicia (0.9 million q.).
Besides grains and cereals, some other species of plants are of great
importance in the agricultural production of the Ukraine. The first of
these is the potato. The fact that the yield of the potato is six or
eight times that of the other plants makes it a very important staple.
Yet this advantage of the potato is but little exploited in the
Ukraine. Only in Galicia does the potato take up 14% of the farm-land
(annual production in Eastern Galicia 38.7 million q.). Even in the
Polissye region and in Chernihiv, only 6% of the farm-land consists of
potato-fields, in Poltava and Kharkiv only 3%, in the Southern Ukraine
barely 1%. The total production of potatoes in the Russian Ukraine is
63.2 million q. annually, therefore 22% of the production of European
Russia. The large landowners use the potato for distilling alcohol
(especially in Galicia), or for cattle-feed.
Various species of beans and lentils are raised everywhere in the
Ukraine, but on a small scale, chiefly in kitchen-gardens. In Galicia
these vegetables take up 3% of the farm-land, in Polissye and Chernihiv
2% each, in the other districts of the Ukraine still less. The culture
of forage (clover, lucerne, fodder-turnip) is still in its infancy in
the Ukraine. Only in Galicia do such plants take up more than 10% of
the farm-land.
The cultivation of commercial plants stands upon a comparatively low
level. Most extensive is the cultivation of hemp and flax; but it takes
up only a tiny part of the general area of cultivation of the land.
Flax is cultivated chiefly in the Polissye region and in Katerinoslav
(3% of the farm-land). In Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, it takes up 1 to
2% of the farm-land, in Galicia 1% (together with hemp). In the
Southern Ukraine a short-stemmed variety of flax, raised only for
obtaining oil, is cultivated widely. Hemp takes up on the average 1% of
the farm-land, only in Chernihiv as much as 4%. All the hemp products
are used in home industry, white the flax products are mostly exported.
Another plant grown for the sake of oil thruout the Ukraine, but
especially in the eastern borderlands of the country, is the sunflower.
Rapeseed is grown only by the large landowners, chiefly in Kherson,
Kiev, Poltava, and Podolia. Poppy is cultivated everywhere in the
Ukraine even by the peasants. Among the industrial plants of the
Ukraine the sugar-beet plays a very important part. In the year 1897
Russia had 410,000 hectares of beet-fields, 330,000 hectares of this
area being in the Ukraine. The total Russian production of sugar-beets
was 60 million metric hundredweights, of which 50 millions, that is,
five-sixths, came from the Ukraine. The most important centers of
sugar-beet production lie in the Governments of Kiev, Kharkiv and
Podolia, much less being produced in Volhynia, Chernihiv and Kursk. In
the Austrian Ukraine sugar-beet culture is developed only in
Southeastern Galicia and Northern Bukowina. Not only the large
landowners, but also frequently the peasants, engage in sugar-beet
culture with great profit.
Another important commercial plant of the Ukraine is tobacco, which
takes up over 50,000 hectares of farm-land, 3000 hectares of it in
Galicia. The chief districts of tobacco production are Chernihiv,
Poltava, Kuban and Tauria. Much less is produced in the Black Sea
region in Podolia, Volhynia, Bessarabia, Kherson and Kharkiv. The
tobacco production in Russian Ukraine in 1908 amounted to over 660,000
q., that is, 69% of the total production of Russia, in Galicia 50,000
q. Tobacco culture has a great future in the Ukraine, because the
ground and the climate are wonderfully fit for it. But first the
unfavorable conditions, which lie chiefly in the poor organization of
the tobacco trade, must be removed.
Hops are raised in the Ukraine to a very slight extent. In Galicia only
the large landowners engage in a little hop culture on 2300 hectares of
ground. In Volhynia the Chekhic colonists have introduced the
cultivation of hops. It comprises about 3000 hectares of land and
yields over 16,000 q. of hops a year, that is 40% of the total Russian
output of hops.
FRUIT AND VEGETABLE RAISING
Vegetable-culture is very slightly developed in the Ukraine. Beyond the
little vegetable gardens about the houses and the melon-patches in the
steppe we see no developed vegetable culture even in the neighborhood
of large cities. It is worthy of mention only in the Chernihiv and
Odessa regions, as well as in the old Zaporog country on the Dnieper
(Oleshki, etc.). Here vegetables are harvested twice a year, in the
early summer for exportation and in the fall for home use. The South
Ukrainian melon plantations (bashtani) annually yield great masses of
sweet melons, watermelons, pumpkins and cucumbers. Here there has even
arisen a special class of bashtanki, who rent pieces of land for melon
patches.
Fruit-culture is much more highly developed in the Ukraine. The love of
the Ukrainian people for trees favors the planting of orchards. The
ignorance of progressive fruit-culture, owing to illiteracy, as well as
the exploitation of the fruit growers by middlemen is hindering the
development of Ukrainian fruit-culture, which, nevertheless, has a
great future before it, and even now plays an important part in the
economic life of the Ukraine.
The greatest amount of space is taken up by orchards in Bessarabia
(40,000 hectares), where the more delicate kinds of apples, pears,
plums and walnuts, almonds and apricots are raised. In Podolia the
orchards of the peasants alone comprise more than 26,000 hectares.
Besides apples, pears and plums, great quantities of cherries are
raised here. The orchards usually lie in the deep river-valleys. The
yar of the Dniester, between Khotin and Yampol, produces annually half
a million metric hundredweights of fruit. From Podolia and Bessarabia
over 800,000 q. of fresh fruit, 100,000 q. of dried fruit and 20,000 q.
of nuts and almonds are exported annually. The most luxuriantly growing
orchards are those of Tauria, which cover over 7000 hectares on the
northern declivities of the Yaila Mountains. The annual production
exceeds 160,000 q. of fruit and 40,000 q. of nuts. In this region the
tenderest species of apples, pears and plums flourish, besides apricots
(4,000 q. a year) and peaches. About the middle of May the cherries
ripen here. In the middle of June the apricots; at the end of June
plums and early pears; about the middle of July peaches and early
apples; in August we have autumn pears and apples, and in the first
half of September, the winter apples.
Beyond these districts, fruit-culture is practised on a large scale in
the Kiev region and in Volhynia. Here, above all, the hardier northern
species of apples and pears are raised, as well as cherries. In Kherson
and Katerinoslav, too, fruit-raising flourishes; especially in the
Dnieper valley, where apricots also thrive. In the Poltava country
fruit-culture is still important enough, while in the districts of
Kharkiv, Voroniz, Kursk and Chernihiv it is much less significant,
altho we find, even here, a few centers of intensive fruit-growing; for
instance, in the vicinity of the cities of Kharkiv, Okhtirka,
Bohodukhiv. In Galicia fruit-growing is not especially developed,
except in Pokutia, the vicinity of Kossiv, and the Podolian
yari-valleys, where (near Zalishchiki) even apricots and grapes are
grown.
There is a certain connection between fruit-growing and viniculture.
The northern boundary of the grape in the Ukraine, coincides
approximately with the May isotherm of +16° and reaches the 49th
parallel. This boundary line may be drawn from Zalishchiki, past
Kamianez and Katerinoslav, to Astrakhan. In places, however, the
northern boundary of the vineyards extends beyond the 50th parallel;
for example, near Bilhorod, in the Government of Kursk. Thus, the
entire southern part of the Ukraine may be considered a favorable
vine-growing region. But vine-culture has not developed in the entire
great expanse of the Southern Ukraine; it is confined to only a few
centers. In Galicia the vine is cultivated only in Zalishchiki, in
Russian-Podolia only in a few river-valleys. Somewhat greater is the
wine-production of the old Zaporog district, where both inclines of the
Dnieper valley are planted with grape-vines. In the Kherson region the
vineyards cover about 7000 hectares. The most important wine-producing
district of the Ukraine is Bessarabia, where the vineyards take up
75,000 hectares, that is, a third of the entire Russian wine-country,
and yield over 2½ million metric hundredweights of grapes annually.
From this amount usually 870,000 hl. of wine are obtained, which,
despite its fine quality, is so cheap, as a result of the poor
organization of the wine trade, that the barrel often costs more than
its contents. Vine-growing is but slightly developed in the Don region,
where 33,000 q. of grapes are obtained every year, and the familiar
sparkling wines are manufactured. In the Government of Stavropol we
find large vineyards only in the Kuma and Terek valley. In Ciscaucasia,
the vineyards cover about 19,000 hectares, and nearly 200,000 hl. of
wine (of very good quality) are obtained annually. Grapes flourish very
luxuriantly in the Black Sea region and in Tauria. Many vineyards are
found in Melitopol and Berdiansk, but the most successfully flourishing
vines are those of Crimea, where tender French and Spanish varieties
are also cultivated. Wine-growing has become an important branch of
industry for the population here. Tauria yields only 250,000 hl. of
wine annually, because of the exclusive use of raw grapes for medicinal
purposes.
Bee-culture has, since ancient times, been carried on in the Ukraine in
very close connection with fruit-growing. It is very popular thruout
the Ukraine, and in some districts of the country we rarely find a
peasant farm without several beehives. Yet the almost fabulous wealth
of honey which the Ukraine originally possessed is steadily declining.
Deforestation has limited the original forest bee-culture to the
Polissye only. The continued assimilation of meadows and steppes for
agriculture has greatly injured the Ukrainian bee industry, and
progressive bee-culture is spreading very slowly among the Ukrainians,
due to the lack of education and instruction. The chief producing
centers of honey in the Ukraine are Kuban (326,000 bee-hives), Poltava
(305,000 bee-hives), Chernihiv (283,000 bee-hives), Kharkiv (246,000
bee-hives), Kiev (242,000 bee-hives), Volhynia and Podolia (each
206,000 bee-hives). The total production of honey of the Russian
Ukraine, in 1910, amounted to 125,900 q., wax 13,700 q. (38% and 34%
respectively of the total production of the Russian Empire). In
Galicia, in 1880, the number of bee-hives was still as high as 300,000,
in 1900 only 210,000. Nevertheless, the land produced one-half of the
honey and one-eighth of the wax of the entire Austrian production
(25,000 and 350 q. respectively). The damp, cool summers of the past
decades have greatly injured the Galician bee industry, but, in very
recent years, progressive bee-culture has begun to develop strongly
here, and to increase the honey and wax production of the land.
Silkworm-culture is very slightly developed in the Ukraine, altho the
mulberry trees thrive almost everywhere in the country, and
silkworm-culture requires no great outlay in money and labor. Attempts
are being made in the Don region, Tauria, Bessarabia, Kherson,
Katerinoslav, Kharkiv, Kiev, Poltava and Chernihiv, but the silk output
is still very small. In the Government of Kiev, in 1907, barely 1,300
q. of cocoons were obtained.
CATTLE RAISING
Cattle-raising thruout the Ukraine is closely joined to agriculture.
Only in the Pontian steppes the remains of the originally extensive
cattle industry are left today. With the prevailing shortage of land,
cattle-raising is a source of industry of the greatest importance to
the Ukrainian peasantry, the most important source of ready money with
which to pay taxes and to invest in farm improvements. Unfortunately,
the Ukrainian peasantry is only beginning to understand the importance
of progressive cattle-raising and to introduce it. In Galicia, this
movement has already had a good start. In the Russian Ukraine, only the
large landowners (and they but rarely) are carrying on progressive
agriculture. On the other hand, it should be noted that only extensive
cattle-raising pays the large landowner, hence, cattle-raising by the
peasants is of incomparably higher importance in the life of every
cultured nation. For this reason, cattle-raising in the Ukraine gives
promise of a splendid future, once it is carried on by an enlightened
peasant class.
The total number of cattle in the Ukraine can hardly be estimated, even
roughly. At any rate it is considerably more than 30 million, of which
approximately four million belong to the Austrian Ukraine. Compared to
the adjacent countries, the Ukraine is very rich in cattle. The Russian
Ukraine, which comprises not quite a sixth part of European Russia,
possesses fully a third of the Russian stock of cattle; that is, about
double the amount it should have according to the size of the
territory. In like manner, the Austrian Ukraine is important for its
exports of cattle to Western Austria and Germany.
Of all the districts of the Ukraine, the relatively smallest stock of
cattle is found in Galicia, for here there are only 723 head of cattle
(116 horses, 372 horned cattle, 60 sheep, 172 hogs) for each 1000
inhabitants. The proportions are greater in the Russian Ukraine. For
every 100 of the population Volhynia has 19 horses, 32 steers, 18
sheep, 17 hogs. The corresponding numbers for Podolia are 16, 19, 17,
11; for Kiev 13, 18, 17, 10; for Kherson 29, 24, 16, 11; for Chernihiv
21, 25, 33, 16; for Poltava 14, 22, 27, 11; for Kharkiv 17, 27, 23, 10;
for Katerinoslav 25, 26, 21, 12; for Tauria 30, 28, 61, 11; for Kuban
34, 54, 80, 21.
We shall begin our survey of the cattle industry with a consideration
of horse-raising. The Ukrainian breed of horses is widely distributed
thruout the entire Dnieper region, its Chornomoric variety in the Kuban
region, its Don variety in the eastern border districts of the Ukraine.
By far the greater number of the Ukraine horses, however, are a mixed
breed, of small stature, and, despite great powers of endurance, not
particularly strong. Of the different breeds of small horses, only the
Hutzulian mountain-breed are important, because of their fine
qualities. The remaining millions of small horses rather mark the low
grade of horse-breeding than real value for the population, which, in
proportion to its economic resources, keeps entirely too many horses.
Very little is being done to raise the standards of horse-raising in
the Ukraine. Breeding-studs are kept up by the large landowners only
for the breeding of race-horses, while nothing at all is done for the
breeding of work-horses. Only in Voroniz a breed of strong
draught-horses is produced (bitiuhi), and a little is accomplished also
by the breeding-studs of Novo-Alexandrivsk (Kharkiv region) and in
Yaniv (in the Kholm country). In the Austrian Ukraine the
war-department takes care of the breeding of the Hutzulian breed of
horses with great success.
Horned cattle are of much greater importance to the Ukrainian people
than horses, and the breed is relatively much better. Thanks to the
general distribution of the native gray breed, the addition of the red
Kalmuck breed of cattle in Eastern Ukraine, and the frequent crossing
with Western European breeds accomplished thru the agency of the large
landowners, the governments and the agricultural organizations,
cattle-breeding in the Ukraine appears much more advanced than
horse-breeding. On the other hand, dairying in the Ukraine is barely in
its beginnings. Only in Galicia has a dairymen’s organization been
formed by the Ukrainian peasants, which produce ¼ million kilograms of
butter a year.
Sheep-raising in the Ukraine decreased considerably within the last
decades of the 19th Century, as a result of Australian competition.
Formerly, the Southern Ukraine was one of the most important wool
producing regions of the world. The decline of the sheep-raising
industry has been accelerated a great deal by the transformation of the
steppes into farmland. The immense flocks of sheep which roamed the
Ukrainian steppes under the care of semi-nomadic shepherds are a thing
of the past. Nevertheless, about 10 million sheep can still be found in
the Ukraine. The greatest part of them is raised in the Don region, the
Kuban region, Tauria, Katerinoslav and Bessarabia. Just as in the other
branches of live-stock-breeding, so also in the matter of
sheep-raising, the most important part is performed by the peasant. The
peasants breed chiefly coarse-wooled sheep of various breeds. These
sheep can graze three-fourths of the year out in the steppes. The large
landowners raise far less sheep, but these belong to the fine-wooled
Merino breed, the raising of which is more expensive, but also more
profitable. In very recent years the peasants have at last begun to
engage in breeding the fine-wooled varieties. Sheep-raising is very
important in the districts of Chernihiv, Poltava and Kharkiv, where, in
the year 1900, there were 3½ million sheep (3 million of which belonged
to peasants). Here the greatly renowned Reshetilov breed of sheep is
raised. The remaining districts of the Ukraine carry on very little
sheep-raising. Only in the Carpathians is it an important branch of
industry of the population. Here the coarse-wooled mountain-sheep graze
in the mountain pastures, and bring almost greater profit thru their
dairy products and skins than thru their wool.
Goats are found very rarely in the Ukraine, almost exclusively in the
Carpathian, Yaila and Caucasus Mountains. Hog-raising, however, is
perhaps the most important source of income of the poorer Ukrainian
peasantry, and as such it is common everywhere in the Ukraine, most of
all in Chernihiv, Volhynia and Kuban. Besides sty-breeding, extensive
breeding is carried on in some districts. On the lower Dnieper and
Dniester large droves of swine remain in the plavni all summer and
fall. Improved breeds of English hogs (Yorkshire, Berkshire, etc.) are
not common in the Ukraine and easily degenerate, while the most common
breeds, the Russian, the Polish and the southern curly-haired variety,
are very hard to fatten.
Camels are kept only in the southeastern steppes of the Ukraine
(Tauria, Don region, Stavropol), buffaloes only in Bessarabia, asses
and mules in Bessarabia and Tauria.
Having reached the end of our survey of cattle-raising in the Ukraine,
we must turn to poultry-raising, which constitutes one of the most
important sources of the money income of the peasantry. In view of the
truly Spartan mode of life of our peasants, very little poultry is
consumed by the breeder himself, most of it being sold to the dealers
or in the cities. The balance of the production over the local
consumption is so great that the entire Ukraine has become an exporting
region for poultry, eggs and feathers to the other districts of Russia,
to Western Austria, Germany, England, etc. From the nine governments of
the Ukraine, in 1905, over 600,000 q. of eggs were exported, 90% of
which went over the border. These Ukrainian governments yielded 40% of
the total Russian exportation of eggs, Kharkiv alone giving 8%, Kiev
5%. If we consider the remaining Ukrainian districts of Russia, we can
say, without fear of error, that all the Russian territory together
that is inhabited by Ukrainians produces more than half the Russian
output of eggs and poultry. Podolia alone, in 1908, sold nearly 3½
million fowl, Kharkiv (1906) 1¼ million. Galicia, about the year 1903,
exported annually eggs to the value of 35 million crowns [1], feathers
to the value of 3 million, and poultry to the value of 1½ million, of
which, at least, two-thirds must be credited to the Ukrainian part of
the land.
Every farmer in the Ukraine raises live-stock. The percentage of
exclusive breeders of live-stock is very small; in the Russian Ukraine,
in 1897, it was hardly 0.4%.
MINERAL PRODUCTION
Altho farming—agriculture and cattle-raising—must, for the time being,
comprise the main source of industry of the population of the Ukraine,
this blessed land does not lack other resources as well. Very great
mineral resources lie in various districts of the Ukraine; the largest
in the Donetz Plateau, in the Carpathians, and in the Caucasus. There
is little prospect, to be sure, that the Ukraine might, with the aid of
its mineral resources, become an industrial country like Germany or
England, yet there does exist some hope that it will soon be in a
position to provide its own needs in the way of industrial products.
Gold is found in the Ukraine only in traces, hardly worth mentioning,
in the gold-containing quartz of the Naholni kriaz in the Donetz
Plateau. Silver, together with lead, appears much more frequently,
chiefly in the Kuban and Terek regions of the Caucasus, where, in 1910,
about 300,000 q. of lead and silver ore were mined (73% of the total
Russian production), yielding 25.5 q. of silver (90%) and about 11,000
q. of lead (81%), and also in the Donetz region and in the Ukrainian
Carpathians of the Bukowina and Northern Hungary. The amount produced
outside of the Caucasus, on the other hand, is very insignificant. Zinc
is found only in small quantities in the Naholni kriaz. Tin, nickel,
chromium and platinum are not found anywhere in the Ukraine.
The first in the series of the more important mining products of the
Ukraine is mercury. It is obtained from the cinnabar mines of
Mikitivka, in the Donetz Plateau. Here, 842,000 q. of cinnabar were
mined in 1905, yielding 320,000 kilograms of mercury. Outside the
Ukraine, the Russian Empire has no mercury mines worthy of mention.
Copper ore is found in the Donetz Plateau, in Kherson and Tauria, in
the Bukowina and Marmarosh, yet the production is comparatively small.
Much greater is the copper production of the Caucasus, where, in 1910,
about 2,500,000 q. of copper ore (35% of the Russian production) and
81,000 q. of copper (31%) were gained.
Much more important is the manganese production of the Ukraine.
Manganese ores are gained chiefly from the oligocene strata of the
Nikopol region (on the lower Dnieper), and in Eastern Podolia. The
production for the year 1907 amounted to 3,245,000 q., or 32% of the
total Russian output and about one-sixth of the output of the world.
But all the remaining metal resources of the Ukraine disappear, as it
were, beside the enormous wealth of iron of the land. Iron ores are
found in great quantities in very many places in the Ukraine; many
deposits have not been sufficiently explored to make exploitation seem
advisable, and many, for various reasons, are not being exploited. The
iron production of the Ukraine is consequently limited to a few
centers, but in these it is of very great importance. The most
important center of iron mining is Krivi Rih (Government of Kherson)
and vicinity. The annual production here (1903–1904) amounted to 26¼
million metric hundredweights. The entire supply of iron ore at Krivi
Rih is estimated at 870 million metric hundredweights, but in the
immediate vicinity there lie much larger untouched deposits. The iron
content of the ores (red and brown iron ore) is 60–75%.
Other iron ore deposits of the Ukraine are of much less significance.
Only in the Donetz Plateau and in the vicinity of Kerch are iron ores
still mined in considerable quantities. The iron ore deposits of the
Caucasus, the brown iron ores and swamp-ores of Volhynia, of the
western Kiev country and of the Polissye, are not exploited, and in in
the Ukrainian Carpathians of the Bukowina and Northeastern Hungary,
iron mining is dying out.
The iron production of the Russian Ukraine in 1907 amounted to 39.9
million q., that is, 73% of the total Russian production. The figures
for the years following are: 1908—40.3 million q. = 74%; 1909—39
million q. = 74%; 1910—43.4 million q. = 74%; 1911—51.1 million q. =
72%. These figures show clearly enough what a wealth of iron the
Ukraine possesses, and what part the country plays as the chief
producer of iron for Russia.
We now come to the second group of mineral resources,—the mineral
fuels. In this respect, too, the Ukraine is richly supplied. The
Ukraine possesses but one coal-field in the Donetz Plateau, but this
coal-field is one of the largest and richest in Europe. Its surface
area is 23,000 square kilometers, the annual production (1911) 203
million metric hundredweights, that is, 70% of the total production of
coal of the entire Russian Empire. Then, the coal-district on the
Donetz is very rich in anthracite. In 1911, approximately 31 million
metric hundredweights of anthracite were gained here (98.5% of the
total Russian production). For coke-making, practically the only coal
that can be used in Russia is the Donetz coal. In 1911, 33.7 million
metric hundredweights of coke was gained in the Donetz region; in all
the remaining coal districts of the Russian Empire, barely 13,600 q.
From these figures we see clearly that the Ukraine, despite its general
agrarian character, possesses great supplies of coal, that
indispensable aid in modern industry. To be sure, the Ukraine takes
only seventh rank in the world’s coal production (being preceded by the
United States, Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France and
Belgium) yet it is, nevertheless, not to be despised as a producing
district. When we consider the backward state of material culture in
Russia as a whole, the youth of the Ukrainian coal-mining industry, and
the centripetal railway tariff policy of the Russian Government, we
must come to realize that, with better conditions, a brilliant future
awaits the Ukrainian coal industry.
The brown-coal deposits of the Ukraine are as yet but slightly
explored, and, in themselves, much less important than the pit-coal
deposits. A brown-coal field of 5000 square kilometers is part of the
tertiary strata of the Dnieper Plateau (Kiev-Yelisavet coal region).
Toward the end of the past century an annual average of 82,000 q. of
brown-coal was mined here (Katerinopol, Zuraska). Just as unimportant
is the brown-coal production in the Caucasian foothills
(Batalpashinsk). In the Carpathian foothill country and in the Rostoch,
in 1901, over 1 million metric hundredweights of brown-coal was mined;
in 1905 barely one-half that amount. Notwithstanding, some importance
must be attached to the brown-coal industry in the Ukraine for the
future.
Large peat deposits are widely distributed in the Polissye, in
Volhynia, Podlakhia, Galicia, Kiev, Podolia, etc., but extremely little
is done in the way of rational exploitation. Only in the Polissye and
in Galicia (40 places in 1905) is peat cut on a large scale, altho its
importance, especially for the districts of the Ukraine, which have few
forests, should not be underestimated.
In petroleum and ozokerite the Ukraine is the richest land in Europe.
Along the great bend of the Carpathians, beginning at the Poprad Pass,
one petroleum district crowds close upon the next. They lie almost
exclusively in the Ukrainian territory of Galicia, e.g., Borislav and
Tustanovichi, which, in 1907, yielded about 86% of the Galician
petroleum output, in the Ukrainian District of Drohobich. The Galician
petroleum production in 1911 amounted to 14.9 million metric
hundredweights—(in 1907 even 17.5 million metric hundredweights), and
takes third rank in the world’s production (being outranked by Russian
Caucasia and the United States). Considerable naphtha fields are also
found in the Ukrainian sub-Caucasian country, where, in 1910, near
Hrosni and Maikop, 12.6 million metric hundredweights of petroleum were
gained. From the eastern tip of Crimea and the Taman peninsula to the
Caspian Sea immense treasures of petroleum are hidden.
The only place in the world where ozokerite is found in large
quantities is Eastern Galicia. In 1885 Borislav yielded 123,000 q. of
this rare mineral. The unexampled wastefulness in mining accounts for
the fact that, in 1911, Borislav together with other small
sub-Carpathian mines (Dsviniach, Starunia, Truskavetz) yielded barely
19,400 q. of ozokerite. Ozokerite is also found in the Ukrainian
sub-Caucasus country, but in inconsiderable quantities.
Quite as important as the iron, coal and petroleum deposits of the
Ukraine, are its salt deposits. The Ukraine has three districts of
salt-production—the Carpathian foothills, the Donetz Plateau, and the
Pontian-Caspian salt-lake and liman region. The sub-Carpathian
salt-mines and salt-works of Galicia (Latzke, Drohobich, Stebnik,
Bolekhiv, Dolina, Kalush, Delatin, Lanchin, Kossiv) all lie within
Ukrainian national territory, with the single exception of Vielichka
and Bokhnia. In 1911 Galicia produced about 1,440,000 q. of rock salt,
most of which, to be sure, must be credited to Vielichka and Bokhnia.
On the other hand, the 1,690,000 q. of manufactured salt and brine were
produced mainly in the Ukrainian part of Galicia. In 1908 the salt
production of the Ukrainian part of Galicia amounted to only 540,000 q.
In the Donetz region there are immense deposits of rock-salt in the
vicinity of Bakhmut (e.g., Branzivka with a deposit of pure rock-salt
100 meters deep). Here, in 1911, about 4.9 million metric
hundredweights of rock-salt were mined (86% of the total Russian
rock-salt production) and the rich salt-springs and salt-lakes
exploited besides. In the Ponto-Caspian region first place is held by
the salt-lakes and limans of Crimea, then follow the limans of the
Kherson region (Knyalnik, etc.), the Manich lakes, etc. The amount
produced vacillates between 3⅓ and 5¾ million metric hundredweights a
year, and depends largely on the degree of dryness and heat of the
summer season. The total salt production of the Russian Ukraine in 1907
attained 10 million metric hundredweights, or 53% of the production of
the entire Russian Empire.
Nitre salts are found in great quantities only in the Ukrainian
sub-Carpathian country. In 1901 the amount produced was about 179,000
q.; in the year of 1908 it decreased to 121,000 q.
Besides the above-mentioned most important treasures of the soil,
minerals less important, but yet noteworthy, are found in the Ukraine.
In Podolia and the adjoining border strips of Bessarabia there lie some
rich deposits of phosphorites (70–75% phosphoric acid), out of which,
in 1907, over 114,000 q. (72% of the total Russian production) were
mined. In the districts of Katerinoslav, Kherson, Poltava, Chernihiv,
Kiev, Volhynia, in 1907, over 216,000 q. of kaolin were mined. Outside
of the Ukraine no kaolin is found in Russia. Good pottery clays are
found thruout the Ukraine, mostly around Kiev, Chernihiv and Poltava.
Fireproof clays occur in the Donetz Plateau, slate in the Zaporoze
(Katerinoslav), lithographic stone in Podolia (near Kamianez and
Mohiliv), graphite (in inconsiderable quantities, to be sure) in
Volhynia, on the Sluch River, near Krivi Rih (Kherson), in the
districts of Kiev and Katerinoslav, mineral paints near Lissichansk
(Donetz region), Krivi Rih, and Yelisavet (Kherson), Stari Oskol
(Kursk). Sulphur is obtained on the upper course of the Kuban River,
pumice stone in the Caucasus, rotten-stone near Svenihorodka (Kiev).
Mill-stones are obtained in many places, the best variety near Hlukhiv
(Chernihiv), whetstones especially in the Poltava region and in the
Devonian region of Galician-Podolia (Terebovla). Chalk is widely
distributed in Podolia, Volhynia and Kharkiv, gypsum in Podolia and
Pokutia (beautiful alabasters), as well as in the Donetz region.
Building-stones, lime, sand, loam are found everywhere in the Ukraine
and are of good quality. The most fit for masonry work are the devonian
sandstone of Podolia, the granite gneisses of the Dnieper Plateau, and
the old eruptive formations of Volhynia.
From this short survey of the mineral resources of the Ukraine, we
perceive that the Ukraine, altho in this respect it does not compare
with the countries of Western and Central Europe, yet does produce a
great deal, and after a thoro change in the political and cultural
conditions, should be able to occupy an important place in the world’s
production of mineral wealth. At present the Ukrainian people
contributes only the poorly-paid labor, while the profit falls to the
foreign rulers.
INDUSTRY
The industry of the Ukraine is now in an important stage of transition.
The originally very important home industries which, until recently,
satisfied all the needs of the peasantry, cannot endure the competition
with the factory system of large-scale industry, which is penetrating
more and more deeply into those regions of the Ukraine that lie
farthest from the highways of the world’s trade. Home industry is
declining irresistibly, factory industry is developing more and more,
and, altho the latter is still young and is retarded, in the textile
branches, by the centralization of industry at Moscow, still the
Ukraine (especially the southern part) is on the way to becoming the
most important industrial district of all Russia.
Ukrainian home industry is just as old and of as high a grade as all
the popular culture of the Ukrainians—this typical primitive
agricultural people. The products of Ukrainian home industry are
characterized above all by their great solidity and durability. Their
distinguishing feature is in the original ornamentation on all objects,
even those destined for every-day use, noticeable particularly in the
products of the textile, wood-carving and pottery industries. Anyone
who knows Ukrainian home industry is overcome by a sad feeling when he
perceives that this industry, which may really be called a fine art,
will soon be a thing of the past. The foreign rulers of the Ukraine are
hostile, or at best indifferent, to Ukrainian home industry, and all
efforts of the Ukrainians to promote their very vital native home
industry are hindered at every turn. The middlemen ruthlessly exploit
the artisan, whose earnings are a mere pittance, insufficient even for
the contented Ukrainian. More and more of those who work at a trade are
turning their backs upon their thankless occupations, if they can only
find a means of subsistence at something else.
The most important branch of Ukrainian home industry is weaving. It is
not confined only to the weaving of coarse, very durable kinds of linen
and cloth; for very fine, sometimes really artistically ornamented
tablecloths, towels and handkerchiefs, fine woolens, decorative fabrics
with inwoven patterns, gold and silver thread, carpets and tapestries,
too, come out of the primitively equipped workshops of the Ukrainian
weavers. Under very difficult working conditions, with the most
primitive means, genuine works of art are frequently created. For all
that, the artistic weaver must yield place to factory goods, even in
the Ukraine, and the home weaving industry is surely hurrying toward
extinction.
Yet, to this day, thanks to the persistence of the people in preserving
their national costume, the weaving industry is still so widespread
thruout the Ukraine that there is hardly a hamlet where there are not
some weavers by trade, or at least such persons as carry on weaving as
an avocation. Home weaving is at its height in the districts of
Poltava, where it occupies 20,000 families (1902), Chernihiv and
Kharkiv. Its chief centers are Krolevetz and vicinity, Sinkiv,
Mirhorod, Zolotonosha (wool-weaving). In Galicia, the entire Ukrainian
Pidhirye is famous for its home weaving industry; in the mountains it
is the neighborhood of Kossiv, in the low country the districts of
Horodok, Komarno, Halich, Busk, etc., which are important in this
connection. The most beautiful carpets and tapestries, worked in
colors, come from the districts of Mirhorod and Sinkiv (Poltava),
Olhopol, Balta, Yampol, Bratzlav (Podolia), Sbaraz, Buchach, Kossiv
(Eastern Galicia).
Tailoring is nowhere developed to large proportions, altho no place,
not even the smallest village, is without it. In Poltava, tailoring and
cap-making occupies over 10,000 families.
Rope-making is very common thruout the Ukraine, mostly in the districts
of Poltava, Kiev (Lissianka) and in Galicia (Radimno). Nets are made in
the district of Lokhvitzia (Poltava) and Oster (Chernihiv) on a large
scale.
After the textile industry comes the wood-working industry. It is
common, everywhere in the Ukraine, the steppe country alone excepted.
Almost every Ukrainian peasant of the Carpathian Mountains, of the
Polissye, Volhynia, Kiev, Chernihiv, knows the carpenter trade. The
best carpenters are the Hutzulians, who, independently, without drawn
plans, build churches of fine style, even for the most distant villages
of the low country.
Ship-building is carried on chiefly in the Polissye (Mosir, Petrikiv,
Balazevichi on the Pripet, and particularly Davidhorodok on the Horin).
On the Dnieper River, ships are built at Horodnia, small sea-vessels in
Nikopol, Oleshki, Hola Pristan, Kherson; on the Don in Osiv (Azof). On
the Dniester, river-ships are built in Zuravno, Halich, Zvanetz,
Mohiliv, Yampol.
Cabinet-making, altho in general but slightly developed, still supplies
the demand of the peasantry and the common city-dwellers. Artistic
cabinet-making is carried on in the Hutzul country (Kossiv, Yavoriv,
Richka, Viznitza), where, besides furniture, various kinds of woodwork,
decorated with artistic carvings and with the beautifully
conventionalized specifically Hutzulian bead and brass-wire ornaments
are produced, e.g., canes, boxes, picture-frames, etc. The furniture
industry is common in the District of Cherkassia (Kiev) and in the
entire Poltava country. Here, too, beautiful and durable wooden chests
are made. Wooden spoons are produced in the districts of Poltava
(Kalaidintzi), Kiev (Chornobil, Hornostapol), in the Hutzul country
(Porohy, Yavoriv), in the Rostoche region (Yavoriv, Vishenka), and
smoking-pipes of wood in the Poltava region (Velika Pavlivka).
Cooperage and the making of wooden vessels is common everywhere, but it
is most extensive in the districts of Poltava (3,700 families), Kharkiv
(Okhtirka, Kotelva), Polissye (Mosir), Kiev (District of Radomishl),
Chernihiv, Volhynia and the Hutzul country.
Wagon-making and the making of sleds and wooden agricultural implements
has its chief center in the Poltava country, where it occupies over
2400 families (Districts of Sinikiv, Lubni, Hadyach). In the Kharkiv
country this industry is important about Starobilsk, Bohodukhiv, Isium,
Kupiansk, as well. In Ardon (Government of Chernihiv) beautiful
carriages are produced and in Tarashcha (Government of Kiev) the
world-renowned tarantas.
The shingle industry, charcoal-burning, pitch and potash-making are met
with only in the Carpathians and in the Polissye region. Yet, not so
long ago, these comprised one of the most important branches of
industry of the forest-dwellers. Basket-weaving is especially developed
in the Poltava region (about 1000 families, chiefly in the Districts of
Lokhvitzia and Kupiansk), to some degree also in Podolia (Districts of
Litin and Vinitza), Kherson, Kiev, Polissye about Mosir. Sieves are
made everywhere the wood industry is established. Bast shoes are made
only in the Polissye region.
Among the branches of industry in which mineral substances are used,
pottery takes first rank. Thanks to great deposits of splendid pottery
clay, the Ukrainian pottery industry developed very early and now
stands upon a very high plane. Its products usually have fine form and
beautiful ornamentation. Pottery is best developed in the Poltava
region, especially in the Districts of Mirhorod, Sinkiv (well-known
center of Oposhnia), Romen and Lokhvitzia. In the Chernihiv country
pottery is almost as important, especially in the vicinity of Horodnia,
Krolevetz, Hlukhiv (Poloshki and Novhorod Siversky). In the Kharkiv
region we find large pottery works in the regions of Valki, Lebedin,
Okhtirka, Bohodukhiv, Isium; in the Kiev country about Chihirin, Uman,
Cherkassia, Svenihorodka, Kaniv, in Podolia about Mohiliv, Ushitza,
Yampol, and Letichiv. In Galicia the Rostoche region (Potilich,
Hlinsko, etc.), Podolia (Chortkiv, Borshchiv, Kopichintzi, etc.), and
especially the Hutzul country (Kolomia, Kossiv, Pistin, Kuti) are
renowned for pottery products. In other regions of the Ukraine pottery
is less developed.
The brick-making industry is actively growing all over the Ukraine, and
the introduction of tile-covered brick buildings has led to the
formation of numerous peasant organizations, for the purpose of making
these building-materials.
The stone-cutting industry is carried on on a large scale only in the
region of Odessa, Olexandrivsk (Kamishevakha) and Bakhmut.
The metal-working industry is, in general, not highly advanced. Only
the blacksmith trade is carried on everywhere and shows a fine
development, especially in the Southern Ukraine. In the village
smithies in Kherson, Katerinoslav and Tauria, even complicated
agricultural machines are often made. The production of iron ploughs
has for its centers the districts of Starobilsk (the village of
Bilovodsk produces on the average 3½ thousand ploughs a year), Isium
and Valki of the Kharkiv country, in the Chernihiv country (districts
of Starodub and Sosnitza), in the Poltava country (Zolotonosha and
vicinity). Artistic brass-work is made by the Hutzuls of the Kossiv
region (Brusturi, Yavoriv, etc.).
The utilization of animal raw-materials plays an important part in the
home industry of the Ukraine. Sausage-makers are found in all the towns
of the Ukraine, especially those of the left half, and their products
enjoy a good reputation, even beyond the borders of the land. Tanning
and fur-manufacturing flourish in the Ukraine. Ukrainian workmen have
had no small share in earning world-renown for the Russian leather
industry. The chief centers of this home industry lie in the districts
of Chernihiv (in the regions of Chernihiv, Koseletz, Krolevetz),
Poltava (about Sinkiv, Poltava, Reshetilivka with its famous furriery,
Pereyaslav, Kobeliaki), Kharkiv (about Okhtirka, Valki, Isium, Sumi).
In the Government of Voroniz, the village of Buturlinivka is noted for
its leather industry. Shoemaking engages over 9000 families in Poltava
(districts of Sinkiv, Kobeliaki, Romen, Konstantinohrad, etc.). In the
region of Kharkiv, the towns of Okhtirka and Kotelva are the main
centers of the shoemaking industry, in the Chernihiv country the
regions of Novosibkiv, Borsna and Oster. In the region of Voroniz
(districts of Bobrivsk, Biriuch, Valuiki) there are over 12,000
shoemakers. In the Ukrainian part of Kursk the chief centers are the
districts of Sudza (5000 shoemakers, 3000 of them in Miropilia alone)
and Hraivoron. In Galicia we find a strongly developed shoemaking and
tanning industry in Horodok, Kulikiv, Busk, Uhniv, Stari Sambir,
Ribotichi, Nadvirna, Buchach, Potik, etc.
The horn industry, especially the making of horn combs, appears in
Mirhorod and Sinkiv, in Kharkiv and about Sumi.
Of the numerous other branches of home industry in the Ukraine the
organized (guild) painters of sacred pictures, of whom there are over
300 families in the Poltava region, may be mentioned in passing.
So much for home industry. The factory industry of the Ukraine is still
in its infancy. Notwithstanding, it is already producing so much,
despite its youth, that Southern Ukraine, in particular, is on the way
to becoming the most important industrial center of all Russia.
Large-scale production in the Ukraine is carried on almost exclusively
by foreign (Russian, Jewish, English, French and Belgian)
capitalists—the Ukrainians contribute only the poorly-paid labor.
Ukrainian large-scale industry must wage a hard battle against the
economic policy of the Russian Government, which aims to stop the
declining preponderance of the Moscow and St. Petersburg centers of
industry, and to prevent the industrial rise of the south.
The total value of the industrial output of the Russian Ukraine, in
1908, was approximately 870 million rubles, or 19% of the total Russian
large-scale production. The production of the Austrian Ukraine amounts
to not even one-tenth of this amount. The main centers of large-scale
production are Katerinoslav (166.2 million rubles), Kiev (143.5),
Kherson (127.5), and Kharkiv (98.7). Ukrainian large-scale industry
concerns itself chiefly with the manufacturing of the mineral products
of the land and the preparation of foods. The textile industry is
artificially suppressed in the interests of the Central Russian
industrial districts.
The cotton industry is confined to only a few small factories in the
Don region (Rostiv, Nakhichevan) and Katerinoslav (Pavlokichkas). The
woolen industry is less limited (Chernihiv country, especially Klinzi,
then Kharkiv, Kiev, the Don region, Volhynia). The linen and hemp
industry is well developed only in the Chernihiv country (Pochep,
Mhlin, Starodub, Novosibkiv) and in Kherson (Odessa) jute factories are
also found. The clothing industry is worthy of mention only in Kherson
and the larger cities of Eastern Galicia.
Of the many branches of the food industry, the first to be mentioned is
the manufacture of sugar. The sugar refineries of the Ukraine, more
than 200 in number (most of them in the territories of Kiev, Kharkiv,
Podolia, Kherson), produce annually (1904) over 6.6 million metric
hundredweights of raw sugar and 3.9 metric hundredweights of refined
sugar. These figures represent 76% and 68% respectively of the total
Russian output. It is remarkable that in the Austrian Ukraine, where
the sugar industry has the finest possibilities of expanding, it is
entirely undeveloped (only two factories). The milling industry, which,
in general, is carried on chiefly in small water and wind-mills,
possesses also some large mills operated by steam (Kharkiv, Kiev,
Poltava, Kreminchuk, Odessa, Mikolaiv, Melitopol, Lviv, Brody,
Ternopil, Stanislaviv, Kolomia, etc.). Another important industry is
alcohol-distillation, which is well advanced in all parts of the
Ukraine, but particularly in Russian and Galician Podolia (Galicia has
800 stills), Kharkiv and Kiev. The beer-brewing industry is but
slightly developed, and the only districts in which it yields a product
of some quality are Galicia and the Bukowina. Mead brewing, also a
common industry, is carried on on a large scale only in the Kharkiv
country and in Eastern Galicia. Oil-pressing is important in the
territories of Kherson (Odessa), Kiev, Chernihiv (Pochep, Novosibkiv),
in Kharkiv and in Kreminchuk. The important tobacco industry is carried
on to a considerable degree in 100 factories in the Russian Ukraine
(Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, Zitomir, Poltava, Kreminchuk, Romen,
Katerinoslav, Mikolaiv, etc.) as well as in three government factories
in Galicia (Vinniki, Monastiriska and Zabolotiv).
The lumber industry embraces large saw-mills in the Carpathian mountain
districts of Galicia, the Bukowina and Northeastern Hungary, as well as
long the Pripet and Dnieper Rivers (Mosir, Kreminchuk, Katerinoslav,
Kherson, etc.). The cork industry is established in Odessa, the paper
industry in Rostiv, Odessa, Kharkiv, Poltava.
The most important branch of Ukrainian large-scale industry is the
metal-industry. The Ukrainian iron industry, despite its youth, has
rapidly surpassed the Polish, Moscow and Ural industry, and would be
even more advanced if the economic policy of the Russian Government had
not taken measures for the protection of the Moscow and Ural industry
from the industrial competition of the Ukraine. Hence, the Ukrainian
metal industry must furnish chiefly semi-manufactured goods, which are
afterwards worked into finished goods in the center of the Empire.
In 1911, there were obtained in the Ukraine, 24,625,000 q. of cast
iron, that is, 67.4% of the total Russian production; in 1912 the
percentage is said to have reached 70%, while the rest, 30%, is
accredited to Poland, Great-Russia and Russian-Asia. In 1911 the
Ukraine produced 18.8 metric hundredweights (55.6% of the total Russian
production) of wrought iron and steel, and in the year 1912, it
attained the same percentage. The significance of these figures is at
once apparent.
The iron works of the Ukraine lie chiefly near Krivi Rih, in
Katerinoslav and vicinity, Olexandrivsk, the Donetz Plateau and the
adjacent districts (Yusivka, Hrushivka, Tahanroh, Mariupol, Kerch,
etc.). The nail and wire industry has its center in Katerinoslav,
machine-manufacturing in Katerinoslav, Kiev, Kharkiv, Yelisavet,
Odessa, Olexandrivsk, Mikolaiv and Berdiansk. The iron steamship
building industry has its seat in Rostiv and Mikolaiv. In Galicia we
find only a very small iron industry, and at best a few railway
supplies, factories and workshops are worthy of mention, e.g., those in
Sianik (car factory), New Sandetz and Lemberg.
Of the other branches of industry which manufacture mineral products,
the petroleum refineries must be mentioned above all, particularly
those of the Carpathian foothill country (Horlitzi, Drohobich, Kolomia)
and at the foot of the Caucasus (Hrosni). The factory industry of
pottery is carried on in Lviv and Kharkiv; porcelain and chinaware
manufacture in the Kharkiv region (Budi, Slaviansk) and in Odessa;
cement manufacture in the Black Sea region, in Odessa and in the
Bukowina; brick and tile manufacture in all the large cities of the
Ukraine. Glass manufacture, once very extensive in the forest regions
of the Western Ukraine (Rostoche, Volhynia), is now confined to the
neighborhood of Kharkiv, Horodnia and Bakhmut. Of the different
branches of the chemical industry, the manufacture of matches is
important; its seat is in the Chernihiv country near Novosibkiv, and in
the Galician sub-Carpathian country (Striy, Skole, Bolekhiv, etc.).
This does not exhaust the branches of industry of the Ukraine, but,
because of their comparative insignificance, we must desist from
describing them. Having now come to the end of our presentation of
Ukrainian industry, we have still to consider what percentage of
Ukrainians engage in industrial pursuits. According to official Russian
estimates of the year 1897, the percentage is barely 5% (in Galicia,
according to Buzek’s biased calculation, 1.4%). The smallness of the
figures would surprise us if we did not know how the Russian and Polish
nationality “make” their statistics; nevertheless, it cannot be denied
that the Ukrainian people still engage too little in industry. Among
the Ukrainians who seek their subsistence in industry, the greatest
number (14%) engage in the making of clothing; then follow, in order,
the building, metal, lumber and food industries, linen-weaving and
pottery.
TRADE AND COMMERCE
The mercantile movement in the Ukraine, as, in fact, in all of Eastern
Europe, is comparatively slight. To give an exact picture of Ukrainian
commerce is much more difficult than to describe its agricultural and
industrial production. The great exchanges of goods in the interior,
the commercial relations of the Ukraine with the other districts of
Russia and Austria-Hungary, its part in the export trade of these
states,—all this matter awaits working up on the part of competent
economists and geographers.
The Ukrainian people take but little part in the commercial activity of
their country; the Ukrainian peasant simply considers trade an
occupation very little in accord with the rank of a landed proprietor,
and the middle class has only begun in the last decades to recover from
the suppression of centuries. Hence, Ukrainian commerce lies almost
wholly in the hands of the foreign races—the Russians, Jews, Armenians
and Greeks.
The causes of this condition are usually sought and found by the
foreign (Russian and Polish) “standard-bearers of culture” in the
indifference and incapacity for culture of the Ukrainians. This
explanation, however, can be objected to when we recall the great
commercial importance of the ancient Kingdoms of Kiev and Halich, as
well as the long perseverance of the Ukrainian trade down into the 16th
Century, despite its systematic suppression by the Polish Government.
Naturally, the five centuries of Tatar invasion caused severe injuries
to Ukrainian trade. And when the commercial activity of the Ukraine of
the hetmans began to flourish in the 17th and 18th Centuries, it was
systematically suppressed by the Russian Government, following the
ill-fated rebellion of Mazeppa. Then we must consider the difficulties
of competition with the Russians, a very talented commercial race, with
the Jews, the Armenians and the Greeks. Most keenly, however, the
calamitous lack of education is being felt. Wherever the education of
the people is more advanced, as, for example, in Eastern Galicia, there
is a revival of the commercial spirit in the Ukrainians. The Galician
Ukrainians have thousands of shops, large commercial co-operative
organizations (Narodna Torhovla, with seventeen branch warehouses and
several hundred shops, Soyuz tohorvelnick spilok, Soyuz zbutu khudobi,
etc.), with the large annual turnover (large for Galician conditions)
of 25 million crowns. The enlightened peasantry of Sinevidsko and
vicinity (Boiko country) carries on an active fruit-trade far beyond
the Austrian borders. Even in the Russian Ukraine trade is coming to
life in all places. The co-operative movement has taken such a bound in
advance, in spite of the frightful illiteracy, that in 1912 there were
over 2500 such organizations, while all of Russia (including the
Ukraine) had 5260, and Poland only 920. From these facts we may safely
conclude that, with the elevation of the grade of culture, the former
commercial spirit of the Ukraine is reawakening. To be sure, the
sturdy, upright nature of the Ukrainian, which abhors every form of
dishonesty, will not lend to this new commercial spirit a
world-conquering character, but it will, on the other hand, increase
the influence of the Ukrainian merchant in the commercial world.
The present condition of commerce in the Ukraine is still very
primitive; first, because of the generally low grade of culture;
second, because of the very primitive traffic conditions of Eastern
Europe.
The first mark of the primitive condition is probably the existence of
countless annual fairs in the Ukraine—a relic of medieval trade
conditions. 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. In addition, there are the once famous Kiev “kontrakti”
(now declining), and the smaller annual fairs in Berdichiv, Zitomir,
Dubno, etc. The greatest exchanges of goods take place in the Yordan
fair in Kharkiv (January 20th), and the Elias fair (August 2nd) in
Poltava. Here the wholesale dealers sell their goods to the retailers
(Ofenyi—Russians from the Governments of Vladimir and Slobozani—Russian
sectarians, colonists from the Chernihiv country, Jewish retailers who
sell in the right half of the Ukraine), who buy or supplement their
stock of goods during the annual fairs. In these wholesale
transactions, the so-called prassoli—Russian barterers—also engage,
dealers who travel all year thru the villages of the Ukraine, exchange
the wool, bristles and flax of the peasants for hardware, and sell the
collected raw materials to the wholesalers. In this annual fair system,
the Ukrainians have, until recently, played an important part as paid
drivers, who drove the goods on their oxcarts from fair to fair. These
drivers at one time formed a sort of class of their own—the
“chumaki”—and even engaged independently in the trading of the Crimean
salt and the dried fish of the Sea of Azof. The railroads have put an
end to the former importance of the chumaki, yet the scanty length of
the Ukrainian railway system prevents this carting industry from
disappearing altogether. In the eighties of the past century there were
counted in the districts of Poltava, Kharkiv and Chernihiv, 210,000
chumaks; in the year 1897, in Kherson, Katerinoslav, Tauria and Don,
about 100,000 of these hired drivers.
The fair system of Ukrainian trade is carried on not only by means of
great annual fairs, which, by the way, are decreasing in importance
year by year, but also by means of an enormous number of smaller annual
fairs in the cities, towns, and even villages of the Russian Ukraine,
which take care of the retail trade. In the Austrian Ukraine the annual
fairs (as for instance, the once famous fairs of Tarnopol, Ulashkivtzi,
Czernowitz) have lost all significance since the modernization of the
country’s commerce.
World-commerce has, until very recently, left the Ukraine almost
untouched. This is one of the reasons why the primitive forms of
commerce were able to last so long in the Ukraine. Until recently,
world-commerce has taken the Ukraine merely for a producing and
exporting country of raw materials, and left the supplying of local
demands to the traditional forms of trade. Only within the last decades
has the modern commercial organization begun slowly to take in the
Ukraine. The exchanges in Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, Kreminchuk, Mikolaiv,
Tahanroh, Rostiv, the chambers of commerce in Lviv and Brodi, are
organizing the export of raw materials from the Ukraine, and the
flooding of the country with the products of foreign industry is
becoming more and more intensive.
In spite of all we have mentioned, the significance of the Ukraine in
the internal commerce of Russia and in world-trade is very great. The
natural resources of the country, its situation on the threshold of
Asia and the Mediterranean world, its property of being a direct
hinterland of the Black Sea, give to the Ukraine a commercial
importance with which that of any other individual district of European
Russia, the Baltic lands and Poland not excepted, can never compare.
In the internal commerce of Russia, the Ukraine figures, first of all,
as purveyor of foodstuffs, and in Austria-Hungary the Austrian Ukraine
plays the same part on a small scale. To represent these relations in
figures encounters great difficulties, and the figures can be only
approximate. In 1895 the Ukraine exported over 1.5 million metric
hundredweights of grain to Lithuania and White Russia, about 1.7
million metric hundredweights to Poland, and about 0.9 million metric
hundredweights to Central Russia. In 1905, two Ukrainian districts
alone, Poltava and Kharkiv, exported over 0.7 metric hundredweights of
grain to Central Russia. These figures must be much greater today. And
the grain exportation of the Austrian Ukraine to the interior of
Austria must be relatively as great. As a matter of fact, Galicia
produces one-third of the total Austrian output of oats and wheat, and
almost half the output of potatoes.
Quite as important is the Ukraine’s exportation of live-stock. In the
years 1902–1904, the Ukraine exported 80,000 head of cattle to Central
Russia, and the part played by Galicia as purveyor of live-stock for
slaughter is well-known. Equally important is the exportation of small
cattle, poultry, eggs and butter. The exportation of wool from the
Southern Ukraine plays an important part in the internal commerce of
Russia. The Polissye, Carpathian and Caucasus regions furnish great
quantities of lumber for exportation. The mineral products of the
Ukraine are used for the greater part outside the country—Caucasian and
Carpathian petroleum, the iron ore of Krivi Rih, the salt, the
manganese, the coal of the Donetz Plateau. Of the entire yield of coal
of the Donetz basin in 1905, barely one-third was used up in the
factories of this region; the other two-thirds were to serve the
advancement of Central Russian industry. All these products are the
object of an active export trade.
In comparison with the exports, the imports of the Ukraine cannot be
very large. The imports embrace, almost exclusively, products of
foreign manufacturing. In view of the general poverty and the very
limited wants of the Ukrainian peasantry, these imports must be small,
since home industry still covers the greatest part of the demand.
The part of the Ukraine in the external commerce of the Russian State
is very important, while the Austrian Ukraine plays a very subordinate
part in this respect. The ten central regions of the Ukraine furnish
over 60% of the total grain export of Russia. In the customs districts
of the Ukrainian part of the western border of Russia, 28.6 million
rubles’ worth of goods was exported, 14.3 million rubles imported. The
customs districts of the Pontian and Azof coast within the borders of
the Ukraine passed 245 million rubles in exports, 64.8 million rubles
in imports. Over the borders of Russian Ukraine passed 33% of the
Russian exportation and only 11% of the importation. This shows us how
much the Ukraine contributes to the balance of trade in favor of
Russia.
Traffic in the Ukraine is very slightly developed. Altho the natural
conditions for traffic are very favorable, the historical fortunes of
the country took such a course that we cannot wonder at the present
state of intercourse. The Ukraine was for a long time under the
domination of Poland, which never cared for the condition of the roads;
then the country fell under the rule of Russia, which to this day
stands upon a very low level as far as traffic conditions are
concerned. The Austrian Ukraine has the greatest number and the best
roads, but they are found especially in Bukowina and Northern Hungary.
For in Galicia, where most of the roads are under the management of the
autonomous Polish authorities, the condition of the roads is sad
enough.
The overwhelming majority of Ukrainian highways are unpaved. All that
the Russian geographer, Krassnov, has said in general about the
highways of Russia, applies in its fullest extent to the unpaved,
unmacadamized roads of the Ukraine. These roads are among the worst in
the world. In the summer they are enveloped in clouds of dust; in the
spring and fall, as well as in rainy weather, they are strips of
bottomless mud, in which even the light farm-wagon sinks to its axles.
Wherever it is at all possible, vehicles drive across the fields along
the roadway. Worst of all are the ways in the vicinity of and within
villages and small towns. Drains and bridges are either unknown, or
else there are not enough of them. The kind of roads just described are
known in the entire right half of the Ukraine by the traditional name
of “Polish roads.” Still worse are the cane and corduroy roads of the
Polissye; riding over these a long time becomes a positive torture to
the traveler. In the Hutzul country most of the roads are ordinary
bridle-paths (plai), accessible only to foot passengers and
bridle-horses.
In Galicia, only villages and hamlets are connected by unpaved roads;
in the Russian Ukraine even large cities. Not a single macadamized road
leads to cities like Poltava, Kreminchuk, Katerinoslav, Rostiv,
Kherson. That such negligence of the government should cause the
Ukrainian peasantry incalculable damage, and actually hinder trade and
commerce, is obvious at once.
Macadamized roads are very scarce in the Ukraine as a whole. The
Austro-Hungarian part of the Ukraine, altho in this respect it is far
behind the cultural countries of Europe, possesses a greater absolute
number of macadamized roads than the Russian Ukraine, which is ten
times as large in area. All cities and towns of the Austrian Ukraine
are connected by macadamized roads. Eight such roads meet at Lemberg,
seven in Czernowitz, six each in Peremishl, Ternopil, Kolomia, Buchach,
Horodenka, etc. In the Russian Ukraine, on the other hand, the only
macadamized roads that deserve the name, are the road from Homel to
Kiev, the road from Kiev to Berestia (by way of Zitomir,
Novhorod-Volinsky, Rivne, with branches to Dubno and to Kremianetz,
Lutzk, Kovil), the road from Tomashiv to Lublin, the road from
Starokonstantiniv to Kamenetz, the road from Kursk to Kharkiv, and the
mountain-road in the Yaila Mountains in Crimea. The remaining “great
tracts” and “post-roads” (altho they sometimes figure as macadamized
roads) are in such a miserable condition, that even in the large cities
they look more like moraines than streets in a civilized city.
Quite analogous conditions prevail, also, in the railroad traffic of
the Ukraine. In this respect, too, the Austrian Ukraine surpasses the
Russian Ukraine by far, despite the backward condition of the former.
Galicia, for instance, has 5 kilometers of railroad for 100 square
kilometers of surface, the Russian Ukraine barely 1 kilometer. Besides
the loose mesh of the railway-net of the Ukraine, there is the
additional disadvantage that its lines tend toward foreign centers, and
consider the local needs of Ukrainian traffic only in rare cases.
Galicia, separated from the rest of Austria-Hungary by the natural
boundary of the Carpathians, has had to develop an independent system
of railways, with the main junction at Lemberg. In the Russian Ukraine
all the main lines were built only for the convenience of the Moscow
center and the Baltic ports. Hence, there is no direct railway line
between Kiev and Odessa, for instance, or to Kharkiv, while there exist
almost straight line connections between Romen and Libau, between
Sevastopol and Kharkiv and Moscow. Besides that, strategic factors were
the deciding ones in the building of the railroads (particularly in
Western Ukraine), and the economic life of the country often has had to
suffer for it.
A third disadvantageous aspect of the Russian Ukrainian railway system
is its tariff regulations, the purpose of which is to concentrate the
greatest possible amount of traffic on the railroads of Central Russia
and the Baltic provinces, and thus redound to their advantage. As a
result of this tariff policy of the Russian Government, it happens that
it is sometimes cheaper to transport goods from the Ukraine to the most
distant Baltic ports, than to the adjacent ports of the Black Sea.
Thus, the tariff rates for grain from Romen to Libau (1077 versts) are
21 kopeks per pud, from Romen to Mikolaiv (429 kilometers) 18 kopeks.
It costs more money and trouble to transport coal from the Donetz
region to the Black Sea ports than to the ports of the Baltic, which,
of course, are far more distant. Naturally Pontian navigation suffers
above all from this cause, but all Ukrainian trade in general suffers
likewise.
As a result of the loose web of the net of railroads, and the
destination of all the railroad lines in the Ukraine to foreign
centers, there are almost no important railway centers in the Ukraine.
The only center of European proportions is Lemberg, where nine main and
local lines meet. Striy, Stanislaviv, Kolomia and Ternopil are smaller
junctions, with five converging lines. In the Russian Ukraine, only
Berestia and Kharkiv deserve the name of railway junction, in the
strict sense of being a point of intersection of at least two main
lines; the same is true of Poltava and Rostiv. The dependence of the
Ukrainian railway lines upon foreign centers is the cause of the fact
that frequently very important crossings lie beyond large towns, near
to some miserable little village, as for example, Sarni, Bakhmach,
Kosiatin, Zmerinka, etc. The only concentrated district of the
Ukrainian railroad system with numerous local junctions, lies in the
Donetz Plateau.
We shall now enumerate several railroads of the Ukraine which are most
important for the traffic of the country. The Ukraine is connected with
the Black Sea by means of seven main lines: Lemberg-Odessa,
Znamenka-Mikolaiv, Kharkiv-Sevastopol (with a branch to Kerch),
Katerinoslav-Berdiansk, Donetz Plateau-Mariupol, Donetz
Plateau-Tahanroh, Katerinodar-Novorossysk. Direct railroad connections
with Roumania exist via Tiraspol to Yassy, and from Lemberg by way of
Czernowitz to Bukarest. The following lines lead into Hungary:
Stanislaviv-Sihot, Lemberg-Mukachiv, Lemberg-Uzhorod-Peremishl-Uihely.
The connection with Austrian-Poland (Western Galicia) is formed by the
Lemberg-Cracow and Stanislaviv-New-Sandetz lines, the connection with
Russian-Poland by the lines of Kovel-Lublin-Warsaw and
Berestia-Sidletz-Warsaw. The lines of Berestye-Bilostok, Rivne-Vilna,
and Romen-Minsk-Libau lead north to White Russia, Lithuania and the
Baltic. The Ukraine is connected with the north and northeast (Great
Russia) by the lines of Kiev-Kursk, Kharkiv-Moscow,
Kupiansk-Penza-Samara, and Donetz Plateau-Voroniz. Eastward, the
railroad lines run from the Donetz region and Katerinodar to the bend
of the Volga, and from Rostiv along the Caucasus to Baku.
In the Ukraine itself, the main lines of the railroads should run in a
direction west and northwest to east and southeast. Hence, the main
paths of traffic should be the following lines: Czernowitz-Odessa,
Berestye-Rivne-Berdichiv-Uman, Kovel-Kiev-Poltava-Donetz region-Rostiv,
Fastiv-Katerinoslav, Novosibkiv-Sumi-Kharkiv-Donetz Plateau, etc. As a
result of the railroad policy of the Russian Government, the north and
south lines, which lead directly or indirectly to the Muscovite
centers, are held to be more important, as for instance, the following:
Berestye-Minsk-Moscow, Lemberg-Rivne-Vilna, Novoselitza-Kiev-Kursk,
Vapniarka-Cherkassi-Piriatin, Mikolaiv-Kreminchuk-Romni,
Balta-Kreminchuk-Kharkiv-Kursk, etc. Of greatest importance are, also,
the industrial railroads which connect the iron mines of Krivi Rih with
the coal-fields of the Donetz region, via Katerinoslav.
The waterways of the Ukraine were at one time the main roads of trade
and commerce. The great cultural mission of the Ukrainian waterways is
familiar from history; thru the course of long centuries they were the
only convenient thorofares thru the difficult forest regions and the
pathless steppes of the Ukraine. Traffic on the Ukrainian waterways
was, in former times, much more important than at present, not only
because of the lack of other convenient pathways, but also because of
their former greater length and capacity. Deforestation has decreased
the normal level of the rivers; mill-dams have cut off the once
navigable stretches of water.
The Ukraine possesses almost no artificial waterways. The only ones in
existence—the Orginski Canal (Yassiolda-Vihonivske ozero-Shchara, 54
kilometers of canal, 124 kilometers of connected watercourses) and the
Dnieper-Buh Canal (Pina-Mokhavez, 81 kilometers of canal, 134
kilometers of connected watercourses)—were built back in the days of
Polish rule. They are antiquated, shallow and neglected, so they can
serve only occasionally, and then only for log-floating.
The total length of Ukrainian waterways exceeds 7000 kilometers, which
is just as much as the length of the waterways of Austria or of
England, but only one-tenth that of European Russia. In this figure,
sections of rivers are included which are navigable only for smaller
river vessels.
The statement of the navigability of individual rivers of the Ukraine
is contained in the section which deals with the rivers of the Ukraine
(v. p. 70 ff.).
The most important waterway of the Ukraine is the Dnieper system. The
main river is navigable in its entire Ukrainian section by the largest
river vessels. In the entire Russian river system the Dnieper system
constitutes 11% of the length, 10% of the total navigable length, 16%
of the length navigable by steamship-lines. The rapids section,
however, as a result of the incomprehensible negligence of the Russian
Government, is, to this day, accessible only to the smaller ships and
rafts, and then only for sailing downstream. The canals built by the
Government in the Porohi (1843–1856) are so badly placed that
navigation, to this day, must still keep largely to the natural ancient
“Cossack paths.” In the years 1893–1895, investigating engineering
commissions determined that it was possible, without great cost, to
make the Porohi section completely navigable. But the thing never went
any further than that. At the beginning of the 20th Century, English
engineers worked out a plan for the complete regulation of the Pohori
section and the construction of a waterway, accessible even to
sea-going ships, which should connect the Baltic with the Black Sea by
means of the Dvina and the Dnieper. The realization of this plan, which
would be of the very greatest importance to the Ukraine, is still
distant, and there is no hope that the Russian Government will attack
it very soon.
Thus, the rapids hinder Dnieper navigation to this day, and not least
for the reason that the insurance companies will not insure vessels for
the rapids section. For this reason, the river fleet of the Dnieper is
separated into two parts. Above the rapids (in 1900) 208 steamboats and
1002 other ships, below the rapids (together with the inlets of the
Boh) 148 steamboats and 1203 other ships were plying. The number of
steamboats increased threefold above the rapids and doubled below the
rapids during the last sixteen years of the last century. The total
horse power in 1900 was over 16,000. In 1906 the number of steamers of
the Dnieper region was 382, the number of other ships 2218.
The Dnieper ships, propelled by sails and oars, which carry lumber,
grain, fruit and other goods, are of various types. The largest are
called “honchaki,” and have a tonnage of up to 1400; then come the
“barzi” and “barki” (900–1300 tons), “berlini” (800–1140 tons), which
are the most useful, “baidaki” (650 tons), “trembaki,” “laibi,” “dubi”
(130–160 tons), “lodki” (80 tons), “galari” (50 tons), and “chaiki” (30
tons). The tonnage of the river fleet of the Dnieper (not counting
steamers), in 1900, was approximately 500,000 tons, hence not much less
than the tonnage of the present Austro-Hungarian merchant-marine.
Besides this, the Dnieper and its tributaries are navigated by a great
number of rafts. In 1910 the number of them was 15,676.
Of the river harbors of the Dnieper system, Kherson carries on the
greatest exchange of goods (10 million q. in 1910). Then follow Kiev
(5.3 million q.), Katerinoslav (3.1 million q.), Cherkassi (2.1 million
q.), Niznodniprovsk (1 million q.), Chernihiv (0.6 million q.), and
Pinsk (0.5 million q.).
Navigation on the Don, as a result of the small volume of water, is
much slighter than the Dnieper navigation, despite the absence of
rapids. In 1900, the number of steamboats on the Don was 189, with
10,000 horse-power (in 1906 it was 382); the number of other ships 488,
with 200,000 tonnage (in 1906 only 471 ships). The main river-harbor is
Rostiv, which handles goods to the amount of 7.5 million q. annually.
A good deal smaller still is the navigation of the Dniester. Here, in
1900, there were only 9 steamers, with 200 horse-power (16 steamers in
1906), and 187 ships of other kinds with a tonnage of 22,000 tons (277
of them in 1906). The harbors of the main stream are Benderi (handles
0.7 million q. of goods) and Maiaki (0.5 million q.). On the Kuban
River 69 steamers (counting in those of the Kura) and 131 other ships
plied in 1906.
In general, river navigation in the Ukraine is on a very moderate
scale. The negligence of the Russian Government and the low grade of
culture limit the development of Ukrainian interior navigation. Thru
the regulation of the Dnieper rapids and the connection of the river
systems of the Dnieper and Dniester with the Baltic waters, by means of
practicable canals, the waterways of the Ukraine could attain a
wonderful importance.
Having come to the end of our description of Ukrainian traffic, we must
still devote some attention to Ukrainian sea-navigation. Its present
condition is as lamentable as the general condition of Ukrainian
traffic. Of course, there is no doubt that the Black Sea has many
qualities unfavorable to the development of navigation—its seclusion,
the lack of good harbors, and an abundance of dangerous storms. Yet,
what are these disadvantages against modern engineering? To assign all
the blame to the low grade of Russian industry, as the Russian
publicists are in the habit of doing, will not do. The causes of the
slight development of Pontian navigation should be sought in the low
cultural conditions of the ruling Russian nation and in the indolence
of the government, which is not properly encouraging this navigation.
The Russian steamers do not enjoy a good reputation on the Black Sea.
Pontian coastwise navigation, which at the beginning of the 19th
Century had a splendid start, and was carried on predominantly by
Ukrainians, has not been able to develop properly under the heavy fist
of the government. Today, conditions on the Black Sea are such, that
the transportation of a unit by weight of goods from one Pontian harbor
to another, costs just as much as the transportation of the same unit
from the same port to England.
The number of steamers which sail the Black Sea under the Russian flag
was, in 1901, only 316, with a tonnage of 187,000 tons, that is, 42% of
the number and 52% of the tonnage of the entire steamship fleet of
Russia. In 1912 the figures were 410 steamers, 223,000 tons, the
percentages being 42% and 47%. The number of sailing vessels in 1901
was 635, with a total tonnage of 47,000, and in the year 1912 there
were 827 sailing vessels, with over 53,000 tons. The development of
Pontian navigation is thus going a very slow, if not a retrogressive
course.
The Russian Black Sea steamers maintain a more or less regular service
between the most important Black Sea ports—Odessa, Mikolaiv, Kherson,
Sevastopol, Rostiv, Novorossysk, etc. From Sevastopol a line goes to
Constantinople, from Odessa one to Alexandria and Vladivostok.
Despite this miserable condition of Pontian navigation, from a European
point of view, it still has greater significance than navigation on
other seas of Russia. Near the end of the past century, 70% of the
total oversea exportation of Russia by weight, and 65% by value, went
thru the harbors of the Ukrainian coast. To be sure, in 1896, only 7.5%
of the ships which visited these ports sailed under the Russian flag.
In the year of 1911 it was not much different; of the outgoing ships
only 11.4%, and of the incoming ships only 13.9% carried the Russian
flag!
Among the Black Sea ports, Odessa, now, as ever, takes first place. The
imports of Odessa, in 1911, amounted to 19.2 million q., the exports
26.2 million q. This, by the way, is an example of the great
preponderance of exportation over importation. In other ports the
disparity is even greater. Thus, the imports of Mikolaiv amount to only
2.3 million q., the exports 22.8 million q. For Tahanroh the respective
figures are 1.9 and 19.5, for Novorossysk 1.5 and 18.3, for Mariupol
3.1 and 16.2, for Kherson 1.1 and 11.3, for Feodosia 0.6 and 4.8, for
Rostiv 2.1 and 2.4, for Berdiansk 0.3 and 3.9, for Eupatoria 0.8 and
2.9, for Akerman 0.4 and 2.0.
These figures once more bring before our eyes the ruinous effect of the
economic policy of the Russian Government upon the Ukraine. The natural
resources of the Ukraine are exported in enormous masses, without
consideration of the needs of the Ukrainian population; the imports are
to a great extent directed to other far distant coasts of the Russian
Empire, and Great Russia gets the advantage of them, while the Ukraine
is flooded with the inferior goods of Central Russian industry. If we
consider, further, that an annual customs balance of 200 million rubles
goes to the central government from the Ukraine, an amount which is
then used for the development of the central provinces, we become able
to understand under what unfavorable conditions the economic life of
the Ukraine must develop, and how dearly its progress must be paid for.
THE DISTRICTS AND SETTLEMENTS OF UKRAINE
For centuries robbed of its political independence, the Ukraine today
simply vegetates, instead of living in a state of full development. The
fatal results of its lack of independence are visible in every aspect
of the material and spiritual life of the country.
The present political-administrative division of the Ukraine is also a
result of the want of political independence of this nation. This
division corresponds neither to the natural nor to the
anthropogeographical conditions, and to a great degree represents only
entirely antiquated, now worthless remnants of the statesmanship of
former centuries.
Even the state boundaries are very unnaturally drawn in the Ukrainian
territory. The Austrian crown-province of Galicia embraces parts of
Rostoche, Volhynia, Podolia, Pokutye, while other parts of this natural
territory lie outside the state border, in Russia. The topography and
the people are the same on both sides of the cordon; only the state
authorities and the ruling races are different. The Carpathian boundary
between the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the Ukraine, to be sure,
seems a good natural boundary, but in reality it would be that only if
it ran along the southern foot of the range. For the Carpathian region
of the Ukraine, as a result of its easy communications constitutes not
only a physico-geographical, but also an anthropogeographical unit. On
both sides of the border live the same Lemkos, Boikos and Hutzuls.
More glaringly still does the unnaturalness of the present political
division of the Ukraine stand out, when we view the administrative
units in the framework of the states which at present dominate the
Ukraine. In Hungary, the Ukrainian part of the land is united into one
great whole, together with Slavonia, Transylvania, Alföld, Banat, etc.
All is centered in Budapest. Even the boundaries of the autonomous
countries are so constructed that, besides a piece of Ukrainian
territory, they embrace an equally great or even greater, but, at any
rate, heavily peopled piece of a foreign national territory, e.g., of
the Roumanian, Magyar, Slovenian. As a result of this scattering
allotment, the Ukrainians of Hungary possess no political influence.
The same is the case in the Austrian parts of the Ukraine. Galicia
proper, which is inhabited by Ukrainians, the nucleus of the ancient
Ukrainian Kingdom of Halich, which, in its physico-geographical aspect,
is wholly a part of Eastern Europe, is welded together with the
so-called Western Galicia, properly a part of Little Poland
(grand-duchy of Cracow), which is inhabited entirely by Poles and
belongs physically to Central Europe, both halves constituting together
one administrative unit. The result of this unnatural union is the
bitter racial struggle of century-long duration between the Poles and
Ukrainians, a struggle which is still going on without prospect of
peace, and is very unfavorable for the beneficial development of the
land. The Ukrainians are fighting for equal rights and against
Polonization; the Poles, in the name of their state tradition, for
their hegemony in the land and for the forcible assimilation of the
Ukrainians. The only remedy which presents itself would be the division
of the present crown-province of Galicia into two crown-provinces, an
eastern Ukrainian, and a western Polish province. The present
crown-province of Bukowina also consists of parts of Pokutye, Pidhirye
and the Ukrainian Carpathians, together with a part of the Roumanian
Carpathian foothills. This circumstance again brings about a national
struggle between the Ukrainians and the Roumanians.
The greatest portion of the country, the Russian Ukraine, also suffers
from an unnatural political division. The Ukrainian territory is
divided into several great administrative districts, or groups of
governments. Parts of the Ukrainian national territory lie in the
Vistula Governments in Western, Southwestern, Southern and Little
Russia and Caucasia. The boundaries of the individual governments
everywhere are drawn without consideration for natural and ethnographic
conditions. In this way the border districts of the unbroken Ukrainian
territory have been united with parts of foreign racial territories
into artificial administrative units, as, for example, the Governments
of Lublin and Sidlez (the present Government of Kholm), Grodno, Minsk,
Kursk, Voroniz, Don region, Stavropol, Bessarabia, etc. This
circumstance being a result of the poor development of constitutional
life in Russia, has no great significance now, but may in the future
become as unfavorable for the Ukraine as is the similar condition today
in Austria-Hungary.
The anthropogeography of today in describing a land, very seldom takes
such artificial divisions into consideration. Then there is the
additional circumstance that these divisions, as is obvious, have no
physico-geographical value. In like manner, the division of Russia
“according to natural and economic characteristics,” by Arseniev,
Semyonoff, Richter, Fortunatov, etc., are worthless for geographical
purposes. The most suitable of any of them is that of Richter, which
gives the Ukrainian territory an independent position. A good division
also comes from M. Drahomaniv, but it is not suitable for a
geographical description.
For all these reasons we shall keep to the natural districts which we
described in Book I. Such a division is the only justifiable one in a
country which, like the Ukraine, has no political independence.
The Carpathian region constitutes the first natural district of the
Ukraine. It is populated by three Ukrainian mountain-tribes—the Lemkos
(from Poprad to the Oslava), the Boikos (together with Tukholzians,
from the Oslava to the Limnitzia) and the Hutzuls (from the Limnitzia
to the Roumanian ethnographic border). The population is everywhere
thinly strewn, especially in the Boike country. The agriculture of the
region is not sufficient at any point to nourish even the sparse
population. The Lemkos and Boikos carry on a little farming (oats,
potatoes), the Hutzuls only along the edge of the mountains.
Cattle-raising, with dairying, forestry and lumbering, and among the
Hutzuls their fine home industry as well, constitute the main sources
of sustenance of the mountain dwellers. Every year a large percentage
of the population goes out for seasonal migrations.
The settlements of the Ukrainian Carpathians all have the character of
villages. The Lemko and Boiko villages usually form long rows of farms,
which extend along the valley bottom. The Hutzulian villages, on the
other hand, consist of separate farms which lie scattered on valley
sides, valley plains, and even valley spurs. The huts are everywhere
built of wood, and covered with shingles or boards; only among the
Boikos, sometimes, with straw. The very practical block houses, adapted
to the climate, which are built by the Hutzuls, look very neat.
There are no cities in the Carpathian region, but only small towns,
inhabited for the most part by Jews, and bristling with dirt. The Lemko
country (Lemkivshchina) has only one larger town, Sianik (11,000
inhabitants), with railway-car factories. Also noteworthy, on the
Hungarian side, are the little towns of Svidnik and Strupkiv, on the
Galician side the resorts of Krinitzia, Zeghestiv, Vissova, Rimaniv. In
the little towns of the adjacent Polish (New Sandetz, Gorlice, Gribov,
Dukla) and Slovenian territory (Bartfeld) the Lemkos supply their needs
in industrial products and grain.
In the Boiko country (Boikivshchina) the towns are little centers for
the retail trade and the lumber industry, as for instance, Turka on the
Striy (11,000 pop.), Lisko on the San, Stari Sambir on the Dniester,
and Skole on the Opir (match manufacture). The village of Smorze is
noted for its cattle fairs, Sinevidsko for its fruit trade. Along the
Opir valley lie numerous summer resorts (Tukhla, Slavsko).
In the Hutzul country, too, there are many summer resorts, particularly
in the valley of the Prut (Dora, Yaremche, Mikulichin, Tatariv,
Vorokhta). The Hutzuls make their purchases in the little towns which
lie at the exit of the main passes of the range—in Nadvirna
(saw-mills), Delatin (salt-works), in Kossiv, noted for its mild
climate, its flourishing home industry and fruit-culture and its
salt-works, in Kuti, where tanning and furriery flourish, and in
Viznitza (saw-mills and lumber industrial school). In the center of the
Hutzul country lies the large Hutzulian village of Zabye. There are
noted mineral springs in Burkut and Pistin. On the southern slope of
the range lies the only city of the Hutzul country (21,000 pop.) and
the town of Hust (10,000 pop.), both important as trade centers of the
Hungarian Hutzul country.
In the southern sub-Carpathian zone the Ukrainian territory extends
forward but a slight distance. The economic conditions of the mountain
range suddenly give way to agriculture and vine-growing. All the cities
of the region lie on the borders of the Ukrainian territory at the
points of exit of important railroad lines and highroads out of the
mountains. Such is the position of Uzhorod (17,000 pop.) and Mukachiv
(17,000 pop.) where the products of the plain and the mountains are
exchanged.
The Galicia-Bukowina sub-Carpathian hill country (Pidhirye) forms a
gentle transition from the mountains to the plain. With the great
wealth of forest and meadow and a not very fertile soil, agriculture
begins to predominate but slowly as we depart from the limits of the
mountain district. Besides, the great abundance of salt and petroleum
demands many hands. The villages of the Pidhirye are as a rule, not
large; the huts are regularly covered with straw. Here we find the
rather unattractive type of the Galician cities and towns. Their chief
characteristic is unfathomable mud or unfathomable dust on the streets,
depending on the season of the year. Only the suburbs inhabited by the
Ukrainian city-farmer population appear at all friendly, with their
orchards and their little white-painted houses. The center of the city
is regularly taken up by the Jews. Their houses, as a rule, defy all
ideas of cleanliness and hygiene, and, amid bristling dirt, the retail
trade surges thru miserable booths and shops. Almost nowhere in the
Galician cities do we find wholesale trade or industry on a large
scale, in the European sense. The Christian middle-class does not
exist, and the educated class of the city population is represented by
officials (usually Poles, and, in decreasing proportions, Ukrainians).
On the western borderlands of the Ukraine, in this region, lies the
city of Yaroslav on the San (25,000 pop.), a railway junction in an
important strategic position. Founded by the ancient Ukrainian princes
of Kiev, Yaroslav was once famous for its annual fairs. Near it, on the
San, lies Radimno with its rope industry. But the most important city
on the San is Peremishl (57,000 pop.), at once one of the oldest cities
of Galicia and the one-time capital of the Ukrainian dynasty of the
Rostislavids. Peremishl owes its importance to its position as a bridge
city at a point where important roads from the west and northwest cross
the San to the east and south. It lies at the important junction of the
Galician main railroad line, with the important Lupkov line coming from
Hungary, and is accordingly, as a result of its position, a first-class
fortress, which closes the San valley and cuts off access to the
adjacent Carpathian passes. The commercial standing of the city is
considerable; here, too, a Greek-Catholic bishopric has its seat, and
here there exist numerous Ukrainian cultural and economic societies.
In the sub-Carpathian Dniester region, which is traversed lengthwise by
the Galician Transversal Railroad, lie a number of important cities. On
the Dniester we find Sambir (21,000 pop.) at the crossing of the
railroads, with a lumber industry of some size. On the Tismenitza
Railroad lies Borislav (15,000 pop.), but recently a little Boike
village, now, together with the adjacent towns of Tustanovichi (12,000
pop.) and Skhidnitza, the center of petroleum and ozokerite production.
A forest of artesian wells, factory chimneys, petroleum reservoirs,
have sprung up amid the famous “Borislav mud,” among miserable dirty
houses which shelter so many millionaires and hungry wretches, so much
happiness and misery, crime and immorality. The refineries for the
petroleum that is gained here are located mostly in the adjacent
Drohobich (39,000 pop.), the seat of the petroleum speculators. Salt
works also are found in this city, still greater ones in the adjacent
Stebnik, where enormous deposits of salt have been discovered, but thus
far not been exploited. Truskavetz is a well-known watering-place.
On the Striy lies the important railroad junction of Striy (33,000
pop.), with a mill, lumber and match industry, the seat of the
Ukrainian dairymen’s association and other Ukrainian organizations; at
the mouth of the Striy the ancient town of Zidachiv. On the
sub-Carpathian Transversal Railroad toward the east, lie the following:
the watering-place Morshin, Bolekhiv with salt-works and match
factories Dolina with salt-works and saw-mills, Kalush with
saltpeter-mining and salt-works. Stanislaviv (over 60,000 pop.),
situated at the junction of the two Bistritza rivers, is an important
railway center in which the Lemberg-Czernowitz Railroad meets the
Transversal railroad, the South Polish Railroad and the Hungarian
branch railroad to Marmarosh. The city has an important industrial and
commercial activity, and is the seat of the Greek-Catholic bishopric.
Stanislaviv has inherited the former importance of Halich, the one-time
capital of the Ukrainian Kingdom of the same name, which, at its
highest development, reached the Polissye swamps on the north, the
Dnieper on the east, the Black Sea and the Danube delta on the south.
At that time (11th and 12th Century), Halich equalled or surpassed in
size, wealth and commercial importance, most of the capitals of Western
Europe. After a thousand years of Polish dominion it is now a miserable
town in a beautiful location, important geographically for its traffic
advantages. A side-line here branches off from the main railroad into
Podolia. Attempts are being made to enliven Dniester navigation, which
begins here and in Zuravno at the mouth of the Svicha. Not far from
Stanislaviv lie Tovmach, Tismenitza (10,000 pop.) with a leather
industry, and Ottinia with a machine industry of some size.
In the Galician Prut region, Kolomia (45,000 pop.) is the most
important city, at the junction of sub-Carpathian and Pokutian railroad
lines, with an important commerce and pottery industry. Further to the
east, on the Prut, lies Zabolotiv with a tobacco factory and Sniatin
(12,000 pop.) with an active commerce and agricultural production.
Dzuriv and Novoselitza have lignite mines. In the sub-Carpathian
country of the Bukowina, the capital city, Czernowitz, developed in one
century from a miserable village to a city of 93,000 inhabitants.
Czernowitz has some industry and considerable commerce. Important
railroads lead from here, via Novoselitza to Russia, and via Itzkany to
Roumania. Czernowitz is the seat of the most eastern German University
(but several professors lecture in Ukrainian), a Greek-Catholic
metropolitan, and numerous Ukrainian organizations. In nearby Sadahora,
well-frequented annual fairs take place. The cities carrying on a
lively trade, Seret, Storozhinetz (10,000 pop.), Radivtzi (17,000
pop.—the city with the great breeding-stud), and Suchava (12,000 pop.),
all lie on the boundary of the Ukrainian and Roumanian-speaking
populations. Katshka possesses large salt-works.
The Rostoche, which embraces a part of Northern Galicia and the
southern part of the Government of Kholm (eastern borderlands of the
Governments of Lublin and Sidletz), is, for the most part, an
agricultural country, altho the forest areas, which are still rather
large, have retained their once flourishing lumber industry. The
villages of this region are large, but consist, as a rule, of scattered
hamlets and lone farms. There are not many cities in the Rostoche
region, but on its southern border we find one of the most important in
the Ukraine, the ancient royal city of Lviv (Lemberg, 220,000 pop.).
The importance of the geographical position of Lemberg is in the fact
that it lies at the point of the easiest passage from the low country
of the Buh to the west, and into the Carpathian country across the
Ukrainian group of plateaus, which is narrowest here. Lemberg commands
all the more important roads of the Western Ukraine, and, after their
union, leads them westward. Lemberg is the greatest railroad center of
all the Ukraine; nine railroads as well as eight highroads converge
here from all parts of the continent. The thing that has contributed
most to the remarkable growth of Lemberg in the last half-century,
besides the railroads, is its position as the capital of Galicia, that
largest of the Austrian crown-provinces. Founded about the middle of
the 13th Century by the Ukrainian princes of Halich, Danilo and Lev,
Lemberg, about the middle of the 14th Century, fell under Polish rule.
Here industry and commerce flourished in the 15th and 16th Centuries,
thanks to the German middle-class of the city; then Lemberg declined
irresistibly until it came under Austria’s dominion as a little town,
from which time on, it flourished again. At present Lemberg is the
trade center of Ukrainian-Galicia and shows some industrial progress
(brick-kilns, breweries, alcohol distilleries, railroad shops, etc.).
As a result of recent rapid development, the character of the city is
almost wholly modern; the number of historical landmarks is not large.
Lemberg is the seat of three archbishops, a University with several
Ukrainian chairs, a technical and a commercial college, as well as many
trade schools and intermediate schools. Lemberg is also one of the
chief centers of Ukrainian cultural life, and the seat of many
important Ukrainian societies and institutions.
In the Galician Rostoche region there are besides Lemberg, only small
towns: Zovkva, Yavoriv (10,000 pop.), with lumber industry, Rava
(11,000 pop.). At the railroad junction, Nemiriv with mineral springs,
Potilich with a considerable pottery industry. Mosti veliki, the large
village of Kaminka voloska (10,000 pop.), Belz, formerly a Ukrainian
royal residence. On the Buh lie the following: the old town of Busk,
Kaminka strumilova, Sokal, at the point where more active river
navigation begins.
In the Kholm Rostoche, the most important city is Kholm (20,000 pop.),
founded, like Lemberg, by Prince Danilo, now a Jewish city carrying on
a lively trade in the agricultural products of this fertile region, and
the capital of the Government of the same name. Tarnohorod and Tomashiv
are notorious for their smuggling, Bilhoray is known for its sieve
industry, Hrubeshiv and Zamostye (12,000 pop.) for their trade in
foodstuffs.
A country of similar anthropogeographical character is the adjacent
plain of Pidlassye. This country embraces the northern part of the
Government of Kholm and the southern part of the Government of Grodno.
Fertile stretches of land, with large villages, here alternate with
large wooded areas (the virgin forest of Biloveza) and swamp areas, in
which small villages and hamlets predominate. The most important city
of the Pidlassye is the fortress of Berestia (57,000 pop.) on the
Mukhavetz, the eastern base of the fortress quadrangle of the Vistula
region and an important railroad center, where five lines meet with the
Dnieper-Buh Canal. Besides its very considerable commerce, Berestye has
great historical reminiscences of the union of the orthodox church with
Rome, accomplished here in 1596. On the left bank of the Buh lie the
commercial cities of Vlodava and Bila (13,000 pop.), on the Mukhavetz
lies Kobrin (10,000 pop.), and in the neighborhood of the Bilovez
Forest, the ancient Kamenetz-Litovsky and Bilsk.
The neighboring Ukrainian country in the east is the Ukrainian
Polissye. It embraces the southern part of the Government of Minsk, on
the right shore of the Zna and the Pripet, and the northern lowland
region of the Governments of Volhynia and Kiev. As a result of the
decided preponderance of forest and swamp, agriculture must retire to
the background, and confine itself only to the small number of higher
and more fertile places. There are not such great obstacles to
cattle-raising, but forestry and lumber-floating play the most
important part. The most important city of the Polissye is Pinsk
(37,000 pop.), situated on the navigable Pina, where the Dnieper-Buh
Canal and the Dnieper-Niemen Canal connect with the Pripet system. Here
begins the regular steamship navigation of the Pripet, here there are
large saw-mills, match factories, shipyards, beer and mead breweries
and tobacco factories, and here active commerce and lumber-floating
flourish. Another important river port is Davidhorodok on the mouth of
the Horin, the people of which carry on ship-building and
river-navigation and engage in sausage-making and cheese-making.
Farther down the river is the antique Turiv, a former royal city, now a
miserable little town with a population of farmers and timber-floaters.
The equally antique town of Mosir (12,000 pop.) has retained a greater
significance, with a good river harbor, ship-building industry and
match-making. The last important port on the Pripet is Chornobil.
In the Volhynian Polissye, Kovel (17,000 pop.), situated on the
navigable Turia, is, above all, an important railroad center, which
carries on a considerable trade in agricultural products and wood.
Another important railroad center is Sarni on the Sluch. The antique
town of Orruch on the Norin is rich in swamp-ores and pottery-clay.
The natural district of Volhynia embraces only the Volhynian Plateau,
together with the wide river plains, which penetrate far into the heart
of the Plateau. To Volhynia, then, belongs the southern part of the
present Government of Volhynia, as well as a small strip of the
Government of Kiev, on the left bank of the Teterev. Here agriculture
forms the main occupation of the people. Forestry and lumbering become
less important. With regard to the manner of settlement, Volhynia still
has a suggestion of the adjacent regions in the west and north, with
their small villages, hamlets and single farms. In the east it begins
to assume the genuine Ukrainian character, with large villages and
country towns. The cities and towns of Volhynia are, as a rule, not
large, inhabited chiefly by Jews, dirty and neglected, surpassing in
this respect even the typical Galician villages and towns. On the
Galician side there is only one city worthy of mention, namely Brodi
(18,000 pop.), which carries on a considerable trade in agricultural
and animal products, as well as some lively smuggling. On the Russian
side the following may be enumerated, from west to east: Volodimir
volinsky (10,000 pop.), formerly a royal city, now a miserable Jewish
town with some lumber and grain trade and smuggling. Lutzk, Dubno and
Rivne form the Volhynian triangle of forts directed against Austria.
Lutzk (32,000 pop.) is an old royal city at the junction of roads which
cross the navigable Stir at this point, and carries on a considerable
trade, as well as a cloth and leather industry of some dimensions;
Dubno (14,000 pop.), on the Ikva, is known for its once famous annual
fairs; Rivne (39,000 pop.) carries on a considerable trade with grain,
live-stock, alcohol, etc. Along the Austrian border lie: Berestechko on
the Stir, memorable for the unhappy battle fought by Khmelnitsky
against the Poles (1651); Radiviliv, opposite Brody, the main seat of
smuggling; Pochayiv, a famous place of pilgrimage, and simultaneously a
den of smugglers.
Kremianetz (18,000 pop.) on the Ikva, a strong fortress in the days of
the Ukrainian princes, now carries on a considerable grain trade. On
the Horin, at the point where that river becomes navigable, lies Ostroh
(15,000 pop.), with many ruins, the former residence of the Princes of
Ostrohsky, who founded an academy here in the 16th Century, and made of
Ostroh an important spiritual center of the Ukraine of that time.
Zaslav (13,000 pop.), likewise on the Horin, was once the residence of
the Princes of Zaslavsky. Both cities carry on some trade in grain
today. On the Sluch lie the cities of Starokonstantiniv (17,000 pop.),
founded by the Princes of Ostrohsky, with considerable export of grain
and cattle, and Novhorod-Volinsky (Zviahel, 17,000 pop.), rich in
marsh-ore and pottery-clay. Korez (10,000 pop.) is famous for its
porcelain clay. Just on the border of Volhynia lies its administrative
center, Zitomir (93,000 pop.). This old city lies at the edge of the
forest and agricultural regions, carries on a considerable trade in
grain and wood, salt and sugar, and has an important clothing, leather
and tobacco industry. Downstream, on the Teterev, lies the little
commercial city of Radomishl (11,000 pop.).
Podolia’s natural territory embraces the most eastern part of Galicia
and almost the entire Government of Podolia, besides the northern
borderlands of Kherson. Podolia is a purely agricultural region; its
manufacturing is limited to home industry, besides some mills,
distilleries and sugar factories. The Podolian villages are large as a
rule, lie in rows in the cañon valleys, while, on the height of the
plateau, usually only single farms and hamlets are seen. The huts are
almost all built of loam and covered with straw. City settlements are
rare and small, all insignificant emporiums for agricultural and animal
products.
On the western edge of Galician-Podolia lie Horodok (13,000 pop.), on a
large pond formed by the Vereshitza, and Lublin, with sulphur baths; on
the Hnila Lipa, the antique city of Rohatin; on the Zlota Lipa,
Berezani (13,000 pop.), with a large pond; on the Koropetz River there
are Pidhaitzi and Monastiriska, with a tobacco factory; on the Stripa
River, Zboriv, memorable for the decisive victory of Khmelnitsky over
the Poles and for the treaty of 1649 following, which allowed the
Ukraine almost complete autonomy—within the framework of the Polish
state. Downstream, on the Stripa, lies the commercial city of Buchach
(14,000 pop.). On the northern boundary of Podolia, already in the Buh
region, lie Zolochiv (13,000 pop.) and Sassiv, with a paper and pottery
industry. On the Sereth, and in its district, lie Zbaraz, memorable for
the victory of Khmelnitsky (1648); Ternopil (34,000 pop.), the most
important railroad center and commercial city of Podolia, with a large
grain, cattle and alcohol trade; Terebovla, a former Ukrainian prince’s
residence; Chortkiv, a center of Podolian local railroads. On the
Sbruch, the only town worth mention is the border town and border
station of Pidvolochiska-Volochiska. In the Dniester cañon there is
only one important place. Salishchiki, with considerable fruit-culture.
All the cities of Galician-Podolia are bridge cities, and lie at
convenient crossings over the left tributaries of the Dniester. All
these crossings were once guarded by castles, about which cities were
later developed.
In Russian-Podolia the number of cities and towns is still smaller. The
capital of the Government of Kamenetz Podilsky (50,000 pop.), lies on
the Smotrich, and was at one time an important border-fortress against
the Turks. To this day the city has no railroad connections, hence its
commercial importance is very slight. The adjacent Zvanetz is memorable
because of the Khmelnitsky campaign (1653). On the Dniester, whose
entire valley is covered with fruit orchards and vineyards, lies the
important river port of Mohiliv (33,000 pop.), with considerable
lumber, grain and fruit trade; Ushitza with a fruit trade; the river
part of Yampol on the Dniester rapids. In the region and the valley of
the Boh lie Proskuriv (41,000 pop.), a genuine village-city with
considerable trade; Pilavtzi, memorable because of the complete defeat
suffered there by the Poles (1648); Meziboz, in an important strategic
position against the Austrian border; Letichiv and Khmelnik (11,000
pop.), surrounded by orchards; on the Shar R., Litin (10,000 pop.); on
the Rivi the once famous Bar (11,000 pop.), now a miserable town;
further downstream on the Boh, Vinnitza (48,000 pop.), once a Cossack
city, memorable because of a defeat of the Poles (1651), now a lively
commercial city. The former capital of the palatinate of Bratzlav is
now entirely insignificant, likewise the new Olhopil on the Savranka.
The only commercial city of any importance in Southern Podolia is the
muddy Balta, which, in its famous annual fairs, trades in grain,
cattle, bacon and skins, but especially pumpkins and melons, and has a
soap and candle industry of some importance. The adjacent city of
Ananiiv (17,000 pop.) also carries on considerable trade in
agricultural products.
The Pokutian-Bessarabian Plateau embraces a narrow zone of Southeastern
Galicia and the Northern Bukowina, as well as the northern part of the
Russian Government of Bessarabia. The manner of settling is similar to
the Podolian, with large villages and few small cities. Agriculture and
wine-growing are the most important occupation of the people; toward
the south cattle-raising is becoming of greater importance. Home
industry is insignificant, of factory industry there is almost none. In
Galician-Pokutye the only cities worthy of mention are Horodenka
(11,000 pop.), in a very fertile region, and the old commercial city of
Sniatin (12,000 pop.), and in Bukowina-Pokutye the commercial town of
Kitzman. In Bessarabia we find, on the Dniester, the former fortress of
Khotin (18,000 pop.), memorable for two Turkish battles (1621 and
1673), now a river port and the seat of an active grain and fruit
trade, as well as a notorious nest of smugglers. The second Dniester
port of Bessarabia, Soroki (15,000 pop.), serves principally the export
trade. At some distance from the course of the Dniester lies the
insignificant town of Orhüv (13,000 pop.), and the dirty city of Biltzi
(19,000 pop.), with a large grain and cattle trade. The capital of
Bessarabia, Kishiniv (125,000 pop.), lies outside of the Ukrainian
territory.
The Dnieper Plateau is important, not only because of its agriculture,
cattle-raising and fruit-culture, but also because of a considerable
cultivation of commercial plants, because of a developed home and
factory industry, and because of a comparatively lively trade. It is
one of the central districts of the Ukraine, with typical conditions of
settlement. Large agglomerations of dwellings, picturesquely located,
consisting of whitewashed, straw-covered clay huts, lie on the rivers
and creeks, usually on wide valley bottoms or slightly inclined valley
sides, surrounded and dotted with the fresh green of orchards. On the
plateau, which is one great wave of never-ending grain-fields, there
lie only a few scattered manors of large landowners, single farmhouses,
bee orchards, adjoining little woodlands and groves. The number and
size of the cities is not great. The prevailing type is that of the
village city—a great village with an area of buildings in the middle,
which have a city-like character. The streets are broad and unpaved,
the green of the gardens being apparent even in the center of the city.
Where the northeastern spurs of the Dnieper Plateau reach the Dnieper
River, lies the natural capital of the Ukraine, the former “mother of
the Ruthenian cities,” Kiev (506,000 pop.). Its great history finds
expression in an enormous number of architectural monuments, especially
churches and convents. (Lavra Pecherska, the Church of Sophia, the
Church of Andreas, the Tithe Church, the Golden Gate, etc.). Kiev was
the capital of the ancient Ukrainian Kingdom and its spiritual center;
today it is called the “Ukrainian Jerusalem,” and is visited by
hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year. Besides its historical
importance, Kiev possesses also a great geographical significance. Its
picturesque position on the lofty right-hand bank of the Dnieper, which
is cut up into beautiful erosive hills, offers great geographical
advantages. Here, opposite the Desna outlet, the Dnieper, after
receiving its two largest tributaries, completes its transformation
into the second largest river of Eastern Europe. The waterways of the
Pripet, the upper Dnieper and the Desna here form a junction, the
importance of which is heightened by the junction of railroads and
highways at the same point; such thorofares have always found in Kiev
the most convenient crossing over the Dnieper River into the Western
Ukrainian lands. This junction of roads favors the rapidly progressing
development of Kiev’s commerce, which concentrates in the “lower city”
(Podil) and in its great river harbor. Kiev is the most convenient
emporium for the forest and grain regions of the Ukraine, which border
on one another here. In the last decades a considerable factory
industry has developed in Kiev, embracing all possible branches of
industry. Above all, the sugar industry has its center here. Kiev has a
Russian University and a technical college. Ukrainian cultural life,
which has always had its main headquarters in Kiev, has experienced an
unexpected rise here since 1905.
Not far from Kiev, which is an important fortress today, there lie many
places of historical significance, among them the convents of
Vidubitsky and Mezihirsky. Rzishchiv is a river port with some grain
exportation. On the Stuhna lies the old city of Vassilkiv (18,000
pop.), with an insignificant trade, from a modern point of view. At the
point where the borders of the Governments of Kiev, Volhynia and
Podolia touch, lies Berdichiv, a city of 83,000, inhabited mostly by
Jews, after Kiev the most important emporium for cattle and grain in
the country. The products of the industry of this place are offered for
sale by Jewish peddlers thruout the entire right half of the Ukraine.
In the river region of the Ross we find several cities which are local
centers of the sugar and alcohol industry: Skvira (16,000 pop.), in a
region covered with ancient walls, with pottery and cap manufactures;
the old Cossack city of Bila Tserkov (61,000 pop.), famous for the
treaty of Khmelnitsky with the Poles (1652), now a lively commercial
city, with sugar and machine manufactures; Tarashcha (11,000 pop.),
with a considerable wagon industry (the familiar tarantasses are made
here). Korsun is noteworthy because of the victory of Khmelnitsky over
the Poles (1648). Nearby lie the villages of Kirilivka and Morintzi,
the home of the greatest Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko.
The entire plateau zone along the right Dnieper bank is full of old
monuments of Ukrainian history, of walls, ancient fortifications, ruins
and barrows. Along the Dnieper lie in succession: Trekhtimiriv, Kaniv,
Cherkassi, once the most important center of the Ukrainian Cossack
organization Near Kaniv, elevated on the lofty right bank of the
Dnieper, is the mound of Shevchenko, visited every year by numerous
companies of pilgrims of all classes of the Ukrainian nation. Kaniv is
now a little town with an insignificant river harbor. Cherkassi (40,000
pop.), on the other hand, thanks to its large river harbor and the
railroad which crosses the Dnieper here, has developed into a lively
commercial city (wood, iron, sugar and salt trade, lumber and sugar
industry). By the example of Cherkassi or Kreminchuk, we are shown how
the poor villages and towns on the Dnieper could be developed if
cultural conditions were favorable. A fine example of such a neglected
town is Chihirin (10,000 pop.), on the Tiasmin, the former residence
city of the Ukrainian hetmans. Situated, as tho by a wonderful
coincidence, in the center of the present Ukrainian territory, Chihirin
is hardly more than a large village, with crooked, muddy streets, a
slight lumber and grain trade, remains of the Chumak organization, and
an insignificant stonecutters’ trade. In Subotiv, nearby, Khmelnitsky
was buried, but his grave was destroyed by the Poles a short time
after. At the Tiasmin outlet lies the river port of Kriliv (12,000
pop.), with lumber and cattle trade; further downstream,
Verkhnodniprovsk, with an iron industry. At the source of the Inhuletz
is Olexandria (14,000 pop.), noteworthy for some milling industry.
On the southwestern and southern border of the Dnieper Plateau, which
is really part of the country drained by the Boh, there lie several
smaller towns, e.g., Lipovetz, Haisin, Novomirhorod, with some grain
and cattle trade. In this respect, Zvenihorodka (17,000 pop.) is of
greater importance. Nearby lies Katerinopol, with its lignite mines.
Uman (42,000 pop.) is known because of its associations with the
Haydamak times, its great park, and its considerable grain trade. The
largest city of this strip of borderland, Yelisavet (76,000 pop.), at
the source of the Inhul, carries on a considerable trade in grain and
wool, and possesses an important factory industry.
The Dnieper Plain, in its northern part, reveals quite a Polissian
character. But in the north we note the first differences too—the
highly developed home industry and agriculture much more highly
developed than in the Polissye region. On the left Desna bank,
lumbering declines gradually, and the villages of the Polissian type
give way to the typical Ukrainian villages, consisting of neatly
whitewashed, straw-covered huts, which lie picturesquely among
fruit-gardens. The towns and suburbs here, as in fact everywhere in the
left half of the Ukraine, have an entirely rural appearance. The cities
have very wide streets and squares. There are very few connected rows
of houses, and the single houses are surrounded by gardens and large
yards. The Dnieper Plain embraces the greatest part of the Governments
of Chernihiv and Poltava, and the northern edge of Katerinoslav.
The chief city of the northern half of the section is Chernihiv (33,000
pop.), an old city, perhaps as ancient as Kiev. It lies at the crossing
of the main road leading to Muscovy, across the navigable Desna. In the
city and its vicinity we find many historical monuments, churches,
walls and barrows; but the present commercial importance of the city is
very slight. Konotop (20,000 pop.), surrounded by swamps, and at one
time a strong fortress, famous for the victory of the Cossack hetman,
Vihovsky, over the Russians (1659), now carries on a considerable
commerce, thanks to its railroad junction, and has large peat deposits.
Bakhmatch, which lies nearby, is an important railroad junction. On the
Sem lies the commercial town of Baturin, the former hetman residence,
whose population was completely slaughtered by Menshikov in 1709.
Sosnitza, Borsna (12,000 pop.) and Berezna (10,000 pop.) carry on an
insignificant grain and cattle trade. On the navigable Oster lies Nizin
(52,000 pop.), an old city of the time of the Ukrainian princes, in the
17th Century a Greek colony carrying on a lively trade, later famous
for its great annual fairs. Just now the tobacco and grain trade of the
city is increasing considerably. There is also a philological academy
here. Further downstream, on the Oster, we find two old towns, Koseletz
and Oster, with a river harbor and a considerable net industry. On the
Trubaylo and on the Alta lies the ancient city of Pereyaslav (15,000
pop.), founded by Volodimir the Great, noteworthy for the victory of
the Cossack hetman, Taras Triasilo, over the Poles (1630). Here the
unfortunate treaty of 1654 was enacted, joining the Ukraine, which had
just been freed from Polish rule, to Russia, as an autonomous vassal
state. The once navigable Trubaylo has become shallow, the railroad
line has left the city lying to one side and Pereyaslav has lost all
significance. Equally insignificant is the adjacent town of
Zolotonosha.
In the Sula region, on the verge of the Dnieper Plain, lies Romen
(Romni, 33,000 pop.), with annual fairs that are important even today,
the center of the judicial district of Romni-Libau, which transports
the products of the Ukraine to the distant Baltic ports. Romen has a
soap industry and tobacco factories, and here and in the adjacent town
of Lokhvitzia, fruit and tobacco culture flourish. The center of
Ukrainian tobacco-culture is Priluky (31,000 pop.), on the Udai, which
carries on the greatest tobacco trade in all Russia, exporting half a
million puds of it annually. On the Udai also lies the old Cossack city
of Piriatin, now an important railroad center. Below the outlet of the
Udai into the Sula, lies ancient Lubni (10,000 pop.), with its great
fruit-gardens and tanneries.
In the region drained by the Psiol, we find on the Khorol, the old
Cossack city of Mirhorod (10,000 pop.), so masterfully pictured by
Gogol, with its industrial school and its great home industry. Mirhorod
was once an important center of the Chumak organization. Not far from
it lies the railroad center of Romodan and the antique town of Khorol.
Hadyach is noteworthy because of the treaty of the Cossack hetman,
Vihovsky, with Poland (1658), which was to join the Ukraine as the
third autonomous unit to the Polish-Lithuanian state. Sinkiv (10,000
pop.) is an important center of a versatile home industry; Rashivka, a
center of the Prassoli societies; Sorochintzi, the birthplace of Gogol,
has grain and cattle markets; Reshetilivka is famous for its
sheep-raising and its leather industry. Above the outlet of the Psiol
into the Dnieper, lies the chief river port of the region, Kreminchuk
(99,000 pop.), an important bridge city, where numerous highways and
two railroads cross the navigable Dnieper. Kreminchuk trades,
particularly in lumber and grain, is an emporium for lumber, coal and
salt, and has machine, tobacco, carriage and leather factories, and
large saw-mills. The city is subject to many floods and conflagrations,
but is growing constantly. Half of the population is comprised of
Jewish merchants and business men. In the spring the population of the
city is regularly doubled. On the opposite Dnieper bank lies the river
port of Krukiv (10,000 pop.), almost a suburb of Kreminchuk.
In the river region of the Vorskla, on the northeastern boundary of the
plain, lies Oposhnia, widely known for its pottery. Farther downstream
lies the city of Poltava (83,000 pop.), the chief city of the southern
part of the left half of the plain, notable for the unfortunate battle
(1709) in which Peter the Great, with Polish help, destroyed the plan
of the dashing hetman, Mazeppa, to free the Ukraine from Russian
dominion, with the aid of Charles XII. of Sweden. Today Poltava is a
rising industrial city, with an important railroad junction and great
annual fairs, chiefly for wool and horses. Kobeliaki (12,000 pop.),
situated downstream on the Vorskla, has a cloth industry of some
dimensions, as has also the district of Konstantinohrad, in the river
region of the Orel. On the southeastern border of the plain, where it
joins the Pontian plain in the region of the Samara, lie the old
Zaporog settlements of Samarchik (Novonoskovsk, 13,000 pop.) and
Pavlohrad (41,000 pop.), with a considerable grain trade and a large
mill, leather and wax industry.
The spurs of the Central Russian Plateau, which lie within the borders
of the Ukrainian national territory offer an almost complete
anthropogeographical analogy to the above discussed district. In the
north the Polissian character is still apparent. In the south
agriculture and home industry are well developed. Traffic is more
difficult, because of the greater distance to the navigable Dnieper,
but is rather active with the Muscovite country. The left plateau
district embraces the northwest frontiers of the Governments of
Chernihiv and Poltava, all of the Government of Kharkiv and the
adjacent districts of Kursk, Voroniz and Don.
The northernmost town of the Ukraine is Mhlin, with its important
annual fairs. In the vicinity lies Pochep, with some textile industry
and Klintzi (12,000 pop.), the “Manchester of the Chernihiv country,”
with spinning-mills, cloth, leather and metal factories. The
inhabitants of nearby Ardon engage in carriage-making, and carry on
peddling thruout the entire Ukraine. Considerable industry and trade is
carried on also by Novosibkiv (16,000 pop.) and Klimiv. Starodub
(13,000 pop.), the old Cossack city, on the other hand, is rich in
historical reminiscences. The ancient town of Novhorod Siversky, on the
Desna, and Korop, downstream, are insignificant today. Kluhiv (15,000
pop.) carries on a considerable grain trade. In the vicinity lies
Shostka, with a powder factory which supplies all the powder factories
of Russia with salpeter. Krolevetz (10,000 pop.) still has important
annual fairs, the old town of Putivl some trade in grain and flax,
Bilopilye (15,000 pop.), important annual fairs and a great grain
trade. In the country about the source of the Sula lies Nedrihailiv; at
the source of the Psiol is Sudza (13,000 pop.), with a large grain,
honey and fruit trade. Miropilye (11,000 pop.), has an important shoe
industry, Sumi (52,000 pop.), situated at a railroad junction, has an
important factory industry (especially sugar factories) and important
annual fairs. The old Cossack city of Lebedin (14,000 pop.), famous
because of the atrocities of Menshikov (1708), now carries on a
considerable grain trade.
In the region of the source of the Vorskla lies the town of Hraivoron,
downstream Okhtirka (32,000 pop.), a much frequented place of
pilgrimage, with considerable fruit-culture and lumber, fur, shoe,
pottery and milling industries. Considerable fruit-culture is carried
on also by Bohodukhiv.
The farther part of the left plateau lies in the region drained by the
Don. On the small rivers, Kharkiv and Lopan, lies the capital of the
region, Kharkiv (248,000 pop.). Founded as a Cossack hamlet in the 17th
Century, Kharkiv has grown very rapidly, thanks to its geographical
position at a convenient crossing point from the Dnieper region into
the Don region, between the interior and the sea. Here was once a
crossing of Chumak roads, and is now a railroad junction. Hence the
importance of Kharkiv lies in commerce. Four great fairs, whose
business still amounts to 80 million rubles a year, on an average, are
especially important for trade in grain, horned cattle, horses, wool
and manufactures. Besides, Kharkiv has a considerable factory industry
(linen, cloth, soap, candle, sugar, alcohol, tobacco, brick, ceramic,
machine, boiler and bell factories). Kharkiv is the seat of a Russian
University, and one of the chief centers of Ukrainian cultural life.
In the east of the Donetz course lie several small cities, e.g.,
Zolochiv, with its annual fairs; Valki, with a considerable home
industry and large fruit-gardens. In the country about the source of
the Donetz, on the border of the Ukraine, lies Bilhorod (22,000 pop.),
a commercial city with a woolen industry. Downstream, on the Donetz,
lie Vovchansk (11,000 pop.), Chuhuyiv (13,000 pop.) and Smiiv. Korocha
(14,000 pop.) carries on grain, cattle and fruit trade in its annual
fairs, and has some industry (oil-pressing, alcohol-distillation, and
albumen manufacture). On the Oskol lie the following: Stari-Oskol
(17,000 pop.), with a considerable trade and with a leather, wax, mead
and tobacco industry; the insignificant town of Novi-Oskol, Valuiki,
Urasova (13,000 pop.), with grain trade, tanneries and rope factories;
Kupiansk at a railroad junction. On the Tikha Sosna lies Biriuch
(13,000 pop.), with annual fairs and oil factories, Olexiyivka, known
for sunflower-culture and painters’ guilds, and Ostrohorsk (22,000
pop.), with a large grain, cattle and bacon trade, and soap, wax and
tobacco industry, once a center of the fish trade. Starobilsk (13,000
pop.) has lively annual fairs.
On the Don, within the province of the plateau, there are no larger
cities. Korotoiak (10,000 pop.) carries on an active trade, Pavlovsk
has soap factories, fat-extraction and oil-presses, and is an important
river-port, from which the regular Don navigation begins. Altogether,
on the eastern border country of the Ukraine, there are no larger
cities or even towns. Only a few isolated large villages gain greater
significance thru their markets and industry. One of these is the
largest village of the Ukraine: Buturlinivka (38,000 pop.), with
important annual fairs, with brick-kilns, tanneries, alcohol-stills, as
well as very considerable furriery and shoemaking.
The Donetz Plateau is, from an anthropogeographical point of view, a
very remarkable country, which has its closest analogy in the North
American mining districts. Only the northern edge of the country on the
Donetz has an appearance analogous to the adjacent Kharkiv country,
with large, typically Ukrainian villages and village-towns. All the
remaining region of the Donetz Plateau is a naked steppe. Here and
there factory chimneys, isolated or in groups, rise, surrounded by
factory buildings and laborers’ huts. The settlements come into
existence and grow with true American speed. The Donetz Plateau
embraces parts of the Governments of Kharkiv, Katerinoslav and Don.
One of the farthest advance guards of the typical Ukrainian settlements
is Isium (23,000 pop.), on the Donetz, one of the chief centers of the
pottery industry. Slaviansk, once Tor (20,000 pop.), on the Torez, has
large salt mines and salt lakes, with bathing pavilions, which draw
many guests in the summer, large salt-works and a number of mills,
porcelain and metal industries. Besides, Slaviansk has important
horse-markets. Nearby, on the chalk-cliffs of the Donetz, lies the
famous convent of the Holy Mountains. On the eastern border of the
Ukraine, on the Donetz, lies the river port of Kamenske (51,000 pop.),
with a great grain trade and glass-works.
In the mining and factory district of the Donetz Plateau there lie,
besides innumerable small industrial towns, a number of more important
centers. Luhan (60,000 pop.) has a large metallurgical industry with
foundries and hammer-works, machine-factories, numerous alcohol-stills,
breweries, tanneries, soap and tile factories. Bakhmut (33,000 pop.)
has large salt mines and salt-works and considerable trade; the
adjacent town of Mikitivka, mercury and coal mines. Yusivka (49,000
pop.) is the chief center of the coal mines, iron and steel factories;
Hrushivka (46,000 pop.) the center of the anthracite mines.
The Pontian Plain gives us an anthropogeographical picture which is
different from that of the thus far described sections of the Ukraine.
Here, in the newly settled steppe region, the type of the Ukrainian
settlements gradually disappears. The Ukrainian type of the large
villages remains, to be sure, but these villages are, by their
position, dependent upon the water as well as other conditions of a
practical nature, such as roads, mines, etc., which tempt a great
number of people to settle in the district. The huts here and there
bear the marks of provisional buildings, are not always whitewashed,
are covered with reeds, and in some places even earthen huts have been
preserved. As a rule, however, the typical Ukrainian whitewashed and
straw-covered clay hut advances farther and farther, and is sometimes
even prettier and better equipped here than in Northern Ukraine, thanks
to the greater prosperity of the peasant. In the last few years more
and more brick houses have been built, covered with tiles. Extensive
steppe agriculture and steppe cattle-raising have, to this time, been
the chief occupation; on the coast, salt-extraction and navigation.
Typical Ukrainian towns are rare here, but in the once wild steppes, on
the other hand, large commercial and industrial cities have shot up,
which possess a much more European appearance than the Russian cities.
Almost all these cities lie on the sea, or at the river outlets. The
Pontian Plain embraces the southern parts of Bessarabia, Kherson,
Katerinoslav, the mainland part of Tauria, the southwestern part of the
Don region and the northern part of the Kuban region.
On the Kilia arm of the Danube delta lie the following important river
ports, at the same time the centers of the Danube trade and of the
sea-fishing industry: Ismail (36,000 pop.), Kilia (12,000 pop.) and
Vilkiv. Akerman (40,000 pop.), on the Dniester liman, rich in
historical memories, is an important harbor for smaller ships, and
carries on a considerable salt, fish, bacon and woolen trade. On the
lower course of the Dniester lie the river ports of Dubosari (13,000
pop.), located in the midst of vineyards and fruit-gardens and tobacco
fields, with a considerable tobacco, wine, cattle and grain trade;
Benderi (60,000 pop.), a strong fortress with a considerable trade,
surrounded by fruit-gardens, vineyards and melon-patches and Teraspol
(32,000 pop.) with a large grain trade. Here the goods shipped down the
Dniester are unloaded, to be sent by rail to Odessa.
Odessa (620,000 pop.), the largest city and the most important port of
the Ukraine, is situated 32 kilometers north of the Dniester outlet,
and opposite the Dnieper liman, on a deep but open roadstead. By means
of expensive constructions, the unprotected harbor of Odessa was
considerably improved. It now has six protected harbor basins for
ships. In some winters the harbor does not freeze over, at other times
remaining frozen from 31 to 67 days, but then it can be kept open
without difficulty by ice-breakers. The city itself is built up on the
high and naked steppe plain, where orchards can be planted and taken
care of only with the greatest difficulty. The city has an entirely
European appearance, with broad, straight streets and fine houses.
There are almost no historic landmarks in Odessa, since it was founded
as late as 1794. The city grew very rapidly, especially in its
free-harbor period (1817–1859). Today Odessa is the most important
seaport of the Russian Empire, after St. Petersburg, and even surpasses
the latter in exports. The exports from Odessa are made up chiefly of
grain, also cattle, wood, sugar, fishing products, fats and alcohol.
These exports go to England, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium
and the far east. The imports of Odessa are disproportionately smaller
than the exports, and are made up chiefly of coal, rice, tropical
fruits, tea, etc., the benefit of which goes mostly to the cities of
Central Russia. Outside of this commercial activity, which is directed
by the stock exchange and the numerous banks, Odessa also possesses a
well-developed factory industry (mills, sugar, oil, macaroni,
canned-goods, alcohol, metal, ceramic, and chemical factories). About
the year 1900, the annual productive value was 70 million rubles.
Odessa is also a university city, and one of the intellectual centers
of the Ukraine. In the vicinity of Odessa are the famous limans of
Kuyalnik and Khadzybei, with their sanatoriums.
On the Boh, at the point where the river becomes navigable, lies
Vosnesensk, an important river port, with some industry and
considerable wood and grain trade. On the deep Boh liman, at the mouth
of the Inhul, lies Mikolaiv (103,000 pop.), a very important naval and
commercial harbor, which has the greatest exportation of grain, after
Odessa, and large shipyards, foundries and machine-shops. Krivi Rih
(15,000 pop.), on the Inhul, has 33 iron mines, and is the center of
Ukrainian iron mining.
On the Dnieper, on the border of the Pontian and Dnieper Plains, lies
the city of Katerinoslav (218,000 pop.), hardly more than a century
old. Katerinoslav owes its great importance to its position on the
Dnieper at the beginning of the rapids section, and at the end of the
upper steamboat navigation, where an important railroad line crosses
the river, connecting the iron mines of Krivi Rih with the coal fields
on the Donetz. Hence, Katerinoslav is, above all, an industrial city
with large foundries, forges and machine shops. Katerinoslav carries on
the greatest lumber trade in the entire Ukraine. Its grain and coal
trade is very important too. Below the rapids, in the old Zaporog
country, sacred to every Ukrainian, lies the rapidly rising city of
Olexandrivsk (51,000 pop.), an important river port and railroad
junction, with a metal and milling industry. Nikopol (17,000 pop.), the
point of crossing of the old commercial road over the Dnieper into
Crimea, is the center for manganese mining, and has some milling
industry. Its harbor is exceptional in that it is reached by smaller
sea-vessels, which, however, sail up the Dnieper only as far as
Berislav (12,000 pop.), where the grain is transferred from river boats
to sea-vessels. On the left Dnieper bank, opposite Berislav, lies the
important river harbor of Kakhivka. Oleshki has considerable vegetable,
fruit and melon-culture, fishing and crab-fishing.
Not far from the outlet of the Dnieper into its liman, lies the
government capital, Kherson (92,000 pop.), like Odessa, Mikolaiv and
Katerinoslav, a young city of the end of the 18th Century. Its harbor
was first made accessible to large sea-vessels by the dredging of the
ship-canal of Otshakiv in the Dnieper liman (1887), and since then the
city has been growing rapidly. Kherson carries on a very important
lumber and grain trade, and has large saw-mills, grain-mills, soap and
tobacco factories. Two fortresses defend the entrance to the Dnieper
liman, Ochakiv (12,000 pop.), with an insignificant harbor for coast
vessels, and Kinburn.
In the narrow strip of low country on the north shore of the Black Sea,
all the larger cities keep close to the coast. Melitopol on the
Molochna (17,000 pop.), carries on considerable trade in cattle,
lumber, skins, eggs and wool, and has large mills, alcohol-stills and
factories, which make agricultural machinery. Berdiansk (36,000 pop.),
despite its poor harbor, exports much grain, and has machine factories,
mills, breweries, and fine fruit gardens and vineyards. The former
great importance of Berdiansk has been inherited by Mariupol (53,000
pop.), with a good harbor at the mouth of the Kalmius, a city which
possesses some factory industry, and carries on an active export trade
in coal, coke, metal and grain. Still more important are the harbors at
the mouths of the Don. Opposite the Don delta lies Tahanroh (75,000
pop.) with a leather and metal industry, as well as an extensive trade
in grain, fish, beef, oil, bacon, leather and fruit, the most important
grain exporting harbor of the Ukraine, after Odessa and Mikolaiv. In
the Don delta lies Rostiv (172,000 pop.), the most important commercial
city of Southeastern Ukraine, with an extensive trade in grain, cattle,
wool and flax, large mills, shipyards, tobacco and machine factories.
The Armenian city of Nakhichevan (71,000 pop.) forms the suburbs, as it
were, of Rostiv, taking considerable part in its industrial and
commercial activity. The historically memorable city of Osiv (Azof,
31,000 pop.) is an important center of the Don and Azof fishing
industry, and has some grain trade. Yesk (51,000 pop.), on the eastern
shore of the Sea of Azof, has some grain export, and is a not
insignificant importing city.
The mountains and hill country of the Crimea are not properly a part of
the Ukrainian territory, altho the Ukrainian element flows into the
villages and cities of the land in an uninterrupted stream, while the
Mohammedan Tartar population emigrates to Turkey. In the northern part
of the Crimean peninsula, the economic and settlement conditions are
the same as in the Pontian lowland. There is an especially important
cattle-raising industry. In the southern, mountainous part of the
peninsula, agriculture and cattle-raising lose their predominating
importance, and fruit, wine and vegetable-cultivation, navigation and
salt-making, which flourishes along almost the entire coast of the
Crimea, comprise the chief occupations of the population. The chief
center of salt-manufacture lies on the salt lakes and limans of
Eupatoria (30,000 pop.), where also famous sanatoriums are located. In
the northern foothills of the Yaila lies the ancient capital of the
Khans, Bakchisarai (13,000 pop.), which has entirely preserved its
oriental character, as well as the new capital of Tauria, Simferopol
(71,000 pop.), the center of the fruit and wine-culture and of
important fruit-canning factories. An extensive fruit trade is carried
on also by Karasubazar (15,000 pop.).
At the gates of the Crimean Riviera is the city of Sevastopol (77,000
pop.), world renowned since the Crimean War, a great sea-fortress and
the strongest naval port of the Russian Empire in Europe. The
commercial harbor of the city has been without importance for the last
twelve years. In the vicinity, on a beautiful bay, lies Belklava, known
for its fisheries. On the southern coast is the following chain of
watering-places and summer-resorts: Alupka, Livadia, Yalta (23,000
pop.), Orianda, Alushta, Hursuf. In the summer patients and
vacationists come here from all the cities of Russia, and the Riviera
of Crimea is also growing continually in importance as a winter resort.
On the eastern spurs of the Crimean peninsula lie two large cities.
Feodosia (formerly Kaffa, 40,000 pop.) is the largest commercial port
of Crimea, with a considerable grain and fruit export. Kerch (57,000
pop.) also has a commercial port, used especially by large ships, which
must avoid the shallow Sea of Azof, but the city derives a much greater
importance from its extensive fishing industry, its fish-canning and
milling industry, and in recent years its metallurgical industry, which
exploits the large mineral deposits of the region.
The sub-Caucasus country of Kuban, colonized a century ago by the
posterity of the Zaporogs, offers, in its western part, an
anthropogeographical picture quite analogous to the other central
regions of the ancient Ukraine. It is actually a piece of the old
Ukraine, transplanted to the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, with its
large villages, farms (khutori), its important agriculture and
extensive cattle-raising. Fishing, lumbering and hunting play an
important part in its economic life, besides fruit and wine-culture.
The mining industry is showing great promise.
The eastern and southern part of the sub-Caucasus country, which,
besides parts of Kuban, embraces also parts of the Government of
Stavropol and of the Black Sea and Terek regions, is a land newly
settled by the Ukrainians, and has a still imperfect
anthropogeographical type.
The center of the land and of the Ukrainian cultural life is
Katerinodar (100,000 pop.) on the Kuban, the capital of the Kuban
Cossacks. It carries on an active trade in agricultural products. The
main port of the region is the rising city of Novorossysk (61,000
pop.), with a large grain, wool and petroleum export. Temriuk, in the
Kuban delta, also exports much grain. On the Bila lies the commercial
city of Maikop (49,000 pop.); on the Luba, Labinsk (33,000 pop.), both
important for the exchange of products of the plains and the mountains.
On the Stavropol Plateau lies Stavropol (61,000 pop.), with an
important grain and cattle trade, Praskoveya (11,000 pop.), with
considerable wine-culture, and Olexandrivsk (10,000 pop.). At the foot
of the mountain range lies the renowned mineral spring region around
the commercial city of Piatihorsk (32,000 pop.).
LIST OF BOOKS ON THE UKRAINE
I. GENERAL WORKS. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
Atlas Climatologique de l’empire de la Russie. Petersburg 1900
(Russian).
Atlas geologiczny Galicyi. Cracow 1882 ff. (Polish).
Beauplan. Description de l’Ukraine. Rouen 1660.
Bonmariage. La Russie d’Europe. Brussels 1903.
Brockhaus-Efron. Enciklopedícheski Slavar. Petersburg, 1st ed.
beginning 1890. 2nd ed. in course of publication.
Carte géologique internationale de l’Europe. Berlin. D IV, D V, E IV, E
V, F IV, F V.
Dokutchaev. The Russian Steppes. Petersburg 1893.
Encyklopedia Polska. Vol. I, Cracow 1912. (Polish).
Friederichsen. Methodischer Atlas zur vergleichenden Länderkunde von
Europa. Part I, Hannover 1914.
Guide des excursions du VII Congrès géologique internationale.
Petersburg 1897.
Geologícheski Komityét. Carte géologique générale. Petersburg 1897 ff.
Karpinsky. Übersicht der phys.-geogr. Verhältnisse Russlands während
der verflossenen geologischen Perioden. Beiträge zur Kenntnis des
russischen Reichs. 1887.
—— Sur les mouvements de l’écorce terrestre dans la Russie d’Europe.
Annales de Géographie. 1895–6.
Kehnert & Habenicht. Map of Russia (Scale: 1–3,700,000) in Stieler’s
Handatlas. No. 46, 47, 48, 49.
Kohl. Reisen in Südrussland. Berlin 1841.
Krassnov-Voyeykov. Russland (In: Kirchhoff’s Länderkunde von Europa,
Vol. III, Leipzig 1907).
Krassnov. Travyánye styépi syévyernavo polysháryia. Moscow 1894.
(Russian).
Murchison, de Verneuil, Keyserling. Geology of Russia. Petersburg 1846.
Österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild. Wien 1877 ff.
Übersichtsband. Galizien, Bukowina.
Philippson. Landeskunde des europäischen Russlands nebst Finnlands.
Leipzig 1908.
—— Geographische Reiseskizzen aus Russland. Zeitschrift der
Gesellschaft für Erdkunde. Berlin 1898.
Reclus. Nouvelle géographie universelle. Vol. V. Paris 1876. Russian
translation with supplementary volume. Petersburg 1884.
Rehmann. Ziemie davnej Polski. I, II. Lemberg 1895, 1904. (Polish).
Rossíya, yeyá nastoyáshcheye i proshédsheye. A volume consisting of
articles collected from Brockhaus-Efron. Petersburg 1900 (Russian).
Rudnitsky. Korotka geografia Ukrainy. I, II. Lemberg, Kieff.
(Ukrainian).
—— Der östliche Kriegsschauplatz. Jena 1915.
Sibirtseff. Etude des sols de la Russie. Petersburg 1897.
—— Pochvénnaya karta evropéiskoi Rossíyi. Scale: 1–2,520,000.
Petersburg 1902.
Siemiradzki. Geologia ziempolskich. Lemberg I. 1903, II. 1909.
(Polish).
Semyonov. Rossíya. Pólnoye geogr. opisánye atyéchestva, 22 vols.
Petersburg 1899 ff. Vol. II, VII, IX, XIV. (Russian).
Suess. Antlitz der Erde. Bd. I–III. Wien, Leipzig 1883–1909.
Tanfilyev. Die Waldgrenzen in Südrussland. Petersburg 1894. (Russian,
with a résumé in German).
Tillo. Gipsometrícheskaya kárta yevropéiskoi Rossíyi. 1st ed.
Petersburg 1889, 1:2,520,000. 2nd ed. Petersburg 1896, 1:1,680,000.
Uhlig. Bau und Bild der Karpathen. Wien 1903.
PERIODICALS
Izvéstya Imp. rússkavo geograficheskavo óbshchestva. Petersburg 1865
ff. (Russian).
Izvéstya geologicheskavo komityéta. Petersburg 1882 ff. (Russian).
Kosmos. Lemberg 1875 ff. (Polish).
The Zapiski (Transactions) of the Russian universities and learned
societies of Kieff, Kharkov, Odessa, Warsaw, Moscow, Petersburg, etc.
(Russian).
Sbirnyk mat.-pryr. nauk Tovarystva im. Shevchenka. 15 vols. Lemberg
1897 ff. (Ukrainian).
Trúdy geologícheskavo komityéta. Petersburg 1883 ff.
Zyemlevyedyénye. Moscow 1894 ff.
II. ANTHROPOLOGY AND OTHER AUXILIARY SCIENCES
Aitoff. Carte de l’extension du peuple ukrainien. Paris 1906.
Akademya naúk imperatórskaya. Ob atmyénye styessnényi malorússkavo
yazyká. Petersburg 1905. (Russian).
Andree. Die Ruthenen. Globus 1870.
Annales des nationalités. Paris 1913. No. 3 and 4.
Antonovych. Try natsionalni typy. Pravda 1878 (Ukrainian). German
translation in Ukrainische Rundschau. Jahrgang V.
—— Monográfiyi po istóryi západnoi i yúgozápadnoi Rossiyi. I. Kieff
1885. (Russian).
Antonovych i Drahomaniv. Istoricheskiya pyessni malorusskavo naroda. I,
II. Kieff 1874–5.
Bedwin Sands. The Ukraine. London 1914.
Bodenstedt. Die poetische Ukraine. Frankfurt a. M. 1845.
Czoernig. Ethnographie der österreichischen Monarchie. I–III. Wien
1855–57.
—— Ethnographische Karte der österreichischen Monarchie. Wien 1855.
Drahomanov. Politícheskaya sochinyényia. I, II. Paris 1905–6. I. Moscow
1908. (Russian).
Engel. Geschichte der Ukraine. Halle 1796.
Evarnitzky. Istóriya zaporózhskikh kazákov. I–III. Petersburg 1892–97.
(Russian).
Goebel. Russische Industrie. Berlin 1913.
Haxthausen. Studien über die inneren Zustande Russlands usw. I–III.
Berlin 1847–52.
Hettner. Das europäische Russland. Leipzig 1905.
Hoetzsch. Russland. Berlin 1913.
Hrushevsky. Geschichte des ukrainischen Volkes. Leipzig 1906.
—— Ócherk istóryi ukraínskavo naróda. Petersburg. 3rd ed. 1911.
(Russian).
—— Ilustrovana istorya Ukrainy. Kieff 1911. (Ukrainian).
—— Die ukrainische Frage in historischer Entwicklung. Wien 1915.
Ivanovsky. Ob antropologícheskom sostávye nasyelyénya Rossíyi. Trudy
antr. otdyel óbshchestva liubítelyei yestyéstvoznánya. Vol. CV (XXII).
Moscow 1904. (Russian).
K. Die Hauptstämme der Russen. Karte 1:3,700,000. Petermanns
Mitteilungen. 1878.
Ko-yi. Natsionalno-teritorialni mezhi Ukrainy. Lit. nauk. Vistnyk 1907.
(Ukrainian).
Kostomarov. Dvyé rússkiya naródnosti. Petersburg 1863. (Russian).
French translation in Revue ukrainienne. Lausanne 1915.
—— Sobránie sochinyénye. Petersburg I–VIII, 1903–6. (Russian).
Kovalevsky. Die Produktivkräfte Russlands. Leipzig 1898.
—— L’Agriculture en Russie. Paris 1897.
—— La Russie à la fin du XIX siecle. Paris 1900.
Leroy-Beaulieu. L’Empire des Tsars. I–III. Paris 1881.
Lipinski. Zdziejow Ukrainy. Cracow 1912. (Polish).
Machat. Le développement économique de la Russie. Paris 1902.
Melnik. Russen über Russland. Frankfurt a. M. 1906.
Myezhov. Literatúra rússkoi geográfiyi, etnográfiyi, statístiki.
Petersburg, 9 vols. closing 1880. (Russian).
Pypin. Istóriya rússkoi etnográfiyi. III. Petersburg 1891. (Russian).
Pabst. Der Ausbau der russischen Seehandelshäfen. Weltverkehr und
Weltwirtschaft. 1914–15.
Rambaud. La petite Russie, etc. La Russie épique. Paris 1876. (Revue
politique et littéraire).
Recensement général de l’Empire. 1897. Óbshchi svod po impériyi etc.
Petersburg 1905. (Russian).
Rittich. Ethnographie des russischen Reichs. Karte 1:3,700,000.
Petermanns Mitteilungen. Ergänzungsheft 54. 1878.
—— Etnografícheskaya kárta yevrop. Rossíyi 1:2,520,000. Petersburg
1875. (Russian).
Rudnitsky. Ukraina und die Ukrainer. Wien 1914. 2nd ed. Berlin 1915.
Russov. Kárta razselyénya ukraínskavo naróda. Ukraínski vyéstnik 1906.
(Russian).
Russ’ka istorychna biblioteka. Vols. I–XXIV. Lemberg 1886–1904.
(Ukrainian).
Stockyj-Gartner. Grammatik der ruthenisch-ukrainischen Sprache. Wien
1913.
Schulze-Gävernitz. Volkswirtschaftliche Studien aus Russland. Leipzig
1899.
Statistícheski yezhegódnik. Petersburg, beginning in 1912. (Russian).
Supan. Ergebnisse der Sprachenzählung im russischen Reiche 1897.
Petermanns Mitteilungen 1905.
—— Die Bevölkerung der Erde. XIII. Petermanns Mitteilungen.
Ergänzungsheft 163. 1909.
Tomashivsky. Etnografichna karta uhorskoi rusy. 1:300,000. Petersburg
1910. (Ukrainian).
Tomashivsky. Die weltpolitische Bedeutung Galiziens. München 1915.
Trúdy etn.-stat. ekspedítsiyi v západno russkyí krai I, II, IV, VI,
VII. Petersburg 1872–78. (Russian, with Ukrainian language texts).
Ukraínsky naród v yevó próshlom i nastoyáshchem. Vol. I. Petersburg
1914.
Ukraínsky voprós. Izdánye red. zhurnála Ukraínskaya Zhizñ. Petersburg
1915.
Velitchko. Narodopysna karta ukrainskoho narodu. 1:370,000. Lemberg
1896. (Ukrainian).
Vovk. Antropometrichni doslidy ukrainskoho naselenya etc. Lemberg 1908.
(Ukrainian).
Wallace. Russia. London 1912.
Zepelin. Die Küsten und Häfen des russischen Reiches. Berlin.
Zherela do istoriyi Ukrainy. I–XII. Lemberg 1895–1911.
PERIODICALS
Etnografichni Sbirnyk. Lemberg, beginning 1895. 30 vols. (Ukrainian).
Kieffskaya Starina. Kieff. 1882–1905. (Russian).
Literaturno-naukovy vistnyk. Lemberg, Kieff, beginning 1898. 17 vols.
(Ukrainian).
Materialy do ukrainskoyi etnologiyi. Lemberg, beginning 1899. 13 vols
(Ukrainian).
Ruthenische Revue. Wien 1903–5.
Sbirnyk ist. fil. sektsyi nauk. Tov. im. Shevchenka. Lemberg, beginning
1897. 14 vols. (Ukrainian).
Sbirnyk filol. sektsyi nauk. Tov. im. Shevchenka. Lemberg, beginning
1898 13 vols. (Ukrainian).
Studiyi s polya suspilnykh nauk i statystyky. Lemberg, beginning 1909.
(Ukrainian).
Ukrainische Rundschau. Wien, beginning 1906.
Ukrainskaya Zhizñ. Moscow, beginning 1912. (Russian).
Yefimenko. Istóriya ukrainskavo naróda. Petersburg 1906. (Russian),
Yefremov. Istoriya ukrainskoho pysmenstva. Petersburg, beginning 1911.
(Ukrainian).
Yezhegodnik Rossiyi. (Annuaire de la Russie). Petersburg, beginning
1904.
Zapisky naukovoho tovarystva imeny Shevchenka. Lemberg, beginning 1891.
120 vols. (Ukrainian).
Zapisky ukrainskoho naukovoho tovarystva v Kyivi. Kieff, beginning
1908. (Ukrainian).
NOTE
[1] 1 crown (1 krone) = 20 cents (U. S. A.)
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