The story of the Ukraine

By Clarence Augustus Manning

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Title: The story of the Ukraine

Author: Clarence Augustus Manning

Release date: March 10, 2026 [eBook #78161]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Philosophical Library, 1947

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE UKRAINE ***

The Story of the Ukraine

[Illustration:

MAP OF
UKRAINE]

The Story of
The Ukraine

CLARENCE A. MANNING

Assistant Professor of
East European Languages
Columbia University

[Illustration]

PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY
NEW YORK

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

_Introduction_ 9

_Chapter I_

UKRAINE 19

_Chapter II_

RUS’ AND UKRAINE 24

_Chapter III_

KIEVAN RUS’ 31

_Chapter IV_

THE CULTURAL REVIVAL 45

_Chapter V_

THE KOZAKS 59

_Chapter VI_

BOHDAN KHMELNITSKY 73

_Chapter VII_

THE REVOLT OF MAZEPA 87

_Chapter VIII_

THE SPREAD OF KIEVAN CULTURE IN MOSCOW 106

_Chapter IX_

THE LAST ACTS IN POLAND 121

_Chapter X_

THE END OF KOZAK LIBERTIES 131

_Chapter XI_

UKRAINE AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 145

_Chapter XII_

THE AWAKENING IN EASTERN UKRAINE 155

_Chapter XIII_

THE SOCIETY OF SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS 164

_Chapter XIV_

THE REVIVAL IN GALICIA 172

_Chapter XV_

PROGRESS IN RUSSIA 184

_Chapter XVI_

DEVELOPMENTS IN WESTERN UKRAINE 195

_Chapter XVII_

BETWEEN REVOLUTION AND WAR 203

_Chapter XVIII_

THE FIRST WORLD WAR 210

_Chapter XIX_

UKRAINIAN INDEPENDENCE 216

_Chapter XX_

FOREIGN RELATIONS 227

_Chapter XXI_

THE REPUBLIC OF WESTERN UKRAINE 238

_Chapter XXII_

THE FALL OF UKRAINE 244

_Chapter XXIII_

WESTERN UKRAINE 255

_Chapter XXIV_

CARPATHO-UKRAINE 265

_Chapter XXV_

THE UKRAINIAN SOVIET REPUBLIC 273

_Chapter XXVI_

UKRAINE IN WORLD WAR II 288

_Chapter XXVII_

THE FUTURE OF UKRAINE 301

The Story of the Ukraine

_INTRODUCTION_

In the spring of 1945, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was
formally accepted at the Conference in San Francisco as a member of the
United Nations Organization. This could not satisfy the aspirations
of the forty million Ukrainians who were suffering under Communist
yoke and were witnessing the attempt to eradicate from their country
all those principles of freedom and democracy for which they had so
long been struggling, but it did bring prominently before the public
opinion of the world that Ukraine was not the creation of a series of
propagandists but a nation with its own geographical area, its own
population, and its own history. The rulers of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics had thought fit to bring before the representatives
of the United Nations a situation that had been denied for centuries
by Russian officials and scholars. After long denying its existence,
the world was forced to acknowledge that Ukraine really did exist
and it will be impossible for students in the future to take again
the old widespread attitude that Ukraine is only a figment of the
imagination. It will be impossible in the future to write European and
world history, without taking account of this people which for good or
ill have inhabited their homeland for over one thousand years and have
taken part in nearly all the great movements of thought and action that
have swept over Europe.

There is no need to delve into prehistoric times and to endeavor to
identify the various tribes and cultures that have passed forgotten
into the composition of Ukraine. It is over one thousand years since
the first known dynasty was established at Kiev on the Dnyeper River
and the country was launched upon its historic course. It is nearly
one thousand years since monks from Constantinople, the imperial city
on the Bosphorus, were invited to Kiev and baptized the sovereign,
Saint Volodymyr, and his court and made Kiev one of the civilized
capitals of Christendom.

For two centuries the Grand Prince of Kiev was known and respected
throughout Europe, even though that Europe was very different
politically from what it is to-day. Constantinople which had given
richly of its culture to the new state in the east of Europe was
then the great centre of Christian civilization. All nations in the
West were looking at its wealth and power with admiration and with
envy, for there was none that could compare with it. The Western Holy
Roman Empire had just struggled to its feet under the rule of the
Emperor Otto I. Hugh Capet had just been crowned King of France and
was struggling to make his title valuable. The Norman conquest of
England had not yet taken place and the last Saxon rulers were trying
to hold their crown and to unify the country. Paganism still was rife
in large sections of Germany. The reforms of Pope Gregory VII in the
Roman Catholic Church were still in the future. All of western Europe
was slowly recovering from the Dark Ages which had prevailed since the
barbarian invasions of the fifth century.

Against this background Kiev shines as a great and progressive state.
Its early rulers represented culture and civilization. It is small
wonder that Princesses of Kiev married into all the royal houses of
Europe, that the struggling princes and kings and emperors of the West
were only too proud and happy to be connected by ties of marriage and
of blood to the Grand Princes of Kiev, their superiors in wealth and
culture and enlightenment. Unless we realize this fact, we cannot
hope to understand the tragedy that swept over Ukraine when internal
dissension and the overwhelming attacks of the nomads of the steppes
and then of the Mongols weakened and destroyed a state that had seemed
secure and permanent but a short time before. We cannot understand
otherwise the political vacuum that developed in eastern Europe, when
early in the thirteenth century Rus’-Ukraine ceased to be the dominant
force along the great river valleys of the east and left its lands and
people to be the prey of one nation after another which for centuries
had not dared to question their will.

It was the tragedy of Ukraine that this collapse came at the very
period when the countries of the Roman Catholic West were struggling
to their feet. Those years when the Middle Ages were at their height
formed the darkest and most hopeless years in Ukrainian history. It
was the time when the old nobility were largely lost to the life
of the people and when in large numbers they accepted the Polish
language and Polish customs. The fall of Constantinople to the Turks
in 1453 deprived the people and their Orthodox Church of all contact
with Eastern Christian culture and left them helpless, with their
educational system in ruins, their political organization shattered,
and their economic life in chaos. Then, if ever, it seemed likely
that the country would be reduced to ignorant peasants destined to
be absorbed by their conquerors and to pass away among the forgotten
peoples of the world. The great movements of chivalry and the
Renaissance which prepared the way for modern Europe could have no
meaning for the helpless serfs and uneducated city people who formed
almost all that was left of the once proud state of Kiev.

It was then that out of these masses and the few nobles who still
retained the national spirit and tradition there grew the surprising
movement which revived the spirit of Ukrainian culture. It was then
that the unsettled conditions on the frontier, the bold and hazardous
life of opposition to the Asiatic invaders developed the Kozaks.
On land and sea they fought and the exploits of the heroes of the
Zaporozhian Sich with their wild and untamed democracy in the sixteenth
century fitted in well with the sturdy sea-dogs of England who were
proud to singe the beard of the King of Spain on all of the seven seas.
The era of Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh, of the English
fight against the Spanish Armada in the reign of Queen Elizabeth
coincided exactly with the years when the Kozaks made their raids
against the Turks and the Tatars, when they dared to burn and plunder
the suburbs of Constantinople itself, and when the cry that the Kozaks
were coming was enough to spread the alarm through all eastern Europe,
wherever there was oppression and evil.

The sixteenth century was an era all over Europe when men dared to
fight and risk their lives for the religious and political ideas which
they respected and in which they believed. It was an era of religious
confusion and of change and although the problem in Ukraine was
different, the same spirit that a little earlier had sent Christopher
Columbus across the ocean, that inspired Cortez and Pizarro to conquer
the Aztecs and the Incas, that explored the New World under terrific
odds, saw the development of the democratic Kozak Host.

It was a glorious and a heroic period but it was costly in the blood
of Ukraine’s sons. They had no base of supplies, no formal government
on which they could lean, no resources behind them. They followed
their love of liberty, their disregard for death, their own elected
leaders and made their names forever memorable in the books of heroes
and of men of action. It was a true revolt of the human spirit against
oppression and tyranny. It was a time when men were so busy acting that
they had no inclination to think and to reflect. They were so conscious
of the need of winning freedom and of gaining wealth and power by their
heroism that they neglected much that would have helped them later.

So the struggle continued until in the seventeenth century Bohdan
Khmelnitsky, the greatest of the hetmans, endeavored to organize
the Host and Ukraine on a national basis. He exchanged letters with
Oliver Cromwell. He lived and worked at the time when the Puritans
were mastering the New England wilderness, when the Thirty Years War
was decimating Germany, when the first seeds of modern thought were
sprouting all over Europe.

Had he won his fight, had he lived a little longer to make Ukraine
really free, a restored Ukraine and the Thirteen American Colonies
would have appeared in history at one and the same time. The ideals of
popular rule would have taken root in two widely scattered parts of
the world. There would have been in Europe a free republic set up in a
strategic part of the continent, and the history of Europe would have
been changed.

It was not to be. In an evil moment, Khmelnitsky put the Kozak Host
under the jurisdiction of the Tsar of Moscow and from that moment on,
it was torn to pieces by the mutual efforts of Moscow and Poland. Step
by step, as the New World went on to increasing power and unanimity,
as the American colonies became conscious of their mutual interests
and of their growing strength, Ukraine fell into greater and greater
chaos. Hetman fought against hetman, instigated by foreign rulers,
and the great masses of the Kozaks, losing their own ideals, again
reverted to dissatisfied and impoverished peasants while their officers
tried to become aristocrats like the nobles around them. It was in
vain that Mazepa tried to rouse the Kozaks to revolt for Ukrainian
independence. It was in vain that one leader after another endeavored
to bring back the old spirit of unity and of cooperation. The power of
Moscow increased over the Kozak Host. More of the leaders were lost to
the popular cause and despair reigned throughout the land as Peter
the Great and Catherine tore away and abrogated the last of the Kozak
rights.

It is striking and significant that it was in 1775, the very year when
the Americans rose in revolt against the British Crown in defence of
their liberties, that the armed forces of Catherine the Great destroyed
the Zaporozhian Sich and ended once and for all the old institution
that had carried Ukraine in the preceding century to a height
unparalleled since the early days of Kiev. When we compare the power
and population of the American colonies and of the Kozak Host in the
days of Khmelnitsky and then again in 1775, we shall see how the ideas
of liberty brought rich dividends to America and how the obscuring of
them by the actions of foreign rulers and internal discord wrought
havoc in Ukraine.

The old system perished just at the very moment when in the New World
those principles of individual initiative and of political liberty for
which the Sich and the Kozak Host had always stood were winning their
great triumph. It came to its end just as the American Revolution was
breaking out, just when the “shot heard round the world” at Concord
Bridge was ringing out a new appeal to mankind to fight and die for
liberty and for freedom. It came to its end just as the thinkers of
Western Europe dared to proclaim again the rights of man and the
eternal principles of justice and of law.

The old Ukraine disappeared just at the moment when conditions were
becoming favorable for its continuation, when the power of public
opinion was again being invoked to justify a struggle against tyranny
and oppression. It was only fourteen years before the French Revolution
was to carry into Europe itself those ideals and principles that men
had fought to win in the New World. It was by such a narrow margin that
Ukraine failed to be one of the states which could aspire to political
continuity, to the passing from autocratic domination to liberty with
its old forms preserved, with old traditions living in written statute
as well as in the memory of the people.

Then came the revival, but it was a slow and painful process, for
the Ukrainian leaders had to struggle for every concession from the
autocratic rulers who held the country. The very existence of the
country was denied, the name was abolished, the language was mocked as
an uncouth peasant dialect. Such a seer and a prophet as Shevchenko
had to pay for his devotion to his country with years of exile and
imprisonment in the Russian army. Yet step by step the struggle went
on. All through the nineteenth century, the demand for a true Ukrainian
solution of the Ukrainian question gained strength in the underground
of the consciousness of the people. The sense of unity in all branches
of the Ukrainian people, whether in Russia or in Austria-Hungary,
grew and spread. It was not spectacular. There could not be any open
proclamation of its hopes and its aspirations. There could be no open
economic strengthening of the people for their own good. Yet they
continued to work, to hope and to pray.

The First World War broke out and it ruined the two empires that
controlled Ukraine. The principles of the United States, the Fourteen
Points of Wilson, the message of self-determination for all peoples,
resounded through Ukraine and once more there was proclaimed in 1919
a united sovereign Ukrainian Republic. The ideals that the Kozaks had
had in common with the Americans two and a half centuries earlier once
again found their voice on Ukrainian territory and for a while it
seemed as if a final solution of the future of Ukraine had been
reached.

Again there came disaster. The democratic powers could never make up
their minds as to their course of action. A century and a half of
absence from the councils of the world, a century and a half of hostile
propaganda denying the very existence of Ukraine was too heavy a
burden for the restored Ukrainian Republic to carry. Ukraine found an
inadequate and a biased hearing abroad. The ghosts of the past were
present everywhere. The country had no influential friends. There was
no one to supply her with sufficient arms and ammunition. There was no
one to extend diplomatic support and Ukraine fell.

Communism backed by Moscow conquered the country and Ukraine became the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, included in the Soviet Union and
ruled by Russian Communists. The national spirit did not die. Millions
of the population perished in famines artificially created to break
their spirit. Those of the cultural leaders who remained loyal to their
belief and their traditions were executed or died by their own hand
to escape a worse fate. Millions of people were deported for no other
reason than their belief in their rights as human beings. Everything
was done to eat out the heart of the Ukrainian spirit and to give it a
Russian Communist aspect.

Then came the Second World War and Ukraine became a battleground to
be swept over by the German and the Red Armies. Again there came
devastation, deportations and executions. Both armies acted to
eliminate the native population and to stifle all national life and
thought. No one has yet estimated the cost in Ukrainian lives and
wealth but enough is known now to show that the old spirit of Ukraine
has not been eliminated. There are still people who live and hope that
Ukraine can be restored to its people. It makes no difference if all
the forces of propaganda are mobilized to call the patriots bandits.
Their struggle still goes on and even if it seems hopeless, it can
hardly be more so than many times in the past.

It is under such conditions that the world has accepted the Ukrainian
Soviet Socialist Republic into the United Nations Organization. There
may be questions as to the motives that inspired this demand of the
Soviet Union. Yet once and for all it has answered the old charge
iterated and reiterated so often during the past centuries that there
is no Ukraine. Henceforth no historian will be able to accept the old
thesis that Ukraine is only a rough name for some Russian or Polish
provinces, that Ukraine was invented as a convenient tool for the
destruction of two empires and that it has no existence in fact, in
history, or in reality.

What of the future? That is dark and uncertain but the trend of
humanity toward the winning of freedom can hardly be stopped for long.
For a thousand years Ukraine has shared in the vicissitudes of European
and Christian civilization. It will continue to do so and if in the
future Ukraine does not receive its just dues, if the Ukrainians fail
to win the benefits of the Four Freedoms, it will be only because
history has reversed itself and mankind in the midst of unparalleled
scientific development has lost its hopes, its aspirations, and its
power of moral advancement.

To-day the name of Ukraine is once again upon the map of Europe. There
it will stay. The Ukrainian spirit is not yet free but it has proved
itself imperishable in the past and it will continue to remain so in
the future. That is the point of the study of Ukrainian history and of
this attempt to picture the past and the present of the country’s life,
in the hope that it may throw some light upon the future.

CHAPTER ONE

_UKRAINE_

Ukraine is often called the granary of Europe and its natural wealth
has long made it the object of envy of all of its neighbors and of all
aggressive peoples in the eastern part of the continent. At the same
time its geographical position has made it of pivotal importance in all
of the European combinations, whether for war or peace.

What then is Ukraine and where is it situated? In the simplest
definition it is the area which is bounded by the Black Sea on the
south, the Carpathian mountains on the west, and the Don River on the
east. To the north its boundaries are far less definite, for there
is no natural barrier and the northern section merges more or less
imperceptibly into the southern part of the area inhabited by the Great
Russians. This boundary has changed with the passing of the centuries
but it has remained surprisingly constant when we consider the involved
political history of eastern Europe.

The country occupies the southernmost of the great belts of land that
stretch across Europe and Asia on the great plains of the east. That
is the belt of the steppes, wide expanses of level rolling country,
with the celebrated and enormously fertile black earth regions which
have been cultivated more or less continuously for over three thousand
years. To the north in the Great Russian area is found a broad belt of
forest land that covers the greater part of the old Russian Empire but
Ukraine itself is ideally fitted by soil and climate to be a prosperous
agricultural area which will offer an abundant living to hardy and
rugged people who are not afraid of physical labor.

The greatest extension of the country is from east to west, for it
is far narrower from north to south, but despite all this Ukraine is
a large country with an area of some 200,000 square miles and under
favorable conditions it could easily support its population of some
forty million people, most of whom speak the Ukrainian language, live
according to the Ukrainian mode of life and are conscious of their
national character.

Across it from north to south flow most of the great rivers that empty
into the Black Sea. There are the Dnyester, the Dnyeper and the Don,
three great highways between central and northern Europe and the Black
Sea. Ukraine lies squarely across their path and hence it comes about
that the country controls all the arteries that lead into the Black Sea
and from there through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean. It gives
the land a tremendous economic position which its own people and their
conquerors have never undervalued.

That favorable position contains within itself the source of danger.
Unfortunately at no time in their history have the Ukrainian people
moved sufficiently to the north to occupy the head waters of these
streams and to take control of the rivers that flow to the north into
the Baltic. The people there have always looked with envy at Ukraine;
they have always tried to descend these rivers, usually broad and
sluggish, and to take possession of the fertile plains which they saw
stretching in all directions.

Ukraine is the natural highway between the east and west. For centuries
before recorded history begins, the nomad tribes pushing westward from
central Asia found these same plains the most accessible and convenient
road to Europe. Long before there came a national consciousness in
the area, long before any existing European country even dreamed of
coming into being, warriors mounted on small fast horses poured across
this region, carrying their culture into Europe and making their way
eastward again with the spoils of the west. Likewise invaders from the
west sought access to the territory for the purposes of carrying their
raids into the east and of returning home with the riches of the Orient.

Trade followed the same general route. No one attempts to estimate
when the trading caravans on their way from western China and central
Asia to the early trading centers of Europe first passed across the
territory for purposes of peace as did the military groups for war and
plunder.

Thus, at an early date, Ukraine was at the crossroads of the world. The
Scandinavian Vikings were but following in the path of many peoples
who sought to emphasize the route from north to south, exactly as
others travelled from east to west. Kiev as the central point in these
crossroads had a trading importance that was unequalled by any place
except perhaps Constantinople, where sea-borne traffic added to the
wealth of the population and offered a simpler outlet to the rest of
the world.

It is small wonder then that Kiev as a trading center can trace
its origin before the dawn of history and that the area around it
was inhabited from the earliest days of man in Europe. It is small
wonder that Ukraine developed into a powerful and independent state
long before the countries to the west and that it was one of the
richest daughters of the Byzantine Empire. It is small wonder that
for centuries the wishes of the rulers of Kiev were to be considered
throughout all of eastern Europe.

Yet the very accessibility of the country and the lack of definite
boundaries to the north and to a lesser degree to the east cast upon
the rulers of the land gigantic problems of self-defence. They had to
be constantly alert, lest armed raiders harry their country and plunder
the population and the rich grainfields.

Geographically Ukraine occupies one of the most important portant
locations in Europe. It is a position well adapted for the organization
of a powerful state which is vitally interested in the development of
communications with the outside world. A Ukraine developed for the
benefit of her own people and playing her part in world organization
would have been a stabilizing factor for much of Europe. It would have
ended many of the most violent disputes that arose as one neighbor
after another claimed her territory, and sought to build their own
greatness and permanence on her ruins.

Besides that, the country is rich. Its fertile soil is an almost
inexhaustible resource. For millenia her fields have yielded wheat and
the black earth, often several feet in depth, is still not exhausted.
There is hardly a staple crop, with the exception of cotton, that is
not adapted to the climate. Her soil is richer than that of any of her
neighbors. It yields copious returns for the labor of her inhabitants.
In the past centuries wheat, sugar beets and many other crops including
fruits, have been produced and exported for the welfare of her
neighbors and little or no attention has been paid to the welfare of
the inhabitants of the country.

As if this were not enough, Ukraine possesses an almost inexhaustible
supply of mineral resources. The coal and iron mines which have been
exploited during the last century have been among the most important
in the Russian Empire. The industries of the Russian Empire and then
of the Soviet Union were long dependent upon the raw materials which
came from this section of the continent. There is oil in the west.
This mineral and that are found in commercial deposits and it is now
realized that the mineral resources of the country are fully equal to
the wealth that lies buried in the fields.

The land with such natural gifts is inhabited by a thrifty, industrious
population who have shown in peace and in war their love of liberty
and a proud, stubborn independence which has all too often degenerated
into a factionalism that has broken the hearts of many of the wiser
leaders. It is one of the paradoxes of human nature that the people of
the plains have often found it more difficult to unite for a common
cause than have the people of the mountains, who are more or less
isolated in their narrow valleys. It has been easier to separate them
and to divide their interests; once damage has been done to their
organization it has been harder to repair. That is now and has been
in the past the great weakness of the population. Once the fabric of
the state was shattered in the early days, Ukraine, always aspiring to
recover her lost unity, found it very difficult to achieve. The cities
were unable to dominate the country. The peasants were interested in
their several local problems and the foreign invaders far too often
were able to manoeuvre them at will and to block those measures which
alone could unify the land and enable the population of the villages to
meet them on an equal level.

All this has made Ukraine throughout the ages a land of wealth and of
sadness, a land thirsting for liberty but again and again debarred from
obtaining it. Here are all the resources, human and physical, that are
needed to produce a great state, while untoward factors have worked
against it and kept the land in turmoil.

CHAPTER TWO

_RUS’ AND UKRAINE_

Perhaps no single circumstance has done more to confuse the opinions of
the world about Ukraine than the strange confusion that has taken place
over the name of the country. The old name definitely and clearly was
Rus’ but that name has been preempted by the northern offshoot of Rus’,
Russia, and the people have been compelled for the sake of clarity to
adopt another local title, Ukraine, which was early applied to a part
of the country.

The origin of the word Rus’ is obscure but we can trace it back in
history well before the Christianization of the country, for it appears
in the records of the Byzantine Empire early in the ninth century
A.D., and the treaties made between the Emperors of Constantinople and
the Princes of Rus’ show that the name referred to a very definite
political entity, but as they do not concern questions of boundaries,
we are not able to define accurately the territory to which they refer.
Yet it is clear that Rus’ in its essence referred to the valley of the
Dnyeper River, the southern part of the Varangian Road by which the
Scandinavian Vikings penetrated from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.

For centuries scholars have been debating the origin and meaning of
the name. Since the earliest passages that are preserved in the Rus’
language are clearly old Scandinavian, there has been a prevailing
opinion that Rus’ was the name of one of the Scandinavian tribes that
spread over Europe during the eighth and ninth centuries. They appeared
along the Dnyeper about the same time that the Normans were settling
in France, and like them they adopted the language of the population,
which in this case was a race speaking an East Slavonic language.
Historians have been inclined to connect this with the old legend of
the conquest of Kiev and Novgorod by Rurik and his two brothers, who
were invited to rule the country because it was a rich land and there
was no order in it. It is an old fable common to many lands and places,
but there is no evidence as to its truth and if there were, we would
still be far from knowing the actual meaning of the word.

A not less vocal group has felt that this story was not too dignified
and has sought some other origin. Many have regarded it as a Slavonic
borrowing from Iranian or they have tried to find some place name which
could serve as a source. It is all in vain and for all intents and
purposes we can only go back to recorded history and accept the fact
that when that history first became definite, the word Rus’ was applied
to the population of the Dnyeper valley and of the valley of the
Volkhov that formed the northern end of the Varangian Road. Kiev on the
south and Novgorod on the north were the two fortresses on this line of
transport and they formed the two centres of the earliest Rus’.

Yet even then Kiev was the more important of the two, for it lay not
only on the north-south route but also on the east-west road from
central Asia. It was then called the capital of Rus’ and as we learn
more of the settlement of the country, we realize how the area of Rus’
expanded until it covered with rare exactness the territory between the
Carpathians and the Don that forms the modern Ukraine.

It is by no means certain that the princes who went to the north and
east into the territory of the various Finnic tribes and founded
those centres which were later to be the heart of Moscow thought of
themselves as forming part of Rus’. They are recorded in the ancient
Chronicles as returning to Rus’, and the area to which they return is
consistently that of Kiev and of Ukraine. The same is true of the area
of Novgorod, which practically broke away from the south and went its
own way after the trade between Kiev and the Scandinavians fell into
abeyance and the merchants of Novgorod worked with the Baltic area and
to the northeast.

Later the region around Kiev came to bear the title of Mala Rus’,
Little Russia, but this was clearly not a sign of inferiority. It was a
common system of the past. In Poland the area around Krakow was called
Little Poland to distinguish it from the Great Poland away from the
nation’s capital. Ancient Greece was called Greece to distinguish it
from Magna Graecia, that great area of Sicily, south Italy, the shores
of Asia Minor and the Black Sea, where Greek colonies had been planted
in the barbarian world.

It was not until 1169, when Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky definitely
decided to transfer the centre of the state to the northeast, that we
have definite proof of the connection of the word Rus’ in any form with
the northern principalities that were to form the origin of Moscow.
Then he carried away with him the head of the Orthodox Church and
attempted to create in another area a state of Rus’. Yet he did not
find it too satisfactory and for some centuries the word almost dropped
out of use in the north as the Princes of Moscow preferred to name
their country after their capital. Russian historians of all ages and
of all schools of thought have always spoken of the Grand Principality
and Tsardom of Muscovy as the name of the country until the seventeenth
century.

Rus’ remained, except for official titles of the Tsars of Moscow in
their most formal aspects, as the name of the area around Kiev. The
Princes of Galicia who assumed the title of Kings of Rus’ in the
thirteenth century used it to assert their lordship over the area that
had fallen into the hands of the Tatars. They still continued to call a
citizen of their lands a Rusin and the adjective that was used for it
was Rus’sky.

On Muscovite territory there came other changes, for during these years
Moscow developed a sharp aversion to Kiev and everything for which
it stood. The whole tradition of the Third Rome, which was hostile
to everything outside the land, taught that Moscow was the centre of
Christian civilization and that Kiev, like Constantinople and like
the First Rome, had definitely fallen into heresy. Now and then the
tsars might employ the word Rusia, but even this was too much of a
concession for their stubborn pride and it was not until Tsar Alexis in
the seventeenth century began to nourish hopes of recovering the area
around Kiev that he gave any significance to the use of the word Rus’.

In fact it was not until the time of Peter the Great that the name
Rossiya--Russia--came into common use and even then Peter introduced
it with the idea of asserting his power as a European sovereign and he
did it against the usage of the European states, which continued to
refer to him as Tsar or Emperor of Moscow. Even later the great poets
of the eighteenth century continued to use the adjective Rossiysky and
the ordinary form that was employed during the nineteenth century, i.e.
Russky, was of rare occurrence.

Through the centuries, regardless of the ups and downs of the two
states, of the political issues of union and disunion, there remained
a sharp differentiation between Moscow and Rus’. It was not until
Moscow saw itself in a position to make itself the heir of Kiev in the
eyes of the world that it preempted very definitely the name of Rus’,
proclaimed that Rus’ was Russia, and dangled it before the eyes of the
world to win belief that both Kiev and Moscow belonged together under
the aegis of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In earlier ages Moscow had been content to seek the support of Rus’
on the basis of the Orthodox religion, when it desired to secure
cooperation. Then it was Orthodox Moscow and Orthodox Rus’ against the
Roman Catholic Poles and Lithuanians. That idea could not appeal in the
eighteenth century, when Peter was manifesting little interest in the
traditional religion of the people and was trying to change all the old
established customs. A new basis had to be found and this new equation
was the result. The injustice of the action was appreciated even by the
Poles, who had maintained to the end of their national existence their
control of the province of Rus’. An Encyclopedia put out by the Polish
National Committee during the First War (Vol. II, No. 5, p. 867) summed
it up well. “In very deed, Russia stripped Ukraine of everything; she
even appropriated its very name of ‘Rus’ (Ruthenia), she annexed its
history of pre-Tatar times, she declared the language was a Russian
dialect.” It is a clear statement of conditions.

Yet even that was not the only cause of confusion, for in the
Austro-Hungarian provinces which were stripped away after the division
of Poland, the government of the Hapsburgs carefully created for the
people the name of Ruthenians. This was but a Latinized form of the
name Rus’ and was at first used merely in Latin correspondence. Early
travellers spoke of Ruthenia as extending from near the region of
Prague in Bohemia to the land of the Tatars. It was not to remain long
in that range of activity for with the development of the Union of
Brest Litovsk, and the growing loss of the leaders of Rus’, Ruthenia
and Ruthenians came to be used as a mark of inferiority and of
contempt. It was used to separate these people from the Poles and from
their other neighbors in Austria-Hungary.

Throughout the Hapsburg lands, Ruthenia became the common term. There
was Ruthenia proper and then there was White Ruthenia, Red Ruthenia,
Black Ruthenia, all sections inhabited by various branches of the
people that had once dominated in Kiev. In the nineteenth century it
was almost the only term allowed in the province of Galicia, as the
ancient Halich was now named. It was the term that had to be employed
by Franko and the writers around him, if they were to be allowed even
moderate relief from the censorship.

Under such circumstances, with the old name Rus’ taken over by the
Muscovite Russians and the name Ruthenia forced upon part of the race
by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is small wonder that the people
themselves turned to the other title of Ukraine. It was an old word
which is first found in literature about the year 1187, to denote that
portion of Rus’ on the left bank of the Dnyeper facing the Polovtsy.
By 1213, two years before the signing of Magna Charta in England, it
was applied to the exposed sections of the country on the right bank
of the same river. The word means the “Frontier,” the Borderland, and
it originally referred to that section of Rus’ which lay facing the
no-man’s land where Slav and Turk and Tatar struggled for mastery. It
was the land where the Kozaks developed and it is small wonder that the
people, faced with the loss of their traditional name, selected this
term which bore witness to the most heroic period of their history.

Its choice is intelligible and it was made certain when the poet
Shevchenko in his _Kobzar_ and _Haydamaki_, and many other
poems, emphasized again and again that “Ukraina’s weeping.” The word
made its way despite official prohibition, for to the Russians the
land was always Little Russia and to the Austro-Hungarians, Ruthenia.
Ukraine might occasionally be used to include the two sections but
it was always dangerous. There was always the possibility that the
censors would object and punish the bold author as an advocate of
separatism.

Yet it triumphed. As the First War drew to its close, Ukraine became
more and more the common appellation and after the Russian Revolution
and the collapse of Austria-Hungary, it became the term that was used
to apply to ancient Rus’ almost universally. There was no one now to
continue the old nomenclature and it was as Ukraine and under the
Ukrainian banner that the Republic fought in 1919 and 1920. It was
under this title that the Soviets conquered the young country and
deprived it of its independence and it was under this title that they
introduced it to the United Nations Organization.

All this may seem a petty linguistic and philological dispute, and it
has been presented as such by all the enemies of the Ukrainian people.
Yet as is so often the case in such discussion, the mere debate about
words has veiled a deeper psychological and social division. It has
been used to ignore the fact that the differences between Rus’ and
Russia are not passing and superficial, but that they go to the very
depths of the psychology and thought of the people, they concern the
attitude toward the world, toward civilization and human rights; and
to-day with a world in confusion the difference between Russia and
Ukraine is summed up in the use of the national names. Ukraine exists
to-day on the territory of ancient Rus’, where it has been since the
dawn of history and where it will remain.

CHAPTER THREE

_KIEVAN RUS’_

The actual history of Kievan Rus’ commenced in 862 with the accession
to power of Rurik and his brothers. From this time we can trace a
consistent history of the realm. Although during the rest of the ninth
century there is much that is still obscure, we are on safer ground
when we come to his son Oleh. Yet we would be very wrong to think that
this was the real beginning of history for even the Chronicles that
emphasize the role of Rurik make it abundantly clear that Kiev was
already in existence and was a place of prominence both militarily and
commercially.

It is tempting to go back and endeavor to trace the earlier inhabitants
of Ukraine. It is extremely dangerous, for we lack all written
sources and are forced to depend upon the results of archaeological
investigation and we can scarcely be sure that the differences in
culture did not cloak differences in languages and perhaps considerable
changes of population.

We know that there were human inhabitants of Ukraine from the
Paleolithic or Old Stone Age on. We can be sure too that the site
of Kiev was inhabited during the ages for there has been found a
Paleolithic settlement in Kiev itself. Yet only an enthusiast would
hold that this settlement was Ukrainian in the sense in which it is
used to-day. Scholar after scholar has commented upon the fact that
some of the early dwellings of the Neolithic Period bear striking
resemblances to the poorer types of Ukrainian peasant homes. They have
noted that the figures on the vase of Chertomlyk and on other remains
from the Scythian period, approximately the fourth century B.C., show
physical types which are still met with in Ukraine. At the same time
the accounts of the Greek authors and the names of the Scythian rulers
which they have preserved have nothing Slavonic about them.

This is not surprising. It is often forgotten that the ancient
conquerors usually formed a relatively small and compact group who
extended their control over the native populations. In part they killed
or enslaved the people. In part they fell under the influence of the
women of the conquered tribe. But there were rarely concerted and
consistent attempts to wipe out completely the original population.
Undoubtedly through the ages there remained in Ukraine descendants of
the earliest inhabitants, but they were completely submerged in the
changing culture that developed through the centuries.

Perhaps we are on firmer ground when we come to the periods after the
sixth century, when the Slavonic tribes began to appear in the area.
The Byzantine historians speak of the Antae and the Veneti and make it
clear that they did speak Slavonic. Yet even these names are replaced
by many others and we can hardly decide which of them finally attained
the mastery. The Chronicles give us many names and allude to various
differences in culture and traditions but we know too little about any
of them to determine exactly what these differences really meant.

[Illustration: Taras Shevchenko in 1840

(Self portrait)]

[Illustration: PROF. MICHAEL HRUSHEVSKY]

It was apparently the Rus’ of Kiev who finally were able to extend
their control over the other Slavonic tribes and to organize the
new state. The moving spirit in this seems to have been a group of
Scandinavians but they could not have been numerous enough to displace
the Slavonic character of the people. It was not long before the rulers
came to have Slavonic names, like Svyatoslav. In the tenth century he
sought to extend his control over the northern Balkans and may have
dreamed of moving his capital south of the Black Earth region. Yet he
was finally killed by the Pechenegs, perhaps at the instigation of the
Byzantine emperor, John Tsimiskes. After that, though there might be
outbreaks between Constantinople and Kiev, relations were on the whole
peaceful.

At almost the same time Christianity made its appearance. It was only
natural that the most aggressive missionaries came from Constantinople,
for the commercial ambitions of Kiev led it to the Black Sea in which
the Byzantine Empire was supreme. Queen Olha, the mother of Svyatoslav,
had become an Orthodox Christian in the middle of the tenth century
but paganism was still too strong for her to convert the druzhina, the
leading warriors and counsellors of the king, and a half century was to
pass before the country was definitely converted under Volodymyr, or
Vladimir.

In the beginning Volodymyr, as a younger son of Svyatoslav by one of
his numerous concubines, had become the ruler of Novgorod. He was thus
able to secure new levies of Scandinavian troops from the North and
to win the throne of Kiev. In his early life he led a pagan revival
but he was apparently much interested in matters of religion and was
dissatisfied with the pagan cult. According to the legend of the
chroniclers, he sent embassies to investigate the Jewish religion of
the Khozars, Mohammedanism, and the Christianity of the Germans and
of the Greeks of Constantinople. The envoys were most impressed by
the splendor of the services in the great Church of St. Sophia and on
their return Volodymyr decided to seek baptism from the Patriarch of
Constantinople.

It required some time to bring this about, but in 989 all difficulties
were finally removed and the Grand Prince and his druzhina were
definitely baptized. Volodymyr at once cast the idols of Perun and the
other pagan gods into the Dnyeper and from that time on, he became
a zealous Christian. Without delay he built the first of the great
Churches of Kiev, the Church of the Tithe (Desyatinnaya) and for this
he employed the services of Greek architects.

Kiev became speedily a small scale replica of Constantinople. The Greek
monks introduced into the country Byzantine culture, architecture,
and methods of thinking. The Metropolitan of Kiev was a Greek. Yet
there was no attempt to force the Greek language upon the people. The
Church services were held not in Greek but in the Church Slavonic
language, which had been developed by Saints Cyril and Methodius a
century earlier. His piety and zeal for the spreading of Christianity
won Volodymyr the title of saint and hence it came about that his name
appears in the religious services and in the Chronicles as Vladimir,
the Church Slavonic form of Volodymyr.

From the moment of Volodymyr’s conversion to Christianity and the
appearance of the Church Slavonic language, the deep darkness that
covers the history of Kiev and Rus’ begins to disappear. The monks
engaged in the task of preparing the conventional Chronicles have given
us confused views of the earlier history in which truth and romance
are strangely mixed, but from this moment we can begin more clearly to
trace the history of the country.

At this time Constantinople was the civilized centre of the Christian
world and Kiev soon became one of its choicest spiritual and
intellectual children. The rulers of Kiev and the upper classes of the
population were on a far higher cultural level than were most of the
rulers of western Europe. Education flourished. This does not mean
that there was anything similar to our modern methods of widespread
education and literacy, but larger classes of the population were
affected than in the still barbaric countries of the West.

The traditional idea that Kiev and Rus’ were backward for the time
can hardly be maintained. Kiev and its rulers held an honored place
throughout Europe. The members of the royal family married into
the family of the Emperors of Constantinople. Other members made
matrimonial alliances with the Saxon royal family of England, with the
Kings of France, with Poland and Hungary. In the eleventh century,
the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches had not yet taken
place, although there were strong signs of its approach and nothing
but distance existed to keep Kiev and Rus’ from being swept into the
general development of European Christian civilization.

The Grand Princes of Kiev were incomparably richer than many of the
rulers of the West. They had direct connection with Constantinople,
the greatest of the Christian markets, and they also could trade with
the Eastern lands. Wealth flowed in. The Byliny, the folk epics, which
preserved traditions of the greatness of Volodymyr and his court, his
associates like Ilya of Murom, Dobrynya Nikitich, and the remainder of
the heroes, never weary of speaking of golden Kiev and of the wealth
and generosity of Kiev’s ruler. There may be exaggeration but there
is enough other available material to show that the rulers and the
upper classes imitated as best they could the luxury and splendor of
Constantinople and the Byzantine Emperors.

The son and successor of Volodymyr, Yaroslav the Wise, (d. 1054) raised
the prestige of Kiev and of Rus’ still higher. His lawcode, the Rus’ska
Pravda, was excellent for his day. It incorporated what was best of the
Slavonic and the Scandinavian traditions. It pictures for us a great
state with its urban and rural classes, with trade and commerce, with
life good for the nobles but far less so for the lower classes and the
indebted peasants, who were burdened with many obligations which they
could scarcely meet.

Yet the difficulties which were ultimately to overwhelm the state were
already visible upon the horizon. The eleventh century was a period of
nation building in Europe. Poland, Hungary, Bohemia were already coming
into existence and aiming for expansion. The Holy Roman Empire, revived
under Charlemagne, was encouraging them to turn to the east for their
further growth. From the east there came a seemingly endless succession
of invading nomad tribes, continuing those movements which had been
sweeping over the black earth region for centuries and millennia.

The new state had no natural boundaries for defence. Only where the
country touched the Carpathian mountains was there any well defined
border. In all other directions, south, east and northwest, the land
lay open to the invaders. That situation which in times of peace had
made Kiev the centre of commerce and had brought it wealth, in time of
war was its greatest menace. It was only in the northeast, where the
great woods sheltered the primitive Finnic peoples still untouched by
culture and Christianity, that there lurked no danger. In all other
areas the princes had continually to be on their guard. The danger was
greatest to the east, for there they were confronted with the highly
mobile nomad troops who could attack with startling suddenness, ravage
the country, and if necessary disappear with the same speed.

The heart of the state was the line of the Dnyeper and so long as that
was not cut, it was possible for Kiev to exist in relative security.
Outside of that, there were scattered throughout the land various
lesser cities, such as Chernihiv and others, which served as rallying
points for the princes and their forces. If it were possible to
coordinate these into an effective system, all would be well.

Yet it was not a time for coordination. Only a leader of superior
personality and ability could hold in check the disruptive tendencies
which made their appearance in every land. There was the bad tradition
of the early feudalism, whereby the various princes and their forces
felt themselves practically independent and able to defy the will of
the central ruler. There was the equally unfortunate custom whereby
that ruler, to satisfy the members of his immediate family, apportioned
out the land into various fiefs. Both Volodymyr and Yaroslav obeyed
this tradition. Each of them had been compelled to fight against his
own brothers and relatives to secure absolute control of the whole
of Rus’ and yet each of them had in turn divided his dominions among
his own children in such a way that the task of unification had to
be recommenced with each succeeding generation. The reason for their
actions was clear. It was necessary to have in each strong post a
strong ruler. It was impossible for a leader to be everywhere at once
and, in the spirit of the day, a strong subordinate felt no scruples
about asserting his own independence and seeking to seize the supreme
power. The Church was the only force that definitely stood for a
national unity. From the Monastery of the Caves at Kiev, bishops went
out to try to maintain some semblance of unity. The Metropolitan of
Kiev had some influence and authority, but he was usually a Greek from
Constantinople and he was not always aware of the questions at issue.

When we consider the turbulence of the times and the external menace,
we can only wonder at the success achieved by some of the more able
rulers. Men like Volodymyr Monomakh, in the twelfth century, could
definitely take their stand on relatively high moral principles, and
use their influence against internal dissensions and the oppression
of their people. Yaroslav could build in Kiev the great Church of
St. Sophia, modelled on the New Church of Constantinople. The arts
flourished.

It is abundantly clear also that the princes were not absolute
sovereigns. They were compelled to pay attention to the wishes of their
higher officers and counsellors, the druzhina. They were compelled also
to give heed to the will of the people of the various cities expressed
through their public assemblies or Veches. In fact in some cities, as
in Novgorod, which really became an aristocratic republic, the Veche
became the controlling body and was able to oust the prince whenever he
displeased it. All of this points to the fact that Rus’ was really a
form of aristocratic democracy, a state in which the power of the Grand
Prince or of any of the subordinate princes was more or less closely
restricted by his ability to hold or alienate the devotion of his
people.

The prize for which all the princes contended was Kiev. Every ambitious
ruler sought to secure the coveted capital. Their efforts exhausted the
country and seriously weakened it against outside aggression. There
were too many cases where dissatisfied and struggling princes were only
too willing to seek foreign aid and make alliances with one of the
western powers or, still worse, with the nomads of the steppes, who
always proved themselves unreliable allies and often inflicted upon
their friends as much damage as they did upon the enemies against whom
their efforts were directed. This was bad in the eleventh century, but
in the twelfth there was an almost continuous civil war and within a
century more than thirty princes had sat upon the throne at Kiev.

Under such conditions it was only natural that there should be a
division of the state. Certain rulers, wearied of the dangerous lures
of ambition, set themselves to secure their own territory safely,
even if they were forced to act as completely independent rulers and
to flout the orders of the central authority. Galicia, the westernmost
portion of the state of Rus’, was the first to assume practical
independence. After the time of Yaroslav the Wise, the princes of this
area set themselves up as provincial rulers and devoted all their
energies to strengthening their own positions at home and abroad. They
tried to keep out of the tangled intrigues for the possession of Kiev
and they worked equally to keep the other princes from interfering
with their own area, so that the province enjoyed relative peace for
some centuries. It was not until the destruction of Kiev by the Tatars
in the thirteenth century that they sought to make their authority
paramount over the entire country. The example of Galicia was followed
by the princes of Chernihiv and by many others, so that the original
unity of Rus’ vanished amid the flames of civil war or in aristocratic
anarchy.

The ruin was accelerated by the appearance of the Polovtsy, another
Turkic tribe, which was far more military and far more ably led than
had been the Pechenegs. During the whole of the twelfth century, they
ravaged the country almost at will and they were sure to find as allies
some of the warring princes who were willing to enlist their aid for
shortsighted personal advantage against other members of their own
people. The damage which the Polovtsy did was well pictured in the
_Song of the Armament of Ihor_. This is a unique work of the
twelfth century and represents the only surviving specimen of the
court poetry of the day. The unknown poet, in picturing the evils that
disorder has brought upon the state, looks back to the whole history
of Kiev and of Rus’, glorifies the princes of old and mourns the
destruction of that splendid state which had been erected by Volodymyr
and Yaroslav.

The worst menace came however from the forest lands of the northeast
which had formerly been the one safe spot on the boundaries. Various
princes, deprived of their lands in Rus’, had gone up to the area
around the headwaters of the Don and the Volga. There, amid the Finnic
population, they had carved out domains for themselves, but they
were not going to be hampered by the constitutional and democratic
traditions that had prevailed at Kiev. In their new homes, they were
able to create a thoroughly autocratic state and to destroy those
rights and privileges which the old druzhinas had been able to maintain
against the prince. They were not content with this alone. They also
were able to keep from starting in their capitals of Vladimir, of
Suzdal and later of Moscow, the various citizens’ councils which had
acquired so much power in Novgorod.

With increasing speed the culture of Moscow separated itself from
that of Kiev. Connections between Kiev and Moscow were difficult,
between Moscow and Constantinople almost impossible. On the other
hand the Volga River easily became a route of commerce and of travel
to the Caspian Sea and this brought Moscow far closer to Armenia and
Georgia, then at their political height, than to Constantinople and the
weakening Byzantine Empire. Architecture and art speedily felt the new
influences. The types of churches that had been developed at Kiev and
Novgorod under Byzantine influence gave way to new patterns borrowed
from the east, with low relief for decorations and with simpler
architectural forms.

Kiev still remained the dominant factor in Rus’. It was a name to be
conjured with, but it did not hold for these northern principalities
the sympathetic appeal that it did for all the princes in the older
part of the country. For a while they continued to yield to the
spell of the older capital and they sought to play their role in the
complicated game of politics. Yet only for a while.

In 1169 Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky sacked the city of Kiev. It was the
most destructive of any of the attacks that had been made against the
southern capital, for this time it was an attempt at ruin and not at
control. When Prince Andrey ordered his soldiers to ravage the city, he
did it because he had no intention of remaining there and making it his
capital. The earlier princes had fought for Kiev; Prince Andrey fought
against it. There was no point in plundering ruthlessly a capital which
the conquerors desired for themselves. There was no reason for sparing
a city which the conquerors desired to ruin. Everything that was of
value, whether of ecclesiastical or civil character, was taken and
the plunder-laden hosts resumed the march to their northern citadel
of Suzdal. Even the Metropolitan of Kiev, the head of the Church,
was taken along with them and Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky could look
with satisfaction at his conquests. He could be sure that it would be
decades, if not longer, before Kiev would rise again from the ruins and
dare to threaten his hegemony.

This sack of Kiev was the most important date in the history of the
country after the introduction of Christianity, for it marked the
separation of Kiev and the northern cities, the line of demarcation
between Ukraine-Rus’ and Moscow. It is idle to speculate what was in
the minds of conquerors and conquered at the very moment of the battle.
There can be no doubt that the princes of Suzdal were the lineal
descendants of Volodymyr and Yaroslav. There can be no doubt too that
their armies were largely composed of men who had never seen and felt
the charm of Kiev, who had no appreciation for the ancient culture of
the old metropolis.

Ukrainian thought has been insistent for centuries that this was
a foreign conquest. The princes of Galicia with the downfall of
Kiev took in a few years the title of Grand Princes of Rus’. They
proudly ignored the new principalities and strove to continue the old
traditions.

To Moscow and the northern princes, this conquest meant the transfer to
them of all the primacy that had clustered around the fallen city. They
proudly called themselves and their metropolitans the rulers of Rus’,
but even so they much preferred to call themselves the Grand Princes of
Moscow. They sneered at their victims and it was many centuries before
they sought to value the city from which they secured their power.

Henceforth the two states went on their independent ways and whatever
unity still survived was to perish in the new historical developments.

While Kiev was still struggling to repair the damage of the terrible
plundering, there appeared a new invader. In 1224 there came the
first onslaught of the forces of Genghis Khan, the dread lord of the
Mongolian Empire. He defeated the combined princes at a battle on the
Kalka River and killed Mstislav of Kiev, but his forces soon withdrew.

They returned in 1240 under the Khan Batu and this time the Mongols and
Tatars came to stay. They sacked and burned Chernihiv and on December
6, 1240 they captured Kiev and ended the old mediaeval state. It was a
terrible and thorough sacking of Kiev and Rus’. When it was over, the
cities were mere shells, the princes annihilated, the land desolate.
Apparently in their misery the ordinary people rose against the princes
at the same time and sought to take vengeance upon their former lords.

At the same time the princes of Suzdal and Moscow led the procession
of nobles who were willing to accept the Mongol Tatar overlordship to
maintain their thrones. They willingly submitted and for two centuries
Moscow, for good or ill, formed part of the Mongolian Empire and later
of its westernmost section, the Golden Horde, with its capital at
Saray near Kazan on the Volga River. Moscow rapidly became Asianized,
its princes married Mongol girls, and whatever had remained of the old
traditions was swallowed up in the new order.

The hope of an independent Rus’ remained only in the West where
the princes of Halich endeavored to increase their power. It was a
truncated state that they dominated. Without the rich hinterland of
the Dnyeper basin and the regions to the east, they were isolated
among the western states which had already come into existence and
which formed part of the Western Roman Catholic world. The Orthodox
state of Rus’ was closely surrounded by Poland and Hungary which had
already succeeded in acquiring control of that section of Rus’ which
was in the Carpathian Mountains. Separately or together, Poland and
Hungary intrigued against or fought with the Princes of Halich and by
the middle of the fourteenth century Poland succeeded in acquiring the
control of Galicia.

In the meanwhile there had come the rise of Lithuania in the north. A
series of able princes pushed their way south through White Ruthenian
territory and later acquired control of Volynia and Podolia. The
rulers of Lithuania were either pagan or Orthodox. The White Ruthenian
Church Slavonic became their court language and the language of
official business. All this won for them a sympathetic hearing from
the dismembered principalities of Rus’, especially as the rule of the
Lithuanians was little harsher than had been the rule of their own
princes in the later days.

By the end of the fourteenth century, the old state of Rus’ had lost
all its independence. It was formally divided between Poland, Lithuania
and Hungary, and the rulers of these countries fought over its
possessions. Only in Lithuania was there a semblance of the old rule,
for it was only there that any of the princes were able to maintain
their prestige and some shreds of their power. Everywhere else, a new
order had been introduced and the princes had been compelled to submit
or vanish into obscurity.

It was a sad time for the people. The glories of the past were gone
and they scarcely lived on, even in the memories of the people. No one
could have recognized in the wretched, depopulated country the once
proud state of Kievan Rus’, which had been acknowledged two centuries
before as an equal of all of the countries of Europe.

CHAPTER FOUR

_THE CULTURAL REVIVAL_

The fifteenth century opened on a ruined state of Rus’-Ukraine. There
was nothing left of the old authority of the state. Its independence
and its wealth were gone and its people had only to remain quiet and
to follow as mute observers the changing pattern of history, for
the fifteenth century saw the beginnings of modern Europe; it saw
the discovery of America, the enormous expansion of Poland and the
independence of Moscow from the Tatar yoke. Mediaeval Europe was
passing into the modern era and Rus’-Ukraine, gone from the map, could
only look on without comprehension.

Everything seemed against the unfortunate people, for the two great
events of the period worked to the disadvantage of the enslaved
Ukrainians.

First came the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. The
collapse of the Byzantine Empire had been gradual. Step by step the
Turks had pushed nearer to the great capital. They had conquered one
province after another, until only the city itself was left upon the
Golden Horn in a splendid isolation. It was in vain that the Emperors
had appealed to the West for military assistance to ward off the final
doom. They secured no answer. At the Council of Florence in 1439, they
had made their submission to the Pope but even this brought them no
practical benefit, for the age of the Crusades had passed. No one of
the secular rulers who were busy carving out states for themselves was
willing to hear the appeal of Rome to divert even a small part of their
energies and resources to the saving of what had been the great centre
of Christianity.

Almost simultaneously with this, Ivan III of Moscow threw off the yoke
of the Golden Horde and Moscow became a free state for the first time
in two centuries. By his marriage with a member of the Paleolog dynasty
of Constantinople, Ivan secured a shadowy claim to the double headed
eagles of Byzantium. He and his followers became enthused with the idea
that they were the lineal descendants of the Empire and that Moscow
was now the Christian capital of the world, the Third Rome, entitled
to recover its ancestral heritage and to shine forth in new glory. It
was a proud ambition for the isolated state which had been orientalized
by submission to the Mongols and Tatars and had sunk in all cultural
matters far below its original source.

In the meanwhile Poland, with its alliance with Lithuania, was rising
to new heights. Proud of its western traditions, the reborn state
wanted to know nothing of the culture of those peoples who had entered
into it. It valued its contacts with Italy and the West. It sought to
wipe out every trace of its connections with the east and the nobles
and peasants of Rus’-Ukraine, with their Orthodox faith, seemed to them
a reflection on the western character of Poland.

Rus’-Ukraine was abandoned by all of its friends at the very moment
when the Spanish traders and merchants were seeking a road to the
riches of the Orient, when the new spirit and the teachers from the
ruined Constantinople were leavening the whole of Europe, when in
England the Wars of the Roses were wiping out the old feudal nobility
and when everywhere new currents of life and of thought were changing
the old system of society. None of these new and healthy currents could
exert any appreciable influence upon the unfortunate state which five
centuries earlier had been the cultural offshoot of the great Byzantine
Empire.

The fall of Constantinople deprived the people of Ukraine of their
cultural and religious support. The patriarchs were so occupied with
the heavy problems of personal survival that they had little or no time
to think of the far distant Ukraine. There were few or no scholars to
send there to carry on schools and to defend the faith. The people
were left to themselves to supply their own cultural needs as best
they could, for Moscow, even though it was the self-styled defender
of Orthodoxy and the Third Rome, was not interested in any cultural
development outside of its own restricted sphere and could listen
gravely to an argument that it was a sin to write or think or add any
knowledge to the world after the Seventh Oecumenical Council.

This left Ukraine at the mercy of Poland and Lithuania. Galling as it
was to be under the control of Lithuania, which had formerly ranked so
low in comparison with Kiev, there were still compensations. Part of
Lithuania was pagan but many of the lords were Orthodox, and Church
Slavonic, especially in its White Ruthenian form, was really the
language of the government records. No matter what was to come, it was
possible, especially for the nobles and the educated, to be sure of a
hearing and of their position in the ruling circles.

It was far different in Poland. From its very beginning Poland had
adopted the Roman Catholic faith and felt itself definitely part of
the West. As such it had inherited the contempt for Orthodoxy that
had been widely spread since the Fourth Crusade. Its kings and rulers
were constantly seeking to eliminate from their body politic and their
ruling class all those people who would not conform, and there was a
steady pressure on the leading families and the leading ecclesiastics
to enter the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1386, Yagello of Lithuania married Queen Jadwiga of Poland and was
baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. Almost at once the spirit of
Lithuanian rule began to change as men trained in the Roman Catholic
faith came to high positions in the state. The result was shown in the
lessening of Orthodox influence. As the decades passed, the influence
of Poland grew and finally the Ukrainian provinces of Lithuania were
definitely brought under Poland and the central Polish system.

This brought with it an increase of Polish and Latin schools. Many
of the leading nobles adapted themselves to the new regime, and
since religion was the chief distinguishing criterion, most of them
definitely became Roman Catholic, and commenced to speak Polish, to
live in the Polish way and to adopt the manners of their social equals
in Poland. All this could not fail to react badly upon the Ukrainian
population, which was still devoutly Orthodox but which was rapidly
being stripped of its nobility and its educated class.

Thus the sixteenth century bade fair to see the definite extinction
of Ukrainian hopes and aspirations and even existence. The Ukrainian
population was rapidly being reduced to an inchoate mass of illiterate
peasants and townspeople without an intelligentsia and even without
any educated clergy. Yet these expectations were not fulfilled. In the
same century there came a revival, at first small in scope and often
deficient in method, but yet vitally important to the preservation of
the national and cultural identity.

This revival concerned itself with education. There spread through
the Ukrainian lands a desire to create schools for the people to
counter-balance the Polish schools. Since there was already pressure
for a union of the Churches, which had won the support of several of
the leading bishops, the new schools adopted a severely Orthodox point
of view. Their leaders were convinced that a knowledge of the new
learning could not fail to weaken the position of the Church. They did
not realize that much of the new learning was itself the result of the
contact between the scholars who had fled to the West after the fall of
Constantinople and the traditional wisdom of the West. The education
became purely religious with very little regard for secular subjects.
At the same time, insofar as it was possible, the leaders sought to
spread a knowledge of the older forms of the Church Slavonic and gave
little heed to the attempts that were being made to adapt this language
to the living speech of the people.

Such a reform was naturally successful in reviving the national
consciousness of the Ukrainians but it could not check the tendency
of many of the more progressive and prominent families to send their
children to the more fashionable Polish schools and thus the leakage of
part of the educated class continued with little abatement. Its success
would have been far greater, had the Patriarch of Constantinople
been able to send a considerable number of scholars to assist in the
organization of the new Greek-Slavonic schools, but unfortunately there
was not the available personnel.

A few outstanding men appeared for a short time. Thus Cyril Loukaris,
who was later to be the celebrated Patriarch of Constantinople, taught
at Ostrih and Wilno for a few years and he was perhaps the most
prominent of the teachers to arrive. Yet even his short stay shows the
desperate straits to which Constantinople was reduced at the time,
when it seemed as if Greek learning itself might vanish as had the old
splendor of Kievan culture.

It is only fair, however, to say that the Polish schools were
themselves none too efficient. The ideas of Protestantism had spread
widely throughout Poland during this period and at one time a
considerable proportion of the great magnates were at least sympathetic
to it. The movement was checked by the work of the Order of the
Jesuits and especially by its greatest member, Peter Skarga, probably
the keenest mind of the day in Poland. He worked vigorously as a
propagandist for the unity of the Churches and also as a founder and
administrator of the various schools. The curriculum in these, while
broader than the average Greek schools, was still not satisfactory from
the European standpoint of the day. They were heavily laden with a late
form of scholasticism and this in turn exerted a certain influence upon
the Orthodox schools which had to prepare their students to live in the
Polish atmosphere.

The first of the great Ukrainian schools was that of Ostrih. Here
Prince Konstantin Ostrozky, one of the richest nobles who still adhered
to the Orthodox faith, set up a school. He invited Greeks to serve on
its staff. He bought a printing press. Through his friendship with
Prince Andrey Kurbsky, who fled from Moscow, he was fully acquainted
with the work that had been done at Novgorod a half century earlier
by Archbishop Gennady at the time of the heresy of the Judaizers.
Prince Ostrozky’s powerful position enabled him to secure a copy of
the Bible prepared by Gennady, parts of which had been translated from
the Latin Vulgate. This Bible was again revised at Ostrih and was
published in 1580 as the Ostrih Bible, the first Bible published in
any East Slavonic land. The school flourished for about twenty years
until the death of Konstantin. His sons accepted the Roman Catholic
faith and very soon lost all interest in the work that their father had
undertaken, with bad results to the school.

At Lviv, the work was under the Lviv Staropegian Brotherhood. This
was the most important of the various brotherhoods that had been
established years before in the various Ukrainian towns. These were
in the nature of the mediaeval guilds but they were also largely
concerned with the care of the poor and orphans. Membership in them was
restricted to the Orthodox and they represented the more substantial
portions of the merchant classes of the various cities. With the
increasing realization of the need for education and for the defence
of the Orthodox Faith, these brotherhoods voluntarily gave up part of
their philanthropic and social activities and devoted themselves to the
newer and more pressing needs.

Their school was established in 1586, a few years later than that in
Ostrih, but it was really on a firmer foundation because it could
not be so severely affected by the defection of a single patron. It
maintained high rank in Greek and Church Slavonic. At the various
exercises the pupils were able to write and present Greek speeches and
translations and some of them went to Mount Athos to continue their
studies or to remain there as monks. Yet it was forced also to include
a knowledge of Latin and the various writings of the school show that
it had come under the influence of the Polish panegyric style of the
day.

The third centre of the national revival was Kiev, which had shrunken
sadly in importance under the many sacks which it had undergone. The
Monastery of the Caves was reorganized to undertake serious educational
work and the brotherhood of the city also opened its own school. These
were later combined into the Kiev Academy of Peter Mohyla, a talented
Moldavian who became the Metropolitan of Kiev in 1632 after having
been for five years Archimandrite of the Monastery of the Caves. The
Kiev Academy, which was later able to found branches in various other
cities, became the outstanding institution in the Ukraine and the
entire Eastern Slav area. The catechism prepared by Mohyla was accepted
by a council held under the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1643 as the
standard for all the Slav-speaking Orthodox and this proved a great
triumph for Ukrainian and Kievan scholarship, since it gave the Academy
a standing far outside the area from which it drew its students.

The beneficent results of this system of education would have been far
greater, had events not made Ukraine the battleground for the renewal
of the struggle between Rome and Constantinople. Although the Greek
Church, after the fall of Constantinople, had repudiated the Union
of Florence and the various negotiations between the Papacy and the
Byzantine Empire, the results were left in Europe. Many of the Greeks
who had signed the Union remained in high position in Rome and they
left behind them their ideas, their hopes and aspirations.

It was easy to see why advocates of such a policy could hope for
success among the Ukrainians in Poland. Over a period of years many
of the leading nobles had been Polonized, but they still retained all
their former rights in making Church appointments, rights little more
extensive than those possessed by the Roman Catholic nobles. Why should
they not exercise these rights and place Roman Catholic sympathizers in
responsible positions? Similarly the King of Poland assumed the various
rights of the older Orthodox princes who had been expelled from their
lands at the period of conquest.

In the minds of the thinkers of the sixteenth century, such actions
were not only moral and consistent but necessary. It suited the
religious and political leaders of the century and it was powerfully
reinforced by the efforts of the Jesuits. More and more the Kings and
the magnates put pressure upon the Orthodox bishops. They even went
so far in the early part of the century as to require heavy payments
from the Orthodox before they would consent to the appointment of a new
Orthodox bishop even for Lviv.

At the same time every change in the constitution of Poland tended to
increase the power of the lords and to decrease those of the peasants
and the townspeople. The peasants saw themselves forced to harder and
harder conditions of living, until they became practically serfs,
living on the land of their masters and liable for more and more unpaid
labor. The townspeople gradually lost most of their privileges. They
were forbidden to buy land, if they were Ukrainians, outside of certain
Ukrainian quarters, and the flourishing trade that had been built up
fell to almost nothing. The Polish townspeople were little better off
and the general history of the towns during the century was one of
uninterrupted decay. Yet for the Poles religion was not impaired, since
their clergy were influential in the state. For the Ukrainians, with
the loss of their aristocracy, the diminution of their privileges left
them without any defenders.

What was needed was a reorganization of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church
but this was difficult. Many of the higher ecclesiastics, bishops
and heads of monasteries, were hardly willing to give up their own
practical independence. At the same time the brotherhoods, who were the
best organized and most intelligently conscious members of the Orthodox
Church, sought for ways to make their influence felt, and as their
school system grew, so did their claims and their potentialities.

To add to the confusion, just at this moment there began to appear in
Ukraine various of the Eastern patriarchs. These men, zealously trying
to uphold their ancient privileges, were travelling not so much for the
sake of supervising the various sees that were nominally under their
control as for collecting alms and funds to help the Church in the
Ottoman Empire. Yet they could not resist the temptation to act as the
former Patriarchs who were something more than beggars and who had at
their disposal abundant resources.

Moscow was usually their goal. It was far easier to receive enormous
funds there than from the poor peasants of Ukraine. It was not without
significance that in 1589 the Patriarch Jeremias on one of these visits
was induced by copious gifts for his suffering flock to consecrate a
Patriarch for Moscow and to grant to the Church of Moscow the right
to choose and consecrate its own Patriarch thereafter. It was the
culmination of the dream of Moscow to become the Third Rome.

That same Jeremias, while in Ukraine, and conscious of the sufferings
and disorder of the Orthodox Church, carelessly approved an agreement
that had been made a few years earlier between the Patriarch Joachim of
Antioch and the brotherhood of Lviv. This agreement had conferred upon
the brotherhood the right of supervision of the clergy and of reporting
delinquent priests to the bishop who was to be himself liable to
condemnation, if he refused to remedy the abuse complained of. It was
a more than foolish proposal, for it meant a complete reversal of the
traditional Orthodox method of church administration and intensified
the friction between the higher classes who were usually of the gentry
and the townsmen and the peasants who ranked lower in the social scale
of the day.

Sooner or later it was certain to promote a clash in the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church which could be of profit to no one except its foes.
Further attempts by the Patriarch to extend his control over the
Ukrainian Church were equally resented by both clergy and laity. The
fact was that with the state of irritation and frustration that existed
in the land almost any action that was designed to tighten up the
administration, as had been done by the Jesuits in the Roman Catholic
Church, would have aroused anger and increased the confusion. The
higher clergy were jealous of the brotherhoods and despised them as
plebeian. The brotherhoods were suspicious of the bishops and regarded
them as false to their duties.

It is very possible that there was lurking in all this elements of
Protestant propaganda from Bohemia. It is certain that the Jesuits
were not in the slightest degree averse to fanning hostility among the
Orthodox and that the King and the Polish magnates were willing to
do anything to break up the solid front that had existed among the
Orthodox.

At all events a fight soon broke out between Gedeon Balaban, the Bishop
of Lviv, and the brotherhood. As a result of this, Balaban conferred
with the other bishops and a decision was made to place themselves
under the Pope. The clergy and the nobles who took part in these
discussions realized the danger to the nation from the policy of the
Poles and the growing power of Moscow and hoped for at least moral
support from the Papacy and the West. Negotiations went on rapidly in
secret, for the bishops knew that a large part of their congregations
would decline to follow them. In 1595, two of them, Terletsky and Poty,
went to Rome and formally signed an agreement with the Pope, promising
submission.

The next year, 1596, the King of Poland called a public council of the
Orthodox Church at Brest to confirm the Union. The result was hardly
to his liking, for two of the bishops, Balaban who had initiated the
movement and Kopistinsky, Bishop of Peremyshl, declined to ratify it.
Despite the efforts of the Polish government, the Patriarchal Vicar
Nicephorus appeared at the gathering with other Byzantine officials.
More important than that, the remaining Orthodox lords, including
Prince Ostrozky, came in protest and there were representatives of the
brotherhoods and the lesser Orthodox gentry and townsmen.

Thus the lines of battle were clearly drawn between the King, the
Polish magnates, the Roman Catholic clergy and the bishops who had
agreed to the Union and all other classes of the population. What
had been intended as a peace meeting, as the formal ratification of
something that had been decided upon, ended with ill concealed discord.
The Orthodox refused to enter the cathedral because the bishop of
the diocese had signed the Act of Union. The Uniats and the Roman
Catholics declined to attend the Orthodox meeting presided over by the
Patriarchal Vicar. A few days were spent in meaningless invitations to
the opposing party and finally there were duly formed two councils, one
of the Uniats and Roman Catholics, the other of the Orthodox. Each of
these duly anathematized and deposed the bishops of the other faction
and appealed to the King to carry out their wishes as representatives
of the real desires of the Church and people.

It was abundantly evident that in this controversy the actual power
lay in the hands of the King and the Uniats. King Sigismund, of the
Catholic branch of the Vasa line of Sweden, had no intention of giving
any rights to the Orthodox and his followers controlled the organs of
the state. The Orthodox could do little but argue, write and talk and
that seemed little enough. With the control of the state on their side,
the Uniats felt that they could overlook the many polemical pamphlets
that were hurled against them, especially by Ivan Vyshensky, the most
celebrated of the defenders of Orthodoxy. Vyshensky was a monk who
had studied at Mount Athos. He was a conservative in the educational
disputes and felt that the modern schools were not severely Orthodox
enough, not enough critical of the modern Western learning; but when
it came to the dispute over the Union, he stood firmly with the
brotherhoods. His pamphlets, written with bitter invective against the
Uniats, had a telling effect.

The King and his lords paid no attention. They were sure of an ultimate
victory and set about acting accordingly. They commenced to dispossess
by force those of the bishops and priests who refused to accept the
Union and on the death of the Metropolitan of Kiev, Rohoza, in 1590,
they appointed as the new Metropolitan Poty, who was the violent
advocate of the Union. Poty kept urging the King and the government to
further acts of aggression against the Orthodox and his arguments fell
upon willing ears.

Yet it was a long distance between talk and realization. The Orthodox
fought zealously in defence of their rights, as they considered them,
although it was evident that they were fighting a losing battle. The
number of influential lords on their side and in the Polish senate
was steadily decreasing as more and more of them became Polonized and
joined the Roman Catholic Church. Even a promise of the King in 1597,
forced by the foreign situation, that he would appoint only Orthodox
to the Orthodox sees and parishes remained a dead letter, for the
King did not feel himself bound by any promise to the heretics or the
dissidents, as they were now called in Polish official language.

The reaction varied in the different provinces. In Lviv and Peremyshl
where there were still Orthodox bishops, even though the influence
of Polish landlords was strong, there was some relief. In those
dioceses where the Catholic landlords joined with the Uniat bishops
the situation was worse. In some others, as Kiev, where there still
remained a considerable number of Orthodox landlords, there was a still
different situation and in Kiev particularly, Prince Vasil Konstantin
Ostrozky as governor of the province openly disobeyed the orders of the
king.

Yet all this was temporary. Time was clearly playing on the side of
the Catholics and the Uniats. Sooner or later it was certain that
there would come a moment when the Orthodox opposition would become
negligible, when the Orthodox lords would cease to have the power
to defend their coreligionists in the Polish government or on their
estates, when the brotherhoods could be broken up or suppressed or won
over. Steps were already taken in Wilno to expel the Orthodox from the
Churches despite the pleas of the vast majority of the population.

There was only one factor that might interfere. It had already appeared
as a dark shadow when the King endeavored to seize the Monastery of the
Caves at Kiev. That was the appearance of an armed band of Nalyvaykans,
as they were called, within the walls of the monastery, who were ready
to fight for the Orthodox Church. It was a grim portent and a warning,
had the King and his advisors been prepared to heed it, for these men
were a branch of the Kozaks of the Dnyeper valley and the Kozaks were
destined to bear in the future the burden of the struggle for Ukrainian
freedom.

CHAPTER FIVE

_THE KOZAKS_

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a brilliant and colorful
age, an age of high thinking and of great adventure. Not since the age
of the Vikings had men of courage and of determination dared so much
upon the high seas. The Spanish conquistadores settled the whole of
South America. They laid their hands upon the fabulous wealth of Mexico
and Peru. Well armed and fearless, a handful of Europeans dared to face
thousands of the Aztecs and the Incas and came off victorious in the
name of the Christian religion. The English in still smaller and more
manageable boats swarmed across the Atlantic Ocean and attacked the
rich and treasure-laden galleons wherever they found them and then,
early in the seventeenth century, they laid the foundations of their
colonies in America. Europe meanwhile was torn by religious wars,
as the new ideas of Protestantism sought to extend their sphere of
influence.

That same spirit and that same daring, that same zeal for the Faith
which they had received from their fathers, that same longing for
a freedom which they no longer had burst out in the east of Europe
and started the Kozaks on their historic mission. Where the Atlantic
seaboard saw men of courage and of action put out to sea in small and
scarcely seaworthy craft, in the east men of similar character swept
across the steppes, ready to fight and to sell their lives for liberty.
They formed a force that was difficult to control and impossible to
check. They revived the courage and the bravery of the early rulers of
Kiev and they left an imperishable mark upon their surroundings. The
Kozak Host became in a few years an object of terror and concern to
all of their neighbors, be they Poles, Muscovites, Turks, Tatars or
whoever else attempted to restrain their unbridled energy and to reduce
them to the status of serfs. It was an outpouring of the human spirit
that has scarcely been equalled at any time or in any region and the
Kozaks were praised or hated, according as they met with friend or foe.

The name Kozak is borrowed from the Turkish word meaning “free warrior”
and the meaning of the word amply expresses the dominant characteristic
of these people. They were in essence the frontiersmen of eastern
Europe, living in those areas where there was no law but the sword and
where no man could be called to account except by one who was stronger
than he. They reacted fiercely against every invasion of their rights
and in the beginning co-operated only for defence or attack.

The stories of the first Kozaks have much in common with the legends
of some of the American pioneers who crossed into Kentucky, the dark
and bloody ground, as it was known in the eighteenth century. There was
only the difference that the Kozaks were operating not in mountainous
and wooded territory but on the open plains and that their opponents
were not small bands of Indians, hardly more numerous than themselves,
but large masses of well-mounted troops eager for plunder and for slave
collecting.

The weakening of the Golden Horde and conflicts between the Khan and
the Sultan of Turkey had relaxed control over the black earth region
across the Dnyeper. In that no man’s land and along the Dnyeper
itself there was a rich area in which there were few or no permanent
residents. It offered an ideal place for men who had no fear of death
and who valued their personal liberty above everything else, to live a
lawless and carefree life without personal obligations. The prospect
appealed to many who were suffering under the oppressive rule of the
feudal lords in both Poland and Lithuania. Likewise men streamed out
of the Muscovite lands into the lower Don and the lower Volga areas.
Out of these groups of men there developed the Don Cossacks, who were
nominally subject to Moscow, and the Zaporozhian Kozaks, who were
originally required to pay some sort of allegiance to Poland.

We first hear of the Kozaks of the Dnyeper at the end of the fifteenth
century, when men from various sections of Rus’ went into the
wilderness which had already received the name of Ukraine and passed
their time hunting, collecting honey, and fishing. They did not disdain
any opportunity of plundering Tatar raiding detachments, caravans
crossing the country or messengers passing between the Sultan and the
Khan, and the Kings of Poland and of Lithuania. Very often they were
able to return to their homes at the approach of winter with rich
spoils which far outvalued the natural products even of a fabulously
rich land.

From these more or less accidental encounters, it was not long before
the little bands gathered together in larger groups and set out
deliberately to plunder their enemies. The frontier guards of Poland
and Lithuania tried to levy taxes on the booty which they brought back.
Then the obvious thing was not to return but to pass the winter in
small fortresses built beyond the settled frontier.

In the beginning men of every class who loved adventure joined in
these raids. There were gentry who craved adventure and excitement.
There were townspeople who were bored by the monotonous hardships of
declining trade. There were peasants who had suffered at the hands of
their landlords. There were men who innocently or for due cause were
sought by the authorities of the law. Yet when they once came into
this unsettled country, they realized that they had to work together.
Neither birth nor wealth nor training counted for anything except in so
far as it assisted a man in asserting his own power and in persuading
his comrades to work with him.

It was a free society in a free world. Gradually all the little
fortresses and hangouts felt the need for closer cooperation, and step
by step there was built up a rough organization which represented in
general all the various groups. If this was to be effective, it had
to have some sort of permanent headquarters and the ideal place was
finally found to be the islands below the rapids of the Dnyeper River.
Hence came the name Zaporozhe, the place below the rapids.

About 1552 one Prince Dmytro Vyshnevetsky, a gentleman Kozak, took
the initiative in building as this centre a fortress on the island
of Khortytsya, in this general region. This was the beginning of the
celebrated Sich which was to inspire terror in the hearts of all the
surrounding lands. Here the Kozaks could gather in relative security.
Here they could store the cannon which they captured on their various
raids, the booty which they acquired. Here they could meet for
deliberation and decide what enterprise they would next undertake.

The Kozaks of the Sich, eternally ready for battle or for raids, became
as it were a replica of the various orders of military knights that had
played such a role in the area of the Baltic Sea and in the crusades.
Here was a group of men ready to fight the battle for Christianity and
the Orthodox faith against the apparently invincible Mohammedans.

Yet it was also a democratic system. In the general gatherings of the
Kozaks every man was free to speak his own mind, depending only on
the permission of his fellows. There was no set rule of procedure.
Human life was cheap and a man might easily pay with his own for an
unpremeditated insult. He had only himself to blame and no one else
cared a rap, if one Kozak or another perished in a brawl. Any man
could rise to prominence if he was able in one way or another to sway
the assembly. There was no post barred to him because of age or rank
or previous existence. It was a man’s world in the full sense of the
world. It was a free world in a way that was not true of life anywhere
else in the conquered and subjugated Ukraine.

Yet when we emphasize this side of life at the Sich, we can never
forget that the Sich was located in an exposed position subject at
any moment to the attack of powerful and unscrupulous enemies. It was
absolutely essential that there should be unrelenting vigilance and
strict discipline. If the Kozaks were to live at all in the area which
they had picked out, they could not engage in meaningless squabbles, in
martial disorder, and in perfect anarchy.

They met the situation in a democratic way. The general assembly would
meet and formally elect a hetman to whom they gave the horsetail
standard and the mace of office. His word was law. He had all the
powers of an army commander. He could punish even with death any who
disobeyed his orders or showed cowardice in the face of danger. His
power was absolute and limited by no constitutional restrictions. Yet
at the ending of his term of office, he was liable to be questioned
by the assembly and if he had not used his powers for the good of
the Sich, he could be tried by the rough justice of his comrades and
receive whatever punishment they desired to inflict.

It was a rough system administered by rough, brave men, and while it
was not fitted for a normal community of peaceful citizens, it was
admirably suited to men living beyond the established frontier, every
one of whom had faced death many times both from the enemy and from the
storms of nature. It was a new system which had nothing in common with
the elaborate system of aristocratic feudalism and the aristocratic
republic of the squires of Poland or with the personal autocracy of the
Muscovite tsar. The Kozak Host of the Zaporozhian Sich was a law unto
itself.

Vyshnevetsky had offered to combine with the Tsar against the Tatars of
the Crimea and had taken part in one expedition with the Muscovites but
had not received any support and it was a long while before the offer
was repeated. His successors as hetmans preferred to go their own ways
and build up and strengthen their Kozak system until it could stand
alone.

The Kozaks could not escape the attention of the Kings of Poland.
They were uncomfortable neighbors but they were also useful. The King
and the gentry of Poland had no taste for building up a military
establishment strong enough to protect the country. In earlier days the
bulk of the army was composed of Lithuanian forces, largely recruited
from Ukraine and White Ruthenia. Once the full union of Poland and
Lithuania had taken place and the golden liberty of the Polish szlachta
had been extended throughout the land, this resource was gone. Between
the weak Polish army and the Tatar and Turkish raiders there stood only
the Kozaks.

Common sense would have advised the King and the magnates of Poland to
come to terms with the organization or to have secured enough forces
of their own to render it useless and to destroy it. They did neither.
In times of war with Turkey or the Tatars they willingly took the
Kozaks into their service and welcomed their assistance. In times of
peace they were constantly striving to prevent their growth. They did
go so far as to register a few thousand Kozaks and consider them as a
separate part of the Polish army but even then they rarely paid them
the sums promised, because of the opposition of the gentry and the lack
of money in the treasury.

[Illustration:

ST. VOLODYMYR

ST. OLHA

(Victor Vasnetsov)]

[Illustration: The Zaporozhian Kozaks writing a letter to the
Sultan

(Ilya Repin)]

Even this slight support, however, gave the Kozaks the idea that they
owed only a general loyalty to the King and they were bound only to
obey their own elected hetmans. They came to feel that they were free
from all taxes levied by the Polish government and they refused to
draw a line of demarcation between registered and unregistered Kozaks,
for they well knew that at the first sign of trouble on any Polish
border, all the Kozaks, registered and unregistered alike, would be
called into service on the same footing.

The Polish policy was more than shortsighted but it was in line with
the general attitude of the state. As the upper Dnyeper valley was
resettled and as agriculture began to revive, the magnates were able to
put forth claims for vast estates. They parcelled out among themselves
the new lands as they had done the older lands of Rus’ over which they
had assumed control centuries before. They shuddered at the idea that
the Sich might embrace all the liberty-loving Ukrainians who were
dissatisfied with their harsh rule. The Kozaks were furiously Orthodox.
They were zealous supporters of the Orthodox Church. Poland prided
itself on its Catholicism and particularly after the successful work
of the Jesuits and the establishment of the Church Union, the Polish
leaders did not want to do anything that would revive the Orthodox
Church.

The very existence of the Sich was a direct challenge to all for which
the Polish state, with its theories of the equality of the szlachta and
its religious interests, stood. The more the Sich became organized and
turned from a handful of bold frontiersmen into a definite military
force, the more it became the mouthpiece of the Ukrainian population
and a refuge for them against oppression. The more it protected the
Dnyeper valley and the regions to the east, the more it became a menace
and a problem to the Polish rulers. The free republic of the warriors
of the Sich was the direct antithesis of the aristocratic life of the
great estates which were known throughout Europe for their luxury and
their culture.

There was more than this involved. The Kozaks, though nominal subjects
of the King of Poland, maintained full freedom to harry the Turks
and Tatars at will. Every spring, with almost unfailing regularity,
they set out on expeditions down the Dnyeper to attack the Turkish
and Tatar settlements on the shores of the Black Sea. They invaded
Wallachia and Moldavia and interfered in the civil wars that were
raging intermittently in both lands. They constantly attacked Ochakiv
and plundered almost at will whatever city they wished to. They rescued
thousands of Christian Slavs from the Crimean slave mart of Kaffa.

As they grew more experienced, during the early part of the seventeenth
century, they dared to set out on longer expeditions, which carried
them into the harbors of Constantinople and Sinope. In their light
boats, which were barely a few feet above the water, they defied the
storms of the Black Sea, made sudden raids into the great Turkish
cities, left a small guard for the boats and plundered for periods as
long as three days before they saw fit to gather up the booty which
they desired and, having burned the rest, put out to sea. The larger
Turkish ships, if they attacked the Kozak boats in the daytime, could
deal terrible damage to them; but if the Kozaks could surprise them or
come upon them unexpectedly at dawn, their fierce bravery would carry
them to the decks of the better armed Turkish ships and in hand to hand
fighting, the Turks would be compelled to yield. Then, after plundering
at will, the Kozaks would sink them and their crews and return home
triumphantly. Of course their losses were terrific but the spoils which
were brought back from these raids well paid the survivors for their
hardships and their dangers.

It was in vain that the Khan of the Crimea and the Sultan of Turkey
remonstrated with the King of Poland and threatened war. The King had
no more power to restrain these raids than he had to wipe out the Sich
itself. Now and then he could capture some of the leaders and execute
them to satisfy the threats of the Turkish ambassador but this only
fanned the ill feelings between the Kozaks and the Poles. The next
spring the Kozaks would start again on their raids and the process
would be repeated.

On the other hand, in time of war, the Poles were only too glad of
their assistance. During the Troublous Times of Moscow, after the
death of Boris Godunov, the Kozaks were encouraged to interfere in
Muscovite affairs. Over forty thousand took part in the effort to make
Wladyslaw Tsar of Moscow in 1610. Despite the similarity in religion
the Kozaks fought as willingly against Moscow as they did at any time.
They brought back to their homes the richest spoils of the tsardom and
remained a continuous menace until the accession of Michael Romanov in
1613.

At the same time they were no peaceful citizens of Poland. They turned
with equal fury against the princes, Orthodox and Roman Catholic,
who were carving out estates in territory which they had made safe.
Even the great Orthodox lord, Konstantin Ostrozky, the bulwark of the
Orthodox in Poland, had to see his estates plundered and his serfs
freed by the invincible Kozaks, who cared nothing for the pattern of
rights set out by the King and the magnates.

The Polish government paid no attention until the Kozaks began to
plunder the land of the Roman Catholic lords, like the Potockis to the
east of the Dnyeper, and until they began to advance to the west and
plunder in Volynia and White Ruthenia. Then it sent against them the
Hetman of the Republic, Zolkiewski, and finally defeated them at the
battle of Lubny in 1596. It was a crushing blow to the Kozaks but it
was only temporary, for it was not long before the King, in sore need
of troops for foreign wars, called again upon the Kozaks for support
and again the whole process of endeavoring to use them in war and
suppress them in peace was resumed.

In actual practice the Kozaks controlled practically all of Eastern
Ukraine and much territory west of the Dnyeper. They represented
the conscious active elements of the Ukrainian people and it was no
accident that the Archimandrite of the Monastery of the Caves called
in the followers of Nalyvayko to protect the Monastery when the King
of Poland was trying to seize it for the Uniats. Had they formed a
consistent policy, they could at any time have dominated a large part
of Poland and forced their will upon the lords.

Yet the very strength of the Kozak movement as a military organization
was its main weakness. The Kozaks had developed as frontiersmen but
it was a long while before they definitely tried to influence the
government or to take over the administration of the territory which
they controlled. The rough democracy of the Sich was little interested
in problems of administration. Even the families of many of the
leading Kozaks lived on farms not far from the estates which they
were plundering. They had a purely military organization divided into
regiments and companies, formed on a territorial basis and they called
it the Zaporozhian Host. Thus this powerful force which might cooperate
with the various townsmen and interfere in behalf of the peasants
rarely went further and it did not attempt to take over many functions
of the Polish local administration that it could have done.

For its part the Polish government contented itself with sending
commissioners to represent it at the meetings of the Host. At times it
sent parts of its regular army to discipline the Host or to garrison
forts in the areas where it dominated. Yet most of these troops were
registered Kozaks and it was a fairly general rule that in case of any
emergency, the registered Kozaks would abandon their Polish commanders
and take sides with the unregistered.

It seems incredible that neither the King nor the magnates saw the
danger inherent in the possibility that the Kozaks with their fanatical
Orthodoxy would interfere in the struggle between the Orthodox and
Uniats, after the first attempts of the Kozaks to prevent the turning
over of the monasteries and churches. Yet they did not. The magnates
and the Roman Catholic authorities continued to think that the Kozak
movement was unable to think of anything but plunder and war. Perhaps
they relied upon the fact that many of the Ukrainian townspeople and
the last of the Ukrainian Orthodox lords shared the same opinion.
The Zaporozhians had pillaged many of the estates of Prince Ostrozky
and others of his friends and it may have seemed that there was no
possibility that anything constructive would come out of the movement.

It was however as a result of the understanding between the Kievan
Brotherhood and the Hetman Sahaydachny that this was finally brought
about. For its part the brotherhood insisted that the Kozaks were
the direct descendants of the people of Rus’ who had fought against
Byzantium on land and sea, the same people whose ancestors had fought
with Volodymyr and with Volodymyr Monomakh and who were still devoutly
Orthodox.

When there came the desire to restore the Orthodox hierarchy which
had almost completely died out, it was Sahaydachny who came to the
assistance of the brotherhood. When the Orthodox learned that the
Patriarch Theophanes was going to Moscow, they induced him to come to
Kiev. For a time the Patriarch hesitated from fear of the King and
the Poles but Sahaydachny as Hetman promised him safe conduct and
under armed protection, the Patriarch consecrated new bishops for the
Orthodox. Still not influenced by this fact, the government refused to
allow the new bishops to enter their dioceses.

The government may have counted on the fact that there was a certain
conflict within the Kozak organization. On several occasions, the
Kozaks below the rapids, the Zaporozhians in the strict sense of the
word, had chosen hetmans who were different from the hetmans elected
by the Kozaks in the more settled regions to the north. The latter,
living in the more settled portions of the country, were often deeply
interested in the cultural and religious aspects of the problem. They
were more settled people who were more interested in the cultural
development of the Orthodox Ukrainians than were the Zaporozhians, who
in this respect were nearer to the original conception of the Kozaks.

Throughout the first half of the seventeenth century, there continued
more or less constant disturbances. There were a number of armed
outbreaks of the Kozaks against the Poles in which the Kozaks presented
modifications of their essential demand, a constant increase in the
number of registered Kozaks. Most of these were finally put down by the
Poles under the leadership of Koniecpolski and Potocki and after each
new setback the Poles carefully restricted the number of registered
Kozaks. More important than that, they worked constantly to weaken the
rules about the election of the Kozak hetmans and sought to restrict
their choice to the Kozaks of good family, who came of gentry stock.
In this way they hoped to drive a wedge between the Kozak officers and
the rank and file and thus to prevent the movement from taking a more
serious turn. They also arranged to build a fort near the rapids of the
Dnyeper, so as to prevent free passage between the Zaporozhian Sich and
the rest of the Kozaks.

This perpetual conflict seriously weakened Poland, which still declined
to take any measures which would either solve the Kozak problem or
put the state in a position to defy them. In general the King was
more inclined to support or compromise with the Kozaks than were the
magnates and the gentry, who usually demanded severe measures against
both the Kozaks and the Orthodox, but who were equally against any
measure that would carry their policy into effect. It was no more
favorable to the Kozaks, for the hetmans were continually forced to
sign agreements which they could not and did not wish to carry out,
while at the same time no hetman was strong enough to plan and carry
through any policy which might allow him to win any real concession
from the Poles. The ordinary Kozaks could not secure any permanent
improvement in their status, and so there commenced a general exodus
of the lesser Kozaks from the Ukraine and the Dnyeper valley to the
so-called Slobidshchina, the land of free communes, a region in the
neighborhood of Kharkiv but which was under the jurisdiction of
Moscow. For years this region was weakly governed for it was still
on the border of the Muscovite state and it offered many of the same
advantages that Ukraine and the Dnyeper valley had a century earlier.

A definite defeat of the Kozaks in 1638 finally brought this series
of wars to an end. For ten years of peace there was little change in
the situation. The Poles had succeeded in forcing the bulk of the
unregistered Kozaks back into the hands of their masters and the
number of registered Kozaks was not full. It seemed as if the problem
had finally been settled and that it would not arise again. On the
other hand, the Orthodox had succeeded in recovering their bishops
and in getting them at least in part restored to their dioceses. The
educational policies had taken a new lease on life with the development
of the Kiev Academy under the leadership of Peter Mohyla. There were,
however, grave doubts as to the extent to which the cultural and
religious movements and the Kozaks were integrated.

All this was but a preliminary to a new struggle which was destined to
start, for there soon appeared at this moment of apparent quiescence a
new leader, who was to take a long step forward in coordinating all the
movements and also in outlining a definite program for the Ukrainian
people, Kozak and non-Kozak, which was to give them temporary success
and then lead to a more complete fiasco. This new leader was Bohdan
Khmelnitsky.

CHAPTER SIX

_BOHDAN KHMELNITSKY_

In 1638 it might have seemed to a superficial observer that the cause
of the Kozaks had been crushed once and for all. The old liberties
and rights on which they had prided themselves had been abolished and
a surface calm had been attained. The King of Poland and the Polish
magnates seemed to have reached their goal and to have ended a force
that was both valuable and threatening, valuable in case of war and
threatening in time of peace.

Yet a more careful observer could easily have predicted trouble in the
future. Michael Romanov was steadily increasing his power in Moscow
and his agents were already looking for ways of extending the country
to include the easternmost provinces under the Polish crown. The feud
between the Roman Catholic and Protestant branches of the royal family
of Sweden was taking an ever sharper course and Sweden was seeking to
turn the Baltic Sea into a Swedish lake. To the west the Thirty Years
War was raging and devastating country after country, while still
further off Richelieu was at the height of his power in France and the
controversy between Charles I of England and Parliament was beginning
to assume a serious form. All Europe was in turmoil and with diplomatic
agents rushing back and forth and armies marching over the entire
continent, it would seem to have been no time to have forced the Kozaks
into new extremes of anger and of discontent.

Yet at this period, when an explosion seemed so near on every side, no
one gave a thought as to whether Ukraine should be pacified or goaded
further. Every one in the country was dissatisfied. Kozaks registered
and unregistered, townsmen and peasants, Orthodox and members of the
Union, gentry and landowners, all had some special grievance. There was
needed only a leader who would be able to galvanize the entire mass
into active measures to create an outburst that would jeopardize the
very existence of the Polish state; but no one gave any attention to
the problem in the proud confidence that no leader could be found. Yet
one appeared and that man was Bohdan Khmelnitsky.

This man who was to open a new period in Ukrainian history was the son
of an Orthodox squire and had served on the staff of the Polish hetman
Zolkiewski, who had defeated the Kozaks in several of their uprisings
and had later been killed by the Turks. Born around 1595, Bohdan had
had the best of opportunities for an education at the Jesuit college in
Yaroslav. He had filled several posts in the Kozak Host and had been
one of the men removed after the changes of 1638. He had then retired
to his estate at Subotiv, where he was living quietly with his wife and
family.

It might seem that Khmelnitsky was finished with politics and war. He
was about fifty years of age but he was still active and vigorous.
His wife died and then he took into his house a beautiful woman named
Helen, but for some reason he did not marry her. The whole episode with
Helen savors of the theatrical and is even more inexplicable than are
the usual events of life. Suddenly a Polish nobleman, one Czaplinski,
appeared at the home of Khmelnitsky, beat Khmelnitsky’s youngest son so
badly that he died, burned the mill and barns, and carried Helen off
and married her under the Roman Catholic rite.

Bohdan was furious and sought justice. It was not forthcoming. The
Polish authorities laughed at his case and even ordered his arrest.
This was too much for the Kozak officer and he made his way to the
Zaporozhians and sought refuge among them.

He very soon became a recognized leader, was elected hetman and thus
became able to plan for revenge on his enemies. His position among the
Kozaks was the stronger because he possessed definite knowledge that
King Wladyslaw was planning to restore the Kozak liberties on condition
that they aid him against the Turks. It was the same old device that
had occurred again and again. Kozak aid was desired in war and spurned
in peace. The King was more kindly disposed to the Kozaks than were
the magnates and was himself taking the initiative in stirring up the
Kozaks to attack the Turks.

Khmelnitsky’s scheme was simple. He played for time with the Polish
authorities and meanwhile made an alliance with the Khan of the Crimea
to send him some military aid in his new venture. Then when all was
ready, he took the field.

The Poles were by now well aware of what was going on. They sent an
army under the Crown Hetman Potocki and the Field Hetman Kalinowski
to Fort Kodak to keep the Zaporozhians from moving northward. This
time they were too late. The King, who had himself incited the Kozak
leaders, urged his officers not to fight. They decided to do so and
sent the son of Potocki with a force of 1500 Poles and 2500 registered
Kozaks overland to Fort Kodak, as a preliminary reinforcement for the
troops stationed there.

Bohdan learned of this movement and with some 8,000 Kozaks, by forced
marches, he surrounded the young and unsuspecting Potocki at Zhorty
Vody (the Yellow Waters) on April 29, 1648. Seeing himself outnumbered,
Potocki fortified a camp, where he was besieged and waited for the
aid of the Kozaks who were coming down the Dnyeper on barges. Bohdan
reached these Kozaks, easily won them to his cause, and added them
to his own forces. When the news of this reached the Poles, Potocki
realized that his only chance was to cut his way out and reach
his father and the main body of the troops at Korsun. He failed
disastrously in this and was compelled to ask for terms. Khmelnitsky
allowed them to retire without their artillery. They had barely started
on their march when the forces of the Tatars under Tugai Khan attacked
the disordered and heavily laden Polish force and destroyed them almost
to a man. Stephen Potocki was taken prisoner but died of his wounds the
next day.

The news of this terrible defeat struck terror into the hearts of
Potocki and Kalinowski. They realized that the entire country would
soon be up in arms and that their plan of cutting off the Zaporozhe
from the north had completely failed. Yet they disagreed on everything
else. Kalinowski wanted to press on to Fort Kodak, Potocki wanted to
stay where they were, and the lesser officers called for a retreat.
This was finally decided upon and as they moved north, Potocki
commenced to set fire to the villages and burned the city of Korsun
for terroristic purposes. The result was not what he had expected. He
merely aroused the anger of the population, who joined the Kozaks. In
the meanwhile the Tatars attacked the army in front and Khmelnitsky
sent to the rear a detachment of the Korsun regiment of Kozaks under
the command of a Scotch adventurer, known by the name of Maksym
Krivonos (Crooked-nose). Everything went like clockwork for the Kozaks.
The Poles fell into the ambuscade and lost all semblance of discipline.
One detachment under Prince Koretsky succeeded with heavy loss in
cutting its way to safety, but the two hetmans, Potocki and Kalinowski,
and over one thousand men were captured. The rest were killed. The
prisoners were turned over to the Tatars and the leaders were sent to
the Crimea until they should pay 20,000 gold coins each.

This overwhelming defeat was the signal for a general uprising of the
oppressed Ukrainian peasantry. The fire of revolt spread rapidly
through the province of Kiev and throughout eastern Ukraine. Everywhere
manor houses were burned, the nobles and their families were killed and
the country was caught up in a savage civil war which threatened Polish
control of the entire region. It was not only a struggle of the Kozaks
but of the entire Orthodox Ukrainian population which was now seeking
redress for all the cruelty and oppression which it had suffered.

To add to the confusion, King Wladyslaw died on the same day as the
battle of Korsun and under the loose Polish constitution, months were
required before a new King could be elected. Never before had such a
storm been unleashed.

It would have been a simple matter for Khmelnitsky to have marched
across Poland and menaced or taken Warsaw, but he had no desire to be
at the head of a peasant uprising. The same dualism that had existed
between the Kozaks and the peasantry, and the pride of the Kozak
officers who felt that they were on a par with the Poles prevented him
from taking this solution. Instead, he sent a letter a few weeks later
to the Polish King as if he were still alive and set forth the main
Kozak demands. They were, as can be well imagined, the restoration of
the Orthodox Church, the doubling of the number of registered Kozaks,
and the restoration of the old Kozak rights which had been abolished
in 1638. The Polish government seemed inclined to accept them and in
addition steps were taken whereby the marriage of Helen to Czaplinski
was annulled and she married Bohdan in accordance with the Orthodox
rites.

Just at this moment, when it seemed as if Khmelnitsky and the Kozaks
would effect some solution of their problem with the Poles, Prince
Jarema Wisniowiecki sprang into action. One of the great landowners
on the left bank of the Dnyeper, he was a descendant of that Prince
Dmytro who had been one of the founders of the Sich a century earlier.
Now as a convert to the Roman Catholic Church, he set himself to wipe
out the Kozak movement with fire and sword. By far the ablest and
the most warlike of the Polish magnates, he assumed the lead of the
Polish opposition to Khmelnitsky and marched through the Ukrainian
regions, giving no quarter and devastating ruthlessly all the Ukrainian
villages. The result might have been foreseen.

He forced Bohdan, after futile appeals to the government, to take the
field again. The two armies met at Pylyava on September 13, 1648 and
again the Poles were decisively defeated. The Ukrainians were then
joined by the army of the Crimean Tatars, who insisted on continuing
the war in order to secure booty. For this purpose the combined forces
moved on Lviv which finally paid a large ransom. Just at this moment,
Jan Kazimierz was elected King of Poland and Bohdan, trusting to his
good intentions, repeated his demands on a somewhat broader scale,
for now he demanded the recognition of the Orthodox Church and the
abolition of the Union.

Khmelnitsky returned to Kiev during the Christmas holidays in 1648
in triumph. He was received with overwhelming acclaim by the entire
population and all classes vied in doing him honor. Perhaps it was
only then that his thoughts and his aspirations expanded, for he found
waiting for him representatives of Turkey, Transylvania, Moldavia, and
Wallachia and they were soon joined by an ambassador from Moscow. He
could not fail to be impressed by the difference between his position
at the moment and that of a year before when he was regarded as only a
Kozak officer striving to avenge his personal wrongs and to win for the
Kozaks some vestige of their ancient liberties.

At the same time Patriarch Paisius of Jerusalem, who was present
in Kiev on his way to Moscow for the collection of alms and for
conferences on Muscovite Orthodoxy with the Patriarch Nikon, is said
to have addressed Bohdan dan as King of Rus’ and to have encouraged
him to undertake a grand alliance of all the Orthodox States which
were represented at Kiev. The successful campaigns of 1648 certainly
opened up visions of a future to Bohdan Khmelnitsky and inspired him to
undertake extensive diplomatic negotiations among all the neighboring
powers. They made him consider himself a real head of an independent
people and he felt more confident than ever that he could tackle the
problem of relations with Poland on a grand scale.

As a result there is no reason to doubt the reports of the Polish
commissioners whom he met in February, 1649. According to these he
demanded that the Polish administration definitely quit Ukraine, that
the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev be given a seat in the Polish senate,
that the Union be abolished, and that the Kozak Host be responsible
only to the King. All this meant that Ukraine would become a third
member of the Polish state along with Poland and Lithuania.

Yet to do this, it was necessary to have a more permanent political
organization. The old Kozak system was well devised to win military
victories but it had never taken up the problems of administration
in any area. The Kozak officers had come to feel that they were the
appointed mouthpieces of Kozakdom and compared themselves to the
Polish magnates. The ordinary Kozaks, equally proud of their position,
resented these claims of their officers and clamored for the old rights
of frequent election. At the same time they looked down upon the
non-Kozak elements of the population, even though the latter had taken
an important part in the campaigns of 1648.

The very success of the Kozak movement had created a new embarrassment.
The pressing task before Bohdan and his associates was to build a
state, to establish in it the rights of the townspeople and the
burghers, the intellectuals and the peasants. They had to draw a line
between the completely autocratic rule of Moscow and the aristocratic
republic of Poland, to secure unity and obedience, democracy and
authority. This was a colossal task and it is perhaps doubtful if even
Khmelnitsky realized the many ramifications of the political problems.

The best that he could do was to expand the Kozak authority and system,
to make the regimental commanders the local authorities, and to hand
over to them all the necessary functions of administration. In the long
run this could not prevail in time of peace. It was little better as a
permanent basis in war, when the commanders would be busy in the field.
Thus the ruling groups of the Kozaks failed to set up a true government
in the territory which they had with such relative ease acquired.

It seemed far more tempting and agreeable to seek for foreign support
and Khmelnitsky spent his time in endeavoring to secure foreign allies
who would assist him against his main enemy. For this the Crimean
Tatars seemed easily the most suitable and he bent his efforts to
securing their aid in the future.

When hostilities finally broke out in 1649, the Kozaks again speedily
obtained the advantage and after a few minor defeats in the north,
they entrapped the armies of their main enemy, Wisniowiecki, in the
town of Zbarazh. It was only the daring and skill of Wisniowiecki that
saved the day until the armies of the new King could arrive. Even that
was no salvation, for Khmelnitsky and his men speedily defeated the
reinforcements at Zboriv and besieged the King and the remains of his
army in a fortified camp there. At the darkest hour for the Poles, they
succeeded in bribing the Tatar Khan to abandon his Kozak allies. He
was the more willing to do this, since he also had no desire to see a
strong Ukraine.

The result was the Treaty of Zboriv which granted on paper practically
all of the Kozak demands. It conferred upon them complete control
of the three provinces of Kiev, Braslav, and Chernihiv, placed the
Orthodox Metropolitan in the Polish Senate and made the number of
registered Kozaks 40,000. This was considerably less than Khmelnitsky
had demanded the winter before and it aroused annoyance in both the
Ukrainian and Polish camps. The Catholic prelates in the Senate
declined to admit the Orthodox Metropolitan to their number and he
obligingly returned from Warsaw to Kiev. It displeased most of the
magnates, even those more moderate than Wisniowiecki, because it
recognized the Kozak leaders as their equals. On the other hand it
promised little for the bulk of the Ukrainian population, who had
joined Khmelnitsky’s army, since in many sections it compelled them
to return, even with an amnesty, to the harsh rule of their former
lords. Many of the more independent went across the border of Moscow to
the so-called Slobidshchina or Free Land which was still practically
a lordless domain. Their departure of course weakened the Host and
deprived it of many men who had done it good service.

Yet the years after the Treaty of Zboriv marked the height of the
influence of Bohdan. It was the time when he could have carried
through far reaching reforms and strengthened the country internally.
However he spent his energies in trying to marry his son Timosh to
the daughter of Vasyl Lupul, the ruler of Moldavia, and in carrying
on negotiations with the Sultan of Turkey and the Khan of the Crimea.
As a result he gave the Poles the opportunity of recovering their
strength and, under the driving force of Wisniowiecki, the work went
forward rapidly, with the result that the Kozaks were badly defeated
at the battle of Berestechko in the summer of 1651, again due to the
treachery and fear of their Tatar allies. The Treaty of Bila Tserkva of
that autumn reduced the Kozak power but it still left Bohdan strong.
It increased discontent against him among the Ukrainians and drove him
to still more far reaching diplomatic schemes. His mood was made worse
by the discovery that his beloved Helen was intriguing against him and
when proof was forthcoming, he had her and her friend executed. The
final certainty that Helen had played him false wrecked his general
shrewdness and embittered him in every way.

Then came his most disastrous move. He appealed for assistance to
Moscow, and offered to place the Kozak Host under the protection of the
Tsar on condition that its privileges be respected. He had undoubtedly
many reasons for this, but when the matter was put before the general
body of the Kozaks, the argument that convinced them was religious.
Moscow was also Orthodox and this appealed to all those classes of
people who resented the Roman Catholicism of the Poles. It was not
so favorably received by the Kozak officers who realized that the
Muscovite regime did not and could not recognize any inherent rights
in any class of the population. The Kievan Academy and many of the
Orthodox hierarchy welcomed the move, however, for already many of
their distinguished members were being invited by the Patriarch Nikon
to Moscow and they felt that the act of Bohdan would place them in a
better position there.

After prolonged negotiations, the Muscovite envoys met Bohdan at
Pereyaslav on January 18, 1654. In a last gesture Bohdan asked the
Tsar’s envoy Buturlin to swear in his Sovereign’s name to respect the
treaty. Buturlin refused on the ground that the Tsar could not swear to
any subject. Popular sentiment had been so stirred up that Bohdan could
not retract and the oath placing the Kozak Host under the Tsar was duly
administered.

Shortly after the Tsar confirmed various Kozak privileges. He
granted the maintenance of the traditions of the Host, the right of
maintaining Kozak courts, the raising of the quota of registered Kozaks
to 60,000, the preservation of the privileges of the Ukrainian gentry,
and the free right of election of the hetman, the payment of a large
sum of money to the hetman, the officers and all registered Kozaks and
the right of the hetman to receive foreign envoys (except that the Tsar
insisted upon knowing and authorizing all negotiations with the King of
Poland and the Sultan of Turkey).

All this seemed very good and the Kozaks at first believed that they
had profited by the agreement. The leaders were not long in discovering
their mistake. There was no more peace than there had been before.
It is true that the Kozaks in their wars with the Poles could depend
upon some support from the Muscovites but the territories which they
conquered from Poland passed directly under the control of the Tsar
and did not add to the prestige or power of the Kozak Host. The Poles
continued to invade their territory. Now they usually had the open
support of the Tatars and the uncontrolled and encouraged devastations
of these nomads often caused the Kozaks greater exertions than in the
old days. Besides that, it was not long before it became evident that
the Muscovite troops intended to settle down as garrisons in Kiev and
in other Ukrainian cities, as an ostensible protection against the
Poles, but in reality as an occupying force.

Khmelnitsky, completely disillusioned, began to look for other allies.
Sweden seemed the most promising, for it was then at the height of its
power. It was invading Poland and was on such terms of friendship with
Moscow that no open criticism could be made of the negotiations. His
relations with Moldavia became entangled with the hopes of Lupul to
capture Wallachia and these only led to the death of his son Timosh
during the siege of Sochava, shortly before his submission to the Tsar.
His plans for a great union of the Orthodox countries were definitely
disrupted and it was not long before Sweden too proved a broken reed.

In the spring of 1657, he was taken ill. To please him, his son Yury,
a boy of fourteen who had shown no signs of having a strong character,
was elected hetman over Ivan Vyhovsky, who had been secretary to Bohdan
and was familiar with all of his plans and negotiations. Then the
father died on July 27, 1657, was buried at his birthplace of Subotiv.

It is difficult to evaluate correctly the work of Bohdan Khmelnitsky.
There can be no question that he was an able and sincere patriot. He
towered in ability, in military skill and in political vision high
above all the hetmans who preceded and followed him. He became in a
real sense the outstanding diplomatic figure of Eastern Europe during
the years when he was at the height of his power.

He definitely moved the Ukrainian, or more accurately, the Kozak
question from one of purely internal Polish politics to the
international arena where it deserved to be placed. In this connection
he was the first of the hetmans who revived the Ukrainian claim to be
a complete and sovereign state, able to negotiate as an equal with
the various countries which were taking part in the game of Eastern
European politics.

Yet the defect and the tragedy of Khmelnitsky, and with him of the
Ukrainian people, lay in the fact that he did not realize soon enough
the essential problem which required an immediate solution. That was
the relationship of the Kozak Host to all the other classes of the
Ukrainian population. For Ukraine to rally all of its strength and
resources, it was necessary to call upon all classes of the population.
This was no easy task in the seventeenth century, when political
thought concentrated upon the rights of the nobility, even more than
upon the well being of the peasantry and the towns. The Polonization
of the gentry had deprived the Ukrainians of exactly that class of
their population which would have been most able to steer the course
of the ship of state. The Kozaks and especially the Kozak officers
felt themselves called upon to assume the role of a new nobility. At
the same time they had so long conceived of themselves as a military
group that they hesitated to make the transformation into a permanent
administrative organization.

Hence arose the insoluble conflict between the Kozaks and non-Kozaks
in the growing Ukrainian organization. Perhaps had Khmelnitsky lived
longer and had the time to think through the reforms that he was
introducing, he might have changed his policies or in a period of
peace he might have cemented his power and accustomed the people to
accept it. He had neither time nor peace. It was necessary to organize,
fight, and build all at the same moment and the result became a bitter
circle in which he could see his way only through a complicated scheme
of diplomatic intrigue. He did not have the power to carry to success
any of his plans and as a result, Ukraine and the Kozak Host were left
at the mercy of either Poland or Moscow or both, depending upon the
general state of their relations at any given moment.

Despite this fact, his work was not lost, for he had created an
attitude, even if only in theory, that would assure to thinking
Ukrainians a permanency and a place in the world. Even those later
thinkers who condemned his submission to Moscow recognized that it
was not a mere act of union, a mere desire to change masters for
the Kozaks, but that it involved a deep political philosophy which
circumstances destroyed.

Khmelnitsky was the real founder of the Ukrainian national movement and
he came nearer to making it successful than any one between the fall of
Kiev and the modern Ukrainian Republic. That was a major achievement
to carry out in less than nine years of uninterrupted turmoil. In one
sense he was too late. Had he played his role a half century earlier,
it is very possible that he might have accomplished more. Had he been
able to hand the state over to some successor with the same breadth of
vision, that man might have been able to continue and stabilize his
work. As it was, he became the incarnation of the Ukrainian struggle
for liberty and independence, and the inspiration of many of his
followers. It was an unkind fate that preserved to the world only a
knowledge of his submission to the Tsar and a distorted idea, zealously
fostered by the Russians, that this was his ultimate goal.

He died too soon, for he had not healed the breaches that were apparent
in the Kozak organization, he had not solved definitely the entire
Kozak problem from a Ukrainian standpoint and it was left for lesser
men to corrupt his ideas and to lead Ukraine to a new and more complete
ruin, with only his example to serve as a beacon light of what Ukraine
might be.

CHAPTER SEVEN

_THE REVOLT OF MAZEPA_

The seventeenth century, which saw the settlement of the English in
America, witnessed a shift in the balance of power in Eastern Europe
and no one had contributed more to this than had Khmelnitsky and the
successful revolt of the Kozak Host. The sudden awakening of the
Ukrainians politically to a sense of their importance was an event of
more than usual significance, and they undoubtedly hoped to play the
role of a neutral state between Poland and Moscow. To both contestants
they presented an entirely new situation.

The Poland of the beginning of the century was mortally wounded by
the Kozak revolt. At the beginning of the century, the King of Poland
had dared to dream of establishing himself in the Kremlin, and while
he failed, the results were not disastrous. The lack of success in
the Polish Kozak policy was disastrous, for the great revolt had not
only torn away from Poland a large part of its eastern lands but had
encouraged the Swedish wars which wrecked the country still further.
The damage was done at Pereyaslav, for an honest acceptance of the
demands of Khmelnitsky up to that moment might easily have permitted
the restoration of the Republic under a different form and have allowed
it to continue strong and powerful.

The magnates and the Polish Catholic authorities would not hear of any
settlement. They were neither ready nor able to support the thoroughly
militant ideas of Wisniowiecki which would have laid upon them a heavy
and continuous burden, perhaps beyond the power of the state, but
which would have provided a consistent policy, the success or failure
of which might be calculated in advance. They would not accept a policy
of compromise, even when Khmelnitsky offered it, lest it injure their
dignity. Thus again Polish wavering promised nothing but ill to the
state as it had when the Kozak question was still a purely internal
problem.

Moscow welcomed the control over the Host. The defeat of the Golden
Horde in the sixteenth century had in a way freed the hands of the
Tsars. The submission of Khmelnitsky advanced their boundaries to the
Dnyeper. Yet there was a definite fly in the ointment. The Kozaks were
liberty-loving people, they were accustomed to personal rights, and
they formed a serious menace to the monolithic structure in which the
Tsar and the Tsar alone possessed absolute rights. If Moscow was to
triumph over its old enemy to the west, it was necessary to hold the
Kozak Host and if it was to continue its policy, it was necessary to
break its influence.

Thus Moscow could not rest satisfied with the conditions produced at
Pereyaslav. Almost at once it commenced to infringe upon the rights
of the Kozaks and to seek to turn them into typical Russian serfs. It
knew that its acceptance of the Host would speedily involve it in war
with Poland and that there would be a clash in which the loyalty of the
Kozaks would be the decisive factor.

This left the Host and the Ukrainians in a relatively advantageous
position. Besides that, there was still the Sultan of Turkey who could
play a hand in the game, for we must never forget that at this moment
the Turkish tide was still running strongly. It was still twenty years
before it would reach its height outside the walls of Vienna and all of
Europe would be terrorized at the thought that a victorious Islam might
push its way further into the heart of the continent.

Everything depended upon the successor of Khmelnitsky. Would he be able
to continue the task of welding the Host and the Ukrainian population
into a strong whole which would be able to speak unhesitatingly and
firmly to both friend and foe? Would he be able to heal the rifts that
were already evident in the organization, which had been evident for a
century and which awaited only a strong and continued effort to mend,
or would he allow them to increase and destroy what had been already
accomplished?

Unfortunately disorder and blind passion were destined to be the
guiding forces of the next half century. None of the successors of
Khmelnitsky possessed his political acumen or the ability to control
the unruly bands of Kozaks and to continue his work of turning a purely
military order of fighters into a modern state. All the disruptive
tendencies which had existed from the beginning appeared again with
renewed force now that the Kozak question was pitched on international
lines and formed a part of the European struggle for power.

The Kozak officers were a body by themselves. Wherever the old
landlords were driven away, the officers sought to secure their
estates. They no longer considered themselves elective servants of the
Host but they saw themselves as a new nobility. They demanded that
they receive as their own the abandoned estates and that required the
control over the former serf population, if the lands were to be run
properly and profitably. They saw the Polish and Muscovite nobles
ruling autocratically over large tracts of territory and being the
masters of many villages. They realized that the old hit and miss
elective system was not suited to the administration of large areas
of territory and the maintenance of a consistent foreign policy and
they could not visualize reform in any other way than by assimilating
themselves to the prevailing mode of life in Eastern Europe. Their
object was either the formation of an aristocratic republic like
Poland or unrestrained overlordship like Moscow. They resented the
rights of the lesser Kozaks and once they had secured estates, they
were determined not to allow their serfs and peasants to join the
Kozak body and thus escape the more burdensome obligations. Quite
the reverse. Just as the Poles, they sought to force the Kozaks into
servile labor. Their demands were mild at first but with each year they
became more oppressive and galling. As a result they began to hire
mercenary guards for their persons and property and this marked an
overwhelming change in the constitution of the Host. The early Kozaks
who had dared to raid the outskirts of Constantinople would have been
aghast at this development, at this denial of the fundamental equality
of the members of the Host, but the process went on inexorably.

The ordinary Kozaks deeply resented this transformation of their corps
of officers into something like the hated landlords and tried in every
way to thwart and hinder the movement. They swung like a pendulum from
one group of officers to another and allowed themselves to become the
prey of all kinds of intrigues. Nevertheless very few of them thought
seriously of the situation and even when they did succeed in electing
a hetman from their own class, they did not support him and he in turn
adapted his manners to those of the other officers. Thus the mass of
the Kozaks in their search for their old freedom maintained only their
old turbulence and their wild and unreasoning attachment to Orthodoxy
and this prevented them from exerting the full force of their influence
in a constructive way. At the same time, the Kozaks, even when they
were almost reduced to serfs, still maintained their superiority to all
other classes of the population.

A new cause of discord arose over the Zaporozhian Sich. The Kozaks
of the Sich, still in a sense the real frontiersmen, argued that the
choice of hetmans should be conducted there and they developed an
open hostility toward the officers and the Kozaks of the permanent
regimental and territorial organizations that existed in the more
settled part of the country. It only added more unpleasantness, for the
Kozaks of the Sich did not realize that it required a consistent policy
if the Host was to maintain itself under the new conditions.

At the same time the international pot continued to boil. Both Moscow
and Poland, busily engaged in fighting one another, angled for the
support of the Kozaks. Both sides in cases of necessity made liberal
promises. The Poles were only too willing to give the Kozaks anything
for which they asked when they were driving back the Muscovites; the
Muscovites were willing to extend political and financial assistance
whenever the Kozaks were needed to turn back the Poles. As soon as
discord raised its head in the Kozak ranks, the favorable offers were
withdrawn, the Polish magnates renewed their claims to Ukrainian land
and the Muscovites began to abrogate the Kozak privileges granted at
the Treaty of Pereyaslav. At times the Turks and the Crimean Tatars,
their vassals, took a hand in the game but they likewise did not carry
out any consistent policy and did not try to fulfil the promises which
they had made a short time before to the Kozak leaders.

Under such conditions everybody suffered, but the Ukrainian population,
which might have profited by the duel between Poland and Moscow, fared
the worst. The land was terribly devastated and there came the period
graphically called by the Ukrainians of this and later periods the
Ruin. The helpless population, Kozak and non-Kozak alike, wandered
from the right bank of the Dnyeper to the left bank. They went on into
the land of free communes which was outside the Hetman state and then
discovered that Moscow would not confirm their privileges there, since
it was regarded as purely Muscovite territory. Then with a slight
change or rumors of change in the west, the trend of wandering reversed
its course and the settlers streamed back to the right bank, only to be
again disillusioned and resume their melancholy travels.

Under such conditions it is idle to seek for a coherent history. It
is impossible even to speak of Polish and Muscovite parties among
the Kozaks, for regiments and companies swung from side to side with
appalling rapidity, handicapped their more able hetmans and either
killed them or discredited them so thoroughly that they received little
hearing at either Warsaw or Moscow.

To cite but a few cases. Shortly after the death of Khmelnitsky, his
secretary, Ivan Vyhovsky, almost unified the Host as a new hetman
succeeding the weak Yury Khmelnitsky. Vyhovsky and his friends realized
that with a weakened Poland, it might be possible for the Kozaks to
force upon the King a recognition of their rights. He drew up the
Union of Hadiach in 1658 and this more than fulfilled the dreams
of Khmelnitsky, for it made the Kozak Host and Rus’ a third member
of the Polish state along with Poland and Lithuania. It again gave
the Orthodox Metropolitan the right to sit in the Polish Senate and
conferred upon the Academy of Kiev the same rights that were given
to the Polish Universities of Krakow and Wilno. It was all in vain.
The blind hate of the Polish clergy and aristocratic landowners and
Muscovite intrigues destroyed the plans of Vyhovsky and the Poles
speedily withdrew their promises.

Ten years later Peter Doroshenko, more hostile to the Poles,
manipulated his power so skilfully that he was able to win complete
independence from Poland and became the master of the right bank.
Through an alliance with Mnohohrishny, the hetman of the left bank, he
bade fair to unite again the whole of Ukraine with the hope of securing
a definite autonomy from the Tsar. It was of no use. The officers
overthrew Mnohohrishny because he was the son of a peasant and then
they appealed to Moscow against Doroshenko. Of course the Tsar heard
them for he welcomed the opportunity to deprive the Host of its rights
to deal with foreign policy, and executed Mnohohrishny. Doroshenko
tried in vain to secure Turkish help but this was not forthcoming and
the hatred of the Kozaks for Islam brought about his downfall. When he
had to surrender to Moscow, he received a long term in Siberia.

Then came the turn of Ivan Samoylovich, who was as sympathetic and
obedient to Moscow as the others had been critical and independent.
He won a certain amount for the Host at the price of taking part in
Muscovite plans against Turkey. Yet when an expedition under Prince
Golitsyn met with failure against the Crimea, because of disregard of
his advice, the other officers accused him to the Tsar of betraying
the Russians. Samoylovich was deposed and imprisoned and his son was
executed.

Thus while the Host was relapsing into discord, it gave both Tsar and
King the power to do with the Ukrainian lands as they would. In 1667,
by the Treaty of Andrusivo, the two divided Ukraine at the Dnyeper,
with Poland holding the right bank and Moscow the left and the city
of Kiev on the right bank. This last was nominally for two years, but
Moscow never returned the prize and used the occupation for still
greater demands.

The chief of these lay in the elimination of the autonomy of the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This was still nominally under the control
of the Patriarch of Constantinople but Moscow wanted it under the
Patriarch of Moscow to cement its own power. Diplomatic pressure on
the Sultan led him to force the Patriarch of Constantinople to consent
to this and then the ever obedient Samoylovich appointed a relative
Metropolitan of Kiev and the thing was done. Moscow had been able to
lay its hand upon the last strong factor of Ukrainian independence and
the rest was easy.

It was in the midst of this chaos that Ivan Mazepa became hetman after
the arrest of Samoylovich. He was the last of the hetmans who possessed
any real strength of character and assurance of his position. Perhaps
he misjudged his situation. Perhaps it was an unkind fate that drove
him along the path of destruction and with him the Kozak Host and all
Ukraine. Yet he played a striking role, albeit an unsuccessful one, in
the events of the day and achieved lasting fame or ill-repute among his
fellow countrymen and their oppressors.

Mazepa was born about 1640 in Bila Tserkva on the right bank and
received an excellent education. For a while he was at the court of
the King of Poland and conducted various diplomatic negotiations with
Ukraine for the King. Then he suddenly vanished, perhaps because of an
unconventional love affair as described by Byron, and he turned up in
the Hetman state. He attracted the attention of Samoylovich who made
him the Inspector General of the Host. This brought him into prominence
both with the Ukrainians and the Muscovites and when Samoylovich was
arrested in 1687, Mazepa offered Prince Golitsyn ten thousand rubles
for the post of hetman and Golitsyn saw to it that he was the sole
candidate for the position.

The world had changed since the time of Khmelnitsky and it would be
impossible to recognize the traditional type of hetman in Mazepa.
The gulf between the early Kozak hetmans, who acquired their power
merely to conduct a raid against Constantinople, and Khmelnitsky was
not so great as that between Khmelnitsky and Mazepa. The latter had
become hetman only of the left bank. He might indeed possess some
nominal control over the Kozaks of Paly in Poland but it was utterly
ineffective and he had no power to bring them as organized units under
his control. There were Muscovite garrisons in all of the important
cities and the maintenance of his power depended upon his retention of
the confidence of the Tsar. Still less than Khmelnitsky could he think
of the welfare of the people. Still less than Khmelnitsky did he have
the power to organize armies and use them for purposes of his own or of
the Officers’ Council. He was bound hand and foot by the Tsar and this
Tsar was Peter the Great.

Mazepa had been hetman for only two years, when Peter succeeded in
forcing his half-sister Sophia out of power, making her take refuge
in a convent. He immediately removed Prince Golitsyn from all of his
important posts, that same man who had been the patron of Mazepa and
had placed him in the hetmanship. Then Peter began his policy of
reforms. This is not the place to describe his transformation of old
Moscow into the modern Russia, but it can well be seen that Ukraine and
the Kozak Host, already stripped of most of the rights guaranteed by
Tsar Alexis, would not escape his centralizing tendencies.

Mazepa, although he was closely associated with Golitsyn, profited
by the latter’s downfall. He succeeded in winning and holding the
confidence of Peter, who willingly took from the Golitsyn estates
and returned to Mazepa the money that he had paid Golitsyn for his
election, and the generous Tsar gave him a good slice of the Golitsyn
fortune as a mark of favor.

This fortune together with the income of the Kozak Host allowed the
new hetman to start an unparalleled period of monumental building in
Ukraine. Thus, for example, he remodelled in Baroque architecture the
old Church of St. Sophia in Kiev. He constructed the Cathedral of St.
Nicholas and the Church of the Epiphany. He surrounded the Monastery
of the Caves with an elaborate wall. In everything that he touched
Mazepa showed the influence of the contemporary art of the West and his
hetmanship marked the flowering of Ukrainian Baroque architecture.

He had many motives for this. In the first place, he could feel the
desire of Peter for the elimination of the old forms of Muscovite art
and life. His liberal expenditure of funds for a westernizing purpose
could not fail to increase the certainty of the Tsar that he was not
interested in the maintenance of the old form of life. It appealed to
large elements of the Ukrainian population, and Mazepa used his liberal
support of the Orthodox Church to prove that he had no Polonizing
tendencies and that he was not, as his enemies charged again and again,
a mere servant of the Poles, for this was the favorite charge against
the hetmans and could rouse against him both the suspicions of the Tsar
and the ill will of the Ukrainian population, Kozak and non-Kozak alike.

On the other hand, Mazepa was a true hetman of the later type. He
was not in general on good terms with the leaders of the Zaporozhian
Sich, who claimed to speak for the common Kozaks, and emphasized in
their turbulent way the last elements of that democracy that had
characterized the entire Host of a century earlier. Mazepa found
his chief elements of support in the officers of the Kozak Host and
he relied upon the gifts of the Tsar to these men to maintain their
loyalty to him. For his protection he trusted chiefly to his mercenary
forces, on whose continued loyalty he could count for financial
reasons. His ambition was to be recognized as the master of Ukraine,
perhaps the King of a subservient state, and his ambitions perhaps
went no further than to hold the same position toward Moscow as the
princes of Georgia and other bordering vassal states. His role was
far different from that of the older hetmans who had felt themselves
owing no responsibility except to God and the assembly of the Host. He
himself owed supreme allegiance to the Tsar and he demanded the same
loyalty to himself.

The policy of Mazepa naturally did not make him friends among the
ordinary Kozaks who bitterly denounced him and his officers for their
high-handed actions. Yet when Petryk tried to secure the aid of the
Zaporozhian Sich against him and also secured recognition from the
Turks and Tatars, very few joined him and Mazepa was able to weather
the storm without difficulty.

Yet Mazepa was something more than a mere supporter of the Tsar. His
friend Kochubey denounced him to Peter for writing a poem glorifying
the independence of Ukraine and visualizing the hetman as an autocratic
and independent monarch. Peter laughed at the accusations and merely
condemned Kochubey to death when he added other insinuations against
the loyalty of the hetman. Kochubey was probably right. Mazepa ardently
desired to see Ukraine free but he was too well aware of the abuses of
the past to risk a struggle under the old manners and customs of the
hetmanate. He apparently had convinced himself and his friends that
Ukraine could only recover its liberty under an absolute monarch and he
intended to be that man.

In the meanwhile the Northern War had broken out, and this radically
changed the situation. Charles XII, a man of superb military talent and
a ruthless desire to employ it, had inherited the Swedish army at a
time when Sweden, as a result of the Thirty Years War, was one of the
great powers of Europe. In 1700 he attacked Russia and badly defeated
Peter at the battle of Narva. Then he wasted the next years in trying
to depose August II, King of Poland, and replace him with Stanislas
Leszczynski, a move in which he had the support of all the anti-Russian
factions of Poland. This alliance of the King of Sweden and one faction
of the Poles against the Tsar of Russia and the King of Poland opened
new vistas to the Kozaks, who had not forgotten the negotiations
between Khmelnitsky and the Swedes during the great Kozak revolt of a
half century earlier.

Intermittent hostilities between the forces of King August and the
Kozaks of Paly, the leader of the Kozaks in Poland, led Paly to
appeal for aid to Mazepa, but at the moment Peter was interested in
maintaining relations with the King and he forbade Mazepa to interfere.
Instead of that he offered himself to help in the suppression of Paly.
This of course displeased Mazepa for he had hopes of bringing Western
Ukraine under his control, but again he was compelled to wait.

Finally in 1704 Peter ordered Mazepa to enter Western Ukraine to subdue
the Polish nobles friendly to Charles. Mazepa obeyed in his own special
way to aid the Kozaks. However, he distrusted the influence of Paly,
who represented more democratic traditions, arrested him and reported
to Peter what was probably the truth: that Paly was in touch with
the Swedes. He replaced him with one of his own relatives, a Colonel
Omelchenko, and finally this man was accepted by the Kozaks of the west
and still more warmly by the population of the various towns. However,
in 1707 Peter ordered him to restore Western Ukraine to Polish rule.
This Mazepa was unwilling to do, although instead of open disobedience
to the Tsar’s order, he made all kinds of excuses and promises, and
evaded action.

Mazepa had apparently already made up his mind to strike for the
independence of Ukraine, if Charles showed any sign of success. The war
was dragging on and Charles, true to his character, was dashing hither
and yon through Europe, wasting his troops, winning victory after
victory but not concentrating on any definite policy. The Kozak hetman
therefore opened some sort of negotiations with Stanislas Leszczynski,
and through him he could of course reach Charles. Yet he was so
overcautious that he kept even his closest friends from knowing of his
plans and continued to strengthen his bonds with Peter.

This policy could not fail to overreach itself. On the one hand the
Kozaks knew only of his apparent devotion to the cause of the Tsar
and those officers and men who were most hostile to Peter steadily
lost confidence in him. On the other hand he could not rally any wide
classes to his standards nor could he take the most elementary steps
for moving his own troops into advantageous positions for the coming
struggle. Perhaps he believed that he had only to give the order and
all the Kozaks would spring to arms in his behalf. If so, he was badly
mistaken, for his whole policy had alienated a large part of the Kozak
forces and he could not appeal to them as easily as could the older
hetmans who had tried to keep in close contact with the masses of the
Host.

The sequence of events is still uncertain, but after a year of this
double play, Charles suddenly turned his attention back to Russia and
attacked Peter from Lithuania, not far from the Ukrainian border. His
original plan seems to have been to seize Smolensk and march on Moscow,
while General Loewenhaupt attacked from Livonia. Suddenly, as winter
was coming on, Charles turned south into Ukraine.

Mazepa now could realize the evils of his excessive caution. Peter, at
the first attack, had ordered a large part of the Kozak regiments moved
into Lithuania and had sent a Russian army into Ukraine to protect
Mazepa and his officers from the hatred of the Ukrainians, something
for which Mazepa had previously begged. This left him in an impossible
position and did not strengthen Charles, for the very troops that might
have swelled the size of the Swedish army were where they could not
be easily reached and the Russians were in the very heart of Mazepa’s
territory.

Still it was now or never. There was the one chance that Charles
might defeat the Russian army in the first encounter. If he did,
Mazepa would have won his game of freeing Ukraine from both Russia and
Poland, for Sweden was willing to promise them complete independence
and Leszczynski and the Polish magnates were not in a position to
oppose this. If Charles failed for lack of Ukrainian help, the fate of
Ukraine was sealed. Mazepa could remain loyal to Peter but he would
have to resign all thought of liberating his country and becoming an
independent ruler.

It hardly seems possible that Mazepa invited Charles to spend the
winter in Ukraine, before he threw off the mask of allegiance to Peter.
If he did, it certainly reflects upon his understanding of the military
situation and it was a poor move on the part of Charles, although he
might hope that he could receive more supplies and have better winter
quarters in Ukraine than further to the north.

Mazepa took the chance. He secretly set what troops he had in motion
and led them to the camp of Charles before any of them were aware that
a revolt was going on. Peter took immediate action and sent a Russian
force to burn Baturyn, the capital of Mazepa, massacred the garrison
and destroyed a large part of his supplies. This made it very difficult
for the hetman to rally to his standards large numbers of the Kozaks
and to spread the revolt far and wide through the Ukrainian lands.

During the winter both Peter and Mazepa engaged in large scale
propaganda. The former denounced Mazepa as a Pole and a Catholic and
ordered the Kozak officers to meet at Hlukhiv and elect another hetman.
This time he designated Ivan Skoropadsky. He also won back several of
the officers who had gone with Mazepa to the Swedish camp. For his
part, Mazepa sent word through the whole of Ukraine that he was now
determined to free Ukraine once and for all from Muscovite domination
and he urged all Ukrainian patriots to rally to his cause.

The Tsar further ordered the authorities of the Orthodox Church to
utter anathemas against Mazepa and the Church willingly complied,
although Mazepa had been their most munificent donor during his entire
period as hetman. Mazepa’s estates were confiscated and distributed
to the officers who had remained loyal and the townspeople humbly
assured Peter of their fidelity. In a word it was very difficult to
stir up effective revolt, so carefully had Mazepa covered his steps and
negotiations in advance of his declaration of rebellion.

His main success lay in winning over the Kozaks of the Zaporozhian
Sich. These doughty fighters for the old rights of the Host had long
been opposed to Mazepa and to his policy of favoring the Tsar. They had
been opposed also to the introduction of serfdom or practical serfdom
in the country. Nevertheless, when they saw that the hetman had taken
the final step, the Sich began to swing toward the side of Mazepa and
Charles, and soldiers soon began to arrive in the Swedish camp. Yet
their aid was not as important as it would have been a century earlier,
for the Sich too had lost much of its original glory and prowess. There
were no longer the abundant supplies of arms and artillery that had
been there in the days when the Kozaks gathered and prepared their
expedition against whoever seemed the most profitable foe.

Charles moved southward toward the Sich but he was held up at Poltava,
which refused to surrender to him. In the meanwhile the Russian armies
in Ukraine had attacked and captured the Sich by treachery and then,
in defiance of the terms of surrender, massacred and tortured a large
part of the garrison. The rest escaped into Tatar territory and set up
a Sich near the mouth of the Dnyeper.

The final battle took place at Poltava on July 8, 1709. It was a
crushing defeat for Charles, whose troops had been worn down by
years of fighting and by lack of proper winter quarters. The Swedish
and Kozak forces were cut to pieces and only a handful, including
Charles and Mazepa, succeeded in escaping into Turkey. Here they were
practically imprisoned by the Turks, while the Sultan deliberated
whether or not to accept Russian offers of a handsome ransom to have
the fugitives turned over to them. Charles was finally released and
obliged to quit Turkey. Mazepa lived only a few months and then died.

The officers with him still did not lose hope. They elected Philip
Orlyk to be the new hetman and made plans to draw up a formal
constitution for the Host. This was far more in accordance with Western
standards than had been the old informal system of administration,
for it provided for a regular governmental body to be composed of the
officers, delegates elected by the ordinary Kozaks and still others
selected by the Sich. The measure also provided those limitations on
the power of the hetman that experience in the Western countries had
found useful. Thus the hetman was no longer to control all the finances
of the Host but would have his own source of income, and the treasurer
would handle the general funds, subject only to the general assembly or
staff. Of course this remained only a paper constitution, for Orlyk and
his friends were never allowed to return home.

They continued to hope, however, that relations between Russia, Turkey
and Sweden would develop in such a way that Ukraine would regain its
independence. The Swedes promised to treat Ukraine as an independent
country, but their own strength had been exhausted. Turkey seemed more
promising, especially after Peter and his forces were surrounded by
the Turks near the Pruth. Once again bribery saved the day and the
Turks, who had Peter definitely in their power, released him and signed
a treaty that appeared to satisfy Ukrainian aspirations but which in
reality gave increased power to Russia.

The battle of Poltava and the fall of Mazepa definitely crushed the
hopes of Ukraine and established the supremacy of Moscow, which now
formally and officially accepted Russia as its new name. It was the
last great attempt of the Ukrainians under the Russian Empire to attain
their freedom and it had failed disastrously. Perhaps it hastened the
destruction of the Kozak rights, but these had already been so whittled
away by amendments to the Treaty of Pereyaslav carried through by
imperial edict that the end could not have been long in coming.

More important than that, the Russian government held Mazepa up as an
outstanding example of a traitor. The Russians could carefully edit the
career of Khmelnitsky and give him certain praise for his signing of
the fatal treaty. In Mazepa they had a clear opportunity to vilify the
unfortunate leader and to label all Ukrainians who henceforth sought
freedom for their country as Mazepintsy, followers of Mazepa, with the
definite implication that he was false to the great destiny of the
Ukrainians: to be submerged in the great mass of the Empire and to
abandon all their traditions and ideals.

It is small wonder that the tradition of the hetman has lived on among
the Ukrainians, and that they are willing to glorify him. Mazepa
represented a last phase in Ukrainian development. Unfortunately, he
was unable to solve the problem. The general trend of the seventeenth
century had drawn a constantly wider gulf between the officers and
the masses of the Kozaks and the civilians. Mazepa knew no way of
organizing the country after the disastrous experiences of his
predecessors except by adopting an anti-democratic attitude and setting
himself up as almost an absolute ruler. His environment and his
training had taught him to act by devious paths and he dallied too long
before he took the final step. Had he acted earlier and more firmly in
connection with the Swedes, he might have achieved his goal.

Yet in another sense his doom was necessary. It was not until the
constitution drawn up by Orlyk in exile that there emerged a clear
idea in the minds of the Kozak leaders as to their relationship with
the masses of the Ukrainians. Too long had the Sich and the hetmans
sought to remain purely a military body without political implications.
The need for organizing a Ukrainian state had seemed to them less
immediate than the defending of the military rights of the Kozaks.
In their political inexperience, they had neglected again and again
opportunities that were really priceless. It was not until it was too
late that they grasped the responsibilities of their position and freed
themselves from their narrow political outlook.

If Khmelnitsky was really the architect of Ukrainian conscious
independence, then it was Mazepa and his followers who definitely cast
away all hope of continuing the old ambiguous situation. It would have
been one thing to have done this in the middle of the seventeenth
century. It was quite different to undertake it in the eighteenth
against such a Tsar as Peter. Mazepa’s only hope was to lay a broad
foundation for his movement, to prepare a real basis for a national
revolt. This was not in the spirit of the man; it was not practical in
the face of the agents of Peter and of the murmuring and dissensions
that still lingered on among many of the Kozaks. As a result, Mazepa
became a really romantic figure, risking everything on what was almost
certainly a lost cause, which only a miracle could have turned into
victory. Yet that miracle was near at many moments and it was another
tragedy of the Ukrainian people that they were not able to grasp the
right moment, make the right moves and bring themselves to final
independence.

The fall of Mazepa marks the end of the Kozak wars and of the
political significance of the Kozak Host. It marks within the Russian
Empire the ending of a phase of history, turbulent but romantic and
heroic to the last degree. It marks also the passing of the Ukrainian
movement from a purely military enterprise to the modern political and
economic struggle that it was to be in the future. At the same time
the followers of Mazepa began to raise the Ukrainian question in the
chancelleries and thought of Western Europe.

CHAPTER EIGHT

_THE SPREAD OF KIEVAN CULTURE IN MOSCOW_

At the very moment when Moscow was pursuing its consistent policy of
reducing Ukraine to the level of a Muscovite province, it was falling
just as steadily under the influence of Kievan culture. The monks and
scholars of Kiev flowed in a steady stream to the northeastern capital
and prepared the way for the transformations that were to be brought
to their full fruition by Peter the Great in the early part of the
eighteenth century. It is not too much to say that every scholar or
literary man of Moscow during the eighteenth century was of Ukrainian
origin or had been largely trained in the Academy of Kiev.

The reason is not far to seek. During the period of subjection to the
Tatars, the culture of Moscow and the general mode of life came under
a marked oriental influence. After the liberation of the country,
conditions changed little, despite the marriage of Tsar Ivan III with
Sophia Paleolog of the royal house of Byzantium. Now and then there
might be some slight influence from the west brought in, as was the
case when an Italian architect was employed to remodel the Kremlin, but
such cases were relatively rare and for all practical purposes there
was little interchange of goods or ideas with Europe.

The Muscovites of the day were not desirous of opening their country to
foreign influences. Their national pride had worked out the theory of
Moscow as the Third Rome, the capital of the Christian Orthodox empire
_par excellence_, and they stubbornly believed that any contact
with the outside world or the new learning could only lead to the
development of heresy and the marring of the pristine virtue of their
Orthodox religion. The Patriarch of Moscow was forbidden to dine at the
same table with foreigners, even of the highest rank, and the example
was followed by all classes of the population.

Within the country formal education was at a low ebb. Education had
never taken root at Moscow as it had in Kiev. There were not the direct
connections with the outside world that had made the Grand Princes of
Kiev part of the European family of nations. Moscow was a closed centre
and the ideas of intellectual regimentation had gone so far that in
the religious disputes of the sixteenth century, it could seriously be
advanced that the writing of a book on theology was prohibited by the
Seventh Oecumenical Council and that the preparation of any work was
necessarily heretical.

The Muscovites despised the Greeks, even though they were Orthodox,
and they had little more respect for the scholars of Kiev. There are
very few records of attempts made by the Tsars of Moscow to secure
Greek scholars from Constantinople during these centuries, at the time
when the Ukrainian princes and brotherhoods were only too willing
to have Greek teachers in their schools and were trying to raise
the intellectual level of the clergy and the other classes of the
population. It goes without saying that Moscow regarded Poland and
Lithuania, with their Catholic culture, as worse than pagan and refused
to have any relations with them.

The outstanding example of an attempt to secure a scholar from abroad
was the case of Maxim the Greek, who was invited to Moscow to correct
the Church books in the reign of Tsar Vasily III. The attempt was
disastrous to the poor Greek, for even the slightest change in the
books seemed to be ominous to the Muscovites and Maxim found himself in
prison for many years.

The only city included in the Muscovite Tsardom in which there was any
attempt to develop independent thought was Novgorod, which as a trading
centre had maintained connections with the Hanseatic League; but even
the efforts of the Archbishops of Novgorod were received with little
favor in the self-satisfied Moscow.

Yet everyone in Moscow who went from one Church to another was well
aware that during the ages there had occurred mistakes in the Church
books, errors of copying, slight interpolations, even cases of
corruption which destroyed the sense of the passages. What was to be
done? The recognition of the need for some correction of the books was
blocked by the impossibility of accepting any standard for the work.
For nearly a century there went on a sterile debate on the subject
and at the end of that time there was still no agreement as to the
texts which should be taken as models. The nationalistic Muscovite
leaders absolutely refused to accept any Greek texts, even though
it was generally agreed that the Church Slavonic services had been
translated from the Greek, for in their eyes the fall of Constantinople
had seriously damaged the Orthodox character of even the oldest Greek
texts and it was beneath the dignity of the Third Rome to learn from
outsiders. As the last and greatest of these leaders, Avvakum, proudly
declared at his trial before the Eastern Patriarchs in 1666, it was
their duty to come and learn from Moscow rather than to pass judgment
upon any Muscovites, for they alone possessed the true faith and a
Christian and Orthodox autocrat.

It is impossible to overemphasize this ingrown character of Muscovite
culture and thought in the sixteenth century. Xenophobia was the order
of the day and even such a tsar as Ivan the Terrible who allowed
Germans and other foreigners to come in small numbers to Moscow could
not defy the will of the boyars and the masses and accept foreign
ideas.

The Troublous Times that followed the death of Boris Godunov and saw
the occupation of the Kremlin by a Polish army showed, however, to
some of the intelligent Muscovites that all was not well at home. They
realized that Moscow would sooner or later be compelled to accept some
elements of Western and contemporary culture or the state would be
in serious danger. They realized that it would be impossible to make
progress at the expense of Poland and Lithuania, if they maintained
this deliberate exclusion of all foreign ideas, and a steadily
increasing number of men determined in one way or another to change the
situation.

The leading spirit of this group was Nikon, who was destined in 1652
to become the Patriarch of Moscow. No less overbearing and haughty
than had been his predecessors, Nikon was intelligent enough to know
that something had to be done and done rapidly, if disaster was to be
averted and in this he had the sympathetic backing of Tsar Alexis.

It was only natural that they should turn with sympathetic interest
to Kiev, for the revival of Ukrainian culture appealed to them in
various ways. They were well aware of the bitter feud that was going
on in Ukraine between the Orthodox and the followers of the Union and
they had hopes of bringing Ukraine under their own domination. There
was something attractive in the Orthodoxy of Kiev and they could dream
of Moscow as an Orthodox Slav state accepting support from other
Orthodox Slavs when it galled them to appeal directly to the Greeks.
Besides that, there was a group of the Orthodox in Kiev whose religious
antagonism to the Catholics overshadowed any questions of Ukrainian
patriotism. As early as 1626, some of these monks had broached the idea
of a union with Moscow, and exactly as they in a later time tended
to facilitate the submission of the Kozaks to Moscow, so they dreamed
that they might tap the more abundant resources of that state for
intellectual accomplishments and perhaps for personal aggrandizement.

Yet there was no doubt that any such rapprochement would be stubbornly
contested by the masses of the Muscovite population and by many of the
boyars and nobles. It required all the power of an autocratic monarch
and ruthless force to carry through even the slightest correction of
the books and the introduction of any ideas that were at variance
with the traditional Muscovite mode of life. Throughout the entire
seventeenth century, the Old Believers, as they were called, adopted
the most desperate methods of opposition. Mass suicides of people who
objected to living under the regime of Antichrist took place. The
streltsy, the guards of the tsar, rose in armed revolt and the Don
Kozaks burst out in several waves of destructive fury as they demanded
the preservation of the old faith and the beard. It was undoubtedly
this furious attitude of fanaticism that prevented any close relations
between the Kozaks and the revolt of Stenka Razin or between Mazepa and
the revolt of Bulavin in the days of Peter the Great.

It was probably more than a coincidence, however, that the first
serious invitations to Kievan scholars to come to Moscow coincided with
the beginning of the revolt of Khmelnitsky. In 1649, Tsar Alexis, under
the influence of Nikon, invited the Metropolitan of Kiev to send Arseny
Satanovsky and Damaskin Ptitsky to Moscow to translate the Bible.
Ptitsky went later, but he was replaced on this mission by Epifany
Slavinetsky who remained in Moscow to the end of his life. Nikon and
his friends were undoubtedly as much aware of the possibilities of
securing control of Ukraine, if Poland were to be disintegrated, as
they were of the aid that they would receive in intellectual matters
from the Kiev scholars.

A year before this, in 1648, there had appeared in Moscow an edition
of the grammar of Melety Smotritsky, which had been first published in
Kiev in 1619. This work, entitled _The Correct Construction of the
Slav Grammar_, represented an attempt to purify the Church Slavonic
language from some of the more glaring elements of popular speech
which had been absorbed during the past years, and so represented
exactly that attitude of the Kievan school which was working against
the acceptance of the ordinary speech as the written norm. Yet it gave
the general Ukrainian system of pronunciation and when it was taken
to Moscow, it was used almost exclusively for over a century as the
standard grammar, not only for Ukrainians but also for Muscovites
and Southern Slavs, with notes carefully added so that the Muscovite
scholars could make the necessary corrections to make the language
and teachings of Smotritsky fit Great Russian. The work continued in
popularity and was one of the main models in the eighteenth century
when Lomonosov arranged his grammar.

A little later Pamva Berinda published in 1627 a _Slave-norossian
Lexikon and Interpretation of Names_, which after the work of
Lavrenty Zizany marked the best attempt at a dictionary.

All these books served as a basis for the work of Slavinetsky and
his companions when they appeared at Moscow, for they represented at
least an effort on the part of the Kiev Academy to provide the Church
Slavonic language which they were teaching and using with the same
kind of material aids that existed for Polish and Latin and the other
languages of the West. Nothing of the sort existed in Moscow. It was
not desired by the Muscovite bookmen, who devoted themselves to an
unintelligent repetition of already known data from a purely religious
training.

Year by year Slavinetsky and the other Kievan scholars toiled on in
Moscow against the steadily repeated accusation that their Orthodoxy
was suspicious because they knew Polish and Latin. When Nikon appointed
a Kievan scholar to a commission for reforming the Church books and it
was discovered that the man had once studied at Rome, there broke out
an open torrent of denunciation of Kiev and even of Patriarch Nikon,
for daring to employ for Orthodox purposes a person who had actually
been in a Catholic atmosphere.

Nikon understood that he could not carry through his reforms of the
Church books without the aid of the Kievan scholars, and he made
every effort to attract more and more of them to Moscow. Practically
the entire increase in theological writing there was due to their
assistance, and they colored with their ideas and the Orthodox
scholasticism which had been developed at Kiev all the intellectual
outlook of the Great Russians.

At first these Kievan monks busied themselves in Moscow only with
purely religious writings. Thus Epifany Slavinetsky prepared over 150
works, most of which consisted of translations from the Bible and the
writings of the Church Fathers and also of short introductions to
various sacred writings which he translated. This was all that could be
developed at first in view of the prejudices of the Muscovites.

It was not long, however, before these Kievan scholars gradually
undertook to introduce to the court of Alexis all the various forms of
literature which were practiced in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine. As we
have seen, the Kiev Academy had a very limited theological outlook. It
was more interested in maintaining the Orthodox faith and in carrying
on polemical disputes with the Polish Catholics than it was in building
up a high and widely varying secular culture. It imitated and put into
Orthodox form the already antiquated scholasticism of Poland, which was
itself all too often a pale reflection of what had been done in western
Europe a few centuries earlier. The old miracle plays were reworked,
comic and sometimes coarse scenes were added to suit the manners of the
time, little interludes were composed, and there sprang up a rather
uninspired but still active school of drama illustrating biblical
themes and filled with moralizing and didactic teaching. It was in
general a picture of the European literatures in the late Renaissance,
without that spark of life and genius that had lifted English, French
and Italian literatures to the heights of the sixteenth century and it
was far below what had been achieved by the Polish writers of the same
century, and then neglected.

All this literature forms a dreary period but it was infinitely more
advanced than was anything that was found in Moscow. As the various
genres were made available in that capital, they seemed daringly
novel to the younger Muscovites, who were blissfully unaware of how
far Western Europe had advanced in recent decades. As a result there
developed in the latter half of the seventeenth century a craze at
Moscow for the Ukrainian literature of the day and Ukrainian monks and
laymen who made their way to the Russian capital found themselves in
constant demand. Ukrainian scholasticism dominated the reigns of Alexis
and the following tsars, and students of Russian literature and history
have often failed to emphasize the importance of this period as the
first step in the Europeanization of the country.

We can take for example the career of Simeon Polotsky as typical of
this era. He was born in White Ruthenia in 1629 as Simeon Emelyanovich
Petrovsky-Sitnyanovich. Like most of the leading students of the
day he was educated at Kiev and then became a monk in the city of
Polotsk, whence his usual name. In 1664 he went to Moscow as a teacher
and there he won the favor of the Tsar, was appointed tutor to the
various children of the monarch and became practically the court
poet of Moscow. Here he poured out a long and never ending stream of
works, usually destitute of any real inspiration and all based on the
models with which he had become acquainted in Kiev. He even used that
peculiar Ukrainian adaptation of the Polish system of verse in which,
after the French system, more attention was paid to the number of the
syllables than to the accent of the metre or the words. Simeon also
produced various mystery plays, as the _Story of the Prodigal Son_
and the _Tale of Nebuchadnezzar and the Three Children in the Fiery
Furnace_. The very titles give us a good picture of the contents
and show us how far the drama and the poetry of the Kiev Academy were
removed from the average life of the day. The interest in the poems and
dramas of Simeon soon passed but we cannot overestimate his importance
in awakening the minds of the Muscovites, for it was the reading of
these poems well into the eighteenth century that inspired the first of
the native born Russian poets, Mikhail Lomonosov, to undertake his work.

As the Russian hold upon Ukraine grew tighter, the number of educated
Ukrainians who went into the service of Moscow steadily increased.
They formed the overwhelming majority of Russian officials whose
position required something more than dry and formal duties. They
rose to high rank in state and church and it is interesting that the
three outstanding clergymen of the reign of Peter the Great were all
of Ukrainian origin and graduates of the Kiev Academy. They differed
in many ways among themselves and also in their attitude toward Peter
but they represented different sides of the Ukrainian and Kievan
development.

The oldest of the three was Dmytro Tuptalenko, who was born in 1651.
After receiving his education at Kiev, he spent several years in
various monasteries, especially those which were the most rigid in
upholding the autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It was during
this period that he conceived the idea of writing a book on the lives
of the Saints and of preparing a work to take the place of the older
editions of the Chetyi Minei. After the forced submission of the
Ukrainian Church, Dmytro became friendly with the Patriarch Joachim
and undertook to secure the publication of his work. It was a very
difficult task for there were many troubles with the ecclesiastical
censors, which were not fully settled for over half a century. Finally
he was called to Moscow and in 1703 he was made Metropolitan of Rostov,
where he died in 1709. The writings of Dmytro Tuptalenko, who was
later canonized by the Russian Church, were among the most attractive
of the Kievan School. They included the _Lives of the Saints_,
chronicles, and Christmas and Easter plays and they reveal their author
as a sincere and deeply spiritual man, earnestly trying to do his best
for his people.

The second of the three, Stefan Yavorsky, (1658–1722), was one of
the men who were less interested in the Ukrainian problems and found
it relatively easy to assimilate himself to the new situation which
was confronting him. As Metropolitan of Ryazan and later the locum
tenens for the Patriarch, Yavorsky opposed the reforms of Peter and
his efforts to turn the Church into a mere department of the state; he
even dared to criticize him for divorcing his first wife. On the whole,
Yavorsky defended the traditional teachings of Orthodoxy as it was
understood in Kiev and he represented that stalwart but narrow Orthodox
scholasticism that had been developed by the school of Mohyla.

The third of this group was very different. Teofan Prokopovich, who
was born in 1681, received his entire education after the Ukrainian
Church had been forced to acknowledge the Patriarch of Moscow as its
canonical head. After graduating from the Academy, Prokopovich became
a Uniat and thus secured the possibility of a course in the College
of St. Athanasius in Rome. This was an institution aiming to prepare
talented young men for energetic propaganda on behalf of the Catholic
Church among the Greeks and the Orthodox peoples. It gave Prokopovich
a good acquaintance with the classical world and also with the
post-Renaissance developments in Western Europe, and fitted him to take
the lead in breaking from the older scholasticism. On his return to
Ukraine in 1702, Prokopovich left the Union and became an Orthodox monk
and a teacher in the Academy of Kiev. Here he commenced his writing
with a drama on Volodymyr. The work was dedicated with the greatest
compliments to Mazepa and was perhaps one of the first attempts to
introduce the later pseudo-classic style. Yet it was intended also to
be a glorification of Peter the Great. As soon as Mazepa rose in revolt
and the battle of Poltava had been won by Peter, Prokopovich turned to
him with new compliments and with the most unsparing denunciations of
his former patron.

This naturally brought him into favor with Peter, who constantly
relied more and more upon him, and finally made him Archbishop of
Novgorod. It was in this capacity that he faithfully served the Tsar
in drawing up the constitution that was to govern the Orthodox Church
after the abolition of the Patriarchate. Prokopovich, whether from his
experiences in Rome or otherwise, had become a bitter foe of the entire
Catholic position and he turned with considerable ardor toward the
Protestant theologians of northern Europe and especially of Germany. It
was due to him that Peter was able to find ways of suppressing most of
the activities of the Church through his control of the Holy Synod.

It is no exaggeration to say that from the period of the revolt of
Khmelnitsky to the final triumph of the Western pseudo-classicism under
Peter, a period of more than half a century, every sign of intellectual
and progressive life in Moscow and the later Russia was the direct
product of the scholars of Kiev. At the moment when Ukraine was losing
its political rights and independence, it was taking cultural control
of its conqueror. The youth of Moscow were being trained by Ukrainians,
they were being taught for the most part in Ukrainian, they were
learning to read Great Russian from Ukrainian texts and grammars, and
they were learning to think along the lines that had been developed in
Kiev. It was an amazing phenomenon and we can only wonder what would
have happened, had the Kievan Academy early in the seventeenth century
adopted a broader attitude toward worldly knowledge and toward the
national cause.

As it was, the greater men of the Kievan school never came into contact
with the world as it had developed in the West after the fall of
Constantinople. They made no attempt to understand what was going on
in England, France, and Germany, and they rested content to remodel
their culture merely on the lines of the Polish-Jesuit schools. On the
other hand, their ardent defence of Orthodoxy made them blind to the
situation that was developing at home in the political field. It was
undoubtedly not only a desire for personal aggrandizement that rendered
them incapable of understanding the thoughts and the desires of their
own people. It was not only deliberate selfishness that threw them into
the arms of Moscow with the resulting confusion at home and the loss
of those things which the intelligent part of the population valued so
highly. It was rather a curious blindness which was perhaps inseparable
from the circumstances under which the cultural revival had commenced
in the sixteenth century.

Yet for the most part Moscow did not welcome their assistance. The
native spirit of Moscow continued to regard the Kiev scholars not only
as men of doubtful Orthodoxy but as foreigners in the full sense of the
word. Even the extension of Russian rule over Ukraine did not reconcile
the Muscovites to the giving of good positions in Church and state to
the people of Kiev. The gap in the mentality of the two races was too
complete. The gibes of the conservative Muscovites were answered by
equal attacks from these scholars that the Muscovites were barbarians
with no culture and no civilization and it was a long while before the
mutual dislike was even toned down on the surface. It was to crop up
again years later when Kotlyarevsky and his associates began the use
of the Ukrainian language in literature, at the end of the eighteenth
century.

It was in the field of theological education that Ukrainian and Kievan
influence continued longest, for it was in this that the Academy of
Kiev had found its chief interest. Elsewhere there was a speedier end,
for the reforms of Peter called for the introduction of large numbers
of Germans, Dutch and French into the service of Russia. They brought
with them a new attitude toward life, new styles of dress and living,
new manners of thinking which were alien to both Kiev and Moscow.
St. Petersburg was from the beginning a place apart, where the old
Muscovite traditions were securely hidden by the Western European
facade.

Nevertheless, all through the eighteenth century, one is surprised by
the number of talented Ukrainian gentlemen who appeared in the newly
developed Russian literature. Those men, who had been able to move by
reasons of their wealth and influence in the higher circles of life
in the old Ukraine, found themselves attracted to the new learning
at St. Petersburg. They joined in the steady outflowing of the new
literature and even though they no longer had the monopoly of learning,
they formed a by no means negligible group in the life of the northern
capital.

Yet it is to be noted that at the same time, the Holy Synod, like the
preceding patriarchs, was constantly on the lookout lest the Kievan
school show too much independence of thought and action. The leaders
of Moscow and later of St. Petersburg still cherished too much of the
old xenophobia that had characterized the Muscovite past. They made
every attempt to limit the publications of the Kiev Academy and of
other schools in Ukraine. They even held up for decades the printing of
the works of St. Dimitry of Rostov (the Ukrainian Dmytro Tuptalenko).
He might be declared a saint but that was no reason why his writings
should not be regarded for style and language as something alien to the
new regime. The situation was worse with lesser men and once Moscow had
taken over the scholarship of Kiev, it was only eager that that source
should not be available to create a new generation of independent
thinkers that might re-Ukrainianize their own land and spread a new
influence abroad.

The cultural successes of the Kievan scholars form a striking parallel
and contrast to the failure of the Kozak Host to maintain and
strengthen the political position and independence of Ukraine. The lack
of political interest on the part of the scholars was as dangerous to
the normal intellectual development of Ukrainian culture as were the
unbridled dissensions of the men of action. Had the two groups worked
together along the same lines and toward the same goals as they had
done at the end of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth centuries,
it is quite likely that the history of Ukraine would have contained
more bright and fewer gloomy chapters, for the intelligence and the
ideas which might have made the state modern and progressive were
all torn away. The Ukrainization of Muscovite thought was a startling
phenomenon. It could only be of passing importance in the great drama
of history, but it remains as one of the great achievements of the
work of the Ukrainian lords and the Brotherhoods, and it certainly
strengthened those factors which enabled Ukraine to pass through the
dark night of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

CHAPTER NINE

_THE LAST ACTS IN POLAND_

At the beginning of the seventeenth century nearly all of Ukraine was
within the borders of Poland and the Polish King and the magnates were
able to feel that Ukraine offered a purely Polish internal question.
They were to be disillusioned. The formation of the Church Union and
the Ukrainian cultural revival, together with the actions of the Kozak
Host, proved that the Polish state as then constituted could not master
the problem. The revolt of Khmelnitsky and his placing of the Host
under the supremacy of the Tsar definitely established Ukraine as an
international problem, perhaps the greatest in Eastern Europe.

Poland had a last chance at the time of the Union of Hadiach in 1658,
when it seemed for a moment as if Ukraine would enter along with Poland
and Lithuania into a new tripartite form of government. It was not to
be. The Kozaks were not willing to back Vyhovsky in his undertaking,
the Polish King and magnates had learned nothing, and the scheme fell
through. Instead there was made between the King and the Tsar the
Treaty of Andrusivo in 1667 whereby Ukraine was definitely divided
along the Dnyeper and Kiev passed into Muscovite hands.

As we have seen, the struggle continued and Ukraine was cruelly
devastated. More and more the Kozak Host was driven to the eastward and
a large part of the Ukrainian lands in Poland lost contact with it. The
last endeavor of the Kozaks came during the hetmanship of Mazepa, when
Paly had endeavored to unite what was left of it in Poland with the
main forces of the Kozaks.

Poland was steadily falling into ruin. The Kings were no longer able to
govern, except on paper, and during the eighteenth century, Russian and
Swedish armies were constantly marching across her territory. The King
and the magnates were only too ready to be peaceful, provided they were
not asked to fight for themselves or for any else. It might have seemed
an ideal time for a Kozak movement, but the main body of the Host had
been so punished after the defeat of Mazepa, that it could give no
support to the Kozaks in Poland. Step by step the Host vanished from
the Polish lands. It was consistently deprived of its possible supports
and from the early part of the eighteenth century, it ceased to play
any role in Polish affairs.

Lviv had been one of the centres of the Ukrainian cultural revival,
but this too languished under the new conditions. By now there were
practically no noble families that continued to support the Orthodox
Church. The Poland of the late seventeenth century was no longer
interested in the welfare of its own cities. Trade and commerce were
hampered in every way by the senseless quarrels of the magnates and
the szlachta and by the impotence of the Diet to take any action for
the good of the state and the improvement of economic conditions. As
a result the Brotherhoods which had played such an important part in
Ukrainian life a few years earlier, no longer had the income that would
permit them to continue their old scale of activities. The schools
which they had supported languished and were finally closed, while the
Polish government worked to accelerate the process of their dissolution.

The formal division of the country in 1667 and the addition of Kiev
to the Muscovite lands, foreshadowed the diminution of the power of
the Orthodox in Poland. When the Tsar was putting pressure upon the
Sultan of Turkey to have the Patriarch of Constantinople formally
transfer the Metropolitan of Kiev and his subordinate dioceses to
the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow, the Poles considered it
time to act. In 1676 they forbade the Orthodox in case of dispute to
appeal to the Patriarch and they demanded that all Orthodox cases be
tried in Polish courts. They placed the Brotherhoods under the control
of their bishops and the Polish courts and forbade the Orthodox to
leave or re-enter the country. Such measures, far more drastic than
those of a century earlier, aroused hostility but no revolt, for the
Orthodox Church, except in a few areas, was now too weak to do more
than present ineffectual protests. It was now unable to stage those
mass demonstrations that fifty years before had revived a threatened
hierarchy and under Kozak protection raised it to new heights of power.

The next act was the elimination of Orthodoxy almost entirely from
the bulk of the Polish lands, especially in Western Ukraine where
the process of Polonization had gone furthest. The work of inducing
the people of this area to accept the Union was accomplished largely
through the efforts of Josef Shumlyansky, (1643–1707), the Archbishop
of Lviv. Shumlyansky had very early in his career accepted the Union.
He was doubtless an able, if hardly spiritual, man. He had taken part
in various military campaigns and he was later, after his acceptance
of the bishopric, wounded at the siege of Vienna, the last great
exploit of Polish arms. He was also a skilful diplomat and served on
many missions for the King. He profited by the Treaty of Andrusivo
to have himself nominated by the King as the administrator of those
lands of the Kiev metropolitan that still remained in Poland. All in
all, he gathered under his own control all those Orthodox threads
that still served to hold together a dying movement. Yet he felt that
time was playing on his side and when the King, in 1680, attempted to
expedite the Union by calling a council similar to the one in Brest a
century earlier, Shumlyansky refused to attend. However, he secretly
notified the King and the Roman Catholic authorities that his return to
Orthodoxy from the Union was not a sign of altered interests. He won
the confidence of the authorities and for twenty years he undermined
the Orthodox Church by appointing only secret partisans of the Union
to the more responsible posts. When he felt himself strong enough to
come out into the open, he was ably seconded by the other bishops
and the elimination of the Orthodox Church in Western Ukraine was
an accomplished fact. Neither the Brotherhoods nor the nobles were
able to resist the movement and that undertaking which had been so
disastrous to the Polish state a century earlier was carried through as
a well-prepared scheme by a Polish government that was already losing
its control of events.

Even the Brotherhood of Lviv, though it continued the struggle, was
no longer able to protest effectively. Shumlyansky established his
own printing press and this deprived the Brotherhood of its source
of income, for it had formerly had a monopoly of printing in Church
Slavonic and exported many books to the rest of Ukraine, a trade that
had been cut off by the actions of Moscow. Finally, when the Swedes
besieged the city in 1704, the Brotherhood was compelled to contribute
an enormous sum to the ransom demanded. By these and many other acts of
annoyance, it was finally ruined and in 1708 it too accepted the Union.

Thus the two pillars of support of the Ukrainian revival, the cultural
work of the Brotherhoods and the power of the Kozaks, were both
liquidated in Poland, and Western Ukraine was put entirely at the mercy
of the Polish government. The nobles had long since become Polonized
and the eighteenth century is a sad period when there seemed even less
hope of a revival than there had been in the sixteenth.

All that seemed to be left of the old movement was the fanatic faith
of the peasant serfs, who clung to their Orthodox religion and their
native traditions. Yet what could they effect under the conditions of
the time?

They could merely grumble and at times break out into desperate
revolts. Particularly in the eastern parts of the country and along the
Hungarian and Moldavian borders there was a constant state of unrest
headed by the Haydamaks. The name apparently comes from a Turkish
word for brigand, but the Haydamaks were no ordinary bandits. They
were a manifestation of that tendency that had earlier produced the
original Kozaks, and had developed in the Ottoman Empire the various
Chetniks and other groups which fought stubbornly and often without
definite plan for the welfare of the enslaved populations. They could
always rely upon the sympathy and protection of the peasants in their
raids upon the manor houses and the Jewish merchants who worked for
the nobles, for throughout the entire area the collapse of the Kozak
movement had brought back the great estates that had existed before
the time of Khmelnitsky and the landlords were even more tyrannical
and overbearing than they had been before. Their demands for money to
supply their western tastes were greater and life was almost impossible
for their unfortunate underlings.

It was small wonder then that the peasants welcomed the incursions
of armed bands to burn and to plunder their oppressors. The result
was a wild and turbulent period which made life dangerous but which
could not offer, as had the Kozak Host, any prospect of improvement.
The Haydamak bands rarely united except for some major operation. The
leaders were even more torn by mutual feuds than had been the old Kozak
organization, which had been on the way to achieving a stabilized
organization.

The Zaporozhian Sich, which had returned to Russian territory after
a short stay in Turkey, was also only a shadow of its former self.
Nevertheless now and again some particularly bold Haydamak leader would
get in touch with the Sich and detachments of Kozaks would swarm across
the unprotected border to aid them, and in case of defeat the Haydamaks
would go back with the Zaporozhians. Yet this no longer had the same
force as when the Kozaks would dare to defy even the Sultan of Turkey.
The world was becoming settled and the social order had no real place
for these doughty champions of liberty and independence.

The Orthodox Ukrainians had still enough power and energy to rise up
in short but furious revolts. Yet these usually lacked any directive
purpose and spent themselves in savagery, without the formulation of
any definite plan or purpose. They were usually called forth not only
by the deplorable conditions of the people but they were abetted for
the purposes of Russia in order to punish Poland and interfere with her
affairs.

This was the case with the revolt of the Haydamaks in 1734. Poland
was in turmoil after the death of August II. The Russian Empress
Anna was backing August III for his father’s post, while many of the
anti-Russian nobles were trying again to place Stanislas Leszczynski
on the throne. Under such conditions Russian armies, together with
detachments of Kozaks, were invading the country. Rumors, perhaps
spread by the Russian commanders, had it that the Russians and Kozaks
were coming to expel the Polish landlords and to free Ukraine as in
the days of Khmelnitsky. It was only a rumor but the peasants took it
seriously and rose in revolt throughout the eastern provinces. This
was especially marked in the province of Braslav, where the Russian
commander had actually asked the nobles supporting August to send their
Kozak retainers to help the Russians. On the strength of this, Verlan,
who commanded the Kozaks of Prince Lubomirski, embroidered his fancies
and declared that Anna had ordered a rising, so that the peasants could
become Kozaks and join the Hetman state. Armed with this, he raised a
considerable army and set out to plunder the nobles’ estates.

In the middle of the spreading fire, the city of Danzig, the chief
base of Leszczynski, fell to the Russians and August III ascended the
throne. There was no longer any need of rousing the peasants against
the Poles. As a result the Russian troops were at once put at the
service of the Polish King and the nobles to suppress the uprising.
Once the peasants had realized that the Russian army was backing their
enemies and not themselves, the movement quickly subsided and the
peasants had nothing to do but to return to their former serfdom. Those
who were unwilling to do this or were too deeply involved to feel safe
made their way to the Sich or into Wallachia and joined the more or
less permanent Haydamak bands.

Disorders continued during the following years but not on a
sufficiently large scale to influence the general course of events. It
was not until the revolt of the Kolii in 1768 that the fires of unrest
flared up violently and again the revolt followed the same course
as that of 1734. It is only remarkable because the grandfather of
Shevchenko served in it and his tales induced the great poet to compose
his longest narrative epic, the _Haydamaki_.

The eternal controversies between the Orthodox and the Uniats were
the spark that set off this turmoil. In 1760 there broke out renewed
fighting in the Polish parts of the province of Kiev as the Uniats
tried to force the Orthodox to join them and the Orthodox, under the
backing of the abbot of the Motronin Monastery, refused. Violence
followed violence on both sides and the Orthodox sexton of Mliiv was
murdered. At the request of the people of the area he had hidden the
chalice of the local church. He was accused by the Uniats of using it
for purposes of orgies, and was publicly tortured by them and put to
death.

Even then these disturbances would have followed the normal course, had
it not been for the Confederation of Bar, when the Pulaskis, including
Casimir who was to die as a general in the American Army, raised the
standard of revolt against Russian interference in Polish affairs.
Russian troops were moved into the Ukrainian area in the southeast
and the peasants again jumped to the conclusion that Catherine the
Great was encouraging them to revolt against their landlords. Maksym
Zalyznyak, a Zaporozhian Kozak, led the revolt and when he and his
bands marched toward Uman, they were joined by Ivan Gonta, captain
of the Kozak retainers of the Potocki estate at Uman. There was a
considerable massacre at Uman when the Kozaks and the Haydamaks took
the town and other bands operated in the southern part of the province.

The outcome was the same. In June, the Confederates of Bar were forced
to cross the Polish border into Turkey after being defeated by the
Russian troops. The Russian commanders then willingly listened to the
plea of Stanislas August Poniatowski for assistance. They invited the
leaders of the revolt to meet them as if they were ready to give them
more support, and then arrested them and turned them over to the Poles,
where they received severe punishment. Some, including Gonta, were
tortured to death.

Again the situation returned to normal. The Haydamaks continued their
raiding on a small scale. There were the usual burnings of manor
houses, and the killing of nobles, but none of the attacks called
forth a wide movement on the part of the population. The mood of the
people continued uneasy but there was no open struggle and in 1792
the division of Poland brought the Ukrainians directly under Russian
control.

Yet during this century, which saw the definite triumph of the Union
in Galicia and the downfall of the Orthodox Ukrainian organizations,
there began to be signs of an astonishing metamorphosis in the thought
of the Union. It had been initiated in the sixteenth century to break
the power of the Ukrainian cultural revival among the Orthodox and
to safeguard the Polish state against the Kozaks and their unbridled
devotion to Orthodoxy. For nearly two centuries it had been generally
understood that the members of the Union, in submitting themselves to
the Papacy, were cutting themselves off from the Ukrainian cause. It
had been confidently believed that the Union would swing ultimately
into the Roman Catholic Church and that it would lose its identity in
the mass of Catholic Poland, exactly as the nobles had done, when they
became Polonized and Catholic. This had been the great argument of all
the Orthodox and had been the cause of the bitterness that had existed
between the two groups.

As Russia extended its control over Kiev and then abolished the
autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, things began to change. The
Russian censors arbitrarily banned many of the books which had been
circulating among both Orthodox and Uniats and insisted on replacing
them with books of the pure Russian type. The Uniats adopted a contrary
policy. They continued to use the old traditional books, written or
printed in the old traditional way. It gave them a strong hold on many
sections of the Ukrainian population who could no longer look to Kiev
for the writings to which they were accustomed. In many sections,
especially in Galicia, the bulk of the population, once they had
accepted the Union and their children had been brought up in the new
environment, commenced to feel at home in it.

Some of the more enterprising and capable bishops of the Union spoke
out very strongly against a further process of Latinization. For
example, Bishop Shumlyansky who had played such a large part in winning
over by guile or persuasion the population of Lviv and the Brotherhood
of that city, was equally emphatic in his recommendations to his
clergy to try to start parish schools and to build up the Ukrainian
Uniat educational system. His work was watched and followed by many of
the other bishops. The successes achieved were far scantier than had
been those won by the Orthodox cultural movement of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries; but the seed was sown, although it was not to
take effective root until after the division of Poland. A keen observer
could have predicted by the middle of the eighteenth century that the
Union was not only a means of disrupting the Orthodox but that it
would in time take its place as a definite Ukrainian Church. The idea
seemed preposterous at first sight, but with each new effort that was
put forth the tendencies in this direction became more clear and the
actions of the Austrian rulers after the division of the country worked
strongly in this direction.

It thus happened that the very period that saw the ending in Poland
of the old form of the Ukrainian problem witnessed another aspect of
it that was to dominate the province of Galicia during the nineteenth
century. The dream of using the Union to Polonize the country failed
exactly as had the more direct methods that were employed before the
Union, for the Union was in itself enrolled in the service of the
Ukrainian cause, and it had its chance to be effective when Russian
pressure was directed toward the suppression of that Ukrainian
Orthodoxy that had been the first inspirer of the recovery of the
national consciousness.

CHAPTER TEN

_THE END OF KOZAK LIBERTIES_

The disastrous outcome of the revolt of Mazepa gave to Peter the Great
his opportunity. The battle of Poltava had definitely strengthened his
position and that of Russia in Europe. It carried with it the definite
weakening of Poland and made it clear that henceforth the Polish state
would not be able even to cherish hopes of resisting the demands of the
Russian Tsar. Thereby it freed him from any necessity of consulting
the wishes of the Kozaks, who might in other cases have been tempted
to resume their loyalty to the King. Besides that, the disloyalty of
Mazepa had been so evident that Peter could have an open excuse for
acting.

As soon as the old Hetman’s treason had been made clear, Peter ordered
the Kozak officers to elect Ivan Skoropadsky in his place; but he
already took care that the new hetman should not have the power of
the old. Within two months, as soon as Charles had been defeated
and it was possible for Peter to make far-reaching plans, he sent a
Russian official, Izmaylov, to remain with the hetman “to be resident
minister at the hetman’s court with the function of assisting him
with ‘forceful’ advice in settling all issues, because of the recent
rebellion in Little Russia and the Zaporozhian uprising.” Skoropadsky
and all the Kozaks well knew what this meant, especially when the Tsar
refused to allow a formal confirmation of the conditions of the Treaty
of Pereyaslav. To make the significance still plainer, the Tsar moved
the hetman’s capital to Hlukhiv near the Russian border and assigned
two regiments of Russian troops to watch over the safety of the hetman
and arrest him at the slightest suspicious sign.

This was a good beginning, for every one knew and realized that from
that time on Skoropadsky would be hetman only in name. He and the Kozak
officers would have to bear the brunt of any unpopular actions. The
Kozaks would merely murmur at their own officers and the Russians could
then step in to act as the champions of the masses and try to win them
away from their allegiance to the Host. At the same time Peter very
ostentatiously treated Skoropadsky with respect on the occasions of his
state visits to the capital, and waited.

The building of the city of St. Petersburg and the various other works
in the north, like the construction of the Ladoga Canal, demanded
an abundance of labor. The Kozaks were in a way bound to government
service and Peter summoned large numbers of them to the north, where
they were compelled to labor under the most unhealthy conditions. They
died by the thousands, and the Host the next year or on the return of
the survivors was compelled to furnish other large contingents. Orlyk,
who kept in touch with the situation from abroad, openly said that it
was the object of Peter to exterminate the whole Host by these methods.
He may have exaggerated Peter’s purpose but facts certainly seemed to
support him.

At the same time Skoropadsky was not strong enough to maintain order
at home. He was much under the influence of his wife and his friends.
His son-in-law, whom he made army judge, indulged so extensively in
bribery that Peter again felt himself called upon to intervene and in
1722, he appointed a Little Russian Board under Brigadier Velyaminov
to supervise the administration of justice under the hetman. This act
definitely transferred the most important functions of the Host in
times of peace to the Russian commanders of the garrison in Ukraine.
Even Skoropadsky protested against this last act, and the refusal of
his petition so hurt the old man that he died a few months later.

In the meanwhile all the old vices that had existed in the Hetman
state, of striving for the control of estates and land on the part of
the officers, continued with increased energy. Peter saw to it that
his favorites, like Menshikov, received large estates in Ukraine. He
appointed Russian officers in the Kozak regiments and saw to it that
they were richly rewarded, so that even the officers of the Hetman’s
Council consisted largely of Russians and not of Ukrainians.

On hearing of the death of Skoropadsky, Peter followed the same tactics
that he had used in disposing of the Patriarchate. He appointed Colonel
Polubotok Acting Hetman with instructions to listen to Velyaminov,
exactly as he had used Stephen Yavorsky to carry on the Patriarchate
until the Holy Synod was ready to function. Then he transferred the
responsibility for the Little Russian Board to the Senate from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs where it had previously rested. It was
another symbolic act in the elimination of all privileges on the part
of the Kozak Host and the Ukrainian population, and was intended to
show that the Ukrainians were only Little Russians and part of the
Russian state. When the officers petitioned for the election of a new
hetman, Peter postponed decision on the ground that all the hetmans had
been traitors, except Khmelnitsky and Skoropadsky and he sent another
agent to Ukraine to aid Velyaminov in securing evidence of Kozak
dissatisfaction with their officers and in investigating the misdeeds
of the latter.

He also summoned Polubotok to St. Petersburg so that the Acting Hetman
could be near the Tsar. This made it more difficult for Polubotok,
who was sincerely endeavoring to restore justice and discipline in
the Host, to undertake any positive action. His efforts to do this
merely made his position worse and when it was discovered that he
was sending letters to Ukraine to tell the people how to act under
the new investigations, Peter solved all problems by arresting
and incarcerating him in the Fortress of Saints Peter and Paul in
Petersburg together with Colonels Apostol and Miloradovich, who had
been summoned also to the capital. Thus the governing body of the
Kozaks and their most influential leaders were in prison, while Peter
was planning his next step. Polubotok could not stand the new insults
and he died in prison in the fall of 1724, just a few months before
Peter himself passed away.

It is fair to presume that had Peter lived, he would ultimately have
wiped out the Host. As Tsar he had no use for any factor in Russian
life which reminded him too strongly of the past and which could find
no parallel in Europe. The Kozak Host as the government of Russian
Ukraine seemed to him superbly out of date. Its leaders still claimed
to be entitled to the rights and liberties which they had enjoyed when
they joined Moscow. They continued a military organization of the past
and as Peter had abolished the old streltsy, the old Muscovite army, so
he would the Kozaks.

The ambitious monarch had already realized one thing which perhaps had
not impressed itself so deeply upon the Kozak officers. They were to
a certain degree outmoded as a military force. His long struggle with
Charles XII had shown him that the irregular cavalry of the past, the
Kozak strength, was not so fitted to cope with the trained armies of
Western Europe as they had been with the mobile cavalry of the Turks
and Tatars. With Russia interfering more and more in European quarrels,
Peter needed the manpower of Ukraine. He did not need the Kozaks and
his practical mind was only too ready to believe that the Host was
no longer of service. It could, however, be employed to advantage in
the far southeast, and so thousands of Kozaks were sent there on
practically constant military service, where again their losses were
tremendous.

With the death of Peter, the era of rapid westernization spent its
force. The Tsar’s successor and widow, Catherine I, with her favorite,
Menshikov, did not have the energy of her late husband. She was not
so permeated with the spirit of ruthless change and not so sure of
her position that she could alienate large classes of the population.
Difficulties were again appearing along the Turkish border and it
seemed to the governing powers that the aid of the Kozaks might be
useful, if hostilities broke out. Besides, the country was becoming
dangerously underpopulated as a result of Peter’s inhuman methods, his
excessive taxation, his deportations and his drawing off of thousands
of Kozaks to practically certain death in the swamps of the north.

Catherine, too, soon died but Peter’s grandson, Peter II, who came to
the throne in 1727, carried out the policy at the advice of Menshikov
and later of Prince Dolgoruky. Once more the Kozak officers were
allowed to elect a hetman, the aged Daniel Apostol, who had been
released from the prison where Polubotok died. The Kozaks were given
back some of their privileges but not all, for they were now to be
allowed to elect a hetman only when the Tsar gave permission. Besides
that, the general army court was to be composed of three Russians and
three Ukrainians, and the treasury of the Host was to be administered
by two treasurers, one a Russian and the other a Ukrainian. In time of
war the Host was to be under the field marshal of the Russian army. The
lower officers were to be nominated by the companies and appointed by
the hetman, the regimental officers were to be appointed by the hetman,
but the colonels and the officer’s council had to have the approval of
the Tsar.

Apostol, who was over seventy years of age when he was elected to the
post, did his best to revive the dignity of his position. He tried
to arrange for the codifying of the Ukrainian laws and to prevent the
Kozak officers from getting control of the lands still in the hands of
the Kozaks. It was a difficult task because the constant assimilation
of the position of the officers, first to the Polish nobles and then to
the Russian, had started and continuously strengthened the demand that
the officers act entirely like those of equal rank around them and this
involved the lowering of the lesser Kozaks into serfdom.

It was during the hetmanate of Apostol that the Zaporozhian Kozaks who
had fled into Turkey after the fall of Mazepa finally returned to the
country and in 1734, they were allowed to resettle on the site of the
Sich. They were now only 7000 in number, but they were to be used under
their own officers in the guard of the border.

Meanwhile, in 1730, Anne had ascended the Russian throne as Empress.
Anne left the control of the high positions in Petersburg almost
entirely to German favorites but in general she approved the
policies of Peter the Great, and the death of Apostol gave her the
opportunity to renew the Little Russian Board, which was to consist
of three Russians and three Ukrainians. The board was to be under
the chairmanship of the Russian imperial resident, at first Prince
Shakhovskoy. Shakhovskoy typified the harsher type of Russian
administrator and constantly sought to be placed in complete control of
Ukraine without any consideration of the rights of the Kozak officers.
Although he did not succeed in this, the period became memorable in
Ukrainian history for the harsh conduct of affairs, and the arrests of
even the most important persons. The Metropolitan of Kiev and the city
government of Kiev were all arrested on varying pretexts for desiring
to maintain some part of their traditional rights.

In 1741, following the death of Anne and the removal of the baby
Emperor, Ivan VI, Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, seized
the throne after a palace revolution. It might have been presumed that
she would continue her father’s policy, but she had a personal reason
for changing it.

Elizabeth had been kept in retirement for many years and during this
period she had met and fallen in love with a Ukrainian singer, Alexis
Rozumovsky. The two were morganatically married and while Rozumovsky
played no open role in Ukrainian affairs, he quietly influenced
Elizabeth to look upon Ukraine with more sympathy and favor. She went
with him on a trip through Ukraine in 1744 and at that time came into
contact with the Officers’ Council. They assured her of their loyalty
and petitioned for the election of a new hetman. She asked their
leaders to Petersburg on the occasion of the marriage of her nephew,
Peter of Holstein, to Catherine and then informed them that the new
hetman would be Cyril Rozumovsky, the brother of Alexis, but that he
was still being educated abroad and could not be considered for two
years, when he would return to the country. She kept her word slowly.
In 1747 the Senate was ordered to provide for the election of a new
hetman, and in 1749, after Rozumovsky, who had been showered with
various honors including the Presidency of the Academy of Sciences, had
met the Kozak delegates and had visited Ukraine, the delegates were
informed that an Imperial Minister was travelling to Ukraine to arrange
for the election.

The election took place on February 22, 1750 and of course Rozumovsky
was unanimously elected amid general rejoicing. Elizabeth, following
this, officially invested him with the insignia of office, turned back
the control of Ukrainian affairs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
officially restored the Kozak rights as they had been in 1722 before
Peter commenced his changes almost simultaneously with the death of
Skoropadsky. Rozumovsky was made a Russian Field Marshal.

It might have seemed as if conditions of the past were back. But it was
only an archaeological revival. Cyril Rozumovsky had the nominal and
perhaps the real power of the preceding hetmans but Ukraine had greatly
changed. In the past the hetmans, even if they had been elected under
imperial orders, had been chosen from among the outstanding colonels
of the Host. Rozumovsky was a young man, fond of pleasure, little
skilled in administration and he owed his power entirely to the whim
of Elizabeth, his more or less open sister-in-law. He had no desire to
stay in Hlukhiv but spent most of his time in St. Petersburg where he
frequented the court circles.

He left the administration of the country entirely in the hands of the
Officers’ Council, which did its best to reorganize the administration
after the changes that had been made during the reign of Anne. It was
really a thankless task, for in the last analysis they had the job of
remodeling an administration which had never been quite suited to its
purposes.

The regimental areas still retained the purely military form, but the
practical independence of the colonels separated them to a considerable
degree from the Officers’ Council which handled the general affairs
of the country. There were the same changes in the laws, whereby the
smaller villages were theoretically under the army courts and the
cities possessed their own courts, under the Magdeburg Law and the
Lithuanian Law, both organized before the union of the Host and Russia.

The great difficulty was that during the eighteenth century there had
vanished almost the last remnants of the old Kozak democracy. The
power of Russia rested outside of the tsars and bureaucrats in the
hands of the great landowners, and the Kozak officers loved to think
of themselves as the gentry of Little Russia and acted accordingly.
Yet they were still proud of many of their ancient liberties and the
hetmanate of Cyril Rozumovsky allowed at least the officers to be happy
and contented. As for the peasants they were on the whole no worse off
than they had been for decades, so that this period had really some
justification for seeming the best part of the eighteenth century.

It was however a period of cultural Russification. The abolition of
the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church brought the teaching
of the Academy of Kiev into a purely Russian system. The richer people
preferred to send their children to the newer and more fashionable
schools in St. Petersburg and other Russian centres, and there was
repeated again what had happened in the sixteenth century, when the
older Ukrainian aristocracy became almost completely Polonized and
there were left only the Kozaks and the townsmen to carry the burden
of the cultural revival. Now the higher Kozak officers had become the
aristocratic element and were Russianized superficially at least, and
the towns had lost most of their original importance.

The situation, such as it was, rested too largely upon the close bonds
between Cyril Rozumovsky and Elizabeth. When she died in 1761, her
nephew Peter III ascended the throne, only to be overthrown in a few
months by his wife, Catherine, who then became Empress.

Catherine at once decided to standardize the government of the Empire
and to this end she decided to abolish the local autonomies that had
existed in various border provinces. This meant the actual elimination
of all the Ukrainian rights and privileges and the placing of the
Ukrainians on the same basis as the Great Russians. At the same time
Cyril Rozumovsky, in his role as Colonel of the Izmailovsky Regiment,
had been one of the men to whom she owed her throne at the time of
her coup d’état and she did not wish at once to cast him out of his
position. She therefore waited until she received a report that he was
seeking to have the hetmanate made hereditary in his family.

It is not known definitely whether this proposal was put forward by
some of the Officers’ Council in an endeavor to please him, whether
he had engineered the move, or whether it was inspired by Teplov, who
had accompanied him to Ukraine as his tutor and who was regarded as
the spearhead of Russian influence during his hetmanate. Although the
proposal was not signed by the officers, word of it was reported to
Catherine and along with it were sent reports of the oppression of the
peasants and ordinary Kozaks by their officers.

The Seven Years War, which saw the end of the French possessions in
America and the rise of Prussia, ended in 1763. Then, with peace in
Europe, 1764 proved another turning point in the complicated game
that involved Russia, Poland, and Ukraine. In that year Catherine
succeeded in forcing the election as King of Poland of Stanislas August
Poniatowski, a former lover. His relatives, the Czartoryski Family,
had hoped to put one of their number on the throne, but Catherine by
her energetic use of Russian money and Russian troops definitely had
her way and she could know with satisfaction that Poland would from
that time on cause no trouble. Just as the weakening of Poland had
caused the Tsars to increase their control of Ukraine, so the placing
of a Russian puppet on the Polish throne justified Catherine in going
further in Ukraine.

She accordingly requested the resignation of Rozumovsky. He postponed
doing it as long as was practicable, but was finally compelled to yield
and asked to be relieved of his difficult and dangerous office. This
was accepted on November 10, 1764 and in return she gave him a pension
of 60,000 rubles a year and allowed him to keep the vast estates that
had formerly been connected with the post of hetman. She replaced him
with a new Little Russian Board composed of four Russians and four
Ukrainians, seated in order of seniority to show that there was no
difference between the two peoples, and left the power in the hands of
the governor general, Count Rumyantsev. At the same time she instructed
Rumyantsev to give particular attention to the introduction of serfdom
and to beware of the general dislike of the Kozak officers for Russia.

At almost the same period she remodelled the Land of Free Communes.
This was the area to the east where Kozaks who were dissatisfied
with the Hetman state took refuge, and which had been spontaneously
organized into regiments by the population on the Kozak model. Various
hetmans had tried to secure the annexation of this territory to the
Hetman state, but the Tsars had persistently refused to allow it and
had encouraged the settling of Russians in the same area. Catherine
accordingly turned this into a definite province, abolished the Kozak
regiments, replaced them with hussars and introduced the Russian system
of taxation.

The restored Sich was the next to receive the attention of Catherine’s
centralizing policy. She had early begun to colonize the south of
Russia and she looked with envy at the lands occupied by the Kozaks.
Yet they were still very useful whenever a Turkish war broke out.
They fought with their usual bravery and received many honors for
their courage both on land and sea. They might have expected some real
sign of the gratitude of the Empress, but she was not interested in
maintaining the organization despite its usefulness. It was in the way
of Russian expansion.

Finally in 1775, she issued a conflicting statement that the
Zaporozhians were neglecting the land and also were abandoning their
past mode of life and permitting farmers to settle on their lands to
raise grain. The truth seems to have been that the Kozaks, under their
koshovy Peter Kalnyshevsky, were trying to develop their own land in
their own way and were succeeding too well.

General Tökölyi was accordingly sent secretly with a large force of
Russian troops and artillery to the Sich. When it was in position,
Tökölyi peremptorily announced that the Sich was to be destroyed. The
koshovy and several of the officers, including the chaplain, finally
persuaded the Kozaks to yield without fighting, as many had wished to
do. The fortress was razed on June 5 and the property was entirely
turned over to the government.

Then as a curious aftermath of this, Kalnyshevsky and the other
officers who had led the movement for surrender were all arrested. The
koshovy himself was sent for imprisonment to the Solovyetsky Monastery
in the far north where he lived until 1803 in solitary confinement and
was allowed to leave his cell but three times a year. It was the last
ungrateful act of the Empress.

The rest of the Kozaks who did not enter certain regiments were reduced
to serfdom and the very name of the Zaporozhian Kozaks was ordered
wiped out. Many of the Kozaks, however, succeeded in escaping into
Turkey where the Turks allowed them to live near Ochakiv and about
7,000 soon gathered there. Later they were allowed to settle near the
mouth of the Danube, but they were on the whole dissatisfied with life
in the Ottoman Empire.

Finally, in 1783, Prince Potemkin, to prevent the flight of more of
the Kozaks from Russian control, persuaded Catherine to renew the
institution under the name of the Kozaks of the Black Sea and settle
them in the area of the Kuban to the east. This brought together under
Anton Holovaty a large number of the Kozaks who continued to take part
in the Russian wars, and finally, early in the nineteenth century, a
considerable number returned from Turkey on the outbreak of another war
between Turkey and Russia.

With the Sich and the eastern areas properly consolidated, Catherine
turned her attention to the Hetman state, which had continued quietly
under the iron rule of Count Rumyantsev. In 1780 Catherine issued a
new order, completely abolishing this and dividing its territory into
three provinces which were to be administered on the Russian pattern.
This was done the next year and serfdom was introduced exactly as
in Russia proper. In 1783, even the old regiments were dissolved as
military units and those who wished to continue service were enrolled
in new regiments of carbineers. Nothing was left which would preserve
the memory of the Hetman state or of the heroic past of the Zaporozhian
Kozaks. Finally in 1786 even the last remnants of autonomy in the
Church were abolished and the property of the individual churches and
monasteries was taken over by the state and placed in the same pool
with all the property of the Church in Russia.

Then in 1793, with the second division of Poland, the largest part of
right bank Ukraine was also brought into the Russian Empire and those
of the Ukrainians who had remained under Poland found themselves again
united with the Ukrainians of the left bank under the new conditions.
Their position had been hard enough before, but the masters were given
even more power under Russian law than they had had under the rule of
Poland and the condition of the helpless peasants grew steadily worse.

The only people who profited were some of the officers, for the
complete abolition of all Ukrainian rights and privileges moved them
into the status of Russian landowners and nobles. Some of them had been
striving to achieve this for a long while. To accomplish it they had
broken down the democratic ideas of the Sich and throughout a troubled
century, they had sought in every way to separate themselves from the
mass of the Kozaks. Now they had at last succeeded, but at the cost of
all of those special privileges which they had so long valued.

The ruin was overwhelming. There was left not a vestige of that
independence or of those traditions which had endured in the Dnyeper
valley since the days of Prince Volodymyr. The spirit of Moscow had
conquered and its will to unity had been achieved. Nothing could be
left except the songs sung by despairing serfs. The written records
were preempted by the conquerors and the official Russian history
whereby Moscow was the legitimate descendant of Kiev had no one to
contradict it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_UKRAINE AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY_

The Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed by the forces of Catherine the Great
of Russia on June 5, 1775 and on August 3 of the same year the Empress
by an edict abolished the very name of the Zaporozhian Kozaks. This
was the symbolic ending of the old Ukraine, of the old struggle for
liberty and independence. More than the Hetman state with its shadowy
hetmans and its confused Russianized Little Russian Board, the Sich
had embodied the ideals and aspirations of the Kozaks. Around it had
gathered the memories and the traditions of the days when the Kozaks
had formed an independent body of free men, administering their affairs
and choosing their enemies in popular assemblies. It had typified the
Kozak spirit of individual daring and of individual resource. Now
its destruction meant that all that was past and that the autocratic
sovereign of Russia felt it had no place in her domain.

It is interesting and significant that this took place barely two
months after the outbreak of the American Revolution at the battles
of Lexington and Concord. It took place just two weeks before the
battle of Bunker Hill, when for the first time the American army
met a determined attack from British regular forces. It took place
just a month before George Washington assumed at Boston his post
as Commander-in-Chief of the American Army. The eleven years that
followed, during which the Empress methodically eliminated every trace
of Ukrainian independent rights, were the same that saw the successful
carrying on of the American Revolution and the beginning of plans
for the forming of the American Constitution. The year 1783, which
witnessed the definite recognition of the independence of the United
States, saw the elimination of the Kozak regiments from the already
defunct Hetman state. In a word the old Ukraine passed away just as the
new United States was coming into existence.

It would be easy to draw sentimental parallels between these two events
but there is something even more important that this, for it was only
three years after the final liquidation of Ukraine that the French
Revolution broke out and an era opened when all of the intellectual
ferment of the eighteenth century turned into political activity. The
new Europe, the new Europe of the nineteenth century, was in the making
and Ukraine by the narrowest of margins missed being included in it.
The new current of nationalism was beginning to run its course. In
ten years more, Kotlyarevsky with the _Eneida_ was to create the
modern Ukrainian literary language. The various nations and peoples
included within the Hapsburg Empire were to begin their agitation for
national recovery by the simple expedient of linguistic revival, and
by the demand for the restoration of old and forgotten rights and
privileges that had fallen into disuse, though they had never been
officially abrogated.

In the ferment that was to come, the very existence of the Sich would
have served as a rallying point for Ukrainian national sentiment. All
those classes of people who could appreciate the meaning of the new
movements would have found a definite centre, and even though the Sich
had lost its old time power and independence, it would still have been
a living connection with the great past. With the Sich gone, the link
with the great days was broken and the new movement was compelled to
start from the beginning without any existing juridical basis.

For this reason it may be well to pause a moment and look at the
conditions as they existed in Ukraine at this crucial period.

For all intents and purposes the noble class had either been
Russianized or Polonized. In the sixteenth century a large part of the
old noble families had definitely adopted Polish culture and the Roman
Catholic Church. The newer nobles and landowners who had arisen from
the ranks of the Kozak officers had nearly all been Russianized. They
felt that it was beneath them to use the language of their peasants
and serfs and they endeavored to carry on their daily activities
in either one of the more fashionable languages. Many of them used
French almost exclusively in their relations with members of their own
class. These people sometimes preserved some relics of the past. They
dearly loved to have serfs and attendants dressed in Kozak costume,
as did the Engelhardts, the owners of the young Shevchenko, early in
the nineteenth century. They enjoyed hearing Ukrainian folksongs sung
by peasant choirs but they looked upon them as an inferior form of
amusement and had that superior attitude that was so bitterly attacked
by Shevchenko in his introduction to the _Haydamaki_. All in all,
these people found the present situation to their personal interest
and they did not care to jeopardize their own fortunes by challenging
the power of the government or to injure their social standing by
associating with people of the lower classes.

In the same way the townsmen who had played such a large part in
the cultural revival of the sixteenth century were no longer so
influential. The towns had lost much of their importance, the leading
classes, like the landowners, had fallen under the spell of the
conquering cultures and those who still maintained the Ukrainian
tradition had been so subjected to political disabilities that they
were unable or indisposed to play their old role.

The Ukrainian language and Ukrainian traditions were then largely
restricted to the peasantry. Their lot had always been hard but as they
approached the modern period, their burdens were increased by the law.
They had lost the power of changing their homes, even though this had
been rather closely restricted, and the vast majority were mere serfs
on the estates of masters who were either of foreign origin or had been
completely denationalized. They were overwhelmingly illiterate and
could not be presumed to know much of the history of their country.

Yet they were wiser than might easily be thought. The villagers had
their rich and varied folksongs and there was hardly an occasion of
the religious or secular year, hardly an event of public or private
commemoration and festivity, when there did not appear some kobzar
or bandurist to sing them songs of the exploits of the Kozaks or to
retell some narrative of the past. These kobzars were often blind
bards, accompanying themselves with a form of stringed instrument,
something of the type of a banjo. They knew large numbers of songs,
especially historical songs and dumy, which would serve to remind the
peasants of other tales which had been handed down by their fathers.
When we remember that scarcely a half century had passed since the last
desperate revolts, we can understand that there was hardly a village
where some old man or woman did not remember the stirring tales of the
past and tell them to the young during the winter evenings or in the
scanty hours of leisure. Shevchenko’s account of his grandfather’s
tales of the Koliishchina can be paralleled again and again and allows
us to see how the oral tradition of the village handed down much that
was ignored or forgotten in the manor house.

It was in this wealth of peasant tradition and of vague and indistinct
memories that there lurked the dying sparks of Ukrainian consciousness.
It was easy to see that the hard conditions of life were tapping this
supply. Without literacy or writing, each generation knew less than
had the preceding of what had gone before. The death of one old man
might mean the irreparable loss of much that was valuable and true.
With each decade there remained fewer and fewer accounts of the history
of the past. Had the conquering classes thought of such a trifling
subject, they would have realized that time was on their side and that
the unpleasant and disturbing nightmares of the past would pass away
and leave them in peace. The time was surely coming when the peasantry
too would lose their consciousness, exactly as had the nobles and the
upper classes who had been won over to the new and fashionable culture
and accepted a new nationality!

Of course there were some manuscripts that told the ancient history,
but these were rarely printed and they remained hidden in the various
archives and libraries. Thus there was the _Istoria Rusov, the
History of the Rus’_, probably by Hrihori Poletika, who had prepared
an appeal for the old rights of the Kozaks for presentation to
Catherine the Great. Later this work was to have considerable influence
on the development of the study of Ukrainian history. It was to inspire
Kostomarov, Kulish and Shevchenko, but it was still an unknown work
collecting dust in the archives and not valued even by the few people
who stumbled upon it.

The condition of the language was still more tragic. No one thought of
using the vernacular speech, the language of the folksongs and the dumy
in writing. The burden of Church Slavonic lay as a heavy weight upon
the people and even a man like Skovoroda did not venture to challenge
this spectre.

After all, Church Slavonic had served a noble purpose in the past.
It had been the distinguishing work of Orthodoxy. It had contributed
to the splendid culture of Kiev in the beginning, but it was now
outmoded. Even so, the Church Slavonic of the day was not the language
of the early Chronicles. It had been brought from the Balkans by the
first Christian monks that had penetrated the country. The people had
received it at the time of the baptism of the nation and it was hoary
with age and sacred from its many traditions. It required a man of
genius to defy the centuries of reverence that it had acquired.

In the early days, the old Balkan Church Slavonic had been modified to
make it more intelligible to the people. There had been no attempts to
translate it into the popular speech, but step by step popular words
crept in and within the old framework there had come something that
was well on its way to being the speech of the people. The cultural
revival of the sixteenth century, with its emphasis upon religion
and Orthodoxy, with its attempts to purify the national faith and
consciousness, looked askance at these innovations. Patriotic and
intelligent men had believed that the advance of Polonization and
of the Roman Catholic Church could only be checked by a more rigid
adherence to the old standards. As a result, with the best intentions
in the world, the scholars of the sixteenth century and of the Kiev
school worked directly against the popularization of the language.
Their program was strikingly similar to that of the Ciceronian
Latinists of the Renaissance who tried to make their Latin purely
classical in scope, vocabulary and grammar and who only succeeded in
making Latin truly a dead language.

It was they who did so much to insure the triumph of the vernaculars
of Western Europe, but then Latin was so different even from French
and Italian that it was impossible to confuse the old and the new.
The case with Church Slavonic was different. It had entered in large
part into the phraseology of the peasants, it had colored the speech
of the villages, and while it was not flexible and not adapted to the
needs of the population as a medium of expression, it was too close
to it to be cast off without regret and without remorse. Muscovite had
already freed itself and become a modern language. The similarities
between Muscovite Great Russian, Ukrainian and Church Slavonic were
such that Russianizing influences could argue that there was no need
to adapt Ukrainian to every-day literary use and that if the Church
Slavonic were to be abandoned, Russian should be used in its place.
The very unnational and religious attitude of the Kievan School all
too often seemed to bear out this interpretation, and with each
succeeding decade, the doom of the native speech seemed to be more
surely impending. The action of the Russian ecclesiastical censorship
after the destruction of the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church seemed to be working in the same way, for the Church books were
henceforth to be remodelled on the Russian Church Slavonic, even though
that had been at one time really reformed on the Ukrainian pattern
by the scholars who had gone from Kiev to Moscow in the seventeenth
century.

On the other hand, the Uniat Church did preserve the old Ukrainian
Church Slavonic books. The result was the same, for their conservatism
led them to preserve the old as a sacred tradition and to the devout
members of the Uniat Church, it likewise seemed almost heretical to
change the accepted forms and to seek to bring them in touch with the
language of the uneducated people. The pride of these poorly educated
priests in their superior knowledge worked as well as the conceit of
the nobles and the censorship of Moscow to put apparently insuperable
barriers in the way of adapting the ordinary language to practical and
literary purposes, and added to the general conviction of the educated
that the Ukrainian language was finished as a potent factor in the
educated life of the day.

Yet we would be much mistaken if we regarded this as a purely Ukrainian
problem. Wherever the Church Slavonic liturgy had penetrated, whether
in communion with Constantinople or with Rome, the same problem
inevitably arose. The language question, the burning discussion as to
whether the written language was to be that of the people or of the
Church, was actively considered everywhere. Russia was the first to
solve the problem and to restrict the Church language to the Church.
The Serbs in the Balkans and the Bulgarians were destined to have the
same conflict.

More than that, they were faced with the same situation and even with
the same books. Peter the Great had sent to the Balkans men educated
in the Kiev tradition. He had sent down the same grammar of Smotritsky
that had served for a century to teach the Russian grammar from the
Ukrainian Church Slavonic standpoint. The same books appeared at
Belgrade and Sofia that had vanished from Kiev and Chernihiv under
Russian influence. During most of the eighteenth century, there was
used among the Serbs exactly that same mixture of Church Slavonic,
Muscovite and Ukrainian that was preventing the revival of the
Ukrainian spirit. It had the same effect elsewhere. The Russian Church
Slavonic that mastered Serb and Serb Church Slavonic blocked for nearly
a century the cultural revival in the Balkans.

The Russian rulers played heavily on the theme of the linguistic unity
of Slavonic Orthodoxy. When it was necessary to check a dissent, they
ignored the language and demanded the unity of the Orthodox Church.
They stressed the religious unity as opposed to the Catholic West.
At other moments, they were ready to ignore this and to emphasize
the linguistic similarities and to argue that there was no need for
linguistic reform among the Slavs, since Russian had already been thus
favored and there was no need to have two literary Slavonic languages.
They emphasized with a bland disregard of facts that it would be
child’s play to remodel all the languages on the Russian basis and to
combine into one Russian language all the varied tongues. It was no
wonder that they aroused in the Balkans the same reactions that they
did in Ukraine. The more rigid monks refused to listen to their demands
and there was repeated on a small scale something of that revulsion of
feeling that had come when the Kiev scholars first appeared at Moscow.

We can parallel the Ukrainian situation with that of the Czechs and
Slovaks. From the time of the Thirty Years War to the end of the
eighteenth century, there was hardly a book of any value published
in Czech. There was nothing as important as the _History of the
Rus’_, for here it was Latin and German that took the lead as the
permitted and encouraged languages. We must never forget that the great
work of Dobrovsky which began the Czech revival was itself written in
Latin, exactly as the few surviving scholars of Ukraine wrote in the
archaic form of Ukrainian Church Slavonic.

It is of interest that the only two Slavonic languages which were in
a more or less healthy condition were Russian and Polish. In both
cases, the upper classes had not been denationalized. They were still
willing to use the popular language, even if in a refined or revised
form. They were still able to produce literature such as it was and
to secure access to printing presses to make their works known. They
still maintained a historical culture, even though Peter had completely
overturned Russian life and had started his new creation off on a
Polish-Ukrainian-Western European tack. It gave the two peoples a
tremendous advantage which they were not slow to recognize and it added
tremendously to the burden of the other Slavonic peoples, who had not
lost all hope and ambition of recovery. Even the dismemberment of
Poland had not had time to damage the dreams of the Poles and to take
away the advantages that centuries of political life had given them.

The special burden of the Ukrainians was rather to be found in the
nature of the Kozak Host. As we have seen, the Host did not in the
beginning think of taking over civilian administration. It had been a
brotherhood of fighting men. Its remains, the tales of its exploits,
looked very little to territorial control and much to heroic deeds.
Where a Czech, whether he were writing in Czech, Latin or German, could
not fail to know of the achievements of the Kingdom of Bohemia, the
Ukrainian could not look back easily to the Ukrainian state of two or
three centuries before. He had to go back to Kiev and those traditions
were torn and confused by the tragedies of seven hundred years. The
Kozaks gave him much but not what was most important in a national
revival.

The people had confused ideas of the Kozaks but not of their valor.
They could admire the songs of the fearless raiders; they could draw
from them very little of political education. There was needed a long
series of scholars and of thinkers to delve into the annals of the
past and to draw the proper conclusions, before an intelligent and
clear theory could be put before the average peasant serf. There was
needed a work of study and of synthesis and it seemed clear under the
conditions of the eighteenth century that that could not take place. As
Catherine the Great looked out on the reorganized Ukraine, now turned
into typical Russian provinces in Little Russia, she could be sure that
there was no danger, that the last sparks of the Ukrainian idea had
been quenched and that her work had been a success.

She was startlingly incorrect, for all that the eighteenth century
could not imagine suddenly happened. The intellectual changes of the
world in one or two decades laid the basis for a Ukrainian revival
in a form that would have seemed incredible to the leaders even a
half-century earlier.

CHAPTER TWELVE

_THE AWAKENING IN EASTERN UKRAINE_

In 1798 there suddenly appeared in St. Petersburg, a volume entitled
the _Eneida_, written by one Ivan Kotlyarevsky. It was a travesty
on Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the Trojans were depicted as the wandering
Kozaks who had been expelled from the Sich less than twenty-five years
before. Furthermore the volume was written in the popular dialect of
the province of Poltava where the author was serving as an official of
the government. The revival of the Ukrainian spirit had commenced.

All possible honor must be paid to Kotlyarevsky for his audacious
effort which was crowned with so much success and it would have been
a godsend for Ukraine, had any one a century earlier had the courage
and the intellectual independence to have made the same attempt.
The tragedy of Ukraine had been, as we have seen, largely caused by
the fact that the scholars of Kiev had adopted only a reactionary
attitude toward the language question. They had striven so hard for
the preservation of Church Slavonic that they had ignored the revival
of the vernacular in both Poland and Russia. Even Skovoroda with all
of his inspired teachings as to the rights of the individual had not
ventured to break this old and stultifying tradition. Kotlyarevsky did
and the results were at once visible.

Yet there was more to this innovation than the mere publishing of a
book in the Ukrainian language. The spirit of Europe had been changing
for over a quarter of a century and consciously or not Kotlyarevsky was
a reflection of that change. Not only he among the Ukrainians but such
men as Dositey Obradovich among the Serbs and Dobrovsky for the Czechs
reflected the new attitude.

All of these men were products of the Enlightenment, that interesting
movement of the eighteenth century which endeavored to apply the
rule of reason to human affairs. They were often well trained in the
classical languages and their cool intellectual powers fitted well
with the powdered wigs and the stately manners of the courts of the
enlightened despots. There was much in the writings of the Kievan
school which encouraged a man like Kotlyarevsky. The various comedies
produced in the school, the comical intermezzos, and all the varied
performances which had dragged on at weary length in pseudo-Church
Slavonic, all could be cited as prototypes for a whimsical treatment of
a classical theme.

There was more to it than this. The Russian scholars under the
influence of Lomonosov carefully adapted to the new Russian literature
the ideals of Boileau and the French scholars who created the high,
low and middle styles of literary language. The low was to form
the language of comedy and of humorous episodes. It was to be free
from those survivals of Church Slavonic that still maintained a
definite position in the odes and tragedies of Russian literature.
There were many burlesques of classical authors being published in
Russian. Ippolit Bogdanovich, a Ukrainian writing in Russian, had
metamorphosized LaFontaine’s _Amours de Psyche_ into a Russian
form. Free adaptation was the order of the day and if an author were to
create humor by the use of the vernacular, how much better it was for a
Ukrainian gentleman to employ the real vernacular and to transform the
characters of Aeneas and his followers into the real Kozaks who were
even then wandering around the Black Sea?

That was one possible source of inspiration but there was another which
was rising with increasing vehemence throughout Europe. For centuries,
the goal of literature was to appeal to the educated and noble classes
by describing in elevated language the feelings and the emotions of the
nobles and the more elevated and developed personalities. The common
people had vanished from literature, except in comic interludes.

A new trend started with the work of Jean Jacques Rousseau who
taught the superiority of the simple and natural man to the pattern
of civilization and sophistication. His ideas were developed in the
literary sphere by Johann Gottfried Herder, who emphasized the value of
folksongs and of the poetry of so called primitive nations. Herder’s
influence resulted in the collecting of folksongs from all the people
of Europe. Among these the gatherings of Serb folksongs were especially
prominent. Thus by the end of the eighteenth century, interest in the
ideas, the poetry and the customs of the various peoples hitherto
ignored had become one of the leading components of the new studies.

It was thus that the _Eneida_ appeared at the psychological
moment when interest in the people was reaching a new high and when
the French Revolution was already disturbing the settled political
situation. The work revealed Kotlyarevsky both as a masterly adapter of
the _Aeneid_ and also as an authority on the manners and customs
of the Kozaks. With its jesting and serious tone, it aroused attention
among many of the descendants of the Kozak officers who had already
become Russianized, and at the same time it fitted so well within the
official and tolerated literary bounds that it was impossible for the
authorities to regard it as revolutionary and administer any punishment
to its bold author.

Still later, in his two comedies, Kotlyarevsky gave examples of
the drama in the vernacular Ukrainian, and in both he drew clear
differentiations between the manners and customs of the Ukrainians and
those of the Moskals. There is still in these no question of political
separation, but the author went back very definitely to the ideas
of the older Kievans who had gone to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and
emphasized the difference in the psychologies of the two peoples.

Whatever may have been the definite purpose of Kotlyarevsky in starting
his work, he succeeded in giving the Ukrainians what they had long
wanted--a definite modern language, and by doing this he laid a sound
basis for a new movement. From the day when he first published the
_Eneida_, Ukrainian literature has not lacked for writers. Of
course in the beginning various people turned their hand to practicing
the new medium for various purposes, but there has been an overwhelming
tendency for all who had any special talent to emphasize the hardships
of the people and to follow Kotlyarevsky in using their influence
on behalf of the people as against the foreign and denationalized
landowners. Thus from the very beginning the revived Ukrainian was not
burdened with that type of aristocratic idealism that so marked the
other Slavonic languages.

Opponents of the modern Ukrainian movement have often spoken slurringly
of this literary movement, because its early writers did not directly
challenge the Russian government and remained merely literary men.
It betrays a curious ignorance, for in all of the Slavonic revival
the process was exactly the same. The emphasis, whether in Ukraine or
among the Czechs or elsewhere, was at first on literary and grammatical
points. The very nature of Kotlyarevsky’s work pushed the Ukrainian
cause much further in the direction of democracy than was the case in
the other languages.

The second stage in the revival was the introduction of Romanticism.
This movement tended to look back toward the past. Its masters, in
Russia and Poland and in all other countries, sought striking episodes
from the past. They looked for outbursts of unbridled passion, of
daring and of excitement and they found it in plenty among the Kozaks.
_The History of the Rus’_ was now printed and it, even more than
Karamzin’s _History of the Russian Empire_, became the source
book for the Romantic writers. Pushkin knew of it in Russian and so
did Kondraty Fedorovich Ryleyev, that stormy petrel of the Decembrist
movement who paid with his life for his participation in the movement
in 1825. Many of his best poems dealt with the exploits of the old
rulers of Kiev, of the Kozaks, of Nalyvayko and Voynarovsky, the nephew
of Mazepa. Even though they tried to keep within the confines of the
lawful type of Russian history, they could not fail to emphasize
those qualities of personal independence which were rarely stressed
in Muscovite tradition. Nikolay Gogol, the son of one of the earliest
writers in Ukrainian, felt the same drive and in _Taras Bulba_ he
pictured the unbridled courage and daring of the old Kozaks in their
struggle against the Poles. The Poles too felt this same influence and
there appeared again a large number of Polish poems with their scenes
located in Ukraine among the Kozaks.

It was to this phase of the revival that Taras Shevchenko, who was to
be the stabilizer of Ukrainian and its greatest master, belongs. In
the _Kobzar_, after dealing with various aspects of Ukrainian life and
legend, all typical of the Romantic movement at its best, he turns
to themes from Kozak history; and in the _Night of Taras_, in _Ivan
Pidkova_, and later in the _Haydamaki_ and _Hamaliya_, he gives us some
of the greatest poems in Ukrainian when he describes the campaigns
of the Kozaks against the Poles and the Turks. It is noticeable that
most of these themes deal with the struggle against the Poles. That
was more filled with the type of episode which suited the Romantic
poet than was the period of conflict between the Hetman state and
Moscow. The grinding force of the Russian steam-roller had prevented
incidents of the old traditional type and we need not wonder that the
Romantic poets in their desire to go back to the distant past paid
more attention to events of the days before Khmelnitsky, when the
Kozaks were the most democratic, the most unrestrained, and the most
successful.

Thus, by the time the rumbles of the Revolution of 1848 began to be
heard, Ukrainian literary and linguistic revival was well under way.
The literature had reached in the works of Shevchenko the level of the
other Slavonic literatures. It had done this despite the disapproval
of the Russian literary critics, especially Belinsky, who affected to
believe that there was no real call for the erection of Little Russian,
as he loved to call Ukrainian, into a literary language. His judgments
on the _Kobzar_ and the _Haydamaki_ are almost ludicrous in
their efforts to prove that Shevchenko was only a peasant trying to
show off before Russian society. A few years late Apollon Grigoryev
unhesitatingly placed him on a level with Pushkin and Mickiewicz, but
he was exceptional in his willingness to follow his own ideas rather
than the official promulgations of the intelligentsia.

In another field the Ukrainian revival went far: the field of ethnology
and of folklore. The Romantic temperament, aided and abetted by the
teachings of Herder, turned its attention to the manners and customs of
the village. There grew up a veritable harvest of investigators who,
whether in fiction form as in the case of Hrihori Kvitka-Osnovyanenko
or in the form of scientific treatises, pictured every aspect of
Ukrainian life. These men, and some of them were to be found among the
Russianized gentry, emphasized the differences that existed in the
manners and customs between the Ukrainians and the Great Russians. They
noted with care the differences in the construction of the village
houses, the arrangements of the houses and the farms, the embroideries,
the legends, the folklore. They collected the popular songs, the dumy,
the historical poems. Anything and everything that marked the life of
the people in all of its manifestations they willingly committed to
paper and step by step they gathered and preserved a picture of life in
a Ukrainian village as it existed in the days of serfdom.

It is easy to overlook this kind of work and to regard it as the mere
product of literary men and scholars. Yet the works of Maksimovich,
of Tsertelev, and of many more served as a preliminary step to the
raising of political aspirations. The study of the past carried on
both by Ukrainians and by the Russian authorities brought to light
much forgotten information. Thus the Governor General Bibikov in 1843
founded the Kiev Archaeological Commission, on which Shevchenko was
for a time employed. This aimed to collect information on the past, to
secure paintings of old buildings, and to supply details of history. It
is highly significant that a firsthand knowledge of the past obtained
in this work brought many of the young scholars and artists to realize
more clearly than they had done before the historical value of many of
the old Ukrainian writings which had existed up to that time only in
manuscript.

A comparison with almost all of the other cultural revivals of the
suppressed nations of Europe shows that such a beginning was the
usual procedure. Even among the Czechs it became necessary to awaken
the country to an appreciation of its past and the earliest leaders
were poets such as Kollar and Jungmann, and historians like Palacky
and Safarik. Among the Serbs it was Obradovich and his friends who
undertook the task of acquainting the people with the achievements of
the past and with modern conditions.

In all cases the political development came later and was not always in
the beginning closely coordinated with the cultural movement. It was
here that the difficulties of the Ukrainians multiplied. During the
eighteenth century, the Estates of the Kingdom of Bohemia had become a
completely moribund institution. They still went through the motions of
existence and the same kind of historical study that called attention
to the language and literature could be applied to searching out the
rights of these long surviving traditions and breathing new life into
them.

So it could have been in Ukraine, had there existed even a rudimentary
form of the Hetman state. When we realize that the Russian Governor
General Repnin could fall into governmental disfavor because his wife
was a relative of the last hetman, Cyril Rozumovsky, we can see what
might have been the consequences of even a paper continuation of the
old order. Catherine had done her work well and she had eliminated
every vestige of the former Hetman state. She had eliminated the
Sich and while she had allowed some of the Kozaks to form a new
organization in the Kuban, there was after fifty years no sense of
continuity anywhere. The nobles had been almost completely Russianized
in outlook. They owed their wealth and position to the ruin of the old
order and while they might sympathize with and be moved by the plea of
Kotlyarevsky, there was no likelihood that they would bestir themselves
and risk their position in any mad adventure. For good or ill, they
were lost to the call of Ukraine.

All they could do was to contribute in some small way to the foundation
of the Universities of Kharkiv and Kiev, which had been started during
the reign of Alexander I, largely through the advice and influence of
Adam Czartoryski, one of the close friends of the Tsar and an ardent
Polish patriot. His influence was rather expended on the problem of
Poland and for this reason he had worked energetically in the revival
of the University of Wilno in the old capital of Lithuania. For the
same purpose he had inspired the foundation of universities in the
Ukrainian cities but he had hoped that these would serve as centres of
a Polish rather than of a Ukrainian revival. He partially succeeded,
for Polish influence in both Kiev and Kharkiv grew rapidly during
the years before the Polish revolt of 1831, even though it was from
these institutions that many of the early Ukrainian song collectors,
archaeologists, and historians were drawn.

Besides this, the Russian system did not contain, as the Austrian
did, any loopholes for the formation of legal parties or political
agitation. Catherine had seen well to this and in fact her attitude was
only a legitimate Westernized expansion of the attitude of Tsar Alexis,
when his delegates refused an oath to Khmelnitsky at the moment when
the Kozaks first accepted the protection of the Tsar at Pereyaslav.
Russia was indeed a monolithic state in which no one possessed any real
rights except the tsar. The Kozak Host had been an anachronism and it
had perished. Now with the Ukrainian revival there was no legal means
of recalling the old rights and privileges for any one, much less the
peasants living as serfs on the lands of denationalized and foreign
masters.

The revival of the Ukrainians was, and was destined to remain, a purely
cultural revival in a monolithic Russia which proudly had annexed
the ancient history of Kiev and considered itself as its legitimate
successor. Little Russia seemed to the authorities merely a part of the
whole and once all distinguishing characteristics had been removed in
law, there was no way of restoring them except as the gift of the tsar
or by the disintegration of the country.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

_THE SOCIETY OF SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS_

It was impossible under Russian rule to have any immediate hopes for
the beginning of definite political activity and this was no more true
for the Ukrainian population than for any of the other nationalities
of the Russian Empire, including the Russians themselves. Even those
scanty means of popular expression which had survived the reforms of
the Congress of Vienna and the growth of reaction in Western Europe
were here excluded.

It was impossible to shut out ideas. The years of conflict with
Napoleon had shown to many of the Russian officers who had entered
Paris with the victorious allies the difference between the situation
in Russia and that in western Europe, and they willingly joined with
the surviving older enlightened thinkers of the eighteenth century to
make certain demands upon the government. The success of the United
States as a republican federation affected many of them, and they began
to dream of reorganizing their own country in the same fashion.

The result was the development of a number of secret societies modelled
on the Tugendbund (League of Virtue) in Germany and the Carbonari in
Italy. Most of them demanded at least the limitation of the power of
the tsar and the granting of more or less definite rights to the rest
of the population. Some even demanded the complete abolition of serfdom.

These societies, which were parallel to secret societies in
Russian-occupied Poland, existed in all important garrisons of the
Russian Empire. The Southern Society formed by Colonel Pestel among
the Russian troops in Ukraine was the most radical of the entire
number. Yet it cannot be said clearly that even this Society thought
much of any special rights for Ukraine. It was composed largely of
Russians or Russianized Ukrainians who had acquired rank and wealth in
the Russian service, and they were not disposed in any numbers to do
anything to harm the national unity. They made no effort to reach the
masses of the people and win them over to any special cause. In a word
these secret societies, instead of building on the past, sought rather
to create something new and theoretically ideal.

Conditions came to a head on the occasion of the death of Alexander I,
when there ensued a dynastic tangle. The succession should have gone
to the next younger brother Constantine, but he had abdicated under
confusing circumstances. Finally on December 14, 1825, when it became
certain that he was not going to assume the power, the third brother
Nicholas ordered the troops to swear allegiance to him. When part
of the Guards Regiments in Petersburg refused, under the leadership
of members of these societies, he suppressed the recalcitrants by
military force. It is interesting that the only serious fighting was
in Chernihiv, where the regular garrison revolted under the influence
of Colonel Pestel and was almost wiped out by loyal troops. Yet it is
difficult to say that this was a manifestation of a Ukrainian desire
for independence, since it was closely tied up with the movement in
St. Petersburg and there is little evidence that the leaders of the
movement had given any thought to the nature of the decentralization
which they wished to introduce.

The Decembrist movement was, however, a prelude to other action. On the
one hand it increased the determination of the tsar to maintain order
and the autocracy at all costs. On the other, it drove from active
leadership in political movements the representatives of the higher
aristocracy, who were without exception the foremost representatives
of Russian influence in Ukraine and the best educated people of the
day. It thus cleared the way for newer groups to appear upon the scene.
It settled nothing in reality.

There came a new tendency for autocratic control of everything and the
new measures still more infuriated the Poles, who had already begun
the work of active organization of secret societies. More and more, in
places like Wilno, these societies became very active. Finally they
burst out in a great Polish revolt in 1831 and its failure thrust down
the hopes of the Poles for a restoration of their country. It is to be
noted that Taras Shevchenko, as a young serf, was shortly before this
time in Wilno and could not fail to have heard of the preparations for
the revolt. Because of the danger, his master Engelhardt left Wilno and
went to the capital and the young Shevchenko with his inquiring mind
had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of several of the leaders
of the revolt. Instead of winning him to the Polish cause, they seem to
have sharpened his interest in his own people and to have revived in
him an appreciation of the rights of Ukraine, even if those rights had
been abolished by the decrees of Catherine the Great.

It was at this moment that the poem of Jan Kollar, _The Daughter of
Slava_, began to circulate throughout the Slavonic world. Kollar, a
Slovak Protestant, went to Jena in 1817 to study. There he was greatly
impressed by the sentiments of the students calling for a unification
of Germany and the introduction of a republican form of government. It
set him to thinking and when he fell in love with a German girl from
the south, he transformed her in his own poetic way of thinking into
a descendant of the Germanized Slavs. He published in 1821 his first
collection of _Sonnets_ and then in 1824 he increased this to the
book, _The Daughter of Slava_, in which he called for a great
Slavonic union on liberal principles.

It was probably as a result of this that there appeared a Pan-Slavic
Society in Ukraine about the time of the Decembrists, but so few
details have been preserved that it deserves little more than a passing
mention, for we know very little of the actual development in Ukraine
at this time, except among the officers of the Russian army who took
part in the secret societies.

With the suppression of the Russian movement, there came the Polish
revolt of 1831, and then the poems of Pushkin, who, under the influence
of Kollar and Russian imperialism, declared that all the Slavonic
rivers had to flow into the Russian sea or they would dry up. This was
the special Russian brand of imitation of Kollar and in this connection
we can see how closely Pushkin follows the attitude of Tsar Alexis,
Peter the Great and Catherine.

Yet outside of Russia, Kollar found quite a different interpretation.
The Southern Slavs, especially the Serbs, and the Czechs became
enthused with his ideals and began to dream of a great Slavonic
brotherhood in which Russia might play a leading but not a dominant
role. Soon after there appeared such books as the _History of the
Slavonic Language and Literature_ by Pavel Josef Safarik, in which
the author attempted to give an introduction to all the writing in the
various Slavonic languages. It is true that his remarks on Ukrainian or
Little Russian are very scanty, but he does mention Kotlyarevsky and
comments on the small amount of work that had been done in the study
of this “dialect.” He alludes to the still more confused condition of
knowledge of the language of Galicia. All this was just the beginning
and more and more Czech students began to appear in Kiev and make known
around the University of Kiev the recent discoveries and ideas of Czech
scholarship.

In the forties, the era of romantic idealism was not yet over. There
was stirring already that ferment which was to lead to the revolutions
of 1848 and there were high hopes that by some form of popular miracle
the millennium would be speedily achieved. How or by what means were
relatively unimportant questions to many of the young idealists, but
these were no longer to be found among the ranks of the gentry or the
army officers but in the universities.

It was then no chance happening that the young men at Kiev became
tremendously interested in the new movements, which were still
wavering between dreams of a general Slavonic union and agitation
for the recovery of the liberty of each individual people. The ideas
were ardently discussed and it was only natural that those who were
interested should form themselves into the traditional pattern of a
secret society.

At some time, perhaps in 1846, there was organized at Kiev the Society
of Saints Cyril and Methodius. This may well be regarded as the first
formulation of the dream of a self-governing Ukraine as part of a
general Slavonic federation. The men who took part were the keenest
thinkers and the outstanding characters of the Ukrainian movement for
many years. Foremost among them was Taras Shevchenko. He had already
made a name for himself as the author of the _Kobzar_ and the
_Haydamaki_ and as a promising painter in St. Petersburg. Now
he was in Kiev, attached to the Archaeological Commission, with a
commission to paint the churches and the ruins from the times of the
Kozaks and Khmelnitsky. Not only that, but his travels had given him
the opportunity to see the wretched conditions of the Ukrainian people
and the evil that serfdom and dependence was doing to them.

Another of the group was Nikolay Kostomarov, a Russian by birth, but a
close student of the history of Ukraine. He was becoming convinced in
his own mind of the differences between the ancient culture of Kiev and
of Moscow. Here too was Panteleimon Kulish, also a collector of folk
songs and a historian. Others of the group were Vasil Bilozersky and
Prof. Mikhail Maksimovich.

These men were all familiar with the existing condition of Ukraine,
with the difficulties of the common people and with the work that was
being done abroad for popular education. As a result they worked out a
purely idealistic program for the future of the Slavs in general and
the Ukrainians in particular.

What was this? They demanded the abolition of serfdom and they called
for freedom of conscience, of the press, of thought and speech. All
this meant merely the application to the whole of Russia and especially
to Ukraine of those commonplaces of personal and civic liberty that had
been achieved in the England of the day and were the common demand of
all the thinking youth of Europe. They then went further and visualized
an independent Ukrainian republic, which was to form part of a great
Slavonic federation. This federation was not to be dominated by any one
country but was to be a real federation, expressing the ideas of free
and independent citizens.

It is easy to see that their ideas were influenced by the little that
they knew about the United States. It is easy to see how far they were
from the reactionary ideas of Pushkin, but they were not dominated by
thoughts of hatred or antagonism. The interesting point was that while
Belinsky and various other authors were arguing in St. Petersburg and
Moscow for the same liberties for the Russians, these men dared to
assert that the Ukrainian language could be developed as well as could
the Great Russian and had equal claim to be studied and used by the
people, by writers and by scholars.

Not one of the men who formed the Society was connected in any way
with any military organization. They were for the most part typical
of the university youth. Some of them came from the smaller noble
families which had not been completely Russianized but which still
retained traditions of the past. Shevchenko was a freed serf. Not one
of them would have known or been interested in the type of political
underground conspiracy that alone could have carried their program into
execution.

Thus they could have formed no danger to the Russian state, except
insofar as that was based on the oppression of other races and on
conditions which were unhealthy and unjust. Of course they were opposed
to serfdom, but in one way or another their feelings were shared by
large numbers of the Russians, nobles and non-nobles alike. They were
taking little active part in any plans for carrying out their policy,
except in their aspirations to spread education among the people:
education in the Ukrainian language.

However when Oleksy Petrov, a student who had overheard some of the
glowing discussions in a neighboring room, reported the existence
of the society to M. V. Yuzefovich, the supervisor of history, the
latter was impressed with the idea that he had discovered a dangerous
conspiracy. He hurriedly notified St. Petersburg and orders were given
to arrest the entire group. It seemed to the mind of Nicholas I that
this was exactly what he had suspected all along and he determined to
make an example of the young men.

It was relatively easy to catch them, for they were without any
suspicion of what was coming. Shevchenko was arrested on April 5,
1847 in Kiev with several others, for they had gathered there for the
wedding of Kostomarov. Kulish, who had already received a fellowship
to study abroad in preparation for a post in the University of St.
Petersburg, was seized on his way to the border.

Trials were soon held and the vast majority received sentences of
imprisonment or exile. Shevchenko, because of the contents of his
poetry, was ordered to serve as a private in a disciplinary battalion
of the army in Central Asia and the tsar added in his own hand, “with
a prohibition of writing and painting.” He was destined to serve there
for ten years and was a broken man at the completion of his service.

These arrests broke up the society. The trials revealed very clearly
that the young men had taken no definite steps to carry out their
ideas. Yet the decrees of the Tsar and the sentences made it very
clear that the imperial regime considered it worse than treason to do
anything to remind the Little Russians of their independent past or to
indicate that in any way they were better off under the rule of the
hetmans than under the beneficent rule of the Tsar’s officials. It was
but another affirmation of the intentions of Catherine and Peter, and
it put a definite stop to any political development in Russian Ukraine
for many years.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

_THE REVIVAL IN GALICIA_

During the seventeenth century, there had gradually developed
differences in those sections of Ukraine which had remained under
Polish control after the Treaty of Andrusivo. This was largely the
result of the endless conflict between the Orthodox and the Uniats, and
was marked by the steady weakening of the Orthodox, especially after
the beginning of the eighteenth century when the great Brotherhood of
Lviv formally accepted the Union. In the eastern portions of the Polish
controlled territory, the Orthodox still retained considerable, if only
negative, power, and it was in those regions that the last revolts
against Poland took place. At times the Koliishchina had threatened to
spread westward along the Carpathians but the danger was averted and
peace was maintained.

Then came the divisions of Poland and most of the areas in which the
Union had secured an undisputed supremacy passed into the hands of
Austria-Hungary. Soon after, the latter seized from Turkey northern
Bukovina, which was still largely Orthodox and had formed the northern
section of Moldavia, long a storm centre.

The Ukrainians living in the Carpathian Mountains formed part of the
Kingdom of Hungary. These people had suffered from the vicissitudes of
the past centuries and little is known of their early history or of
their appearance in the area where they still dwell.

In his historical novel, _Zakhar Berkut_, Ivan Franko gives a
picture of the early democratic life of these villagers in the time
of the Tatar invasions but it is not certain whether or not they ever
formed an independent state. In all probability the central authority
in these mountain valleys was not well developed in the Middle Ages.
The various valleys paid more or less feudal allegiance to the rulers
of Ukraine but the mountain passes were closed several months in the
year by snow and with the confused conditions in Galicia and the
struggles between Poland and Hungary, the region was more or less
forgotten.

The people were Orthodox and apparently formed part of the see of
Peremyshl but the bishops rarely visited them. Education was on a
far lower level than anywhere else in Ukraine and the revival of the
sixteenth century had little or no effect upon the mountaineers.
Hungarian rule, which had been established in the fourteenth century,
weighed heavy upon them. Peasants and clergy alike were serfs,
illiteracy was widely prevalent and almost the rule, and the physical,
economic and intellectual conditions left everything to be desired.

Apparently also in the fifteenth century an Orthodox bishop was settled
at Mukachevo, but this again did not mean much. The monasteries
had lost most of their wealth in the disturbances of the preceding
centuries and the bishops had to live on fees collected from the
ordination of young priests and the annual contributions that they were
compelled to make for the support of the central organization. It was
the same situation that had come up elsewhere in the Ukrainian lands
but there was really no centre to maintain any education and things
went constantly from bad to worse.

It was an ideal situation for the spreading of the religious Union.
One of the landowners, Homonai, introduced it on his estates in the
seventeenth century. He won over the priests and monks, but the
peasants, as they had done so often, refused to accept it. However,
the idea took root and by 1640 a considerable number had more or less
formally adhered, so that in 1649 it was possible for the adherents to
hold a meeting at Uzhorod and formally request to be accepted under the
same terms as had been satisfactory fifty years before at Brest. The
Pope acknowledged this in 1652.

As can be seen from the above, the struggle for the Union or the
Orthodox faith in Carpatho-Ukraine, as everything else in the area,
was far less centralized, far less standardized, and the villages
maintained a certain independence in their misery, for the Hungarian
system of administration had grouped the area into several counties
with little possibility of cooperation or mutual help.

There were times, however, when the temper of the people flared up to
white heat and revolts broke out or were threatened. Thus, for example,
at the time of the outbreak of the Koliishchina in the province of
Kiev, around 1770, there was marked unrest in this area. The peasants,
some of whom apparently did not know that they had accepted the Union,
turned against their landlords and the Uniat priests and there were
repeated on a small scale those disorders that marked the disturbances
in the East. There were the same rumors that the Orthodox ruler of the
east was going to come to their assistance and, as elsewhere, no help
ever came, and the authorities put down the revolt and the unrest with
an iron hand.

The Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Joseph II were made
uneasy by these troubles. They were already looking with greedy eyes
at the southwestern sections of Poland and of Western Ukraine, and it
did not seem a wise policy to allow disorders to spread among people
related to those whom they were desirous of annexing. Besides that,
the old feuds as to the relative rights of Austria and Hungary became
involved in the picture and once peace had been restored, the rulers
began to look around to see what could be done.

There were many things needed, but in the mind of the rulers of
the eighteenth century, the idea of relieving the fundamentally bad
economic conditions of the area made no impression. Rather the Empress
felt that she was receiving good advice, when she was told that it
was the ignorance of the people and still more of the clergy that
was responsible for the confusion. As a result she soon turned her
attention to the founding of schools in this area. One was established
at Mukachevo for the clergy and steps were taken to improve the
condition of the priests. These were timid and minor actions but they
were destined to have great influence upon the future. Bishop Andrey
Bachinsky, who was installed at Mukachevo at almost the same moment
when the province of Galicia was falling into Austrian hands, was a
competent administrator. He gathered around him a small number of
educated priests and through his schools did what he could for the
country.

All this was not much, but when Maria Theresa took over Galicia and the
other Ukrainian lands, she had already an example before her. She felt
that she had hit upon the correct policy and it was not long before she
opened a school in Vienna for the Western Ukrainians, or the Ruthenians
as the Austrian government, following Polish practice, insisted upon
calling them. In view of the attitude of the Austrian government toward
religion, it was only natural that this education was at first made
available only for young men who were candidates for the priesthood of
the Uniat Church.

As we have seen, the Uniat Church, which had been fostered by the
Polish kings and magnates to disintegrate the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church and the metropolitan see of Kiev, had become by the course of
events inseparably connected with the Ukrainian cause in the west. Yet
it possessed at the time of the division of Poland very few educated
members, except some of the higher clergy. The parish priests and their
congregations were woefully uneducated. The church was generally
regarded as merely the church for the peasants and it was quite widely
ridiculed by the Polish-speaking nobles.

It was then an act of real charity and kindness for Maria Theresa
to endeavor to educate the clergy and to raise their intellectual
standards and equipment. It was to determine for nearly a century
the nature of the national revival in Galicia and Western Ukraine
generally. On the one hand, it bound the leaders of the Uniat Church
more closely to the Austro-Hungarian throne and put them in the
position of a welcome counter-balance to the Polish aspirations for
recovery of their lost territory and, failing that, to dominate and
play the role of an upper class under Austrian control.

On the other hand, it preserved and strengthened all those conservative
tendencies that had been inherent in the Kiev Academy during the
seventeenth century and had been even earlier a handicap to the work of
the Brotherhoods in the sixteenth. It meant the definite strengthening
of those tendencies which were opposed to the introduction of the
vernacular language. The vast majority of the educated priests and
scholars of Austria-Hungary spoke Latin more or less well. It was only
natural therefore that the Ukrainian clergy trained in the schools of
Maria Theresa laid especial emphasis on the Church Slavonic in the form
in which it had been traditionally preserved. Relatively little effort
was expended on the modernization of this language and in many ways the
writings of these men were even further from the daily speech of the
people than had been the case two centuries before, when the scholars
of Kiev sought to go back to the pure form of Church Slavonic.

It was therefore nearly fifty years before the leaders of the Ukrainian
movement in Austria-Hungary reached the point that had been arrived
at by Kotlyarevsky in Eastern Ukraine. The intellectual life of the
Western Ukrainians and their writings remained in that same artificial
form that had been prevalent everywhere before the publication of the
_Eneida_. More than that, there were many who looked askance at
the new Ukrainian system that was coming into vogue under the power of
the Tsar. They saw in the apparently new writing something which might
develop into a menace to the integrity of the Church teachings and they
opposed its introduction into the schools of the province.

Nevertheless, although the Ukrainian revival came far later than that
of many of the other peoples of the Austrian Empire, it followed the
same general pattern, with a certain amount of political activity
allowed to Ukrainians as Ukrainians, especially in the lower
administrative levels and for those few members of the group who were
not serfs but were recognized as free men.

It was not long after the provinces passed into the hands of
Austria-Hungary that there was established a theological seminary for
Uniat priests in Lviv and this was even more accessible than was the
school in Vienna. Later, in 1784, the University of Lviv was founded
and in this it was provided that there should be certain courses in
the Ruthenian language, that is, the old mixture of Church Slavonic,
Ukrainian and Polish that had been the dominant language of the Kiev
school in the seventeenth century. A preliminary school to prepare the
Ukrainians for admission to the University was established. For a while
all seemed well, but it was a false dawn.

The key to these events was to be found in the policy of Maria Theresa
and still more of the Emperor Joseph II, who reigned with her for
many years and then was sole emperor from 1780 to 1790. Maria Theresa
was devoutly religious. Joseph II, her son, belonged to the same
class of enlightened despots as did Catherine the Great of Russia.
He was interested in unifying his domains just as ardently as was
Catherine, but he had a different problem to face, for he desired to
make German and not another Slavonic language the general language
of administration. Besides that, both mother and son were suspicious
of the loyalty of the Poles, who had been just been annexed to the
Austrian domains, and it seemed a wise measure to lighten the burdens
of the Ukrainian population in an endeavor to win their loyalty.
Besides these educational reforms, Joseph had very decided ideas on the
necessity of lightening the burdens of the serfs and of abolishing most
of the abuses to which they had been subjected in the past.

All of these varying motives, often conflicting with one another,
tended to give an opportunity for the Ukrainian population in Western
Ukraine to improve their status. All the results achieved were won
during the years of the reign of Joseph II and the brief years of
Leopold II, but when Francis II came to the throne in 1792, conditions
changed.

Externally the French Revolution was then going on and Austria took
a defiant attitude toward everything that savored of liberalism in
any way. The rights of the landowners were restored throughout the
Empire and this deprived the peasants of any hopes that might have
been enkindled in them by the promises of Joseph II. Then too, there
were no signs of revolt among the Poles in the annexed provinces. This
was in a way a deliberate choice of the Polish authorities and even
during the revolt of Kosciuszko in 1794, he did his best to prevent
the spreading of the movement for a restored Poland into that part of
the territory that was held by Austria, and endeavored to concentrate
the national uprising against Russia and secondarily against Prussia.
Thus it seemed to the interest of Vienna at this moment to cooperate
with the Polish landlords in Western Ukraine and to try to limit the
spread of dissension, while Austria prepared to take her share in the
final division. Then with Poland out of the way, efforts to improve the
conditions of the Ukrainians within Austria sagged severely and during
the years that followed, the situation remained fairly static.

Yet the situation never went quite back to that prevailing before
the time of Joseph II. It is true that by 1808 the courses in the
University of Lviv and the preparatory gymnasium had faded away at
the instance of the Poles and there remained only a few parochial and
private schools where the traditional dead language was the medium of
instruction. Yet there was an increasing number of Ukrainians who were
able to secure an education in schools where German as well as Polish
was taught. All too often, however, these men acquired a contempt for
the peasant masses and sought for positions elsewhere in the Austrian
civil service, so that they did not give to their people the benefit of
their education. Many of those who remained tended to prefer Polish as
a more fashionable language and thus added to the number of able people
who were lost to the Western Ukrainian cause.

The real difficulty that prevented the Ukrainians of Western Ukraine
from more successful work was the language question and until that was
definitely settled, real progress was impossible. All the work at the
University of Lviv was carried on in the old traditional language.
None of the leaders of Western Ukraine had the vision or the energy of
Kotlyarevsky to break away from the old ecclesiastical tongue and write
in the language of the people. After the time of Joseph II, education
fell back into the hands of the clergy and they maintained that same
idea that had run through the history of the old Brotherhoods, the idea
that the people’s cause and the people’s faith could only be maintained
by emphasizing the use of the old ecclesiastical language. This never
became adapted to the civil needs of the population, high or low, and
in the early nineteenth century it had much to do with the delays in
the Ukrainian cause.

When the secular writings of Kotlyarevsky were first brought into
Western Ukraine, they aroused only a series of attacks on the part
of the conservative leaders who saw in them something secular and
therefore suspicious or heretical. They made their way very slowly even
among the literate classes who were bound up with the old ideas, and
were not welcomed as enthusiastically as they had been in Great Ukraine.

Indeed it was not until the end of the thirties, when Shevchenko was
already doing some of his best work, that any serious attempt was made
to introduce the speech of the people into literature. At that time
Markian Shashkevich, a young priest, wrote a series of poems in the
vernacular. They aroused a great deal of controversy and were refused
publication in Galicia but the author succeeded in having them appear
in Budapest. Still, such were the censorship laws of the time, that
while they were officially approved in Hungary, every copy that reached
Galicia was seized by the censor and police. Shashkevich died in
1843. His two closest friends, who survived him, ultimately left the
Ukrainian cause. Ivan Vahilevich after some years accepted the Polish
thesis as to the Ukrainians of Galicia, and Yakiv Holovatsky accepted a
position in the Russian Archaeological Service.

Already there had begun that linguistic feud which was to stifle the
life and thought of Western Ukraine for many years. The vast majority
of the intellectual leaders were Uniat priests and they, together
with some of the more conservative people, held out strongly for the
maintenance of the old artificial Church Slavonic language. Among the
more progressive elements there were the followers of Shashkevich, but
there were others who seriously wanted to adopt Russian as the form of
the vernacular to be followed, and these developed into the Moscophile
or Russophile party of later days. It must not be supposed however that
these people knew any Great Russian. Very few were ever able to read
any of the Russian classics which were already being written, but they
followed the most elaborate theories that almost any Ruthene would be
able to use Great Russian in one hour, if he really set his mind on
it. They refused to face any of the difficulties in their position and
simply idealized Russia because it was not Austria-Hungary, and because
it was a Slavonic country. Had they even attempted to learn Russian,
the situation would not have been so absurd.

This feeling spread quite widely in Western Ukraine and in Bukovina
and even more strongly among the Carpatho-Ukrainians, where it has
continued to the present time, especially among the more illiterate
portions of the population, and the Orthodox elements. It was a curious
mixture of a romantic idealization of Russia, a confusion of rus’-sky
and russky, and a desire to get away at all costs from the horrible and
unsatisfactory present.

As the period of 1848 drew nearer, with the growing unrest among
all the subject populations of Austria-Hungary, the situation again
changed. After 1846 it was already becoming evident that unrest among
the Poles was increasing. The government, especially Count Stadion,
the governor of Galicia, set itself to woo the Ukrainians and to
assure their loyalty. To this end there was allowed to be organized a
political society, the Holovna Rada, which aimed to be the intermediary
between the Ukrainians and the government. A newspaper the _Zora
Halitska_ (_the Galician Star_) was started, and a Congress
of Ruthenian Scholars demanded that the language should be completely
reorganized, with a uniform system of spelling for both Eastern and
Western Ukraine and that it should be freed from all Russian and
Polish influences. To further this goal, there was organized an
Educational Society, on the lines of the Czech Matica. Politically
the Congress demanded the separation of the Polish and Ruthenian
(Ukrainian) parts of Galicia, so that the Ukrainian people would be
directly under the control of the Austrian government.

The Austrian government did not look unkindly upon these demands and
for a while it seemed likely that it would take steps to carry them
out. Ukrainian lectures, this time in the vernacular, were introduced
again into the University of Lviv and Ukrainian schools were started
throughout the province. As a still further step, the government
decreed the liberation of the serfs, and thereby it struck a powerful
blow at the Polish landlords in a way well described a little later by
Ivan Franko in the _Master’s Jokes_. The same promises were made
in both Bukovina and Carpatho-Ukraine, where Adolph Dobryansky took
the lead during the revolt of Kossuth and the Hungarians. Finally he
joined the Russians when they invaded the country to help the Austrians
against the revolting Hungarians, and he carried with him many of the
intellectuals in the province.

As so much else in Austria during the year 1848, little positive was
gained, for when the unrest had subsided, the Austrians conveniently
forgot all the promises that they had made a few months earlier. In
1849, with the danger passed, they again turned the control of Galicia
over to the Poles and in both Carpatho-Ukraine and in Bukovina, where
the Russophile movement had grown strong, they turned against all of
its leading representatives. The Ukrainian newspapers were largely
abolished and the power passed back into the hands of those classes who
had little use for the vernacular language of the people.

The reaction after 1848 roughly coincided with the arrest of Shevchenko
and the crushing of the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius
in Russia. Yet the revival up to that period had shown striking
differences in Eastern and Western Ukraine. In Russia it had been a
lay revival, with special emphasis upon the development of a modern
literature in the face of a determined government, which insisted
upon the unity of both Russians and Little Russians. Any thought of
political action was in the beginning useless, and prison or Siberia
was the fate of every one who dared to advocate national recognition.
Under Austrian rule, the Uniat Church had taken the lead in the
movement. It had developed into an anti-Polish but government-favored
policy, which only too readily admitted the racial and cultural
differences between the Poles and the Ruthenians. Unfortunately, there
were no outstanding political leaders to profit by this opportunity.
Before the triumph of reaction the Ruthenians were most hampered by the
stubborn conservatism of their own people who refused to face the fact
that it was necessary to modernize the language.

Actually the two Ukraines had become widely separated areas with
differences in religion, in the goal of their efforts, and in their
weapons of struggle. There was little knowledge on either side of
what the other was doing and perhaps even less appreciation. Yet in
both regions, and in Bukovina and Carpatho-Ukraine, the Ukrainians
had awakened from their long slumber. Something was stirring, but the
trend to cooperation was still very weak and it was only the Congress
of Ruthenian Scholars that had even mentioned the possibility of joint
action, even in the cultural and linguistic spheres, so well had the
enforced separation done its work. Everything seemed lost as 1850
approached, but the new dullness was not of long duration.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

_PROGRESS IN RUSSIA_

The arrest and exile of the members of the Society of Saints Cyril and
Methodius brought to a halt the first phase of the Ukrainian revival
in the Russian Empire. It had been the work of a group of brilliant
idealists who had ignored many of the practical difficulties in the way
of their cause under the influence of the Romantic movement. There was
no romanticism and hardly any sense of realism in the response that was
delivered by the government of Nicholas I, who had been born before
Kotlyarevsky had commenced the revival with the _Eneida_, and who
could, from his childhood, obtain information from the men who had
actually suppressed the last vestiges of the Hetman state.

With the accession of his son, Alexander II, in 1855, conditions
changed. Alexander started his reign with at least an appearance of
liberality and issued a wide amnesty to persons who had incurred the
displeasure of his father. Most of the members of the Society were
released and allowed to resume work in St. Petersburg. Even Shevchenko,
who had been singled out for special treatment because of his attacks
on the Imperial Family, was released and he too joined his former
friends in the Russian capital. As a result, by the end of the fifties,
the former members of the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius had
come together again and were prepared to resume their work under
conditions as they then existed.

Kulish, one of the members of the group, started the work with the
appearance of the _Memoirs on South Rus’_ in 1856, but he was
refused permission to edit a journal in his own name because of his
former connection with the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius and
the exile which he had suffered in consequence. Yet it would be wrong
to assume that the new agitation was conducted only by the handful of
people who had formed the former group.

In Kiev and Chernihiv other Ukrainians, subject to the limitations that
were imposed upon them by the Imperial government, tried to work for
their people. Popular schools, usually held on Sunday, were opened to
teach the illiterate peasants their own language. New writers appeared,
such as Marko Vovchok, the pen-name of Maria Markovich, whose husband
had been one of the members of the Society. Provincial newspapers
appeared, societies were established for the purpose of glorifying
Ukrainian culture, thinly camouflaged under the name of South Russia,
and many other activities were started.

This was the period on the eve of the emancipation of the serfs and it
looked as if the new Emperor was going to open a new period in the life
of his country. The first years of the reign of Alexander II indeed
marked an era of good feeling, and there were wide hopes among almost
all classes of society that he would wipe out all the dark memories of
the strict reign of his father.

It was under this hope that in 1860 there was founded in St. Petersburg
the journal _Osnova_, (_the Basis_). Kulish was really responsible for
it, although the nominal editor was his brother-in-law, Bilozersky, one
of the lesser members of the Society. It called to its staff of writers
and assistants all of the leaders of the younger generation, and for
about a year there seemed to be a new spring in the Ukrainian movement
in Russia.

Then trouble began again. Kulish, Kostomarov, and Shevchenko, the
leaders of the older generation, still endeavored to continue in the
paths of the Society. In one of his articles Kostomarov referred to
the dreams of the Ukrainians for membership in a great Federation of
Slavs. This was, however, exceptional. The experiences of exile and
growing caution with increasing age forced the writers to follow a more
sober policy of emphasizing the necessity for educating the peasants
and for promoting a modest cultural program.

At the same time, Russian society itself had travelled far from the
optimistic hopes that had swayed it during the Romantic period. In a
sense, the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius had been a belated
child of that great idealistic movement that had swept over the Slavs
in the thirties and had been inspired and nourished by the Czech
writers of the period. It formed also a transition from the high hopes
of the Decembrists of 1825 to the sentimental dreams of the forties.
Now at the end of the fifties, the mood of the public had turned
again. The intellectual leadership of Russia was in the hands of the
intelligentsia, who were much interested in the social reforms that
were sought for and were little interested in the general fate of
Russia or of any particular part of it. It was the period of _Fathers
and Children_ of Turgenev, the volume that launched on Russian
society the character of Bazarov and the philosophy of nihilism, the
idea that nothing was good that could not be justified by natural
science and by reason.

As a result, the younger men of the _Osnova_ cared very little for
the more idealistic and sentimental sides of the journal. There was no
one to control the contents of the magazine and to win the respect of
the entire mass of people who were interested in the cause of Ukraine.
Shevchenko was dying and within a year the _Osnova_ came to an
untimely end. Yet it had done its work in transferring the cause of
Ukraine from the older to the younger generation, even though the two
differed in many important particulars.

For the moment the government, under the spell of the liberation of
the serfs, was disposed to tolerate all this activity. Kulish was
even encouraged to prepare a Ukrainian translation of the Imperial
decree providing for the liberation of the serfs. It seemed as if the
Ukrainians might be allowed to establish schools where the children
would be taught in their native tongue. The success of the cultural
program of the young Ukrainian leaders seemed assured. Of course in all
this there was no open political action, for it must not be forgotten
that at this period there was no opening for political life anywhere in
Russia. There was nothing that corresponded to political parties, to
elections or to free political discussion. There was even no organized
group among the Russians which aspired or voiced their aspirations for
such procedure, so that there was necessarily a vagueness about the
real goal of all this cultural activity that has been used at a later
time by the enemies of Ukraine to dub it mere literary nationalism.

Suddenly everything changed. In 1863 there came another revolt among
the Poles in Russia. It was a heroic but desperate venture which was
doomed in advance to failure. At the same time there were repeated the
sad words of Shevchenko, “Poland fell but it ruined us.” A very few
of the most Polonized Ukrainians joined in the movement. The Poles
themselves complained that they did not receive Ukrainian support, but
they succeeded in inspiring the fear in the Russian government that
the movement to restore a free Poland would automatically involve the
separation of all Ukraine from Russia. The leaders of the Empire now
reversed the policy that they had taken in 1847. At that time they
were afraid that the Ukrainians would long to go back to their days
of practical independence and would throw off the Russian yoke. Now
they became convinced that the Ukrainians would give up any hopes of
winning their own liberty and would be glad to be lost in a Polish
state.

As a result they decided to renew their efforts to wipe out the last
vestiges of Ukrainian separatism and to end the Ukrainian language.
Count Valuyev, the Minister of the Interior, declared that there never
was, is not and never will be a separate Little Russian language but
that it was only a peasant dialect of Great Russian. To that end he
gave an order that henceforth there should be allowed to be printed in
Ukrainian only those books which fell in the field of belles-lettres.
Publication of all books in the Little Russian language which had
religious content, textbooks and in general books intended for
elementary reading should be forbidden. Valuyev pretended that Great
Russian was intelligible to every literate person and that there was no
reason why the illiterate masses should not begin their education in
it. He also pretended to think that the writings of the early Ukrainian
authors were on the same par as peasant dialect stories in any language
and so he ostensibly left a loophole, but since these books could be
put in simple form for the masses, the censors interpreted his ideas to
hold that works in belles-lettres might be used as elementary readers
and therefore they could not be published. As a result there were some
years in which no work in Ukrainian appeared at all.

It would be interesting to know if this outburst of fear of separatism
was in any degree aided by the American Civil War, then at its height.
It was at this time that the Imperial Russian Government sent a fleet
to New York, perhaps to serve as a counterweight to any possible
interference by Western European powers on behalf of the South, and
such authors as Dostoyevsky were making allusions to the bloody
struggle that was going on in the New World. The establishment of the
United States had had a great effect on Russian educated thought a half
century earlier and perhaps some of the Russian officials now were
apprehensive of trouble.

At all events the sixties defined precisely the attitude that the
Russian government was to take toward Ukrainian cultural aspirations
for the rest of the nineteenth century, until the Revolution of 1905.
The various Ukrainian journals were suppressed. Some of the writers
were sent to Siberia for several years. Others, such as Kulish,
ultimately made their way to Galicia and lived in virtual exile, while
their books, published there in Lviv, were smuggled into Russia to keep
alive the spark of Ukrainian freedom.

It was difficult for the Imperial regime to maintain a consistent
policy for long. In a few years there came a slight relaxation of the
more stringent rulings of the censorship and some Ukrainian books
were published. The seventies were the great period of the Narodniki,
when the educated youth became convinced of their mission to go to
the people, disguise themselves as peasants and try to educate their
unfortunate brothers. Under such conditions it was only natural that
the same movement was attempted by some of the younger Ukrainians, that
there came similar publications intended for clandestine use by the
Ukrainians who sought thus to keep their adherents from being submerged
in the corresponding Russian movement. At the same time there can be
no doubt that many of the more zealous partisans of social reform,
especially in St. Petersburg, tended to join the Russian illegal
movements and for a time at least lost any special interest in the fate
of Ukraine in their zeal for humanity.

At the same time there was founded in 1872 the Southern Branch of the
Geographical Society and around this there gathered a large number of
Ukrainians, writing scientific articles in Russian but emphasizing
those aspects of South Russian life that were most alien to the general
Russian traditions. They helped to place the knowledge of Ukrainian
culture on a firmer basis, even though some of the more socially minded
sneered at their efforts as of no immediate importance.

These young men, largely at the University of Kiev, formed themselves
into a society, the Hromada, which worked vigorously along purely
scientific, ethnological and philological lines. They included Prof. V.
Antonovich and later Mykhaylo Drahomaniv, by far the most brilliant of
the scholars of this generation.

Yet even this scientific work, published for the most part in Russian,
still seemed suspicious to the Imperial government. Anything which
demanded any cultural rights for the Ukrainian people or mentioned
differences between the Great Russians and the Ukrainians or Little
Russians or South Russians seemed to be dangerous separatism. This was
the more striking because the scholars of Moscow and St. Petersburg
at the same time were emphasizing the great differences between the
cultures of Moscow and Kiev in the past, were emphasizing that the
culture of Kiev was often more Polish than Russian and were teaching
their own students, with governmental approval, that the Kievans
who came to Moscow in the seventeenth century were to all intents
and purposes foreigners who were ill received by the masses of the
Muscovites. At the same time the force of public opinion among the
radical intelligentsia was emphasizing the fact that Russian literature
belonged to the areas around the capitals. It is interesting that
except for Count Alexis K. Tolstoy, who advocated the point of view
that Kiev represented the European side of the Russians, there were
practically no novels written during this entire period depicting
the life of the people of Ukraine. After the death of Gogol in 1852,
it was possible to rummage into the highways and byways of Russian
literature without becoming aware that Kiev and its adjoining regions
even existed as part of the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century.
It is fair to say that never, even in the most stringent period of
Muscovite isolation, was Russian literature so confined to Great
Russian territory as in the Golden Age of the Russian novel and of the
intelligentsia, that is the period between 1840 and 1881.

In 1875, a former friend of Kostomarov, one M. Yuzefovich, reported
to authorities on the separatist tendencies of this work of the Kiev
Hromada. As a result a commission was appointed consisting of him, the
Ministers Timashev and Tolstoy and the Chief of the Gendarmes, Potapov,
to study the dangerous situation that prevailed in “Little Russia.” The
committee reported that, “the entire literary activity of the so-called
Ukrainophiles must be considered as an attempt on the national
unity and wholeness of Russia, only hidden by plausible forms.” As
a result, the Tsar issued an order on May 18, 1876, forbidding the
importation of books printed abroad in the Little Russian dialect and
also forbidding the printing and publishing in the Empire of original
works and translations in this dialect with the exception only of:
“(a) historical documents and monuments; (b) works of belles-lettres,
but with the proviso that with the printing of historical monuments
there must be kept the correct orthography of the originals; in works
of belles-lettres there must not be allowed any deviations from the
generally accepted Russian orthography and that the permission to print
works of belles-lettres should be given not otherwise than after the
examination of the manuscripts in the Central Administration of the
Press; and (c) forbidding various theatrical presentations and readings
in the Little Russian dialect and also the printing of such a text to
musical notes.”

It is well to note the emphasis laid upon spelling in this decree. In
the seventeenth century Great Russian had been taught from Ukrainian
Church Slavonic grammars, as that of Smotritsky, and the students had
been taught to make the necessary corrections in pronunciation. Once
practice had brought to these letters the Russian values during the
intervening centuries, the acceptance of the Russian pronunciation
made difficulties for the pronunciation of Ukrainian words. Kulish had
prepared a new alphabet which retained the Cyrillic script but which
was suited to Ukrainian and this was being generally accepted by the
modern Ukrainian authors. It was to resist this influence that the
government decided not only to bar the new literature, but even where
it allowed it, to bar the new alphabet and thus create another obstacle
to the spread of the “Little Russian dialect.”

The result might have been foreseen. Some of the more timorous souls
dropped away from literature and consented to write in Great Russian.
The others who were more determined, worked the harder to enter
Galicia and to profit by the relative freedom there. The decree merely
furnished more fuel to the fire and instead of ending the Ukrainian
movement it caused it to take even more extreme forms.

Yet some of the Russian authorities in Ukraine themselves felt that
some of these rules and still more their methods of application were
only adding to the difficulties of the situation. The prohibition
of printing songs with a Ukrainian text for example cut hard at the
rendering of songs which all agreed were of superior quality. Plays
produced in Russian in Ukrainian villages did not satisfy the popular
demand and the habit grew of allowing Ukrainian plays to be produced,
provided that the company would also produce at the same time some
Russian piece.

In 1882 a group of Ukrainians secured permission to print in Kiev
an archaeological journal, the _Antiquities of Kiev_, and this
was granted in a temporary relaxation of the censorship. Later it
became possible to include in it a few articles written in Ukrainian,
especially when printed in the Russian manner. All such devices were
unsatisfactory but the reign of Alexander III was a definite period
of reaction in all fields and it was not until the time of Nicholas II
that there came any marked lightening of the censorship.

The censorship in Kiev and the other cities of Ukraine was vastly
stricter than it was in St. Petersburg. Hence during these years the
centre of such publishing as was allowed was the very capital from
which the orders were coming to prevent the development of a Ukrainian
literature. It was often possible there to issue relatively cheap
editions which could be transported to the south and it was there that
the new writers like Lesya Ukrainka, Hrinchenko and Kotsyubinsky saw
their works in print. For books which could not come out there, there
was always Galicia.

In view of the conditions of Russian life, the Ukrainian revival in
Russia had to take the exclusive form of cultural work and scientific
study. There were many secret and underground groups as there were
among the Russians. In many cases the two groups fused for actual
revolutionary activity and Ukrainians were often involved in the plots
of the various Russian movements. This was a handicap for the work
of the Ukrainian leaders and it prevented a full appreciation of the
situation by the often still illiterate peasants, who on the whole took
relatively little part in the movements that were going on throughout
the entire country.

Insofar as the masses of the peasants were affected by the growing
unrest, it was rather their desire for land and for better living
conditions that moved them. They continued to speak their native
language in their homes and villages but far too many of them had not
been interested in the general development of the country. They thought
in terms of their own communities. Many of them emigrated to Siberia
and to Russian Central Asia. Others made their way abroad.

At the same time there was a renewed period of Russification. This
came from two distinct sources. As in the past, a considerable number
of the Ukrainians who found it possible to secure an education in
Russian schools tended to absorb the Russian point of view and to
separate themselves from their original background. They accepted the
theories which the government gave them, that Ukrainian was somehow a
peasant dialect and that it was more fashionable and more modern to
try to speak the ruling tongue. This was the same argument from which
Ukraine had suffered for centuries and which had been aided immensely
by the unfortunate decision in the sixteenth century to lay the main
emphasis upon Church Slavonic as the bulwark of Orthodoxy.

A second source developed however in the latter part of the nineteenth
century, when there began an extensive movement of Great Russians into
the growing cities of Ukraine. More and more Russians came to live in
Kiev and Kharkiv and the other important sites which grew up with the
building of railroads and the increase of industrial activity in the
area. Russians began to settle in the Donets basin, where there were
extensive coal deposits, and in the neighborhood of the iron mines not
too far distant. Others moved into Odesa which became the chief seaport
on the Black Sea.

All of these factors proved a severe handicap to the development of the
Ukrainian revival, but they did not hinder it and at the end of the
nineteenth century, it was already abundantly clear that there was a
large and steadily growing population which was proud of its language
and of its traditions. It was evident that Ukrainian culture had again
turned the corner and that it was a force to be reckoned with, despite
the ideas of both the Imperial government and its enemies, the Russian
radicals.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

_DEVELOPMENTS IN WESTERN UKRAINE_

After the failure of the movement of 1848, there ensued a period of
reaction and of torpor in Galicia and the other Ukrainian lands in the
Hapsburg Empire. For a brief moment it had seemed as if there might be
a general solution of the various questions involved but outside of the
formal liberation of the serfs nothing had been accomplished.

At the same time there came a period of crisis throughout the Empire.
With Russian help the revolt of Hungary had been suppressed, and for a
decade the Emperor Francis Joseph II was able to rule as an absolute
monarch and defy the wishes of all portions of the Empire. Yet even
this could not last, for at the end of that decade the Austrian armies
were badly defeated by the Italians at the battle of Solferino and
worse was to come with the battle of Sadowa in 1867, when the armies
were overwhelmed by the Prussians. The outcome of these defeats was
the reorganization of Austria-Hungary as the Dual Monarchy, which it
remained until 1918, and the granting to the Poles of the control of
Galicia.

These developments were not without significance for the fate of
the Ukrainians, whether they lived in Galicia, in Bukovina or in
Carpatho-Ukraine. The language question was still being bitterly
debated but at this moment there were two leading parties.

The conservatives, and they included a large part of the Uniat clergy
and the richer and more prosperous sections of the laity, held out
strongly for the old Church Slavonic. They still maintained the theory
that there was almost something sacred in the maintenance of the
traditional language and they felt vaguely that there was something
heretical and impious about the attempts to read and write in the
language of the ordinary peasants.

On the other hand the influence of those who desired to approximate the
language to Russian increased. The results of the intervention of the
Russian army in its fight against the Hungarians had had a great effect
upon the population of Carpatho-Ukraine in particular. Some of their
ablest leaders, such as Dobryansky and Dukhnovich, had definitely taken
sides with the invaders and had retired with them to Russia on their
withdrawal. From this time on a large part of the people of this area
remained devoted to the Russian cause and continued to use a jargon
which they confidently believed to be Russian. The same was true to a
lesser extent in Bukovina, and the Moscophile party in Galicia was very
important.

For a while it even seemed that the conservatives would make common
cause with them. They gradually lost hope in Austria. They realized
that the defeats of the Austrian army were jeopardizing the security
of the Empire, and the Austrian recognition of the Polish interests in
Galicia cut them to the quick. Under such circumstances they idealized
the Empire of Nicholas I and paid little attention to the results of
the Crimean War. They saw only that for a moment the Russian army had
offered a brighter prospect to the Ukrainians of Eastern Ukraine.
They also completely ignored the fact that even under the conditions
prevailing in Galicia they were still able to have certain political
rights which were completely denied in Eastern Ukraine.

On the other hand, the younger generation passed under the influence of
Shevchenko. They read the writings of Marko Vovchok and they realized
the weaknesses of Imperial Russia. They had learned something of
western ideals from study in Vienna and elsewhere and they felt more
strongly the advantages of the more democratic tendencies which they
learned from the West and from the modern literature of Eastern Ukraine.

Thus the stage was set for a bitter struggle in Western Ukraine as
a whole and it lasted for a couple of decades before there came the
definite triumph of those forces which sought to develop the national
tradition. Some even went so far as to argue for the creation of a
definite Ruthenia which would include all of the Ukrainians in the
Hapsburg dominions and sought to differentiate themselves both from the
Poles, the Russians and the Eastern Ukrainians. They glorified as well
as they could the government of Austria and promised absolute loyalty
to the Hapsburg rulers.

It soon became evident, however, that in its simplest and baldest form
this position too was impossible. The differences between them and
their neighbors proved to be greater than those between them and the
Eastern Ukraine and it was not long before this idea went the way of so
many other opinions in Ukrainian history.

The entire controversy was based upon a curious misconception. The
Moscophiles knew little more of Russia than that the Russian armies had
successfully invaded Hungary in 1849. They knew very little about the
difficulties of the Ukrainians resident in Russia and they knew little
more about the development of life in Eastern Ukraine. At the very
moment when they were dreaming of how much better off the Ukrainians
were in Russia, the Ukrainians of the east were looking hopefully to
Galicia for a freedom which they did not have at home.

It was at this moment that the first copies of the _Osnova_ began
to arrive in Lviv and the other cities. Then came in quick succession
the news that this journal had ceased to exist and that a ban had been
imposed on all Ukrainian writings in Russia. This startling news was
followed by the appearance in Lviv of Kulish and of other Ukrainian
authors who brought eye-witness accounts of the forcible suppression
of Ukrainian culture in the land where the modern revival had started.

The arrival of these refugees from their envied homeland started to
turn the scale in the larger part of Galicia. It made it clear to the
younger and more alert people that they had been mistaken and that
much of the boasted well-being of the Ukrainians of Russia was only a
mirage. They realized the advantages of their own position and they set
to work to use the native language--sometimes in a Galician dialect
which differed somewhat from that employed by Shevchenko and the
writers from the left bank of the Dnyeper.

For the next decades as we have seen, the bulk of Ukrainian literature
written in Eastern Ukraine was published in Lviv. The young men came to
know the refugees and emigrants and slowly but surely the century-old
barrier between the provinces began to break down. For the first time
in centuries there came a real transfer of ideas between Eastern and
Western Ukraine.

This movement was greatly assisted by the work of Mykhaylo Drahomaniv,
one of the most brilliant of the publicists, who had profited by the
relaxation of censorship in Russia during the early seventies. As
a professor of the University of Kiev, he came in contact with the
various socialist parties of Russia and then in 1876, after the renewed
ban on Ukrainian work, he emigrated to Switzerland where he could work
more freely. Later he became a professor at the University of Sofia in
Bulgaria, where he died in 1895. Drahomaniv continued the ideas of the
Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius in his belief that there should
be developed a federal union of all the Slavs, but he differed from the
earlier group in emphasizing the necessity of adapting Slavonic life
to the progressive European thought of the seventies and eighties and
in emphasizing freedom of the individual, socialism, and rationalism.
He realized also that in such a case it would be necessary to bring
together all the natives of Ukraine and his active work was devoted
to bringing this about. Thus he corresponded freely with friends in
Galicia as well as in Eastern Ukraine. He collected money to aid in
the publication of journals at Lviv which would be favorable to his
ideas and at the same time he worked to establish contacts between
the thought of Ukraine and that of the western world. His influence,
exerted upon both Moscophiles and nationalists, did much to weaken the
former, for he was able to show that they knew little and cared less
about the accomplishments of Russian literature and that it was idle
for them to think of inclusion in a Great Russia on the basis of their
chimerical dreams.

His ideas were naturally opposed by the more conservative classes, who
were still trying to support the artificial Church Slavonic language,
and they repelled many because of their social hypotheses. Even the
young Franko was arrested because it was supposed that he was in
contact with Drahomaniv. Nevertheless, his position won adherents
constantly and proved a strong ferment in the hitherto sterile
controversies that had been going on.

Drahomaniv laid great stress upon the Ukrainian development in Galicia,
for he realized that there was here the only possibility of obtaining
some experience in political organization. Bad as the government of
Austria-Hungary was, there were possibilities for the Ukrainians
to make their influence felt along political lines. There was no
possibility of this in Russia, where party activity was still entirely
forbidden.

Under the various compromises that had been made in Austria-Hungary
after the establishment of the Dual Monarchy, Galicia had passed
entirely into the hands of the Poles, who furnished a large part of the
higher officials of the province under Austrian rule. However, their
power was not absolute, for it was the consistent policy of Vienna not
to solve any of the main questions that confronted the Empire but to
endeavor to maintain a balance between the various peoples in a given
province, playing off one against another and thus preventing any
definite lineup against the central authority.

This had been the method adopted in 1848, when it looked at one time as
if Austria would concede many rights to the Ukrainians in the province
and even allow the establishment of a Ukrainian university at Lviv. It
was never done, for the swing of reaction had blocked all moves in this
direction. Nevertheless, much could be accomplished, if the Ukrainian
population were really awakened to demand their rights and throughout
the eighties a larger and larger number of persons appeared qualified
to take the post of leadership in the undertaking.

In many ways Ivan Franko played the leading role in this. As a
journalist, novelist and poet, he worked steadily and effectively to
arouse the people. He pointed out the economic needs of the province,
he pictured the social defects of society, he translated into Ukrainian
many of the masterpieces of European literature, and he worked
energetically on all the progressive papers of the area.

As early as 1868 there had been established in Lviv a cultural
society, the Prosvita, and a little later in 1873 there was set up
the Shevchenko Society, with the idea of publishing serious books in
Ukrainian. Progress was very slow and it was more than ten years before
enough funds were available to undertake any important work. Then it
commenced to prosper. It was renamed the Scientific Society in 1892,
and in 1898 it was again reorganized as the Shevchenko Scientific
Society. It attracted the attention of scholars everywhere for the
excellence of its publications. This and many other activities made
Galicia the real centre for Ukrainian work and it gave a vitality
to the Ukrainian cause which was impossible in Russia, where the
censorship tried to block everything that was done.

Early in the nineties there was made an attempt to unite the Poles
and Ukrainians for political purposes but it came to nothing. By the
beginning of the twentieth century, there had come a definite split
between the two nationalities, and Polish and Ukrainian parties were
set up.

In one sense this separation had a tendency to hold back the securing
of high posts by the Ukrainians, for the Poles, with Viennese backing,
still retained their control of the province. On the other hand it
trained the Ukrainians to act together and to take a more active
interest in politics. It forced them to engage in many educational
activities and, as they had done so often in Austria, to lay the
foundation for their own school system, to be supported by their own
funds. It encouraged them to engage in various financial enterprises
on their own behalf, and although their economic situation remained
unfavorable, demands were made for the establishment of a Ukrainian
University in Lviv. Even more ambitious plans were seriously presented
to the Viennese government of definitely separating Western Galicia,
where the Poles were in a majority, from Eastern Galicia, where the
Ukrainians were the dominant population. Such an act might have been
of great importance for the future of Austria-Hungary, had the Emperor
ever been willing to attempt a definite settlement of any of the
problems before him.

Instead of that, the movement only sharpened the antagonism between
the two groups, for it was becoming evident that the Poles were
losing their absolute control of the province. In each election to
the Galician Diet the Ukrainians won for themselves a larger number
of seats and their leaders were slowly becoming trained in the
intricacies of Austrian politics. They were gradually shaking off
their old hesitation and their own acquiescence in the superiority of
Polish ability and Polish culture. The results were often increased
disturbances and led even to the assassination of the Polish governor
of the province, Count Andrew Potocki, in 1902. Every step of progress
was bitterly contested by the Poles, who persisted in their traditional
policy and could not understand why any concessions should be made to
those whom they regarded as their natural inferiors.

In this progress the Uniat Church played a great part. The technical
head of the Church, Archbishop Count Andrey Sheptitsky, a member of a
noble family which had furnished several archbishops to the Uniats, put
himself at the head of all the various charitable and social movements.
A distinguished figure and a devout and able leader, he was able to
accomplish much for his people. He reorganized the spiritual life of
the Church so as to bring it nearer to modern conditions and there was
hardly a single feature of life in Galicia which promised well for the
people in which he did not take a personal interest.

Thus by the early years of the twentieth century and the approach
of the First World War, conditions in Galicia had been vitally
changed. The Ukrainian masses were no longer satisfied with the mere
appellation of Ruthenian. The province which had been the most lost
to the Ukrainian cause had been made the most advanced and the most
conscious of its inheritance. The forces that had been striving for the
adaptation of Ukrainian culture and language to that of Russia had been
definitely checked and the influence that was radiating from Lviv was
in its turn impinging upon Kiev and the Ukraine that was still under
Russia. At the same time, conditions were still such that the fight
in the province between the Ukrainian and Polish populations remained
undecided, but a few more years of peace would undoubtedly strengthen
the Ukrainian position still further.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

_BETWEEN REVOLUTION AND WAR_

The revolution of 1905 made many changes in the life of Russia and
these affected very materially the situation in Ukraine. For the period
of a few weeks it appeared as if the entire country were reverting
to a state of chaos. There seemed little positive agreement upon any
definite course of action. Change was in the air. Each nationality in
the Russian Empire, each social class propounded its own program and
there was no central authority to decide between them. The Imperial
power seemed weakened after the disastrous Russo-Japanese War but the
various malcontents were not prepared to harmonize their differences
into a working whole. As a result the forces of the central government
were ultimately able to resume control and gradually annul many of
the promises that they had been forced to make at the height of the
movement.

The agrarian disturbances in Eastern Ukraine were among the most bitter
in the entire Empire but it was relatively easy to consider these as
more agrarian than national, the more so as up to this time Russian
authorities had refused to consider Ukraine as a separate entity within
the Empire. That had been destroyed by Catherine and even though the
conditions of landholding were far more favorable to the individual
than elsewhere in Russia, it would have been exceedingly tactless
for the autocracy and the liberals alike to stress any symptoms of
dissatisfaction that came from a separatist source. For good or ill
it was necessary for Russia, the Russia of the right or the left, to
maintain the theory that Ukraine and Russia were one and inseparable
or a fire would be kindled that would be difficult to extinguish.

The prohibition of the publication of books in the Ukrainian language
for forty years now bore very definite fruits. The Ukrainian leaders
were not in a position to distribute revolutionary material in their
native language as well as were the Poles, the Baltic peoples and the
groups of the Caucasus. The peasants (and they were the chief force in
the disturbances in the country) were concerned about the land question
and undoubtedly paid more attention to the economic situation than the
national and cultural problems.

On the other hand, in the various cities of Ukraine where there had
been an influx of Great Russians, largely workmen, the appeals of the
radical parties that also denied the existence of Ukraine, led the
strikers in the various factories to emphasize the demands that they
made on the owners and on the government. Here again it was highly
expedient to play down the feelings of any self-conscious Ukrainian
groups and to label them as dreamers and as fantastic individuals who
were romantically trying to recall a long vanished past.

It is significant in view of the frequent statements that only a
handful of scholars and literary men were in favor of Ukrainian
separate development that the new laws introduced by the government
repealed all the prohibitions that had been made in 1863 and 1876.
The censorship was lifted and without delay there began a flood of
Ukrainian newspapers and journals in all the cities of Ukraine. Several
were started in Kiev, in Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Poltava. In places
where for over a century there had not been a word of Ukrainian spoken
(according to the information of the government), now newspapers sprang
up almost like magic to supply a need that was solemnly declared to be
non-existent.

More than that, the Imperial Academy of Sciences re-studied the
question of Little Russian and officially decided that Ukrainian formed
an independent East Slavonic language and was not a mere dialect of
Great Russian. This fact alone was a complete reversal of the position
taken for a century by scholars, journalists, radicals and critics. It
justified the position of the Ukrainian national party in Galicia and
it also warmly supported the attitude of the Great Russian scholars
who had so persistently and inconsistently emphasized the differences
between the Muscovites and the people of Kiev in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. It could not of course restore to the Ukrainian
cause those millions of people who during the past centuries had become
Russianized in order to acquire the civilized and highly cultured
society which they had lost hope of finding at home.

Thus, following the Revolution of 1905, Ukrainian was restored, on
paper at least, to its rightful place as a language in the Russian
Empire. Yet for post-revolutionary Russia it was a dangerous thing.
In the era of repression that followed the failure of the Revolution,
attempts were made to censor the publications in Ukrainian more
severely than those of other nationalities. It was also forbidden to
open schools in Ukraine with instruction in Ukrainian. Many devices
were tried to stem the spread of Ukrainian knowledge. Abroad the
Russian government still continued to deny the existence of a separate
Ukrainian people, and here it won its greatest success.

There was a Ukrainian bloc forming in the First Duma which met in 1906
but this was dissolved before it really could get to work. In the later
Dumas the elections were better controlled and the Ukrainians were
compelled to realize that they had a long way to go before they could
secure even equal treatment with the other nationalities in the Russian
Empire. It was too important for Russia at all costs to maintain
the unity with the Ukraine, to control its Black Sea coast and its
rich resources to allow too close examination of the forces that were
spreading in the area.

Yet even those reliefs that were offered to the people showed again
the vitality of the movement. In 1907 there was established at Kiev a
Shevchenko Scientific Society which worked very closely with the older
foundation in Lviv. _The Literary and Scientific Review_, of which
Franko was one of the chief editors and contributors, started a second
edition in Kiev. In every way it was becoming uncomfortably clear to
both Russia and Austria-Hungary that the two Ukraines were coming to
consider themselves one, but separated by a foreign border, exactly as
was the case in Russian and Austrian Poland.

As a symbol of this new unification, Prof. Michael Hrushevsky moved
from Lviv to Kiev. Prof Hrushevsky had made himself the outstanding
authority on Ukrainian history. He was born in Russian Ukraine in 1866
and had been educated in the University of Kiev. Then in 1890, when
there was established at the University of Lviv a chair of Ukrainian
history, he had been offered it and there he remained for nearly twenty
years, producing the early volumes of his massive history of his native
country. He examined the early records and did more than any one
else to disprove the traditional point of view that after the Tatar
invasions Ukraine had become merely an empty land and that the Kozaks
and the later inhabitants were really a group of immigrants from either
Poland or Moscow.

His arrival in Kiev and his active part in the Shevchenko Scientific
Society there was perhaps the outstanding event during this period. It
meant that in Kiev and in Russian Ukraine, where the revival of the
nation had actually started, there would now be established the real
centre of Ukrainian historical scholarship. It meant that the bonds
between Kiev and Lviv would be tightened and that it might not be
impossible for the two sections to work together, in case there should
be a conflagration in Europe which would involve the two Empires.

This could not fail to have an effect upon European politics and
indirectly upon the future fate of the Ukrainians and their position in
world opinion. Russia as the self-appointed protector of all the Slavs
could not fail to look with dissatisfaction at the loss of influence
of her friends in Austria-Hungary. As the self-appointed model of
Orthodoxy, she could not but be displeased at the success of the Uniats
and at their revival in Eastern Galicia. During the years before
1914, she made constant efforts to turn back the Greek Catholics to
Orthodoxy, especially in Carpatho-Ukraine under Hungary. She exploited
in every way possible any unrest or discontent in the mountain valleys
and hoped in the coming struggle to be able to profit by these newfound
friends. At the same time her own position and her own attitude
insisted upon thinking of all Ukrainians as merely a form of Russians
and she could not visualize any policy other than that of complete
Russification.

On the other hand, Austria-Hungary and later Germany could not be blind
to the potentialities of the Ukrainian movement. They had first used
it as a tool against the dangers offered by Polish irredentism. Now as
they saw it growing in Russia, they began to wonder if it might not
be used also as a means of disintegrating that country also. Some of
their leaders began to scheme how this could best be done and they were
willing to make minor concessions in Eastern Galicia which might win
over the loyalty of the Ukrainians and make them more willing to be
loyal to the Dual Monarchy.

In this position there ensued a curious tug of war. With the two
Empires still nominally at peace, each was doing its best to sponsor
a movement that would redound to its advantage in case of war.
Neither one was willing to take any action or embark upon a course
that would benefit the Ukrainians themselves. Austria would not
establish a separate Ukrainian province which could appear openly in
the Parliament and speak freely for the Ukrainian citizens of the Dual
Monarchy. Russia would not grant such privileges to the Ukrainians in
her own land as would prevent them from looking across the border.
She regularly repressed Ukrainian meetings held on the anniversary of
the death of Shevchenko, even in St. Petersburg, and continued the
monotonous list of arrests and annoying restrictions on all Ukrainian
activities. Even such a man as Milyukov could not fail to see that
the policy of the government was working to strengthen a movement
for Ukrainian separatism, at the very moment when it was trying to
Russianize the Ukrainians of Galicia, Carpatho-Ukraine and Bukovina.

In this crisis the Ukrainians showed their lack of political maturity.
They had been so absorbed in the struggle to lay the foundations for
their survival and revival that they had had no opportunity to prepare
their position before the outside world. Their great writers and
thinkers were less well known abroad than were the leading figures
of any other great people. They did not have the control of a single
university which would make them known to the world of scholars. They
did not have any outstanding figures, known abroad, to plead their
cause before neutral opinion and they did not realize that their claims
would be evaluated in foreign lands in accordance with the national
prejudices of those countries toward the two great Empires which were
quarreling over their possession.

Hence it was that when the crisis actually broke in 1914, Ukraine was a
land of mystery to all except a very few scholars. There was no voice
raised in her behalf as that of Paderewski for Poland or Masaryk for
Czechoslovakia. Lying within the initial theatre of war and destined
to be ravaged by armies on both sides, the Ukrainians had little to
do except to trust to the justice of their cause and hope that somehow
and in some way they would attract the attention to their problem that
it deserved. For years the neighboring peoples had been waiting for the
day to come. They had made preparations, often more as an intangible
dream than as stark reality but they could, in the crucial moment, put
these preparations into action. They could rely upon distinguished
sons to win them a hearing everywhere. Rich emigrants could come to
their assistance. The Ukrainians had nothing of this. Franko might
look forward to the independence of his people with the downfall of
the Empires, but even he could hardly think of the way to put his
country’s cause before the world. Ukraine entered the First World War
as the forgotten nation, but the century and a quarter since the new
revival started had changed it from an inchoate mass of serfs, as it
was at the time of the extinction of the old traditions, into a fairly
well concentrated group of people with a strong core and a strong
self-consciousness that could not be ignored and that would not perish
without striking a blow in its own behalf.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

_THE FIRST WORLD WAR_

On August 1, 1914, Germany declared war upon Russia and the First World
War was on. The tensions and controversies that had been growing in
bitterness beneath the surface all through the nineteenth century now
exploded with unparalleled force. The future was to be anybody’s guess,
for the increasing magnitude of the struggle soon overflowed the bounds
that had been set for it in the thoughts of the leaders of the various
countries, and the most fantastic dreamer could not have imagined the
strange changes that were to take place in an area that seemed to the
outside world fixed and determined for centuries.

In such a turmoil the Ukrainian problem was involved from almost
the first day of the struggle. In Austria, without any delay, the
government arrested and interned all the leaders of the Ukrainians who
had been in any way sympathetic to Russia. Their institutions were
closed, and their publications stopped, for Austria-Hungary had no
intention of allowing them to be the focus of a movement on behalf of
the enemy.

At the same time, in Russian Ukraine, the Russian government for its
part at once suppressed all Ukrainian activity. The newspapers that
had been published in Kiev and elsewhere with governmental permission
were closed and the patriotic enthusiasm played into the hands of the
Russian nationalists, who had long been displeased at the Ukrainian
development. From 1914 until the Revolution there was steadily
increasing agitation to eliminate everything Ukrainian from the Russian
Empire, and leaders of all parties vied with one another in discovering
new methods of upsetting and preventing Ukrainian work. The ostensible
excuse was that the Ukrainians were really Russians and that it was
German influence and money that was developing the Ukrainian culture,
language and national consciousness. It would take too long to recite
all the devices that were invoked. Authors desiring to publish in
Ukrainian were ordered to give three copies of their manuscripts to the
censors in advance of publication. Then these were examined and held
up, changes were made, and the publication was prevented. The leaders
of the Ukrainians were arrested and moved further into the country so
that they could have no possibility of working and of corresponding
with the enemy. Requirements were made that all Ukrainian articles
should be published only in the Russian orthography. Ukrainian work
in Eastern Ukraine was brought to as complete a halt as the Tsarist
government could accomplish.

At the same time the Russian armies invaded Eastern Galicia and
on September 3, 1914, within a month after the beginning of the
war, they occupied the city of Lviv. It was now the turn of the
pro-Russian faction. The Russian Governor General of Galicia, Count
A. G. Bobrinsky, intended to wipe out the entire Ukrainian movement
and willingly listened to the denunciations of the Ukrainians offered
by the pro-Russian party. Ukrainian libraries and reading rooms were
closed, Ukrainian co-operatives and other institutions were brought
to an end, and everything was done to prove to the people that they
were Russians and nothing else. Even Prof. Hrushevsky, who was seized
at his summer home in the Carpathians, was sent to Nizhni Novgorod
on the Volga under arrest, although the Russian Academy of Sciences
later arranged to have him moved to Moscow where he could work in the
libraries. He was followed into arrest and exile by thousands of the
intellectual leaders of Galicia.

It was not only the secular institutions that were affected. The
Russians decided to wipe out the Uniat Church. Many of the priests had
fled before the approach of the Russian armies. Those who remained were
forced to return to Orthodoxy, exactly as Russia had done in all of the
territory which she had taken from Poland during the last century and
a half. As a result, relations between the peasantry and the Russians
became even worse than between the Russians and the Poles in the
western part of Galicia. Archbishop Sheptitsky, the head of the Uniat
Church, was arrested and sent into Russia and was not allowed to return
to his home for years.

Finally the Tsar himself visited Lviv and other centres in the
spring of 1915, and in well chosen words declared that Galicia was
now an inherent part of Russia and would remain so. The Russians
spread over the entire province up to Krakow. They occupied much
of Carpatho-Ukraine and threatened to go through the passes of the
mountains into the plains of Hungary.

This was the high watermark of the Russian advance into
Austria-Hungary. At the end of April, 1915, the German armies of
General Mackensen broke the Russian line on the Dunajec River and
compelled a general retreat. This meant more misery for the inhabitants
of Western Ukraine. Naturally the pro-Russian Ukrainians hurried to get
out of the province. In addition to them, the Russian armies gathered
up as much of the population as they could and started them, willingly
or unwillingly, with their families and their cattle on a long march
into Russia to a place of safety. Thousands of displaced Ukrainians
were thus gathered in prisons and concentration camps in and around
Kiev and countless thousands were moved by train to Kazan, to Perm and
on into Siberia. The enforced migration was the largest of its kind
in Ukrainian history, even exceeding the depopulation of the country
during the Ruin of the seventeenth century.

When they reached their destination, the Russians continued to maintain
the theory that they were only Russian and hence it was unnecessary
for them to found Ukrainian schools for the children, to establish
Ukrainian relief committees or to maintain any organizations in their
new homes. They were given none of the privileges that were extended to
the Poles or other nationalities uprooted in the same eastward retreat
of the Russian armies, and it was intended that they should vanish
without a trace into the Russian mass.

A later offensive by General Brusilov in 1916 recovered for Russia a
small area in the southeast, but of course the advance of the armies
on Ukrainian territory only revived the oppression of the population.
Until the Russian revolution, there could be no talk of any Ukrainian
movement in the Russian Empire. Milyukov, it is true, once brought to
the attention of the Duma the sad condition of these Western Ukrainians
in Russian exile and prison camps but he aroused no enthusiasm, for
liberals and reactionaries alike insisted that the Ukrainians were
Russians and that there was no Ukrainian question at all.

On the other hand the return of the Austro-German armies to Galicia
after the Russian retreat brought back the status quo in the province.
The Ukrainian institutions were reopened, where they had not been
completely destroyed by the Russian occupation. At the outbreak of the
war there had been established at Vienna a Society for the Liberation
of Ukraine by various refugees from Russia. This endeavored to keep
the Ukrainian question before the eyes of the Austrian authorities in
the hope that the Central Powers would create an independent Ukraine
out of any territory that might be detached from Russia. This was
broadened in 1915 to form a General Ukrainian Council to consider all
phases of the Ukrainian question and to oppose the activities of the
Poles of Galicia. Like the Polish Legions of Pilsudski, the Ukrainians
established the Sichovi Striltsi (The Riflemen of the Sich) and
organized two regiments, although the development of the Austro-German
policy prevented these from playing any important part in the war.

On November 23, 1916, the Emperor Francis Joseph gave orders to prepare
a decree establishing Galicia as a Polish state, with almost as much
independence as had been planned for the Kingdom of Poland, to be set
up by the Germans out of Polish territory taken from Russia. This
was a severe blow to the Ukrainians, for they had hoped that Galicia
would be divided and that the Ukrainian section would receive special
recognition. It was not to be, but the Ukrainians protested sharply
against the idea of adding the province of Kholm to the Polish lands.
Yet they became bitterly disillusioned, for they realized that even
during the strain of a War which was placing greater and greater
burdens upon all the citizens of the Dual Monarchy, the blighting hand
of the Hapsburgs was still working against them and preventing, as in
the past, any final settlement of the position of the province. The
activity of the Polish National Committee in the lands of the Entente
seemed to the authorities a greater menace than the domestic feeling
of the Ukrainian peasants and as these had been unable to get an
effective hearing throughout the world and were the object of a vicious
propaganda by Russia, it hardly seemed worthwhile to the government at
Vienna to give much thought to the already devastated province.

Thus the weary years of war dragged along and still nothing was done
to improve the condition of the Ukrainians or to satisfy in any degree
their legitimate aspirations. They were still as they had been in the
past--the forgotten members of the Hapsburg dominions. They could pay
taxes and serve in the army, but whenever there came any talk of a
readjustment of conditions in the Empire, they were overlooked. They
had won what they had through profiting by the fears of the government
as to Polish intentions but they were discarded as soon as a working
agreement was made between the government and the Polish aristocrats.

The Hapsburg Empire was in this pursuing its usual policy, for it was
a cardinal principle of the government of Francis Joseph to support
in every way the noble classes against all other elements of the
population, up to the point where they menaced the integrity of the
Empire and the delicate balance that had existed since the settlement
of 1867. The loss of the old Ukrainian aristocracy which had been
Polonized centuries earlier was now keenly felt by the people, for they
lacked those aristocratic spokesmen who could penetrate to the inner
circles of the Viennese court and plead their cause in a way that would
appeal to the Emperor. When Francis Joseph died and was succeeded by
his nephew, the Emperor Karl, at the end of 1916, it was too late to do
more than outline a new policy, but already the Empire was obviously
collapsing and the Ukrainians were almost openly looking forward to the
creation of their own independent state.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

_UKRAINIAN INDEPENDENCE_

In February 1917 the position of the Russian government became more
difficult. Rasputin had been murdered and an atmosphere of gloomy
foreboding spread over the entire nation. Unrest began to spread
and before any one realized what was happening, there broke out in
Petrograd the revolution.

This opened, by a strange coincidence, on February 25/March 10, the
anniversary of the death of Shevchenko. Under the enthusiasm of the
revolution, the ceremonies commemorating the great poet, which had
always been an occasion for tsarist repressive measures, were held on
a larger scale than ever before. On the next day, a regiment composed
largely of Ukrainian soldiers was one of the first to go over to the
Revolution as a mass and soon the glad tidings of the abdication of
the Tsar swept over the country. Of course it was received joyfully in
Ukraine but there was at first no clear idea of what this downfall of
the Romanovs was actually going to mean in practice.

The early days of the Revolution were a period of steadily increasing
confusion. Once the strong hand of the old regime had been removed,
there came the task of putting something in its place. A Provisional
Government was set up, first under the premiership of Prince Lvov and
later of Alexander Kerensky. It was the fond dream of these men and
their associates that they could maintain the unity of the country and
they even hoped to continue the war more effectively now that the dark
forces which were supposed to be working with the Germans had been
removed.

This was not the dream of large sections of the population. The
peasants saw in the Revolution the opportunity to divide the land and
to improve their material well-being. This had been their dream in 1905
and now it seemed as if they would be able to carry it out. But there
were in Russia also large numbers of minority races and these thought
of securing their practical independence or at least of bettering
their condition through some sort of a federalized Russia. Under the
changed conditions it seemed very possible that all those schemes of
federalization which had been put forward by the Society of Saints
Cyril and Methodius and later by such publicists as Drahomaniv might
have some chance of success.

As soon as the Revolution broke out, Prof. Hrushevsky left Moscow
and made his way to Kiev. There he got in touch with the Ukrainian
Progressive Organization, which had been a secret organization in
Russia working for Ukrainian independence, and with the various
socialist parties in Ukraine. There was set up without delay the
Ukrainian Central Council (Ukrainska Tsentralna Rada) which aimed
to crystalize Ukrainian interests and take over the necessary
administrative functions in Ukraine and Professor Hrushevsky was
elected President. At this period the Rada, or at least its majority,
were far more interested in forming themselves into a government
which would become part of a federal Russian republic than in full
independence.

In the meanwhile the chaos throughout Russia continued to increase
and the Provisional Government showed itself unable to master the
situation. The various Councils of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
were meeting throughout the country and passing resolutions which cut
directly at the power of the Provisional Government. These Councils
represented all the various radical parties and were by no means in the
beginning under Bolshevik influence. Yet they reflected the various
currents of popular thought which ranged from desires to secure the
land for the peasants to definite local class aspirations. The prime
necessity for the Provisional Government was the creation of an armed
force that would be disciplined and obedient to it, but it was exactly
this that was most neglected.

Another important problem which was never sincerely tackled was that
of the various nationalities. All around the borders of the old Great
Russian territory, from Finland in the north to Central Asia on the
east, groups of earnest patriots, to whom the problem of nationality
was even more important than were the economic problems connected
with the land, were coming into existence. In the beginning they all
stressed the fact that the future Russia would have to become a federal
state and that the old idea of a monolithic Russia had passed with the
fall of the tsar. This the Great Russians refused to accept and the
Provisional Government was fighting a losing battle in its attempts to
hold all of those groups in line. Yet it held on stubbornly and made
no attempt to do more than interpose an ineffective veto on everything
that was suggested.

Events moved rapidly in Ukraine. The Central Council called for a
demonstration in Kiev on March 19/April 1 and declared that Ukrainian
autonomy should be set up without waiting for the approval of the
Provisional Government. Then followed another series of meetings during
the next weeks. A teachers’ convention was held on Easter day and then
on April 6–8 a Ukrainian National Convention was called for, in order
to broaden the government and prepare for elections to determine the
personnel of the new administration. It was attended by over nine
hundred delegates and at once arranged to admit to its membership
representatives of the various classes of the population: the army, the
peasants, labor, professional organizations, etc.

So far, so good. The early groups which started the movement had
represented all types of social thought and it seemed to some of the
leaders that the national question was the predominant one. At the
same time, the peasants were more interested in the changes that were
coming in the agrarian situation. This was an unconscious movement that
was growing by popular demand and it was not long before the leaders of
the Rada became convinced that they would have to reckon with this new
movement. In reality there were two great movements, each running its
own course but impinging upon the other at every point.

At the same time the Ukrainian soldiers in the army began to demand
that they be reorganized as Ukrainian regiments with their own
commanders, their own flag, and their own units. To enforce their
demands they held a military council in Kiev at which there were
representatives of approximately one million men on April 5/18 and a
month later there was held a still larger meeting at which appeared
delegates of 1,736,000 Ukrainian soldiers from all over the Russian
Empire. This was the more remarkable inasmuch as Alexander Kerensky,
the Minister of War of the Provisional Government, definitely forbade
its holding and gave orders that the delegates should not be allowed
to go to Kiev. However, by this time the army was paying less and less
attention to the Provisional Government, which could only threaten and
bluster without accomplishing anything constructive for the country.

At the same time the task of organizing a Ukrainian press was
overwhelming. There were almost no Ukrainian newspapers before the
Revolution and under the disturbed conditions, the task of founding and
developing them and of securing their circulation in the disordered
rural areas was almost insoluble, the more so as there were scattered
Russian groups and organizations throughout the entire country which
were bitterly opposed to the new efforts.

All through the spring there went on this agitation with the Ukrainian
army and the new regiments demanding that the Rada take more definite
action, and the Russian authorities both in Petrograd and in Kiev
complaining that already too much had been done. Yet at a Convention
of the Ukrainian Soldiers and Peasants held on June 2–10 there were
insistent demands that the Council arrange for a definite Ukrainian
autonomy. On June 10/23 the Council acted and issued the First
Universal which was read by Volodymyr Vynnychenko and concluded that
“From this day on, we ourselves will create our own life.”

By this act the Rada had definitely set forth its claims to be the
government of Ukraine and it created the Council of General Secretaries
with Vynnychenko acting as Prime Minister. Yet it is noticeable that
the great majority of the Council still thought in terms of Ukraine
as a state in a Russian federation. The news created a bombshell in
Petrograd and three of the socialist ministers, Kerensky, Tsereteli and
Tereshchenko, came down to Kiev for a conference with the Ukrainian
Council. This was on the eve of the last offensive of the old Russian
army and Kerensky and his friends were desirous of smoothing out
conditions in Ukraine before the offensive was launched. At the same
time, the more conservative members of the Provisional Government
objected even to these negotiations and as soon as word reached the
capital, they definitely resigned from the cabinet.

In these conferences it was expected that Ukraine would take over the
nine provinces that comprised the country and with this in view the
Council drew up a Statute or Constitution for the governing of the
country. They added to the Council representatives of the various
minorities in Ukraine and then sent the document to the Provisional
Government. Here it was badly received and when the conservative
members returned to the cabinet, they sent a series of Instructions
to the Council which cut Ukraine in half and worked to hamper its
activities.

The continuation of these tactics brought no profit to either the
Ukrainian Central Council or the Provisional Government. They served
only to weaken and embarrass the former and brought no benefit to
the latter, for during July the Provisional Government was faced by
a revolt of the Bolsheviks under Lenin in Petrograd. Although this
was suppressed, it had its own not inconsiderable part in the general
breakdown of administration.

The six months between the Revolution and the accession to power
of the Bolsheviks was a confused and confusing period. On the one
hand the steadily weakening power of the Provisional Government was
carrying down with it the old Russia, but the leaders declined to
see this and loved to imagine that the new ideals of democracy would
ultimately straighten out all the difficulties. The Central Council was
endeavoring to go along with the Provisional Government and at the same
time to secure the rights of Ukraine. Along with this, there was a vast
majority of the peasants who were far more concerned with the solution
of the agrarian problem than they were in matters of general policy and
they envisaged freedom as meaning that there would be no government of
any kind, no taxes, and no formal organization.

This dubious situation could not continue indefinitely. Sooner or later
one side or the other would have to yield and the Council was only
weakening its own position and dignity by continuing negotiations. Yet
no one wanted to take the initiative in any decisive action.

The situation was not made any better by the actions of the foreign
representatives in Petrograd. They too were unable to make up their
own minds. On the one hand, they felt very strongly that they had an
obligation to the Provisional Government because of the sacrifices that
Russia had made in the common war. On the other, they were themselves
sending representatives to be present in Kiev and the other national
states but they refused to express themselves definitely as to what
they desired to see set up on the ruins of the Empire. Under these
circumstances it was difficult for the young governments to know on
what diplomatic support they could rely or what policy would be most
effective and practical.

The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks promised for a while to clear
up conditions. No one believed that the Bolshevik party would be able
to maintain itself long in power but at the same time it made all talk
of a federal Russia purely theoretical and placed upon Ukraine and
the Rada the task of maintaining law and order in its own territory,
of solving the economic problems of the country, and of setting up a
generally efficient government. This was an overpowering task, for the
political revolution and the agrarian movement were moving along at a
rapid pace. Disorder reigned in the country and there was no time to
bring together the various conflicting points of view.

At the same time the curious political philosophy of the Bolsheviks was
complicating the situation still further. The Soviets were perfectly
willing to grant independence to Ukraine or to any of the other border
territories, but they insisted that the power could only be turned
over to true representatives of the workers and peasants, i.e. the
Bolsheviks themselves, since all other elements of the population
were clearly counter-revolutionary and not typical of the ideals of
the workers and peasants. As most of their leaders in Ukraine were of
non-Ukrainian origin, this meant that the Ukrainians as a people were
to be governed by the Russians, who alone were able to speak for the
Ukrainian population.

This novel philosophy forced the Rada to take definite action, and
on November 7/20, it issued the Third Universal, which declared that
“from this day on, Ukraine becomes the Ukrainian People’s Republic.”
There is a definite ambiguity in this phrase, for in Ukrainian the
word “Narodna” means both “People’s” and “National.” It expressed both
the idea of a government of the Ukrainian people as a separate nation
and also the idea of the government as one preeminently of the common
people, i.e. those who were concerned with the vague but revolutionary
agrarian program. As a matter of fact the term had become a slogan
in all the area affected by the Russian Revolution and like all such
slogans with an indefinite and unclear meaning, it created as much
confusion as it did agreement.

Under the terms of this declaration the Council attempted to establish
a definite government. It passed certain liberal regulations on land
ownership for the benefit of the peasants, it instituted the eight
hour day, granted amnesty to political prisoners, and also called for
the holding of a Pan-Ukrainian Congress, to be composed of elective
members, to found a constitutional government. This election was to be
held on January 9, 1918 and the Constituent Assembly was to meet on
January 22.

It stands to reason that the Bolsheviks had no intention of allowing
such an Assembly to meet, for they well knew that the Council and the
Ukrainian people were opposed to the excesses of the Bolsheviks and
their system of massacring their opponents, and that any expression of
the wishes of the people would establish some other form of government.
As a result they continued their policy of trying to disintegrate the
Council and of arousing discontent in all possible quarters. By sending
Bolshevik bands, composed largely of non-Ukrainians, into the country,
by spreading incendiary appeals to the people, by fomenting class
hatred in every way, they succeeded in keeping the country stirred up
and in preventing the stabilization of conditions.

Then they induced the Kiev Soviet, composed chiefly of non-Ukrainian
workers in some of the factories, to demand the calling of an
All-Ukrainian Council of Soviets on December 5/17. The Council saw
to it that this was not a mere rump convention of the Bolsheviks, as
Stalin had planned, but was widely representative of all the leftist
elements of Ukraine which were grouped in Soviets or Councils. As a
result, the Bolshevik resolutions were voted down and the following
was adopted: “The meeting of the Ukrainian Councils emphasizes its
definite decision that the Central Council in its further work stand
solidly on guard over the achievement of the revolution, spreading
and deepening without halt the revolutionary activity to safeguard
the class interests of a laboring democracy and call together without
delay the Ukrainian Constituent Assembly, which alone can reveal the
true will of all democratic Ukraine. The meeting of the Councils of
Peasants’, Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates of Ukraine in this manner
expresses to the Ukrainian Central Council its full confidence and
promises it its absolute support.” The resolution went on to say, “On
paper the Soviet of People’s Commissars seemingly recognizes the right
of a nation to self-determination and even to separation, but only
in words. In fact, the government of Commissars brutally attempts to
interfere in the activities of the Ukrainian government which executes
the will of the legislative organ of the Central Council. What sort
of self-determination is this? It is certain the Commissars will
permit self-determination only to their own party; all other groups
and peoples they, like the Tsarist regime, desire to keep under their
domination by force of arms. But the Ukrainian people did not cast
off the Tsarist yoke only to take upon themselves the yoke of the
Commissars.”

This resolution, adopted in December, 1917, expresses with rare nicety
the entire policy of Soviet thought on its relations with other peoples
and groups and it would have been well for Ukraine, had the sober
judgment of these Councils prevailed. It would have saved a great deal
of anguish and bloodshed in the coming years.

When the Bolsheviks saw that they were unable to control the assembly
which they had inspired, Stalin sent an ultimatum to it, demanding
unconditional submission within forty-eight hours. At the same time,
the Bolshevik members, some 150 out of about 2000, under the leadership
of two Russians, Sergeyev of the Don basin and Ivanov of Kiev, and a
Ukrainian Communist, Horowitz, moved to Kharkiv and there proclaimed a
Ukrainian Soviet Republic and called themselves the Secretaries of the
new government instead of Commissars. They at once received support
from the Russian Bolsheviks and opened a civil war.

It is noticeable that throughout 1917 there had been far less disorder
in Ukraine than there had been in Russia. There had been none of those
revolts that had characterized the situation in Petrograd and adjacent
areas since the very beginning of the revolution. During this year
Ukraine alone of the territory of the former Empire had been relatively
peaceful. The Council had been gradually assuming power and endeavoring
to make the transition from the old to the new. It had seen the passage
of large numbers of demoralized soldiers but it had escaped the main
part of the violent scenes that had gone on elsewhere.

Now all this was changed. The Bolsheviks definitely began an invasion
of the country and this added to the trials of the Council. The
changing conditions on the Eastern front now brought Ukraine into the
international scene. It was impossible to hold elections with the chaos
in the country. Finally, to solve the situation, on January 9/22, the
Council announced in a Fourth Universal the complete independence of
Ukraine and declared that, “From to-day the Ukrainian People’s Republic
becomes the Independent, Free, Sovereign State of the Ukrainian People.”

It had taken almost a year to bring the council to this decision. As
in the case of the United States, the vast majority of the people did
not realize in the beginning the issues involved. For a century many
of the best and most patriotic minds of Ukraine had dreamed of a great
federation of the Slavs or of a reorganized Russia which would give
equal rights and liberties to all classes of the population. They had
sought this from each of the governments since the Revolution and had
failed to obtain it from any. Federation had never appealed to any
party in the Russian Revolution. The conservative Cadets, men like
Milyukov and his friends, Socialists like Kerensky, Bolsheviks like
Lenin and Stalin, all in their own way demanded that there should be
a centralized state. Just as the Russian intelligentsia in the field
of thought throughout the nineteenth century refused to admit the
possibility of a cultural development in Ukraine apart from Russia,
just as Peter the Great and Catherine could not admit that they had to
deal with a situation different from that prevailing in Moscow and St.
Petersburg, so the revolutionary leaders held fast to the same idea.
The Council had wasted months in futile discussion and negotiations at
a time when they could have been profitably employed in building up
local institutions and restoring order. Now when it became clear that
war and organized war was to be the order of the day, they finally
acted and Ukraine appeared again as an independent state with its
capital at Kiev.

CHAPTER TWENTY

_FOREIGN RELATIONS_

This struggle to win for Ukraine a position first as a federated state
in a new Russia and secondly as a completely independent country was
not proceeding in an atmosphere of peace and quiet. The First World
War was still going on with the forces of the Triple Entente and the
Central Powers locked in a terrific struggle.

England and France had welcomed the Russian Revolution, because they
believed that Russia after the fall of the Tsar would carry on the war
against Germany and Austria-Hungary more successfully. It took them
only a few weeks to realize that the collapse of Russia had imposed
on them a still heavier burden. They could not understand that the
Russian Revolution had been a collapse because of excessive strain and
war weariness and it is quite a question how far the Russian leaders
realized this themselves. At all events Lenin and Trotsky called for
immediate peace and this, as much as their program of social reforms,
won them a sympathetic hearing in many quarters. It brought them into
conflict with the representatives of England, France and the United
States, which were working to keep Russia in the war against the
Central Powers.

There were two other factors which were overlooked. The first was the
question of supplies. With Turkey in the war, it was impossible to send
supplies to the Russian or any other armies operating in what was the
old Russian Empire except by way of Murmansk and Archangel on the north
or Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. For example, it was impossible for
the Ukrainian army, which was confronted with the German forces in the
south, to receive any supplies except across Bolshevik-held territory.
They could secure only those supplies that were left on their own
soil at the time of the beginning of the Revolution. The failure of
the Russian offensive of Kerensky had reduced these, and the troops
opposing the Bolshevik bands were relatively unarmed.

The second factor was the meaning of this war-weariness. It was
opposed to fighting against the Central Powers. It was opposed to the
preservation and maintenance of discipline. Yet with each advance in
demoralization, the willingness to fight in scattered bands against a
new enemy increased. The fanatic Bolsheviks, who refused to continue
the war for any reason against the Central Powers, were only too ready
in small bands to attack Ukraine. Part of this lay in the belief that
there was still food in Ukraine and that this food was necessary for
Moscow and Petrograd. Part of it lay in their equally fanatical belief
that they were the real spokesmen of the laborers and peasants. At the
same moment when they were opening negotiations to end the war with
Germany and Austria-Hungary, they were commencing a war in Ukraine and
in many other sections.

Allied diplomacy was singularly ineffective. After welcoming the
Revolution, England, France and the United States were unable to induce
the Provisional Government to continue the war effectively. They were
opposed to a peace between Russia or any part of it with the Central
Powers. They were willing to cooperate with the Ukrainian Council or
any other government that would continue the war. They were willing
to recognize the Council as the de facto government of Ukraine and
threatened it, if it made peace. They were willing to oppose the
Bolsheviks, when they talked peace. On the other hand, the military
missions that appeared in Kiev did not have the power to guarantee
that they would continue to recognize the Council after the war and
they most assuredly had no plans for supplying the Ukrainian army and
making it able to oppose the Bolsheviks successfully, much less the
Germans and Austro-Hungarians, if they decided to resume the offensive.
What might have been done in Archangel or Vladivostok was impossible in
Kiev, with Ukraine barred from access to Allied supplies and assistance
by the Central Powers on the west and the Bolsheviks on the north and
east. Ukraine was fighting a war on two fronts, and relations between
the Germans and the Bolsheviks were such that peace between Germany
and the Bolsheviks might result in Germany turning over Ukraine to the
Bolsheviks as the price of peace. Again this threat, the words of small
military missions were little defence, especially when the Ukrainian
leaders knew of the widespread propaganda that had been directed
against them abroad by imperial Russia for nearly four years.

In the meanwhile conditions were becoming more critical in the country.
The Council suffered from the same misconceptions that had ruined
the Provisional Government. It was or felt itself unable to check
barely concealed Bolshevik propaganda because of its interpretation of
democracy. Its leaders, busied with negotiations with the Provisional
Government, had not been able to use all their energies in building
up a firm kernel of organization and in strengthening their own armed
forces to a point where they could be sure of their unqualified
support. Far too often resolutions that were adopted became dead
letters almost as soon as they were passed. Regulations on the
distribution of land, and others, were more honored in the breach than
the observance. Despite the efforts of many of the members, it could
hardly be said that many of the difficulties were being overcome.

As a result when the Germans and Austro-Hungarians met with the
Bolshevik envoys at Brest Litovsk in December, 1917, it became clear
that the only hope of the Council was also to make peace with the
Central Powers and use the next months as a breathing space during
which they could strengthen their internal order and prepare themselves
for the next round with the Bolsheviks. They were aware that this might
be an expensive move, but between that and the annihilation of Ukraine
there was no real choice.

Accordingly, the Council decided to send three delegates to represent
Ukraine at the Brest Litovsk meetings. The delegates selected were
three young men, Levitsky, Lubinsky and Sevryuk, former students
of Prof. Hrushevsky. They had had little training in international
meetings. Their youth surprised the German representatives,
General Hoffmann and his associates, and amused Count Czernin, the
Austro-Hungarian representative. He could not imagine young men
appearing in important posts and Ukrainians anywhere at all, for he
represented those elements in his country which were most hostile to
the progress of the Ukrainians in Galicia. To the especial annoyance of
Czernin they put forth claims not only to independence but to the whole
of Eastern Galicia, and also the province of Kholm.

These claims appeared preposterous to the delegates of the Central
Powers but they also touched on the weak spot of both Germany and
Austria-Hungary. The representatives of the two powers were not
friendly. Both Germany and Austria-Hungary had their own ideas as to
the future of eastern Europe and each wished to secure the lion’s share
for his own country, although the Austrians were well aware of the fact
that nothing was well at home, especially since the death of Francis
Joseph, who had at least been able to put up a brilliant facade to
cover his policy of avoiding a settlement of all questions. Besides
that, the delegates had taken the trouble to pass through Lviv on their
way to Brest Litovsk and were well aware of the situation in Eastern
Galicia, probably better than Count Czernin himself.

On the other hand, Trotsky, as the leader of the Bolshevik delegation,
argued bitterly that the Germans and Austrians should not receive the
Ukrainian delegation at all. They denied that Ukraine existed and that
the Council represented the will of the workers and peasants. Later he
brought to the meeting representatives of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic
from Kharkiv in an endeavor to strengthen his own case and kept
reporting victories of the Bolsheviks over the troops of the Council.

It was a strange conference, for all parties knew the issues at stake
and none dared to move toward the desired goal. The Germans wanted
peace with the Bolsheviks in order to be able to move the bulk of their
forces to the Western Front for the campaign of 1918. They also, and
still more the Austrians, wanted to secure food from Ukraine. Trotsky
and the Bolsheviks also wanted peace. They hoped thereby to create
disorder in the German and Austrian armies and hoped for a revolution
by the masses of the population of those countries. They also wanted
the opportunity to master Ukraine and secure the food which they
needed for their capitals. The Ukrainian delegates, supported later
by Vsevolod Holubovich, the Prime Minister, were willing to turn over
a certain amount of grain, provided they could secure a guarantee of
the liberty of their country and means of self defence against the
Bolshevik attacks.

Under these conditions a settlement was finally reached. Ukraine under
the Council was recognized as a sovereign state and promised to send to
the Central Powers at least a million tons of supplies. Trotsky, after
receiving the German terms, announced that there was neither peace
nor war between the Central Powers and the Bolsheviks, for he took
the attitude that there could be no peace between a territorial state
and an international government of workers and peasants and really
demanded civil war in Germany. The Austrians, having compelled the
Ukrainians to give up their claim to Galicia and to Kholm, sided with
the Germans but were far less willing to take any action to make the
treaty effective. The conference ended on February 11.

In the meanwhile Bolshevik pressure on Kiev had increased and the
Council was compelled to retreat from Kiev to Zhitomir to the west, and
Trotsky could feel that he had more or less succeeded in his endeavors.
When, however, the Germans, taking advantage of the situation that was
left by the Bolsheviks, commenced to advance, a new wave of desire for
war swept over the Bolsheviks and it took all of Lenin’s power to make
them accept the terms that Trotsky had refused, for the passage of each
day left more Bolshevik territory in the hands of the Germans.

By March 1, the German troops had advanced into Ukraine and had
restored the Council to Kiev. They set up Field Marshal Eichhorn as
the practical head of the occupation forces and also of the new state,
along with Baron Mumm as representative of the German Foreign Office.
They also sent General Groener to Kiev to secure supplies.

The Council was now put in another unpleasant situation. The presence
of German troops created discontent. Order had been restored but the
Council continued its policy of endless debate and found it difficult
to agree on the legislation that was to be enacted. The old debates
between the right and the left were intensified, although the Council
decided that they would maintain the social reforms instituted by
the Third and Fourth Universals and also proceed to the holding of
elections for a Constituent Assembly which would meet on July 12, 1918.

The collection of supplies proceeded slowly. 1917 had been a disturbed
year and the harvest had not been properly gathered. The peasants were
not disposed to turn over their supplies to the Germans, even in
return for money, and the high hopes with which the Germans and the
Austrians had entered the country vanished with each day’s failure to
secure the needed food. At the same time, the German military machine
had no sympathy with and little understanding for the attempts of the
Council to fumble toward a democratic constitution and improve the
conditions of the people.

In an endeavor to create a more favorable situation, the Germans turned
to the society of the Khliborody (the Agriculturists). This was a group
of the former estate holders, Russian and Ukrainian alike, who had in
their store-houses a certain amount of supplies. These conservatives
were naturally opposed to the desires of the peasants to secure land
and they were willing to see the Council removed.

Through them the Germans made an arrangement with General Pavel
Skoropadsky, a general in the Russian army, but a descendant of that
Skoropadsky who had been appointed Hetman by Peter after the revolt of
Mazepa. It was apparently believed that Skoropadsky, by assuming the
title of Hetman, could rally to his support the sentiments of at least
the propertied classes and perhaps part of the peasants. The details
were all set. Then, on April 28, German soldiers under the orders of
Field Marshal Eichhorn invaded the meeting of the Council and summarily
dispersed it. The next day they formally proclaimed Skoropadsky Hetman
of the Ukraine and commenced to make the new order effective.

Skoropadsky went through the motions of ruling for about seven months
and during this time Ukraine remained relatively peaceable. Kiev and
the other cities were filled with Russian refugees from the Bolsheviks.
These people appreciated the restoration of order and the freedom from
massacre and pillage, but they had no use for the Ukrainian state and
liked to believe that Skoropadsky was only waiting for the downfall of
the Bolsheviks to bring Ukraine back again into Russia. Attempts were
made to restore the former rights of the landowners and the old order
as it had existed prior to 1917. As a result, dissatisfaction grew
among the masses and more and more order had to be maintained by the
Germans. This became less effective after the murder of Field Marshal
Eichhorn on July 30, for his successor was far less able to handle both
the Ukrainians and the representatives of the German Foreign Office.

At the same time Germany continued to work with the Bolsheviks, much
to the annoyance of the Russians in Ukraine, the Ukrainians and
Skoropadsky himself. The Hetman secured incontrovertible proof that
the Bolshevik delegates at Kiev, Rakovsky and Dmitry Manuilsky, who
were ostensibly drawing up peace terms between Ukraine and Moscow, were
spending huge sums of money in Bolshevik propaganda, but he could not
secure permission to curb their activities. Similarly when the German
ambassador in Moscow, Count Mirbach, was murdered, Germany took no
steps to punish the Bolsheviks and continued to lay emphasis on the
need of maintaining good relations with them.

During the same months the Germans were busy in helping the Don
Cossacks and the Georgians in their struggles against the Bolsheviks
and there was developed a long chain of anti-Bolshevik states and
organizations along the entire shore of the Black Sea. This year also
saw the emergence of General Denikin at the head of a White Russian
Army, with the backing of England, France and the United States in an
attempt to restore a united Russia.

The confused situation was brought to an abrupt end by the defeat of
Germany on the Western Front. The Kaiser abdicated on November 9 and
already Austria-Hungary had broken up into a number of independent
states. Turkey left the war on October 30 and this at once opened the
Dardanelles, so that military supplies could be sent into the area
north of the Black Sea. Under such conditions, the only course open
to the German armies was to retreat. Even this was not easy in the
complicated circumstances of the day, for a large part of the German
troops had come under Bolshevik influences and were not particularly
interested in fighting or in doing anything except getting home, if
they could. Under such circumstances Skoropadsky saw that his days were
numbered. On December 14, he laid down his power, slipped out of Kiev
and made his way to Berlin.

In the meanwhile, with the approaching downfall of Germany, the
Ukrainians again aspired to independence. Volodymyr Vynnychenko tried
to rally the forces of the Rada by appointing a Direktoria composed
of members of the various Ukrainian Socialist parties. He wanted to
continue the general policy of the government as it had been before
the time of Skoropadsky. More important for the Ukrainian cause was,
however, the work of Simon Petlyura, for at the first sign of the
weakening of the forces of Skoropadsky, he went to Bila Tserkva and won
over one of the crack regiments of Skoropadsky’s forces, the Rifles of
the Zaporozhian Sich. With this as a nucleus, he started a revolt which
ultimately carried him and the Direktoria into Kiev as Skoropadsky left
for exile.

Petlyura was to be for the next years the dominant figure in the
Ukrainian movement. A man of simple origin, he had secured an education
and was making his living as a bookkeeper and writer when the Russian
Revolution started. He had some military training and developed a
considerable talent for leadership. Unlike most of the other leaders,
he was more a man of action than a thinker and in the troublous times
ahead, it was these qualities rather than thought and logic that were
needed most for the new state.

Petlyura and Vynnychenko differed violently on many subjects, and
with each week the struggle became more intense. Petlyura felt that
Vynnychenko’s policies, while Ukrainian in essence, were blurring the
line between Ukrainian nationalism and Bolshevism. He was suspicious
of too radical reforms and sought support rather from those elements
of the state that laid the main stress on independence. Furthermore
he believed that it was necessary to secure as much of the German
military equipment as possible from the retreating German armies, and
he won the good will of the peasants who had been angered by the German
requisitioning of supplies by encouraging them to attack the retreating
forces. Thus the actions of his troops seriously upset the plans of
the more or less Bolshevized German armies and became a real menace to
the hopes of the Bolsheviks for the taking over of the country on the
German retreat.

The victorious Allies now had the opportunity to intervene effectively
in the general situation. They were able to send troops into Ukraine
and South Russia through Romania. They were also able to land them
at the Black Sea ports. For the first time since 1914, the southern
gate of Russia and Ukraine was opened to the democratic nations. The
future rested on their ability to formulate a program, make their own
conditions, and see that they were carried out.

They were as ineffective in this as they had been in 1917, for there
came again a flood of diplomatic missions, promising everything and
doing nothing. English and French representatives appeared at Kiev to
expedite the German departure. At the same time, as if Skoropadsky
had been a legitimate ruler, they ordered the Germans strictly not
to surrender their arms to any of the Ukrainian rebels or to turn
Kiev over to them. It is still not clear whether this was done by
orders from the home governments or at the advice of the Russians
around Skoropadsky. The result was the same. The Ukrainian forces were
unwilling to remain quiet and see the Germans depart with rich booty
and copious military supplies. The Allies sent no troops to back up
their representatives and the Bolsheviks paid no attention to any one
and continued their work of spreading propaganda among the Germans.

Under such conditions, the forces of Petlyura increased rapidly and it
soon became evident to the Germans that they would have to come to an
understanding with him. This was done at Kasatin on December 11, when
the Germans consented to turn over Kiev to the Direktoria and three
days later Colonel Konovalets at the head of a Ukrainian detachment
entered Kiev. Petlyura and the Direktoria arrived on December 19. The
Germans had insisted that the Russian officers and men in the Hetman’s
army should be allowed to leave with them. On the whole this was
carried out, although there were some arrests and some murders, but by
the end of December the bulk had been disposed of and were in Germany.

The Ukrainian Republic had been once more established. It had a last
chance to solve its problems and to emerge as a strong and respected
government but it was not an optimistic picture. The country was still
more disorganized than the year before. There were still the same
factions in the state. There was still the same lack of harmony among
the Allied military missions and above all the people of the Allied
countries were sure that the war was over and that there was nothing
left to be done, for the new period of human history had started at the
hour of the Armistice, 11 A. M., November 11, 1918.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

_THE REPUBLIC OF WESTERN UKRAINE_

The successful Russian occupation of Lviv within a month after the
beginning of the War threw into sharp relief the military weakness of
Austria-Hungary and the following events showed that the Dual Monarchy,
despite all its pretensions and claims, was hardly fitted to stand the
rigors of modern warfare. The various national groups included within
its borders were restive. Regiments of Czechs had gone over in mass
formation to the Russians. Discontent was rife in other sections and it
was easy to see that whatever the outcome of the war, bad times were in
store for the country.

On January 8, 1918, Woodrow Wilson laid down the Fourteen Points
for a final settlement. These included phrases that called for
self-determination of the various nations. It is immaterial how far
he had intended to press this policy, for in Europe his words were
taken in their full meaning and each and every group, large or small,
prepared to take advantage of them. From this time on there could be
no doubt that Austria-Hungary was going to disintegrate. The only
questions were when and how and what would be the fate of the territory.

It was almost the same day that the Ukrainian delegates to the Brest
Litovsk Conference passed through Lviv, to establish contact with the
Ukrainian leaders there and to tell them of the intention of Ukraine
to declare its full independence of Russia. This act alone served to
increase tension in the Ukrainian lands in the Dual Monarchy and to
arouse more energetic work during the summer, so that the Ukrainians
in Western Ukraine would be ready when the moment for action arrived.

They were not alone in this, for the Poles also were planning to revive
their state. The Polish National Committee working with the Allied
nations elaborated plans for recovering the territory which they had
held in 1772 at the time of the First Partition of the country. The
Council of the Regency and the various groups around Joseph Pilsudski,
which were more bitterly anti-Russian, looked for the establishment of
some form of independent Poland in case of a German victory. The events
of 1917 brought both groups together and there was a general agreement
among Poles of all factions and trains of thought that there must
emerge from the war a great Poland. In Galicia, they made ready to take
over the country as soon as the Austrian grip showed signs of weakening.

In the same way the various Ukrainian groups determined not to be
outdone through inaction. They organized a Ukrainian Council with
members in Eastern Galicia, in Carpatho-Ukraine and in Bukovina and
then on October 18, as the hour of decision was approaching, they held
a large conference in Lviv and made plans to declare their independence
when the time came. So weak and disintegrated was Austria-Hungary
already that it was possible to hold such a meeting without too great
danger to the participants.

It was already clearly realized that the dangers confronting Western
Ukraine came not from the dying Empire but from the claims of the
Poles and of the other succession states, each of which put forward
demands to take over the same territory. Again Allied diplomacy was
destined to be ineffective and the disagreements among the victorious
nations prepared the way for a series of wars and disturbances that
were to leave new causes of bitterness behind them. The disintegration
of Austria-Hungary was not to be brought about under the control
of the victorious powers but under the conflicting demands of local
populations and improvised military forces.

On November 1, during the night, the Ukrainians judged that it was
time to act and the Council took over the control of the city of Lviv
with the tacit permission of the Austrian Governor of Galicia. The
blue and yellow flag of Ukraine was hoisted over the city hall and the
Republic of Western Ukraine was formally proclaimed. At the same time,
in Western Galicia, the Poles raised their standard over the city of
Krakow. The old regime was ended.

Soon the Ukrainians in other cities of Western Ukraine followed suit
and the new Republic commenced the difficult and painful task of
setting up an administration. Its resources were indeed scanty. There
was no money and no trained corps of administrators, for the old
government had kept most of the more responsible posts in Galicia in
the hands of the Poles.

More important than that, the forces available to maintain order were
equally non-existent or unsatisfactory. There were the remains of the
Ukrainian legions in the Austrian army, the Riflemen of the Sich, and
there were some disorganized reserve units in the neighborhood of
the city, which were largely composed of Ukrainians, since officers
and men from other sections of the Empire had left them to return
home. There was a marked lack of officers, since the unfavorable
conditions of Galicia had prevented many Ukrainians from rising in the
Austro-Hungarian service. It was with this scanty support that the new
government under Dr. Evhen Petrushevich set to work.

Any hopes of a peaceable period for organization were soon ended.
As soon as the Poles realized that Lviv had been taken over by the
Ukrainians, there began a revolt of the Polish population of the city.
Many of the participants were mere schoolboys, but they seized the main
post office and the Ukrainians were unable to dislodge them. Civil
war broke out, but it was a civil war in which artillery and heavy
weapons were absent from both sides. For three weeks the battle went on
in the city as both sides tried to bring up what reinforcements were
available. The Poles finally succeeded in moving from Krakow into the
city by train a force of 140 officers and 1200 men. Even such a small
body of more or less trained soldiers was enough to turn the scales in
the favor of the Poles and two days after they arrived, the Ukrainian
government left the city and retired to Stanislaviv and later to
Ternopil.

This did not mean that the Republic had given up the struggle. It
still held the largest part of Eastern Galicia, with the exception of
the railroad line from Peremyshl to Lviv, which the Poles succeeded
in keeping open. At the same time there was a practical siege of Lviv
during the entire winter. The Poles, however, were able to gather
forces elsewhere in the country and steadily new and better armed
detachments pushed their way into Eastern Galicia.

As regards Bukovina, the Ukrainians occupied the capital Chernivtsy on
November 3, but the Romanians with the nucleus of an army refused to
concede this. Their troops on Armistice Day pressed into the city and
overthrew the Ukrainian Regional Committee under Omelyan Popovich. Then
they formally annexed the province.

In Carpatho-Ukraine, there was the same general confusion. Various
adherents of the Republic of Western Ukraine held gatherings in
Preshiv, Uzhorod and Hust and they failed to come to a definite
agreement as to the future of the country. The Czechs claimed it on
the basis of an understanding with the American Ruska Nationalna Rada
at a meeting in Scranton, Pennsylvania. There was, however, more delay
in taking the land over from Hungary than there was from some of the
other sections and there was not the complete change that had occurred
elsewhere. Nevertheless on January 21, 1919, a Council in Hust voted
to join Ukraine; but conditions kept changing and finally on May 5 the
various groups in the country voted to become autonomous within the
Czechoslovak state.

It can be seen from all this that the Ukrainians of Eastern Galicia
were the heart and the determining factor of the Republic of Western
Ukraine. The loss of Lviv, the most important city in the area, proved
a tremendous handicap to the new state, which looked forward very
definitely to an ultimate union with the Ukrainian Republic set up at
Kiev.

The Allied military missions in Warsaw and in Lviv endeavored to make
peace between the various factions and to throw the whole problem of
Eastern Galicia into the hands of the Peace Conference which was to
meet a few months later in Paris. They were completely helpless, for
the Poles claimed control of the entire province on the ground that it
had been under the Polish crown and formed part of the Polish Republic
since the fourteenth century and the Polish leaders, both of the right
and left, refused to listen to any pleas that would leave the territory
even temporarily under Ukrainian control. At the same time, they were
steadily increasing their armed forces and later they received several
well-trained divisions which had fought under General Haller along with
the French on the Western Front. Under such conditions the armies of
Western Ukraine were steadily forced to retreat to the east in the hope
of joining the forces of Eastern Ukraine, which were in little better
condition.

There is little need to go into the various efforts that were made at
the time to make peace between the Poles and Western Ukrainians. All of
them failed. During the entire Peace Conference, there was continuous
talk of the future fate of Galicia but nothing definite was decided,
for the Poles, with French backing, refused to concede anything and
the changing political situation in the East made decisions useless,
often before they were announced.

In one sense the casual observer may see in the brief interlude of
the Republic of Western Ukraine one of those numerous and transient
organizations that appeared spontaneously everywhere in Europe during
the troubled months of November and December, 1918, but it was more
than that, for despite the speedy passing of the Republic, the
population was left. The ill feelings generated long remained to fester
in Poland and added abundant fuel to the fires that were waiting for
1939. The retreat to Stanislaviv and then to Ternopil did not end the
movement, although it lessened its immediate importance in a world that
was still at war, despite its efforts to prove that peace had come.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

_THE FALL OF UKRAINE_

Petlyura returned to Kiev with the Direktoria on December 19, 1918 and
he at once set about to rebuild the shattered structure of the state.
Conditions were more unfavorable than they had been the year before,
for the interlude with Skoropadsky had hindered the stabilization of
Ukraine, even while it had allowed a development of the Bolshevik
regime and the formation of a strong White Russian movement under
Denikin. When we add to this the outbreak of the war between the newly
formed Republic of Western Ukraine and Poland, we can appreciate the
task that faced the new leader.

The first constructive step was the formal union of the Republic of
Western Ukraine with the rest of the country. On January 3, 1919, the
Direktoria voted to accept the Western Ukraine into the state and on
January 22, just one year after the formal independence of Ukraine had
been declared by the Council, the representatives of Western Ukraine
arrived to take their places in the government of the joint state. Dr.
Longin E. Cehelsky of Western Ukraine read the formal decree of the
Western Ukrainian Council and the decree of the Ukrainian Council was
read by Prof. Shvets. It was then declared that, “From to-day until
the end of time there will be One, Undivided, Independent Ukrainian
People’s Republic.”

In one sense the measure was inopportune, for the Western Ukrainian
Republic was already being driven from much of its territory by the
Poles. As a result it added to the enemies of the state, for Ukraine
with its almost shadowy armies was now confronting in arms Poland,
the Soviets and the White forces of Denikin. It was an overpowering
combination, even though each of the three enemies was fighting the
other two.

Within two weeks after the declaration of national unity, the
Bolsheviks compelled Petlyura to evacuate Kiev. They cut the
connections between his army and a large part of the troops of Western
Ukraine and forced the latter to retreat into Romania where they were
disarmed and interned. Then Petlyura retired to Kaminets Podolsky
and there, with a small nucleus of troops drawn from all sections of
the country, he waited for some months while he was preparing a new
offensive.

Again the Peace Conference and the military missions showed themselves
at their worst. They were entirely unable to discover whom to fight or
whom to support. At the moment there were really no organized armies
in the field. There were merely bands larger or smaller, owing vague
allegiance to some cause and led by commissars, generals or atamans,
largely self-appointed and often in absolute disagreement with other
bands fighting on the same side. Frequently military missions of the
same countries were present at the front or behind the lines of groups
that were fighting one another. They were giving contrary directives
and interfering, doling out supplies and unable to control their use.

Under such conditions Ukraine reverted in large part to a condition
similar to that in the days of the Ruin of the seventeenth century. The
country was filled with independent atamans like Makhno, who refused
to acknowledge any superior command but supported and attacked almost
every one in turn. These leaders set up their control over small areas
and proved unable to work out a plan of cooperation in conjunction with
or in defiance of the Direktoria, but in large part their chaos in the
beginning was no worse than the condition of their rivals.

In the meanwhile, in the south of Ukraine the international confusion
was reaching a new high. On December 18, 1918, a French army of some
12,000 men had landed in Odesa to maintain order and assist the
“healthy” portions of the population to obtain control. Their first
action was to expel the Ukrainian forces from the city and appoint a
White Russian as the governor. Then, with a miscellaneous force of all
nationalities, the French endeavored to clear the neighborhood and
finally invoked the aid of a German division which had been unable
to leave because the followers of Petlyura were in control of the
surrounding country. The farce and the tragedy continued until Ataman
Gregoryev, who had formerly served with Petlyura, went over to the
Bolsheviks and maintained himself in the neighborhood as a nuisance.
Incidentally, he later broke again with them and fought as a Ukrainian.
Disorders broke out in the French forces and they withdrew April 6,
1919. Odesa was entered by a Bolshevik army of less than 2,000 men and
the large quantity of military stores there fell into their hands. Soon
after, the other Black Sea ports were taken by the Bolsheviks with as
small or smaller forces.

During the course of 1919, the situation continued confused. The army
of Admiral Kolchak, advancing into European Russia from Siberia, had
been broken but General Denikin was attempting to cut his way north
and west from the Donets basin. The Allies by this time had convinced
themselves that the one way of defeating Bolshevism was to arm and
equip the White Russian armies, which stood for the absolute unity of
Russia and the denial of all the accomplishments of the Revolution.
Everywhere that Denikin and his men went, they restored the old
system, banned the Ukrainian language, closed Ukrainian newspapers and
bookstores and reverted to the Russian policy of the years before the
War. The foreign missions had now given up any idea of utilizing the
peasant opposition to Bolshevism and the national movements against
Russia. They had fully accepted the thesis of a monolithic Russia in
Ukraine. Instead of trying to coordinate the popular movements for
independence and strengthen them, they turned a deaf ear to all the
petitions that were presented to them and made it fully evident that
they were not interested in the attempts of Ukraine and various other
sections of the old Empire to secure independence.

During this period the Peace Conference was in session in Paris and to
the annoyance of the delegates, there appeared there representatives of
the Direktoria to plead for recognition as the government of Ukraine
along with representatives of many other states. The Allied position
was singularly unrealistic and even unclear not only to the petitioners
but to the official delegates themselves.

No one could decide what was to be the position taken toward Russia.
The high hopes which had been placed upon the Russian Revolution and
the Provisional Government had been dissipated. The delegates at Paris
were well aware that this had failed and had fallen definitely before
the Bolsheviks. They were well aware also that every section of the
old Empire which was not inhabited by Great Russians was in a state of
more or less open revolt. All around the borders of the country there
had been set up governments running from Finland in the north to the
Turkic tribes of Central Asia, which had been subjugated by Russian
arms scarcely half a century before. All this rendered it a practical
policy to accept the disintegration of Russia as they had that of
Austria-Hungary and create a new federation or a series of independent
and allied states.

On the other hand, the victorious Allies could not forget the
sacrifices that had been made by the Russian Empire during the early
years of the War and they persisted in believing that once Bolshevism
was overthrown, all of these new nations would be only too willing to
join in a new, free, and democratic Russia. They hated to do anything
that would create a permanent situation. They were equally opposed to
the efforts of the White Russian armies to form a definite conservative
government which might be denounced as reactionary and aiming to
restore the old Russian monarchy. Thus the policy of the Allies toward
Russia remained in a dangerous position which could only in the long
run strengthen the power of the Bolsheviks, the only group which was
not affected by the desires of the Allies and which understood the
general weakness of the entire Allied policy.

As a result there was made almost no mention of Russia in any of the
treaties that came out of the Paris Peace Conference, for it was
intended that the matter should be reconsidered, when, as, and if
Russia expelled the Bolsheviks and proceeded to hold democratic and
free elections. This brought about the impossible situation that the
Congress could seriously consider regulations as to the position of
Eastern Galicia (Western Ukraine) toward Poland, since the area had
been under Austria-Hungary, but could not and would not take action in
regard to that part of Ukraine which had been under Russian rule prior
to 1914.

The Poles utilized the situation to extend their claims over Western
Ukraine and they obstinately refused to consider any settlement which
would establish a political boundary between Poland and Western
Ukraine, no matter how the case was put forward. Step by step the
Allies moderated their demands, especially since France insisted
stubbornly on backing almost all of the Polish claims. Thus on June
25, the Allied Supreme Council allowed Poland to occupy the territory
up to the Zbruch River with a proviso that the Poles should guarantee
local autonomy and freedom of religion to the non-Polish population.
A little later they again offered to give Poland a twenty-five-year
mandate over Eastern Galicia and to grant a plebiscite at the end of
that time. Then, later in the year, they developed the idea of the
Curzon line to mark the eastern boundary of the country, but there
was also the supplementary idea that if Poland occupied land beyond
this, she might receive it when the future of Russia was settled. In
view of the weak Polish organization, which was only struggling to its
feet and was short of all supplies, this idea that the Poles should
organize a section of Russia by their own efforts could only increase
the Polish claims. It is therefore not surprising in view of the entire
tangle that the Peace Treaties provided no definite eastern boundary
for Poland and in fact do not mention one in the official texts of the
documents.

Everyone seemed unaware of the fact that Eastern Europe was in a
turmoil with many forces competing for the mastery. The statesmen and
still more the masses of the population of the Allied countries knew
little or nothing about these forces. They saw only problems where they
desired to find peace, and public sentiment turned against attempts
to find a difficult but relatively permanent solution to the entire
problem. The world was sick of this continuing struggle but it could
find no way of ending it.

It was against this background that Petlyura and the forces of Ukraine
carried on the struggle during the entire summer of 1919. Yet despite
all of the hardships of the population and the lack of supplies,
Petlyura was able to recover the control of Kiev on August 31. Again he
was unable to hold it, because the Russian army of Denikin moving up
from the south compelled him to evacuate a few days later. On the other
hand, hostile as the Poles were to the Ukrainian national committee,
they were little better pleased at the advance of the White Russian
armies, even though definite hostilities did not break out between the
Poles and the Russian armies.

During these months there were four forces competing in the same
general area. There were the steadily improving Polish forces supported
by the Allies, especially the French, and constantly gaining in numbers
and equipment. There were the White Russian armies with the backing
of all the Allies striving to restore a unified non-Communist Russia.
There were the Red armies pressing down from the north, fighting to
spread Communism and to conquer territory. There were finally the
Ukrainians organized under Petlyura and isolated leaders struggling to
maintain their political independence. All four were hostile to one
another but it was easy to see that the position of the Ukrainians
fighting on their own territory, with no organized base of supplies
outside of the disputed area, was really the most desperate, for they
had no way of recruiting and unifying their forces or of securing
adequate supplies.

Then there broke out an epidemic of typhus. Under this and the
growing pressure of the hostile armies, the Ukrainian forces began to
disintegrate. The government of the Western Ukraine was the first that
was forced into exile, for the Polish hold on Lviv was growing stronger
with every week and the arrival of new and trained Polish troops
allowed them to take over the entire province. The leaders retired into
Romania and then moved to Vienna, where they continued to function as a
government in exile.

At this moment the growing hostility in the rear of Denikin’s White
Russian Army came to a head and this as much as the power of the
Soviets forced him to retreat and retire from the scene. Soon there
was only the Crimea left in the hands of the White Russians. Yet the
damage had already been done. Petlyura and the Ukrainians were not in
a position to take over and organize the territory which Denikin had
evacuated and it passed back into the hands of the Red forces, so that
by the spring of 1920 nearly all of Great Ukraine was in the hands of
the Bolsheviks. Petlyura and the remains of his organized forces were
pushed on to Polish soil and the general cause seemed lost.

Just then Petlyura made an important decision. He signed a treaty of
peace with the Polish government which recognized the Direktoria as the
government of an independent Ukrainian National Republic. This was the
first recognition of Ukraine that had been officially granted since the
Conference of Brest-Litovsk and there were high hopes that something
might be saved from the wreckage of the last years.

The treaty was signed on April 21, 1920 and four days later the Polish
army, with what was left of Petlyura’s forces, marched on Kiev.
There was little effective opposition and on May 6 a division of the
Ukrainian Army and its Polish allies entered the city, almost without
a battle. They even occupied a bridgehead on the east bank of the
Dnyeper, and it seemed as if it would be possible to begin the work of
rebuilding the shattered country.

Again there came disappointment. The Polish forces far outnumbered
those actually under Ukrainian command. The sight of the Poles in Kiev
annoyed and angered many of the more ardent Ukrainians and they blamed
Petlyura for his alliance and for his abandonment of Western Ukraine.
Memories of the century-long hostility with the Poles were stirred up
and the actions of some of the Poles increased the tension. The result
was that Petlyura was not able to secure rapidly the support that he
had hoped for among the Ukrainian population, especially as Kiev was
still filled with Russian refugees and sympathizers, many of whom
preferred the Bolsheviks as a government in Moscow to the Ukrainians.

At the same time the Polish military situation was none too brilliant.
Under the influence of the military tactics of the World War and its
elaborate trench systems, little attention was paid to the service
of supply behind the lines and the armies at the front were poorly
supplied. Liaison between the various armies and divisions was bad and
there was a possibility that an energetic attack by the Bolsheviks
might jeopardize the situation.

This did happen early in June, just one month after Petlyura resumed
the attempt to organize the government and the Ukrainian army. The
cavalry force of General Budenny succeeded in crossing the Dnyeper and
placing itself in the Polish rear. The Poles were immediately forced to
retreat and they abandoned Ukraine. Petlyura and his men had to retire
with them and Kiev passed back into Bolshevik hands.

The results were worse than at any time before, for while the Poles
held well within the province of Eastern Galicia or Western Ukraine
and Lviv was not seriously menaced, another Soviet attack from the
north swept to the very outskirts of Warsaw. Here the Bolsheviks were
definitely stopped in a great battle on the Vistula, between August
13 and 20, and they were thrown back in a disastrous rout. The Poles
followed them almost as rapidly as they retreated and by October 12
had recovered nearly all the territory that they had held before the
advance on Kiev. Then an armistice was signed, and this was followed by
the Treaty of Riga which determined the frontiers between Poland and
the Soviets until 1939.

In this agreement Ukraine was entirely forgotten. Poland held on to
Western Ukraine substantially in the form in which it had existed
under Austro-Hungarian rule and it acquired a considerable stretch of
Ukrainian land to the east. In return the government dissociated itself
from the efforts of the Ukrainians to secure independence and Great
Ukraine was again deprived of any possibility of foreign assistance.
Petlyura was forced into exile with the whole of the Directoria, and
only unorganized and scattered bands continued to carry on a futile
and hopeless struggle against the Red armies.

Thus, after more than three years of diplomacy and of fighting, the
hopes of the Ukrainians to be masters in their own house were dashed
to the ground. Their endeavors to create a democratic republic had
ended only in disaster. Their leaders were dead or in exile and the
population were helpless in the hands of their new masters. It was
a sad and discouraging ending to a gallant attempt to profit by the
collapse of the two great Empires that had long held them in subjection
and had attempted to eliminate them from political life.

It is easy to criticize the actions of the Ukrainian people and their
governments during this troublous time and to point out that all too
often they paralleled some of the more unsatisfactory aspects of the
behavior of the Kozak Host in the seventeenth century. Yet this is
hardly fair, for the dilemma of Ukraine standing alone was exactly
that of all the other states in the area. A large part of the peasant
population were far more interested in the solution of agrarian
problems, of land reform, etc. than they were in the purely national
revolution. They did not realize that the two had to be carried on
simultaneously and they could not visualize all the changes that were
being introduced into the country.

Their dilemma was only increased by the long period of hesitation on
the part of the Great Powers at Paris and elsewhere. These wavered so
continuously between support of Russian unification and aid to the
various separatist groups that they were unable to exert their full
power to bring about any satisfactory settlement. Step by step they had
allowed the Russian Bolsheviks to infiltrate into the various national
republics that had been set up, and finally only Finland and the three
Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which had direct
access to the sea, survived. At the same time their policy had failed
to gain support for the White Russians even in purely Russian territory
and had only succeeded in producing exactly the opposite results of
what they wished.

It might seem that the Ukrainian problem had thus been settled in a
way that was to be permanent. Yet it had become more serious than
before and it had been definitely pushed on to the international arena,
whether they wished it or not. Exactly as the Kozak wars had removed
Ukraine from a purely Polish problem, so now the Ukrainian ghost was to
be present at all international gatherings, whether it was mentioned or
not. It is not too much to say that the final collapse of the Ukrainian
national government awoke far larger masses of the population to the
reality of the question than had even the Ukrainian declaration of
independence, and for that reason the name of Ukraine began to play an
even more important role on the map of Europe than it had done before.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

_WESTERN UKRAINE_

By the summer of 1919 Polish military control had been extended over
the whole of Western Ukraine and the alliance between Petlyura and the
Polish government early in 1920 ratified the dismemberment of the joint
state which had been so enthusiastically proclaimed a year before.
Finally the Treaty of Riga between Poland and the Soviets secured from
the latter the recognition of Polish control.

There remained only one hope for the exiled government of Western
Ukraine, and that was the Council of Ambassadors of the victorious
Allies. They held out as did the Peace Conference against Polish
control of the country but their opposition steadily diminished. France
was strongly backing Poland and the Conference as a whole had no
definite ideas as to the future. It definitely awarded Western Galicia
to Poland, but on November 20, 1919 there was adopted a resolution
providing that Poland should hold Eastern Galicia for twenty-five years
under a mandate from the League of Nations, that there should be an
Eastern Galician Diet with a representative in the Polish cabinet, that
there should be broad autonomy for the province, and that at the end of
the period there should be a plebiscite. Poland naturally refused to
accept this solution and there was no one of the Allied Powers that was
willing and able to enforce its decision.

The attitude of Poland was unfortunate. The national spirit which
had survived the dismemberment of the country and had even under
desperate conditions been able to rouse the country to the recovery
of its liberty was firmly imbued with the spirit of the past. During
the centuries of Polish greatness, the Poles had been unwilling to
concede any rights to the Ukrainians. They had never been able to solve
the problems of the Kozak Host and they had been bitterly opposed to
the Orthodox Church. Just as the failure to create a working agreement
with the Ukrainians during the seventeenth century had precipitated
the disastrous Kozak wars which had broken the state, so there was
still an unwillingness to recognize that conditions in 1919 were also
fundamentally different from those in 1600. The spirit of continuity
was so strong that no Polish statesman could remain in power for a
single instant if he cast any reflection on the policy of the old
Poland in regard to its neighbors. The Polish control of Galicia during
the Austrian regime merely confirmed them in the consciousness of their
own rectitude.

The proclamation of the Republic of Western Ukraine in 1918 and the
resulting struggle between the Poles and the Western Ukrainians only
increased the bitterness which had been developed by history. At the
same time, the brief taste of independence on the part of Western
Ukraine had also given the Ukrainians an increased sense of their own
dignity, their own unity and their national identity. The ambiguous
position adopted by the Peace Conference served only to convince both
parties that they were well within their rights and served to make any
reconciliation still more difficult.

It is not at all impossible that the history of Europe would have been
very different, if in 1919 there had been on the scene and in control
men of the breath of vision of Hadiach, whereby Rus’ was recognized
as a third component part of a Great Poland, on a par with Poland and
Lithuania. The Soviet occupation of Eastern Ukraine was really leaving
Western Ukraine to itself; with its bitter opposition to Communism and
proper diplomacy it might have joined a great federation which would
have solved the problem of eastern Europe. No one of any prominence
put forward or even tried to secure a hearing for any such plan,
and it is hard to see what would have been the position of Western
Ukraine, had the proposal to grant it a plebiscite twenty-five years
in the future been carried out. It could only have meant a continued
unsettlement in policy and can become intelligible only if it is
assumed that the Conference at Paris believed that within that time
the entire Ukrainian problem would have been settled and that Eastern
Galicia or Western Ukraine would then vote itself into union with
the rest of the country. If that is true, then there is the further
question as to why the Conference bound itself so strictly to its
furtherance of the White Russian armies and the unity of Russia that
it refused to send supplies to the Ukrainian forces who were still
struggling against the overwhelming power of the Reds.

Whatever may have been the motives back of the actions at Paris,
the Poles determined to produce a unified state in which the power
would be entirely in Polish hands. They realized that a considerable
portion of the Ukrainians living in Eastern Galicia had already been
Polonized, that, for example, the brother of Archbishop Sheptitsky was
the Chief of Staff in the Polish army, and they still believed that
in a relatively few years the restored Poland could so accelerate the
process that the province would be thoroughly absorbed into a unified
state.

As a result, during the formative years, the Constituent Diet of Poland
was elected at a time when Western Ukraine was still in arms in support
of its own government and hence there was no reason why the Ukrainians
should vote in the Polish elections. Thus in the formation of the
Polish Constitution they had no vote and the power rested entirely in
the hands of the Polish nationalists who were the strong supporters
of a centralized state. Even later, in 1922 since under the decree of
the Peace Conference, Eastern Galicia was supposed to have its own
independent Diet, the Ukrainians again declined to vote for delegates
to the Polish Diet, contrary to the decrees of the Peace Conference
and the Council of Ambassadors that continued its work. There was thus
produced an impasse between the Polish and Ukrainian points of view
which could only add to the general bitterness and this required the
most careful handling on the Polish part.

In the fall of 1922, the Polish Diet did go so far as to pass a law
providing for the creation of a special regime in the provinces of
Lviv, Ternopil and Stanislaviv. Under this there was to be in each
province a Polish and a Ukrainian diet which was to have certain powers
dealing with local conditions and the ability to act separately on
matters pertaining to one nationality. It was also provided that there
should be founded a Ukrainian university. All these reforms were to
be inaugurated within two years. It would have been an improvement on
conditions as they then were, but it was far from the regime visualized
by the Peace Conference and certainly was not an answer to the
Ukrainian demands.

These reforms, however, were never carried into practice, for on March
14, 1923, the Council of Ambassadors yielded completely, and formally
granted Eastern Galicia to Poland with the statement that Poland
recognized that autonomy was needed in the area and that by signing the
treaty providing for the rights of minorities, she had bound herself to
do all that was needed. To all intents and purposes, this decision gave
Poland a free hand. The exiled government of Western Ukraine formally
protested and there were enormous demonstrations in Lviv and elsewhere
against it, but there was nothing to be done. Once the unification had
been achieved, Poland felt herself free to proceed as if nothing had
happened. There was henceforth no talk in Warsaw of any autonomy for
Eastern Galicia.

Even before this, the Polish government had interfered with all
Ukrainian cultural and financial institutions. It had even placed in
custody Archbishop Sheptitsky when he returned from a trip to America
in 1921, despite the influence that he exerted on the Ukrainians to
maintain public order. It had carried out its claims that the Ukrainian
movement was essentially a subversive movement, even though at the time
there was a certain recognition of the privileged status of Eastern
Galicia by the same international organs that were responsible for the
creation of Poland itself.

The recognition of Eastern Galicia as part of Poland in 1923 presented
the Western Ukrainians with a new situation. They had henceforth to
decide whether to accept their position as a definite part of Poland
or to continue to struggle for independence. The latter position
was taken by the Ukrainian Military Organization, headed by Col.
Evhen Konovalets, a former regimental commander. This body carried
out various acts of terrorism against individual members of the
Polish government who were prominent in the suppression of Ukrainian
activities. Another group, composed largely of intellectuals, like
Professor Hrushevsky, accepted the invitation of the Ukrainian Soviet
Republic to transfer the centre of their activities to Kiev. Professor
Hrushevsky left Vienna, where much of the Ukrainian organized activity
had been concentrated. The vast majority, however, began to tend toward
such activity in the Polish state as they were permitted, without for
a moment giving up the right of Ukraine to its independence in the
future. Thus in 1923 the Ukrainians took part in the Polish elections
and a considerable number took their seats in the Diet, while their
leader, Dmytro Levitsky, declared publicly that they had not renounced
their ideals of independence and that they considered all treaties
denying the rights of the Ukrainian people to national independence to
be without any legal basis.

From year to year the struggle changed its form as various measures
were put into effect by the Polish government to break down the solid
block of Ukrainians living in Eastern Galicia and to introduce Poles
into the area. Thus the Poles in their laws for breaking up large
estates settled on these estates groups of Polish veterans in the
hope that they might destroy the Ukrainian voting majority. They
banned the use of Ukrainian in other than the three provinces in
which the Ukrainians were a majority. They refused any steps toward
the organization of a Ukrainian university and they did their best to
limit the number of schools in which Ukrainian was used as the language
of instruction. Again and again they initiated movements to close
Ukrainian cultural, economic and even athletic organizations by arguing
that they were merely being used for subversive activities.

During the early years after the War, the relations between
Czechoslovakia and Poland were badly strained. The Czechs accused
the Poles of inciting the Slovaks and in return they opened their
own institutions to offer refuge to the Ukrainians from Eastern
Galicia. There was established at Prague a Ukrainian Free University,
a Ukrainian Historical and Philological Society, a Union of Ukrainian
Physicians of Czechoslovakia, a Museum of Ukraine’s Struggle for
Liberation, and a Ukrainian Agricultural School at Podebrady. While
these were ostensibly open to Ukrainians of all regions, they were
for all intents and purposes largely catering to people from Eastern
Galicia who had fled from Polish rule.

The Ukrainian cause was kept alive before the League of Nations and
other international bodies by a continuous stream of protests against
Polish atrocities against the Ukrainians. These reached their height in
1930, when the Polish army was sent into the Ukrainian areas to pacify
the population and the acts of repression and cruelties practiced upon
the village populations increased. Ukrainian institutions of every kind
were closed, concentration camps were established, and the country was
on the verge of a real revolt. Again an appeal was taken to the League
of Nations, and in 1931 the League decided after some hearings that
there was no direct persecution but that many of the Polish officials
were undoubtedly showing excessive zeal in carrying out their orders.
It was the kind of decision that could not settle the situation and
restore peace to the area, for the Poles still insisted that the
Ukrainians were and of right ought to be loyal Polish subjects, even
though they were refused any positions of authority in the Ukrainian
areas and very few were admitted to the Polish University of Lviv.

Yet it must be remembered that all Ukrainian life was not stopped and
controlled by the Polish government. Thus in 1929 they allowed the
organization of a Ukrainian Scientific Institute in Warsaw in the hope
that it would outshine the Shevchenko Scientific Society of Lviv, and
that it would not develop the national and political consciousness that
there would be in an organization in Lviv, where the entire historical
tradition was permeated with the old struggle between the Ukrainians
and Poles.

There was no open attempt to destroy the various Ukrainian political
parties which were able to elect members of the Diet. These parties
represented all points of view, from conservatives to socialists, and
their members had the same general treatment as members of the Polish
parties. Yet their growth and functioning were hampered rather by
administrative restrictions than by downright and open dissolution.
There was no attempt to deny the Ukrainian character or traditions
except in so far as the Poles argued that they were Polish citizens and
therefore should develop Polish culture rather than their own national
usages.

The Poles were obsessed with the idea that there might develop a strong
movement for joining their brothers in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
It is true that during the period of Ukrainization there did spring
up a certain amount of reciprocity but this remained purely on an
intellectual plane. Bad as conditions were in Poland, the Ukrainians
showed no desire, except in the case of isolated Communists, to join
their brothers and become their companions in misery. Communists were
conspicuously absent in the Ukrainian organizations, for the iron veil
which grew up around the boundaries of the Soviet Union had separated
families and villages, and the few refugees who succeeded in crossing
into Poland did not give encouraging pictures of life under the Soviets.

The Poles were even more suspicious of the Ukrainian Orthodox than
they were of the Greek Catholics. They endeavored to form a Polish
Orthodox Church but this remained either Russian or Ukrainian speaking
and never was coordinated into an efficient whole, for it reflected
the differences of the Orthodox in the different provinces. However,
in 1938, in a tactless move the Poles seized over a hundred Orthodox
Churches and closed them on the pretext that they had once been Uniat
and that therefore they were not properly in Orthodox hands. Such an
act, which drew the protest of Metropolitan Sheptitsky, only succeeded
in antagonizing both the Uniats and the Orthodox against the Poles and
in bringing the two religious groups closer together. It was another of
the many mistakes that were made in the handling of the problem.

It goes without saying that the policy of avoiding a clearcut
settlement of the Ukrainian question reacted badly on the general
position of Poland, for it created the tendency among the Ukrainians to
seek for foreign support. At first they found this in Czechoslovakia,
which gave refuge to the anti-Polish forces among the Ukrainians. Later
some factions tended to look toward Germany for refuge and help.

In 1934 some of the conservative Ukrainians made an attempt to
“normalize” their relations with the Poles and to take a more active
part in the life of the country. Again these attempts really came to
nothing, for the Polish government used them as a sign of Ukrainian
weakening and felt that they did not require mutual concession. As
a result the Ukrainians received little actual relief and this in
turn only called out renewed terrorist attacks, renewed attempts at
pacification and the closing of Ukrainian institutions.

Despite all of these bitter political feuds, the Ukrainian population,
even during the years of depression, continued to solidify its position
in the state. Its co-operative organizations increased in numbers, in
capital and in membership. They became steadily more important and that
progress that had been noted during the last years of Austro-Hungarian
rule proceeded at an even more rapid tempo. The self-consciousness
that had come to the Ukrainians through their attempt at independence
made them more aware of their role and influence in the country and
especially in their special areas than they had been before the War.
Attempts to divide them into Ukrainians and Ruthenians on the ground
of religious and economic differences fell upon sterile soil. By 1939
the Ukrainians of the West were in a much better position than they had
been at any time in the past.

The situation in Western Ukraine aroused grave anxiety on the part of
many sincere friends of Poland as the hour for the Second World War
drew near, It presented many elements of danger to the Polish state
and this danger was magnified by the policy that was adopted by every
political party among the Poles. It seemed impossible for them to
realize that conditions had changed with the abolition of serfdom. That
same controversy which had broken out in the days when Galicia was
still subject to Austria-Hungary continued as a mutual feud, especially
in such areas as Lviv, where there was a large Polish as well as a
Ukrainian population.

The Poles fanned the flame of discord by their policy of antagonism
and by their inability to see the justice of any of the Ukrainian
demands. The restored Polish republic continued on the fatal path of
the seventeenth century by overemphasizing on the one hand a supposed
desire of the Ukrainians to join the Soviet Union as they had joined
Russia earlier, and on the other, by underestimating the strength of
the entire Ukrainian movement. They turned their attention and gave
their confidence only to those people who had been completely Polonized
and they ignored the long and unbroken struggle for equal rights
which the Ukrainians had been carrying on for centuries in the old
Poland, under the rule of the conquerors and later. An isolated and
non-Communist Western Ukraine might have been brought into a Poland
constructed on federal lines, but it could not feel happy as part of
a unified state in which it was treated as inferior in every way and
which was openly working for its complete absorption. After the failure
of the Ukrainian Republic, the Poles regarded the question as closed,
and their very insistence upon this only intensified that opposition
which they fought constantly and affected to ignore. As a result
Western Ukraine remained as a sore in the body politic of Poland,
instead of becoming an element of strength and just as in the past, so
in the present, the feud worked out to the marked disadvantage of both
sides.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

_CARPATHO-UKRAINE_

The fate of Carpatho-Ukraine was quite different. It was represented
in the negotiations that led up to the formation of the Republic of
Western Ukraine, but when the Western Ukrainian armies were forced
eastward by the Poles, the district was left isolated and the various
groups came together and decided upon union with Czechoslovakia.

The ideas of the population on this point were somewhat hazy. They
envisaged a situation where they would form a state within a state,
possessing practically complete autonomy, very similar to the position
of Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In this connection they were
also influenced by the Slovaks, who had dreams of holding a similar
status. On the other hand, the Czechs certainly thought of a unified
state of the same general type as France and it was the Czech ideas
that were carried out in practice.

On the whole the population of Carpatho-Ukraine was far more
undeveloped politically and nationally than were the other sections.
There were practically no schools in the area and what schools there
were conducted instruction in Hungarian. The Hungarian government also
had been extremely effective in imbuing the educated classes of its
minorities with the idea that their future depended upon merging their
own interests with those of the dominant Magyars. As a result there
were few, outside of the clergy, who had any vital understanding of the
cause of the people.

Besides that, the Ukrainian revival in these northern Hungarian
counties had not progressed as far since 1848 as it had among the
other sections of the Ukrainian people. While there was an active
Ukrainian group in the area, there were also many people who insisted,
contrary to all philological and cultural facts, that their language
was an archaic dialect of Russian and they looked to Russia for all
improvement in their status. This was particularly true of the Orthodox
in the area, even though their bishops were still nominally dependent
upon the Patriarch of Constantinople who retained the same vague powers
of control that he had in mediaeval Kiev. Many of these people, even
when they desired to be free of Hungarian control, still treasured some
sort of belief that they should be attached to Russia and refused to
consider merging their lot with that of the other Ukrainians.

Economic conditions were very bad and the mountainous nature of the
country was responsible for difficulties in communication between the
various mountain valleys, which formed the headwaters of the rivers
flowing down into the Hungarian plains to the south. Many of the
younger men and women emigrated or at least went down to Hungary as
seasonal laborers and the relations with the northern slopes of the
Carpathians were rather weak.

With such a background, effective organization was very difficult
and the Czechs, although they signed a definite agreement with the
representatives of the Carpatho-Ukrainians to grant the country as much
autonomy as was consistent with the unity of the state, did not hurry
themselves to apply this. On the contrary, they took the attitude that
the people would fall of necessity under the control of the Hungarians
and the Jews if they were allowed to handle their own affairs, and they
sent large numbers of Czechs into the area to carry on the essential
government services. There was at times a Carpatho-Ukrainian governor
but his powers were severely limited by the Czech officials who
surrounded him.

At the same time the Czechs opened large numbers of schools in the
area and they did much to spread literacy among the population. It is
certain that during the first ten years of Czech control, the people
of the area were far better off than at any time under Hungary. Yet
the improving conditions could not fail to increase the national
consciousness of the people. It was the Czech hope that when a new
generation, educated in Prague, came into the important offices of
the region, they would be completely satisfied with their position in
Czechoslovakia and that any separatist feelings would be assuaged.

The increase of literacy had another effect upon the people. In the
past many had been content to talk their own dialect without any
thought of grammatical accuracy. Village differed from village and
there were the same differences that had appeared earlier throughout
Ukraine when the first writers were adopting and working out literary
Ukrainian. It became evident that the old ambiguous situation would
pass away. The children in school read Shevchenko and Franko and
the other Ukrainian authors and the general trend was to develop
Carpatho-Ukraine along the same general lines. This displeased many of
those people who had a sentimental attachment to Russian. They tended
to gravitate toward the use of true Great Russian and many of them fell
under Communist influence.

Thus, the period between the Wars was one largely of intensifying the
national feeling in the country and one of considerable material and
intellectual improvement and development. On the whole there were
relatively few of those disorders which had marked the liquidation
of the Republic of Western Ukraine by Poland. Yet tensions continued
to increase, especially after 1925 when the reforms in Hungary by
Jeremiah Smith, acting as financial representative of the League
of Nations, forced the return to the area of many of the former
Hungarian-sympathizing Carpatho-Ukrainians who had been able to
establish themselves in white collar jobs in Hungary. They tried to
recover their old position in the community but were prevented by the
Czech authorities, and so they began an underground campaign to win the
country over to its former rulers.

In 1928 the Czechoslovak government reorganized the whole section as
the province of Podkarpatska Rus, but it still hesitated to grant local
autonomy and the diet that had been promised to the population and had
been persistently withheld. As a result there grew up a marked coolness
between the population and the central government in Prague, which
continued to waver between a definite support of those groups which
were conscious of their Ukrainian character and those which believed
themselves some kind of Russians. In all this the relations between the
Czechs and the Russians played a considerable part. After the signing
of a treaty of alliance between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in
1933, the Czechs gradually lessened any support of the Ukrainophile
party and at the same time they dropped some of their more ardent
support of the Ukrainians in Prague.

Ill feeling was also generated in the province by the results of the
depression. This had struck hardest in the Sudeten German areas, where
the glass trade was especially affected. It coincided with the rise
of the Henlein party under the influence of the Nazi seizure of power
in Germany and with the strengthening of the followers of Monsignor
Andrew Hlinka in Slovakia, with their demand for full autonomy there.
Naturally all this was carried over into the province of Podkarpatska
Rus and some of those groups which had formerly leaned upon Hungary now
looked toward Germany for support.

The situation came to a head after the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia
at Munich in 1938. The immediate result was the setting up of the
so-called Second Republic, which was greatly decentralized. As
a result, for the first time Carpatho-Ukraine received the local
diet which had been promised and refused time after time during the
preceding twenty years.

This marked a new period of hope not only for the Ukrainians of
Carpatho-Ukraine but also for Ukrainians throughout the world.
Satisfaction in this was however mitigated by the fact that the
Germans, to please Hungary, had turned over to that country large
sections of the land, including the two chief cities of Uzhorod
and Mukachevo, in which the leading educational and governmental
institutions were located. The government was then compelled to meet
in Hust, a small provincial town which contained almost no facilities.
Yet despite all the hardships and the difficulties in setting up a
government, the Ukrainians were enthusiastic, for now, at last, there
was again a centre where Ukrainian life could develop freely without
undue foreign interference. The Czech officials were recalled and the
increasing autonomy of Slovakia completely isolated Carpatho-Ukraine
from Czech influence. Ukrainians from all sections of the dismembered
country flocked to Hust and were able to offer great help and
assistance to the local population. Steps were taken to organize a
small army and as in 1918 they took the name of the Riflemen of the
Zaporozhian Sich. They unfurled the blue and yellow standard of Ukraine
and it became clear to all that Carpatho-Ukraine was on the way to
becoming a free and independent state.

Under the conditions that prevailed, it was necessary for the young
state to remain on friendly terms with Nazi Germany and to seek
its protection against Hungary which was claiming the whole of its
territory. The first Prime Minister, Andrew Brody, was soon removed by
the Czechoslovak government in one of its last acts outside the borders
of Bohemia and Moravia. The power then passed to Monsignor Andrew
Voloshyn, who worked hard and steadily to make the new state successful.

Throughout the winter of 1938–9 progress went on. There were repeated
difficulties with Poland, which wished Hungary to annex the territory
so as to remove the sympathy and support which the Ukrainians of
Eastern Galicia felt for this new centre of Ukrainian freedom. Hungary
continued to press demands upon the new state. Yet President Voloshyn
had definite promises from Germany that its independence would be
safeguarded and that peace would be maintained.

Then came another of those inscrutable changes on the part of Hitler
that had so much to do with the downfall of Nazi Germany. It was
commonly believed that Hitler, in his hatred of both Communism and
Poland, would use the little state of Carpatho-Ukraine as a centre of
Ukrainian propaganda. It was thought that he would foment discontent
in Eastern Galicia, arouse a revolt there and allow the Ukrainians of
Eastern Galicia and Carpatho-Ukraine to unite. Then optimists believed
that ultimately the pressure of Germany would result in the liberation
of Eastern Ukraine and that Ukraine would again be free, even if it
was compelled to remain within the German sphere of influence. Some
Ukrainian leaders, even if they were democratic and opposed to the
principles of Nazism, saw in this the same situation that had occurred
at the time of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk when Ukraine could find no
support in any other quarter.

It was not to be. The German policy can only be understood on the
assumption that friendly relations had already been established
between the Nazis and the Communists. On March 13, at the urging
of Hitler, Slovakia declared its complete independence and this
completely separated Carpatho-Ukraine from the rest of Czechoslovakia.
On March 15, the German troops moved into Prague and on the same day
Carpatho-Ukraine formally declared its independence.

It was almost the last act of the tragedy. The day before, Hungary,
more powerful and willingly a satellite of the Nazis, sent an ultimatum
to the new government. Voloshyn appealed to Hitler to stand by his
promises to maintain the independence of the country and was rudely
rebuffed on the ground that the situation had entirely changed. Without
any delay the Hungarian troops, which had been well-armed by the
Germans, crossed the boundary of Carpatho-Ukraine and attacked Hust.
The Riflemen of the Sich fought bravely under the leadership of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the head of which was Colonel
Andrew Melnyk, but their light weapons were useless before the heavier
guns of the Hungarians. The government with President Voloshyn, was
forced to flee to Romania and there offered to place itself under
Romanian control. The offer was refused.

The Hungarians met with severe opposition from the little army of
Carpatho-Ukraine and from the armed peasants whose knowledge of the
country served them in good stead. By the beginning of May, the
country had been pacified and brought under full Hungarian control.
Its constitution and name were wiped out, the Hungarian language was
introduced, and the Hungarian government did everything in its power
to bring conditions back to what they had been in 1918. Schools were
closed or Magyarized. Ukrainian institutions were liquidated and a new
era of oppression opened for those people who had been but a few days
before jubilant over their newly won independence.

Apparently the change of policy was connected with the plans of Hitler
to come to terms with Stalin for the division of Eastern Europe, and
the weakening of anti-Communist Ukrainian movements was part of the
larger design. Yet it had a very important result. It completely
destroyed the unnatural alliance between the democratic Ukrainians and
the Nazi Germans. It ended any lingering dreams that there might be a
real friendship between the Germans and the Ukrainians. The result was
that during the next months and years there were no further attempts
to secure German support. When in the fall of 1939 Germany attacked
Poland, there did not come any revolt in Eastern Galicia against the
Poles, despite the increasingly severe measures taken by the Polish
government, and when Germany finally attacked the Soviet Union, she
secured more aid from the dissatisfied Russians than she did from the
Ukrainians whom she had so flagrantly abandoned.

The development of Carpatho-Ukraine was then only another one of the
unsuccessful Ukrainian attempts to win liberty for at least one part of
the divided country, but it showed the growing feeling of unity that
existed amid the overwhelming tragedies of the past years. It played
a disproportionate role in the fateful year of 1939 and it emphasized
anew the important strategic position of Carpatho-Ukraine and indeed of
Ukraine as a whole in the coming struggles.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

_THE UKRAINIAN SOVIET REPUBLIC_

The seizure of power in Russia by the Bolsheviks gave them the
opportunity to carry out their theories of government, which were
in marked variance to all previous political thought. Hitherto,
everywhere in the world there had been attempts to set up national
or dynastic governments located in definite areas of the earth’s
surface. The Soviets now cast all this into the wastebasket and in
their zeal for an international and worldwide revolution, they planned
to build a government based upon the worldwide community of interests
of the workers and peasants. In theory at least this was to be an
international government and they had high hopes that the laboring
classes of the world would rally to their standard.

It happened that Lenin, Trotsky, and also the vast majority of the
other leaders were Russian and that the seat of the government was in
Moscow, but in theory they cared very little about Russia as such.
In the first heat of their enthusiasm, they even went so far as to
recognize the equality of all the nationalities in the old Russian
Empire and allow them full self-determination and even the right
of secession. The old organization was completely wiped out and a
new structure, the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, was
established.

At this moment the Ukrainian National Republic was struggling to
its feet and the demand was growing for a declaration of complete
independence which was finally adopted on January 9/22, 1918, as we
have seen. It might have been assumed that this coincided with the
decrees adopted by the Bolsheviks and that the way was now cleared for
the development of an independent Ukraine. Yet this explanation was too
simple, for the Bolsheviks had another string to their bow and they had
already commenced to play it.

The Ukrainian Council was an organization working along democratic
lines. The Bolsheviks therefore declared that it did not represent the
workers and peasants. After their discomfiture in Kiev in December,
1917 they retired to Kharkiv and there, on December 13, proclaimed
the existence of a Ukrainian Soviet Republic which would satisfy the
conditions for a real workers’ and peasants’ government. It made no
difference to them that the leaders of this movement were not primarily
Ukrainian, that its organization had been pushed by various Russian
bands which had penetrated into Ukraine, and that its first military
support was furnished by Russian Communists.

This group appointed a Committee which became the executive body under
the name of the All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee on January 3,
1918. This consisted of Manuilsky, a Ukrainian who had long lived
in Russia, Rakovsky, a Bulgarian or Romanian Jew, Hrynko, and two
Ukrainian politicians, Zatonsky and Skrypnyk. They proceeded to carry
out the regular Soviet plan of organization and on February 14,
announced a federation with the Russian Soviet Republic. The Soviets
introduced members of this group at the Conference in Brest Litovsk
with the Germans and insisted that it was the true representative
government of Ukraine, but they were compelled to recognize the
regularly constituted Ukrainian government.

The question was more or less academic during the years of civil war,
when the Ukrainian government was struggling against overwhelming odds
to maintain its new-won independence. Yet in theory it was fighting
against the adherents of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, although it was
generally recognized that this was but a puppet of the Russian Soviets
and that the vast majority of the troops at its command were Russian.

However, when the Ukrainian government was finally overwhelmed, the
Ukrainian Soviet Government was definitely installed at Kharkiv as the
capital of Ukraine and for a short time went through the motions of
being an independent state. It sent its own representatives to foreign
governments, there was a Ukrainian Commissariat for Foreign Affairs,
and on paper all seemed well. At the same time, when there came too
open evidence of interference from Moscow with the sovereign Ukrainian
Soviet Republic, steps were taken to end such interference.

Yet the Communists had absolute control over the new state, not
through the Russian Soviet government but through the Communist Party,
which boasted of being an international organization and which could
discipline the various national Communist parties if they did not obey
the decrees issued by the central authority in Moscow. Any deviation
from these orders was interpreted as a counter-revolutionary act,
contrary to the wishes of the workers and peasants whose mouthpiece was
the Communist Party.

During 1921 and 1922 there came one of those periods of drought which
are not unknown in Ukraine. The grain crop was an utter failure, all
kinds of transportation had broken down as a result of the Civil Wars,
and the country was plunged into misery. It is estimated that several
million people died in Ukraine and the country was brought to the
deepest depths, far worse than during the earlier years of war. Typhus
added to the misery and carried away still more of the population.
Outside aid was sought and the American Relief Administration did
wonderful work in securing food from abroad and in distributing it to
the starving population.

The Ukrainians in their misery did their best to reject all
communization. In the Ukrainian districts there had never been the
communal ownership of land which was so typical of the Great Russians,
and the peasants fought hard and steadily to maintain possession of
their own land and that which they had secured from the landlords
during the period of the Ukrainian Republic. This naturally antagonized
the Soviets, and made them realize that they were going to have a hard
task to bring the country around to their mode of life.

They attacked the problem in two ways. On the governmental side, the
Ukrainian Soviet Republic authorized the Russian Soviet government to
represent it in foreign negotiations at a conference in Genoa. From
that time on it became customary for the Ukrainian Soviet Republic
to follow the Russian line, although for a while there was always a
Ukrainian representative in the Soviet Embassy in all those countries
where Ukraine had been formerly recognized.

Then, at the end of 1922, there was signed a declaration for the
formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This was
ratified in 1923 and came into effect in 1924. Under this new system,
the various Soviet Republics, including Ukraine, transferred all
their foreign and most of their domestic affairs to the government
of the Soviet Union, which was, as before, almost identical with the
government of the old Russian Soviet Republic. In the All Union Soviet
of Workers’ and Peasants’ Delegates, the Russian Republic had an
overwhelming majority, if there was to be any voting, and between the
control of the Communist Party by the Russians and the control of the
Soviet Union by the same people, it was abundantly evident that any
autonomy in Ukraine was a mere shadow which could be stopped at any
time.

Yet while the central authority was being extended over the country,
the Soviets gave a wide scope to cultural Ukrainization. The New
Economic Policy was very popular in the land, since it gave a certain
liberty to the individual peasants and there were many people who
believed that the worst extremes of Militant Communism were over.

There was great attention paid to the founding of the Ukrainian Academy
of Sciences and the Ukrainian Soviet government sent out the most
cordial invitations to the old leaders of the Ukrainian Republic to
return and take their places in the new order and in the rebuilding of
the country. Many accepted. Professor Hrushevsky returned from Vienna
and was made head of the Historical Section of the Academy of Sciences.
Holubovich, who had been President of the Council of Ministers of the
Ukrainian National Republic, followed and many of the other leaders
moved to Kharkiv and Kiev. The Academy of Sciences flourished and
intellectual work was liberally supported. It elected to membership the
outstanding scholars of Western Ukraine, who welcomed this opportunity
to have free and open communication with their friends and kindred
of Great Ukraine. At the same time, steps were taken to introduce
Ukrainian into all the offices of the government of the Ukrainian
Soviet Republic. A Ukrainian army was established, with the official
language Ukrainian, and while it formed part of the Red Army of the
Soviet Union, it was national enough to win much sympathy and support
from all classes of the population.

It was only the hardened and incorrigible opponents of Communism who
refused to be appeased by these actions and who persisted in refusing
to credit the new regime with good intentions. It is true that there
remained on the statute books the old Communist regulations in regard
to the Academy of Sciences but there were relatively few attempts to
enforce them, and while there was some hampering of the work of the
scholars by zealous advocates of Marxism, it hardly seemed important
for the average person. The same was true in almost all walks of life.
Ukraine began to recover from the devastations of the civil wars.

Yet during these years, Communism made very little advance among the
Ukrainian people, and by 1925 the non-Ukrainian members of the party
far outnumbered the Ukrainian, as they had from the beginning. This was
very satisfactory to all those who were eager for the well-being of
the Ukrainians, but it was not good news to the representatives of the
ruling group in the Kremlin, who were hoping for the spread of their
doctrines throughout the country. For a while there was little that
they felt able to do and even when Kaganovich appeared in Ukraine, he
had only kind words for the progress that Ukrainian culture was making
throughout the land.

The problem before the Communists was to find the most convenient and
easy way to assert the control of the Moscow standardizing policy
without arousing too much discontent among the people. The return of
agricultural prosperity under individual farming was supplying the rest
of the Soviet Union with food and at the moment the leaders were not
desirous of upsetting conditions too strongly. It was true, of course,
that Ukraine was being laid under heavier and heavier contributions
until it seemed even to some of the Communists that the entire land was
being ruined.

Then came the problem of extending Communism to the country. The First
Five Year Plan was started in 1928 and this gave a good opportunity
for changing conditions. Enormous factories and power plants were
projected for Ukraine, such as the Dnyeprostroy near the site where the
old Sich had been located. There was needed a large mass of workmen
and the government saw to it that these were recruited from the Great
Russians and from non-Ukrainian elements. The first step in the change
of character of Ukraine had been taken.

At about the same time, the first steps were taken to handle the
cultural problem which had been intensified by the success of the
preceding program of Ukrainization. Under the guise of promoting the
solidarity of the Soviet Union, it was ordered that Russian be taught
as a second language in all schools. Arrangements were made so that
possibility for personal advancement was only opened to those persons
who knew Russian. Army officers who desired a career were sent to
Russian All-Union schools, and then for the most part were assigned to
units from other Soviet Republics. Along with such tendencies, which
removed from the state organization many of the outstanding young men
even among the Communists, there came a shift of emphasis, so that
Stalin could declare that the culture of the various Soviet Republics
would be varied in language but socialist in essence. In other words,
exactly the same thoughts were to be expressed in all the various
Soviet Republics, which were to be at liberty to repeat in their native
tongue the ideas of the Kremlin and nothing else.

There was strong opposition to this stand in Ukraine and the old
and more or less disused talk of Ukrainian counter-revolution and
nationalism was again brought out of the discard. Mykola Skrypnyk, an
old Ukrainian Communist, but an ardent advocate of Ukrainian culture,
undertook to bring Communism into the Academy of Sciences. The various
Communist organizations were invited to propose candidates for its
membership, for party prominence and familiarity with the slogans and
practice of Communism were henceforth to be the determining features of
the membership, rather than eminence in any field of learning.

To counter-balance the influence of the leading scholars and writers of
the last few years, Kaganovich and Postyshev, who had been appointed
Second Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, began to discover
that the leaders of Ukraine were in close touch with the nationalist
and counter-revolutionary elements abroad, especially in Eastern
Galicia. It was hardly a secret, for the Soviet authorities had
encouraged such communication in the hope that discontent with Poland
would bring the Western Ukrainians to declare their desire for union
with their brothers to the east. The attempt had not been successful,
and now the Soviet authorities were ready to turn this to account.
They arrested many of the intellectual leaders, such as Yefremiv, the
Vice President of the Academy of Sciences. Claiming that they belonged
to a society for the liberation of Ukraine, they sentenced them to
long terms in prison. Soon after they involved Professor Hrushevsky,
deposed him from his place in the Academy of Sciences and deported him
to a place near Moscow, where he was deprived of all possibilities of
study. When his health was completely broken, he was allowed to go to a
resthouse in the Caucasus to die.

In 1931, the authorities discovered a new liberation centre. In
connection with this they arrested Holubovich and many political
leaders who had returned to Ukraine during the era of Ukrainization
and after the usual trial condemned them to death. In 1933 it was
discovered that more Ukrainian leaders were acting with the Ukrainian
Military Organization abroad and these too were liquidated. Even
Skrypnyk, who had been one of the most zealous partisans of Communism
in Ukraine, was brought under suspicion and committed suicide. So did
the writer Mykola Khvylovy, who was accused of counter-revolutionary
work because he desired to strengthen the cultural connections between
the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and Western Europe, something which was
regarded as opposed to the growing unification of the Soviet Union and
its increasing isolation from the rest of the world. Step by step the
independence that had characterized the Ukrainian writers, even the
Ukrainian Communists, during the twenties was taken away and those who
survived accepted the necessity of producing a culture that was purely
socialist and Kremlinesque in essence and Ukrainian only in language,
and not always that, for the new tendencies aimed to assimilate into
Ukrainian as many Russian words as possible.

The continued trials and arrests can be explained in only two ways.
Either the Ukrainian national movement had gained prodigiously during
the years of Soviet rule and had swung to itself not only the remains
of those people who had fought for the Ukrainian National Republic
but also the founders of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic itself. If
so, it would have required little help from outside to have won the
independence of the country. Or the government of Stalin had decided
to eliminate as counter-revolutionary all men of any capacity for
independent thinking and the accusations against them were devoid of
factual foundation. One after another such Communists as Postyshev, who
had carried on the first trials, were themselves accused of Ukrainian
nationalism and liquidated or deported.

While this was going on in intellectual circles, Stalin announced his
plans for the socialization of agriculture. It was ordered that this be
carried through with the greatest speed and the peasants were forced
to give up their lands and to enter the newly established collective
farms, which were established throughout Ukraine as well as throughout
the entire Soviet Union. Here the government encountered and proceeded
to deal with the other aspect of Ukrainian life that had embarrassed
the Ukrainian National Government. That had attempted to satisfy the
peasant hunger for land by taking it away from the great landlords and
giving it to the peasants. It was the opposition of these Russianized
classes that had been used by the Germans in supporting the hetmanate
of Skoropadsky against the Republic, and by the Russians with Denikin,
when it came their turn.

Now by a clever extension of the use of the term “kulak,” all the
peasants who had been prospering on their own land and on that which
they had acquired, were declared enemies of the Soviet Union and were
driven into the collective farms. Armed detachments commandeered all
the grain of the individual landowners. These retaliated by killing
their cattle when they were ordered to turn them over to the collective
farms, and the situation became steadily more serious.

The result was the political famine of 1932–33. The collective farms
failed to function efficiently and to secure food for the cities, the
government confiscated all the grain in the villages and allowed the
peasants to go hungry until they were ready to work for the government
on its own terms. The area was closed to the outside world and for a
long while there were no definite reports of what was going on. Even
now many details are not known, but it seems clear that at least ten
percent of the population of Ukraine starved to death and this time
the government did not allow outside relief as it had in the famine
of 1921–22. Naturally the loss of life was greater in the purely
Ukrainian villages than it was in the cities which had been filled with
the new people brought into Ukraine for the sake of the industrial
development. As a result of this, it is certain that the proportion of
non-Ukrainians in the country has increased not only by the continued
process of immigration but also by the tremendous destruction of the
native population. The same results were achieved also by the enforced
deportation of millions more of the Ukrainians, who were sent to remote
areas of the Soviet Union where enormous numbers more perished because
of the conditions under which they were compelled to live.

While the Soviet government was thus remodelling Ukrainian life in
the country, it was exerting every effort to create a non-Ukrainian
population in the cities. The enormous coal and iron resources of the
eastern part of Ukraine were developed at a rapid rate. The Soviet
Union hired American engineers to construct the enormous power plant
of the Dnyeprostroy and they built huge factories in Kiev and Kharkiv.
As a result Ukraine rapidly became one of the foremost industrialized
areas in the Soviet Union and the only one about which any information
was allowed to pass to the outside world, for it was impossible to keep
the development in Ukraine as secret as the building of factories in
the Urals and further east in Siberia. The majority of the workmen in
these factories were brought in from other parts of the Union and the
Soviets carried out a definite policy of transportation of population
in order to crush once and for all the growth of a national or even a
local spirit in any of the subsidiary republics.

The extent of this is well shown in the writings of those Ukrainian
authors who accepted the new regime and became ardent citizens of the
Union. The poems of Tychyna, for example, a distinguished poet who
early accepted the full ideology of the Communists, boast that the
factories of Kiev are far more important than the Cathedral of St.
Sophia and all that represented the past culture. The writers sing
loudly the praise of Stalin, who with unerring judgment has pointed out
the path on which Ukraine must go in connection with the older brother,
Moscow, and all the nations of the Soviet Union.

Under such conditions support was withdrawn very ostentatiously from
all those movements which aimed to create brotherhood on the basis of
Ukrainian tradition with the population of Eastern Galicia and Western
Ukraine. Step by step the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences dropped direct
connections even with those foreign scholars whom it had elected to
membership. Later still its organization was changed, and instead
of being an institution founded by and responsible to the Ukrainian
Soviet Republic, it became merely a branch of the All-Union Academy of
Sciences and represented those activities which were carried on within
the territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. Most of its special and
localized activities were abolished and it became merely one part of a
great organization spreading throughout the entire country and devoted
to the study of the general interests of the whole.

All these tendencies were written into law by the All-Union
constitution of 1936, which definitely conferred upon the central
authority all possible control over the various Soviet Republics. This
marked the end of the illusory independence that had characterized
the position of Ukraine since the organization of the Soviet Union.
The power of the Kremlin was not in fact increased, but it rendered
possible the use of this power through the official agencies of the
government and not through the machinery of the Communist Party, which
was in effect a duplication of the channels of command. The change was
really one of name only, for the power of Stalin was as absolute before
as after, the same men filled the leading positions in the central
government and in the Party, and the constitution merely affirmed
publicly what every one knew privately to be true.

The following years witnessed the continued development of industry
and the renewal of attempts to bind Ukrainian manufacturing and mining
even more closely into the whole of the Soviet Union. There was a
continuation of the purges of every one who might be remotely charged
with holding a distinctively Ukrainian opinion on the ground that he
was cooperating with the Ukrainian nationalist agitation, but the
purges now came to include not only the possible suspects but almost
all of the men who had been zealous both in Ukraine and the Russian
Soviet Republic in organizing the regime. The old Bolsheviks were
nearly all liquidated and year by year fewer of the more convinced
young Communists of Ukraine found their way to the higher places in the
Soviet Union. Those positions were more and more confined to Russians
and even very few of the Ukrainians who had gone to other parts of the
country for their careers were rewarded.

At the same time, agriculture did revive as the collective farms became
a little more efficient. Yet even there a new danger developed, for the
plots of land which the individual households were allowed to cultivate
for their own use tended to increase and to be better cared for. The
peasants grasped at the slightest straw that would allow them to retain
a vestige of their old independence. The government was obliged to act
again to prevent these local family plots from taking up the best lands
of the communal farms and to limit them at most to an acre or so. There
were more decrees issued on this subject, there were more arrests and
deportations and more attempts to destroy the Ukrainian character of
the villages. The opposition could not be as strong as in the earlier
periods when the peasants were better organized but events made it
clear that the Soviet Union intended to leave no stone unturned to wipe
out the slightest survival of any of the old traditional feelings.

At the same time the rise of Nazism in Germany and the growing power
of that country created a certain alarm in Moscow. Many of Hitler’s
speeches called for the separation of Ukraine as the granary of Europe
from the Soviet Union. The Communists could not fail to know that
there were at least some of the Ukrainian nationalist leaders who were
living in Berlin and presumably receiving some support from the German
government. Yet it is noticeable that despite the many Nazi attacks
upon the Communists, relations continued at least formally between the
Nazis and the Communists through most of the thirties. It was obvious
that Germany was trying to win Western support against the Soviet Union
at the same time that the Communists were doing their best to stir
up discontent throughout the world, whether directly or through the
Communist International.

This situation increased the Soviet desire to stifle anything that
savored of Ukrainian nationalism and it added a certain reason for
the Communist desire to incorporate fully the Ukraine in the national
life of the Soviet Union. The idea of winning Ukrainian confidence
by proper treatment did not occur to the authorities, for it was
basically opposed to their fundamental belief that the Communist Party
as developed in the Soviet Union was the only legitimate spokesman for
the laboring masses of the world. It was this belief that had won them
their position in the Soviet Union and it was to that belief that they
were going to cling to the end of their stay in power.

Thus the Soviet Union pressed on its policy of remodeling Ukrainian
life to eliminate from it everything that had separated it from Great
Russia in the past. Harder and harder measures were devised, the number
of victims increased, and the new Ukrainian culture that developed
under the Soviet Union contained less and less of those elements of
freedom and democracy that had inspired Ukrainian thought during the
preceding century. The Soviets not only aimed to conquer the present
but they also attacked the past. They searched every means of changing
the attitude of the people toward their heroes of the past They strove
to emphasize every document that might reflect the revolutionary
feelings of Shevchenko and Franko, they indulged in diatribes against
Kulish and others as bourgeois, and they painted a picture of the past
which in its opposition to the definite aspirations of the Ukrainian
people came to sound very much like the decrees of the various rulers
of Russia of the past. The only difference was that they paid at least
lip service to the Ukrainian language in token of their theory that the
culture of Ukraine as of the other republics was to be socialist in
essence and only Ukrainian in language.

It is difficult to draw up a balance sheet in detail and to weigh the
gains of industrialization and the losses of the old life. It seems
certain that there was no more real happiness in Ukraine during these
years than during the long night of suppression that had preceded the
Revolution. Every step was taken to break the national spirit and to
train the new generation in an alien path. The only result was the
building up of a sullen and defiant mood which might bode ill for the
Communists, if it were properly exploited.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

_UKRAINE IN WORLD WAR II._

By the middle of 1939 it became clear that divided Ukraine was in an
unfortunate situation. For a brief moment the promise of a free and
independent Carpatho-Ukraine seemed to indicate where the interest
of the country lay. The growing autonomy of the province during the
winter of 1938–9 had gathered to it many of those Ukrainians to whom
national independence was the chief and only goal. Democratic as
they were, they believed that they could use Carpatho-Ukraine as a
base, even with German blessing. They had expected to profit by the
German-Polish dispute to win Western Ukraine in case of trouble and
they had visualized then a clash between Germany and the Soviet Union
which would allow them to win the independence of Great Ukraine. Then
a united Ukraine could be set up and this would be able to play an
independent role in the world as a nation of over forty million people.

It was a nice dream of the old world but it failed to take into account
the new practices of totalitarianism which discounted human dignity and
human rights and regarded men and women as but the tools of the machine
or the inanimate members of a caste. The easy way in which the Nazi
government turned over Carpatho-Ukraine, despite its promises, to the
Hungarians and the ruthless murder of many of its leaders showed to all
clearsighted Ukrainians that the future was not so simple as that. Even
those Western Ukrainians who were most hostile to Poland realized that
they had nothing to gain by the overwhelming of the Polish state as it
was in 1939 and despite the growing oppressive measures of the Poles,
any plans for a Ukrainian revolt in Eastern Galicia were laid aside.

The suddenly revealed conclusion of a non-aggression pact between Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union in August, 1939, made this even more
evident. Little or nothing has been made public of the negotiations
preceding this pact. The sacrifice of Carpatho-Ukraine was apparently
connected with it but no details are known. Yet it made still clearer
the fact that Ukraine was again in the position of 1914. Then it was
clear to the wiser political leaders that Ukraine could only profit
by the complete elimination of both Austria-Hungary and Russia. In
1939, it was certain that Ukraine could profit only by the complete
elimination of both Germany and the Soviet Union, and this meant
that the country would suffer heavily even under the most favorable
circumstances.

The German attack on Poland started on September 1, and as expected,
the German army pushed rapidly into Eastern Galicia and soon entered
Lviv. They seized practically all of the area but they were not to hold
it long. On September 17, the Soviet army invaded from the east despite
various treaties, on the ground that the Polish Republic had ceased to
exist as an organized state. On September 23, Ribbentrop and Molotov
signed another pact for the division of Poland. Again the exact line
has not been disclosed throughout its full course. Yet under it on
September 28, the Soviet army pushed into Lviv and occupied the whole
of Western Ukraine. This second act of treachery to Ukraine completely
broke any Ukrainian confidence in the Nazis, and showed them that any
further relations could only be fatal.

This was the first time that the Red Army had penetrated as far as
Lviv and they at once began to reorganize the country on the familiar
pattern. The landowners were dispossessed and the initial steps were
taken to collectivize the country. A large number of professors,
journalists, clergy and other intellectual and popular leaders were
removed. They were arrested by the NKVD and executed or deported to
other portions of the Soviet Union. Many were killed by so-called
outbreaks of the population led by Soviet agents. In fact all of
the methods tested by twenty years of Soviet work in Ukraine were
concentrated on the helpless province, in preparation for a “free”
election.

This election was held on October 22 and 91 percent of the population
voted for the formation of a Popular Council of Western Ukraine. It was
openly said that any one who refused to vote for the single list of
candidates, which included almost no known Ukrainian leaders of Western
Ukraine, would be treated as a counter-revolutionary and there was no
need to amplify this statement. At its first meeting on October 27,
the new Council formally begged to be included in the Ukrainian Soviet
Republic. There were more meetings of the picked groups at Kiev and at
Moscow and on November 1, representatives of the Council were invited
to Moscow where they presented their petition and were duly accepted
into the bosom of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. From then on Western
Ukraine was regarded as an inalienable part of the Ukrainian Soviet
Republic.

It was the same act that had been symbolically performed in 1919,
when the delegates of the Republic of Western Ukraine had appeared
at Kiev and the united Ukrainian Republic had been proclaimed. But
what a difference! Then representatives had appeared; there was joint
discussion of the problems that had to be solved; there were attempts
to resolve them on democratic lines. Now the appeal was to the Council
of Commissars and the Supreme Soviet at Moscow. The delegates were
handpicked and there had been already a long list of arrests and
executions before the conscious portion of the population adequately
reflected the will of the Communist Party, which had won few adherents
during the preceding twenty years.

The farce continued with new demonstrations of love and affection for
Stalin and the Soviet Union. On December 24, after more preparation,
the proper candidates were elected to the local soviets and on March
24, 1940, Western Ukraine elected delegates to the Supreme Soviet of
the Ukrainian Soviet Republic and to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet
Union. The next year and a half were spent in remodelling the country
and in stopping any manifestations of the popular spirit which were not
socialist in essence and only Ukrainian in language. Only the personal
reputation of Archbishop Sheptitsky saved him from sharing the fate of
the vast majority of the intellectuals and clergy of the country.

All this had barely been started when on June 27, 1940, the Soviet
Union intimated to Romania that it would be extremely appreciative,
if it would hand over Bukovina and Bessarabia. The Nazi-Soviet accord
was still working smoothly and Romania graciously consented. The
next day the Red Army moved in and awarded to the Ukrainian Republic
northern Bukovina and northern Bessarabia. The rest of the territory
so graciously ceded was added to the Moldavian Soviet Republic. Again
there were the same speeches of gratitude, the same elections, the same
choosing of delegates to the various Soviet Republics and the Supreme
Soviet of the Soviet Union and the same introduction of the ideals and
practices of the Communist Party.

Then on June 21, 1941 there came the lightning attack of the Germans
upon the Soviet Union. In a few weeks the German armies smashed across
the Soviet borders, occupied Kiev and Kharkiv and approached Moscow.
Once again Ukraine had changed masters.

There was little reason for the population to rejoice. The Germans
came not as liberators but as conquerors. They made no attempt to
remedy any of the abuses of the Soviet authorities but they added to
them by insisting that all of the property confiscated by the Soviets
was the property of a hostile government and therefore entitled
to confiscation. They made no effort to consult the wishes of the
Ukrainians or to establish a self-respecting Ukrainian government.
They sought only for a few leaders who would consent to act as German
representatives to push the people into a definitely subordinate
position as a subject race. They did allow some of the churches to
reopen and they gave a grudging support to the revival of the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church, which had been banned as soon as the National Republic
had been suppressed.

Yet they prevented any considerable mass movement from developing by
seizing several million Ukrainians, both men and women, and sending
them to Germany as slave labor. There is no need to recount the
hardships of these unfortunate people, who were compelled to work
for almost no wages and on starvation diets for the benefit of the
master-race. Their fate was additional proof, if such were needed, that
Ukraine could expect even less from the Germans than it could in 1918,
and it speedily served to disillusion even the most inveterate enemies
of the Communists.

On the other hand, the fate of another large section of the population
was little better, for the Soviets endeavored to move as large a part
of the population as possible to the east and millions more found
themselves forcibly deported from their homes on the pretext that they
would thus escape the scourge of war. The Academy of Sciences and much
of the Universities of both Kiev and Kharkiv were thus moved and the
Academy of Sciences celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of its
foundation in Ufa in western Siberia.

Partisan warfare broke out on a large scale both among Ukrainian
patriots and Soviet sympathizers. Bands of men, sometimes numbering
thousands, with equipment taken from both sides, ravaged the country,
while the Soviets announced that those who fought the Germans were
patriots and those who attacked the Red Army were fascists and
bandits. The names of such leaders as Taras Bulba and Bandera who were
distinctively Ukrainian nationalists and fought both sides are known
but again there is little detailed knowledge of their activities.
The worst aspects of 1918 were repeated for these leaders, although
struggling only for an independent Ukraine, came into frequent clashes.
Some of them seem to have been the survivors of the older nationalist
bands that had fought even after the formal ending of the Civil Wars,
others were communistically inclined and fought for the Soviets,
and undoubtedly some were able to profit by more or less temporary
alliances with various German units which controlled the main centres
of population and the lines of communication but which were unable to
occupy the broad expanses of the country.

Soviet propaganda during the war emphasized the fact that the purges of
the thirties had completely destroyed any fifth-column activities in
the Soviet Union and glorified all the partisans, but despatches since
the close of hostilities indicate that in some areas the great swarms
of bandits and deserters from the Red Army could hardly have appeared
in the course of a few weeks. Apparently in some districts there was
almost as much anti-Soviet as anti-Nazi activity going on in the no
man’s land between the two armies.

At the same time, there can be no doubt that this partisan activity
played an enormous role in hemming in the German forces and in
rendering it impossible for them to secure supplies even from land
which seemed to be safely under their control. It is indeed possible
to wonder what would have been the outcome in many areas, especially in
Ukraine, had the Germans seriously undertaken the task of liberating
the community and of dealing honestly with the people who had
experienced so many years of starvation and confiscation. Yet these
ideas were entirely foreign to the Nazi temperament, which sought to
displace the native population by settling German colonists on the soil
and to reduce the original inhabitants to still greater misery or to
carry them off and destroy them by forced labor.

After reaching Stalingrad and the northern Caucasus, the German tide
began to ebb and soon flowed back into Ukraine and White Ruthenia.
Slowly but surely the retreat continued and its speed increased as the
Germans made their way back to the land from which they had set out so
gaily three years before. After the wave of battle had swept again over
Ukraine, the Soviet armies were reorganized into Ukrainian and White
Ruthenian armies to bring these Soviet republics into prominence. It
does not seem likely that these armies under Soviet Russian generals
can be regarded as armies either of Ukrainian or White Ruthenian
citizens. If we accept this version, we must assume that few members of
the Russian Soviet Republic took part in the war, for at no time was
there mention of any Russian armies and this conflicts with the stories
of general mobilization that have been so often told. Apparently the
Ukrainian and White Ruthenian armies were armies that were formed or
based on the territory of the two Soviet Republics but they served
as the basis of the claim that both Ukraine and White Ruthenia were
entitled to enter the United Nations.

To facilitate this, the Soviet constitution was changed in autumn of
1944 to provide special Commissars for Foreign Affairs for the various
Soviet Republics and to allow them to send diplomatic representatives
to foreign countries. In one sense this is a return to the conditions
prevailing in Ukraine before the organization of the Soviet Union,
when the bond of connection was the iron control of the Communist
Party over all the Communists in the various Soviet Republics. It
bears a superficial resemblance to the decentralization of the British
Commonwealth of Nations, but this is only superficial, for so far as
we know, there has been no change in the provision of the Constitution
that provides that the All-Union Soviet can cancel any measure that is
adopted by the individual Soviet Republic, if it wishes to do so.

It is interesting, to say the least, that the Ukrainian representative
at San Francisco was the same Manuilsky who had come down from Moscow
to act as the Muscovite representative at the formation of the
Ukrainian Soviet Republic. He was born in Ukraine but he spent most
of his life in the service of the Russian Soviet Federated Republic
and later the All-Union Soviet, and his relations with Ukraine have
been rather as a Russian or Soviet delegate than as a spokesman for
the Ukrainians. The Chairman of the Council of Commissars, Khrushchev,
seems to be definitely a Russian. In fact there is little to suggest
that there is any Ukrainian of prominence on the Ukrainian scene in
a major role. It seems abundantly clear that Ukraine is now being
considered merely as a definite tract of territory with no special
connection with its own past, for it must have a culture socialist in
essence and only Ukrainian in language, and there is some doubt as to
whether the language is not being remodelled on the Russian pattern.

As the German troops retreated further and further, Ukraine was again
thoroughly ravaged. The cities were largely in ruins, the population
had been murdered or deported either to east or west, and the material
progress that had been accomplished during the twenty years between
the wars was largely wiped out. It was necessary to begin to rebuild
the country after a desolation which exceeded that of 1918–20. Yet
there have been few consistent stories of what has happened. Side by
side with accounts of starvation as a result of the German seizure of
foodstuffs, there have been equal stories of gifts by the joyful and
liberated population to the victorious Red Army and these gifts have
been reported on a scale that would indicate abundance in the areas
which were the most hotly contested. There is no way to harmonize the
various accounts that have been put out officially and it is probably
wiser not to attempt it at the present time.

Then as the Red Army swept on into Western Ukraine, the same procedure
was repeated. In every city there were held gatherings greeting Stalin
as the liberator of the land with the glorious Red Army. There were the
usual resolutions of gratitude, the usual concerts at which Russian
music formed the bulk of the program, the usual glorification of all
those Ukrainian heroes who worked for the union of Ukraine and Russia
and the usual condemnation of every event or person who did not fit
into the Russian or the Russian Soviet program.

Then came the turn of Carpatho-Ukraine. At the time when the Soviet
Union recognized the Czechoslovak government-in-exile during the War,
it recognized the old boundaries of the country and this included
Carpatho-Ukraine. When the Red Army crossed into the area, there came
the usual demonstrations, the usual resolutions, the usual appointment
of temporary Soviets, and then the usual request that the country
be allowed to join the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, and of course the
petition was accepted.

Yet when it came to a question of carrying on negotiations with
the “independent” Polish government set up after the Allied powers
had withdrawn recognition from the Polish government-in-exile, the
negotiations were carried on in Moscow. The district of Kholm, which
was an old part of Ukraine, was freely handed over to Poland without
any consultation with the wishes of the population, a consultation that
would have been unnecessary, for the entire population of the Soviet
Union desires only what has been put forward by the Kremlin, and the
same process was followed in Lemkivshchina.

With the occupation of the whole of Ukraine by the Red Army there has
descended an even more impenetrable veil over the country. The silence
that reigned during the war has become even more intense and the
information that comes out is hardly credible, unless the entire past
for centuries has been one long nightmare.

It was to be expected that all traces of an independent Ukrainian
Orthodox Church would disappear as soon as the Soviet government was
back in control, especially since it has allowed the restoration of
the Patriarchate of Moscow to carry out its plans among the other
Slavs. It was to be expected that punishment would be visited upon
the leaders of the Uniat Church, for they had proved themselves in
Western Ukraine to be the guardians of the Ukrainian national spirit.
Throughout the nineteenth century they had worked for the spiritual
and material welfare of their people and in the past the Russian
Empire had dealt harshly with them in all areas under its control.
Archbishop Sheptitsky, the patriarch and leader of the Church, died.
His successor, Joseph Slipy, was arrested and apparently deported. The
other bishops vanished from the scene either by exile, imprisonment or
death, and an uncanonical synod of a few priests was convoked. Again
that body did the usual thing. It officially requested to be received
back into the Orthodox Church and to come under the Patriarchate of
Moscow and of course the wish was granted in March, 1946. The Cathedral
at Lviv was turned over to the Russian Church and so were many other
Church buildings. Priests who do not conform are being imprisoned or
tried as fascists. The Uniat and Ukrainian Orthodox bishops abroad
have protested and have pointed out the typically uncanonical nature of
the whole proceedings. The Pope has protested against the persecution
of the faithful in these areas, at the violation of concordats with
former governments in the area. All in vain. Resolutions and requests
continue to pour out to justify and glorify the Red Army and their
leader and the fate of the individuals involved grows ever more obscure.

Yet on the other hand two phenomena stand out in clear relief. The one
is the problem of banditry. Again and again we read that in Ukraine,
in Poland, in Carpatho-Ukraine and along all the borders of the
friendly states large bodies of men, largely in Red Army uniforms,
are plundering the country, and persecuting the communists and that
part of the population which is cooperating with the Red Army. We are
told these men in Red Army uniforms are a mixture of Nazis, traitors
who fought in the Nazi armies from the Slavonic lands and the general
riff-raff that always follows in the path of war. Among them are
Ukrainian nationalists of various groups, especially those who form the
Ukrainian Revolutionary Army. They are said to present a formidable
problem for the forces that are interested in preserving Soviet
“democracy.”

All this sounds strange when we compare it with the general tone of the
communiques reflecting the jubilation of the people in being liberated
from the Nazi yoke. It fits in well with the stories or perhaps the
legends that patriots and nationalists saw their opportunity to strike
a blow in their own behalf against both masters and that they have not
been so wholeheartedly on the side of the Red Army as we were led to
believe earlier.

Side by side with them we have the amazing and distressing picture
of the displaced persons. At the Yalta Conference it was provided
that the persons who had been moved from an area by the Nazis should
be allowed to return and that the governments should assist in this
task. It sounded a reasonable measure and so it turned out in the west.
There were few French who wished to remain in Germany or in Holland.
There were few Dutch who were not ready to go back to their homes and
country, even if they were to find their families dead or scattered and
their homes burned.

Yet there are millions of people who have been transported against
their will from those portions of the Soviet Union that were occupied
by the Germans, who refuse to go back to certain death. They have
experienced for years the cruelty of German prison camps and the abuses
of forced labor and even so they do not wish to go back. The methods
that have been employed to force them to do so have become a scandal to
the Western and civilized powers. Men and women of all walks of life
have been ready to commit suicide rather than to face again life within
the Soviet paradise. It is idle to call them fascists and to say that
they fear just punishment.

The suspicion cannot be put down that these are people who have once
been within the veil and are now willing to face even death rather than
return. There can be but one reason, that life there was so hard and
desperate that their present fate, such as it is and has been during
the War, seems far better and more hopeful, even when hope is lacking,
and when their future is dark and unsettled. We cannot help thinking
that their stories and still more their actions throw into lurid
relief and confirm the tales of the deportations, the famines, the
concentration camps in the wastes of Siberia and of Central Asia, that
have drifted across the sealed borders of the Soviet Union and which
have never been accepted at face value.

Behind the veil that the Soviet Union has cast around it, Ukraine has
been united. Ravaged by war, plundered and destroyed by the marching
and countermarching of two armies, drained of its population by
death and by deportations, it remains a tragic spot in the wreckage
of a great war. Impartial observers have told us of the devastation
and the suffering in other lands, but Ukraine remains in the shadows.
Her spokesmen at home are mute and there are only the official
representatives of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic speaking, as is their
wont, the words of the Soviet Union to assure us that all is well. The
world would like to believe it, it is resting its hopes of a better
future upon it and yet the doubts are not dispelled, when it would be
so easy, if the Soviet Union wished to do it.

But not only that. With the triumph of the Soviet “democracy” in
Ukraine, the Soviet Union is hastening to assure the world that it
has discovered new examples of the revival of Ukrainian nationalism.
It has found new cases on a large scale of the evil influences of the
work of Professor Hrushevsky. It has found reasons for new purges of
the Ukrainian Communist leaders who are unworthy of their great task
of promoting the new “democracy.” There are new rumors of a drought in
Ukraine. The world has heard all this several times and realizes now
that it is the story of the last twenty-five years since the fall of an
independent Ukraine.

To-day Ukraine is one. For the first time in centuries it has been
united under one government. Not since the days of ancient Kiev has
this been so fully true, but it is a far cry from the Ukrainian Soviet
Republic to that free and independent government which was formed so
hopefully in 1918, in the heat and confusion of the First World War.
It is a far cry from the dream of a free and independent republic
organized on the democratic principles of the West to the present
Soviet Republic, from the wild and tumultuous Kozak Host with its
elected officers to the present organization with the chiefs appointed
by Moscow. It is a sad story and the present chapter is by no means the
most hopeful.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

_THE FUTURE OF UKRAINE_

At the end of the First World War, Ukraine won a shortlived
independence and then it was torn apart and divided among its
neighbors. For a while it seemed to have reverted to the conditions
in the seventeenth century when Russia and Poland struggled for its
ownership. At the end of World War Two it was reunited within the
Ukrainian Soviet Republic and found its place as such in the number of
the United Nations. What does the future hold in store for it?

What is to be the future development of Ukraine? This depends on the
future of the democratic ideals which have long been held by England,
the United States and the whole of Western Christian civilization and
which are now challenged by the new ideas of the Soviet Union.

Perhaps never in recorded human history has the future of the world
been so uncertain. The ending of the greatest war in history has not
brought a feeling of peace to mankind. The power of the atom bomb,
the enormous advances in science and in methods of destruction, the
annihilation of space by the improvement of transportation and the
increased range of rockets and other weapons, all have brought humanity
to realize that in the material sphere there must be an end of war and
of conflict or civilization will be irretrievably destroyed.

On the other hand, the dissension in the ideals of man has reached a
new high. Earlier wars between Christians and pagans, between Catholics
and Protestants, have concerned a certain range of ideas but the
opposing contestants have recognized many human qualities as common to
both sides. For centuries there has been a slow but steady increase in
recognition of the rights of the individual, of his innate right to
choose his own place of residence, to think his own thoughts, to sing
his own songs, and to rear his family as he would. The great despotisms
and empires of the past ruthlessly eliminated large masses of the
population, but they were content to demand only outer loyalty and not
to interfere with the inner life of their subjects. Even the slaves
could have an area of thought which they could call their own.

It has remained for the twentieth century to undertake the task of
subjugating the inner life of man. We may smile at the crudities of the
Japanese thought police who carefully interrogated the subjects of the
Emperor to see if they had any dangerous thoughts, but in more subtle
ways the whole power of the Soviet Union is devoted to the creation
of a culture that shall be socialist in essence and only differ in
the language. Around the area which it controls there has been drawn
an iron veil of silence and of secrecy. Its admirers abroad willingly
accept the same restrictions and when the word filters through from
Moscow, they willingly change their position, perform a complete
revolution in their mode of thinking and follow the new line without
criticism or debate.

On the other hand, the United States and Western Europe are trying to
maintain an appreciation of the old values. They are concerned with
problems of liberty and human rights. They may fall short of their
ideals and of their goals. There may be and often are actions which can
only be condemned by all thinking men. Yet with it all there is the
same hope and confidence that the human being can find his way to a
better, happier and free future.

The struggle between these two conceptions of life is destined to form
the essence of the history of the coming years. It is truly a battle
for the human spirit that is coming to the foreground of the world
stage at the end of the great struggle that has thrown the whole of
Europe and large parts of Asia and the Pacific Islands into the abyss.
To-day it appears in the councils of the United Nations, for that body
has been formed with the greatest care as to methods of organization,
but with surprisingly little attention to the contents of the spirit
of that organization. The founders did not venture to write into it
the spirit of the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter, the ideals
of self-determination of Woodrow Wilson, or the principles on which
American and Western Christian life has been based since the days of
ancient Judaism and Hellenism, lest the clash between the two ways of
life be brought into the open and doom in advance the hopes of men for
a peaceful world.

What is to be the outcome? The human mind is staggered at the
potentialities for good and ill in the present situation. As we look
at the human misery, the ruined cities, the scorched earth, and the
destructive power of man, we can only wonder at what is going to
happen, and perhaps soon.

Where does Ukraine stand in all this? The Ukrainian spirit has survived
for over a thousand years. The Ukrainians on two occasions have lost
their upper and more cultured classes, when these were Polonized and
Russianized. The peasant life kept on, close to the soil and has sent
forth new shoots as soon as conditions became ripe. Every great shift
of the European balance, every great movement that has given a new
outlet to the human spirit has sooner or later had its effect upon the
people.

To-day as never before the Ukrainian population is scattered. The
Soviet government has worked unflinchingly to liquidate or break every
leader who has refused to bow to its all-embracing rule. The Ukrainian
literature of the present is indistinguishable from the literature of
the Russian Soviet Republic, of the Georgian Soviet Republic and of
the Kazak Soviet Republic. Millions of Ukrainians have been torn from
their native soil and scattered alone or with their families throughout
the length and breadth of the Soviet Union. Their places have been
taken by other similarly uprooted individuals, in the hope that there
may be formed a conglomerate mass of rootless people attached to the
traditions of the Communist Party.

Can such an ambitious plan succeed? There can be no doubt that under
the rule of Stalin and his associates, the Soviet Union has grown into
a powerful force which is apparently able to retain the iron control
that is necessary for its existence. There has been a terrible cost and
this is shown by the refusal of the displaced persons to return. It
is shown by the desperate struggle of the Ukrainians during the past
decades to maintain their homes and their identity. How long can they
endure? No one knows the ultimate power of resistance of the human
spirit. No one knows how long devoted fathers and mothers will continue
at the risk of their lives to nourish in their children those old
traditions which can be handed down secretly and then spring to life
with renewed vigor. No one knows how long the ruling group can maintain
that iron unity which alone can enable it to continue its herculean
task.

The world cannot continue half free and half Communist. Sooner or
later there will be an open clash or the ideals of one side will
penetrate and destroy the other. The final struggle may not take the
form of armed hostilities in the sense of a clash between the nations
representing the two ideals, but it will inevitably spread ruin and
devastation within one or both of the groups. The lurid tales of
deportations when the Red Army entered Western Ukraine will be but a
portent, a token of what will ultimately happen if the regime falls or
extends its power throughout the world.

It is chimerical to speak now of a relaxation of the methods of
control in the Soviet Union. For a quarter of a century, the world has
been waiting for a clear sign that this was already taking place and
it has been disappointed. The power of the Communist Party is stronger
than ever and it is able to profit immediately by all signs of weakness
and of confusion among the free nations. It is able to reach out beyond
its borders and it brooks no interference with its ideals or its
desires.

It is no time for optimism or for pessimism. Neither is it the time
for false and wishful thinking or for easy platitudes. The fundamental
issue is clear and however it may be glossed over, it cannot be avoided.

The traditional Ukrainian culture can now flourish only outside the
borders of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Soviet Republic, under the control
of its Communist leaders, is becoming a part of the great and unified
Soviet Union. Step by step the dreams of many sincere Ukrainian
Communists that they could adapt Communism to the Ukrainian spirit
have been blasted and those who held them have paid the price of their
beliefs. The struggle now is to adapt the Ukrainian spirit to Communism
by ruthless actions and by careful training. A democratic people is
being remodelled to serve the purposes of a strictly regimented regime.
Its past is being rewritten for it. Its present is being controlled.
Its future is being planned.

It is idle to deny that it may succeed, but we can be sure of only
one thing. It cannot succeed until the sway of Communism over the
whole world has been made absolute. So long as there is a fortress
of democracy anywhere in the world, there will remain a centre from
which the ideas of freedom and of humanity will emanate and which will
continually menace any system which denies them and their validity and
existence.

The problem of Ukraine lies to-day as one of the great problems of
the world. Here is a nation of forty million people that is sealed
off from its natural contacts and deprived of its natural rights and
desires. The tragic events of the last half century have shown that
alone it cannot throw off the yoke that is upon its neck. Yet that does
not mean that it must forever suffer.

Once the free nations awake to the situation and bend their efforts to
establish that freedom and dignity that is the right of every man, they
will realize that they will have no more devoted friends and allies
than the Ukrainians and then it will be possible to reestablish a free
and independent Ukraine as one of the free nations of the world.

INDEX

_Aeneid_, 155.

Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, 162, 165.

Alexander II, Emperor of Russia, 184, 185.

Alexander III, Emperor of Russia, 193.

Alexis, Tsar of Moscow, 27, 95, 109, 112, 113, 163, 167.

All-Ukrainian Council of Soviets, 223, 224.

All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee, 274.

All-Union Academy of Soviets, 284.

All-Union Soviet, 276, 295.

Allies (World War I) 236, 246–249, 250, 253, 255.
Missions to Ukraine, 242.

Allied Supreme Council, 248.

American Civil War, 188.

American Constitution, 146.

America, 13, 14, 15, 45, 59, 87, 140, 145, 259, 303.
See United States.

American engineers, 283.

American pioneers, 60.

American Relief Administration, 275.

American Revolution, 14, 128, 145.

American Ruska Nationalna Rada, 241.

Andrusivo, Treaty of, 93, 121, 123, 172.

Anna, Empress of Russia, 126, 127, 136, 138.

Antae, tribe, 32.

_Antiquities of Kiev_, 192.

Antioch, 54.

Antonovich, V., Prof., 190.

Apostol, D., Kozak Hetman, 134, 135.

Archangel, 227, 229.

Armenia, 40

Armistice, World War I, 237.

Asia, 25, 303.

Asia Minor, 26

Asiatic invaders, 11, 20

Athos, Mount, 51, 56

Atlantic Charter, 303

August II, King of Poland, 126.

August III, King of Poland, 126, 127.

Austria, 163, 174–233, 256.
See Austria-Hungary, Hapsburgs.

Austria-Hungary, 15, 28–30, 172, 183, 195–202, 210, 212.

Avvakum, Russian religious leader, 108.

Aztecs, 12, 59.

Bachinsky, A., Uniat Bishop, 175.

Balaban, Gedeon, Bishop, 55.

Balkans, 33, 150, 152, 153.

Baltic Sea, 20, 24–25, 73,
peoples, 204, 253.

Bandera, S., Ukrainian leader, World War II, 293.

Batu Khan, 42.

Baturyn, 100.

Bazarov, character of Turgenev, 186.

Belgrade, 152.

Belinsky, V. G., 160, 169.

Berinda, P., Kievan scholar, 111.

Berestechko, battle of, 81.

Berlin, 235, 285.

Bessarabia, 291.

Bibikov, D. G., Russian Governor-General of Ukraine, 162.

Bible, 50.

Bila Tserkva, 94, 235.
Treaty of, 81.

Bilozersky, V. I., Ukrainian writer, 169, 185.

Black Sea, 19, 20, 24, 26, 33, 66, 194, 206, 234, 235, 246.

Bobrinsky, Count A. G., Russian Administrator, 211.

Bogdanovich, I., Russian writer, 156.

Bogolyubsky, Prince Andrey, Prince of Suzdal, 26, 41.

Bohemia, 28, 36, 54, 154, 269. Estates of, 161.
See also Czech, Czechoslovakia.

Boileau, N., French critic, 156.

Bolsheviks, 217, 221–253, 273, 274, 285.
See also Soviets, Soviet Union, Communists.

Bosphorus, 10.

Boston, Mass, 145.

Braslav, 81, 126.

Brest-Litovsk, 55, 123, 229, 238, 251, 270, 274.
See also Union of Brest.

British, 145.

British Commonwealth of Nations, 295.

Brody, 269.

Brotherhoods, 53, 57, 69, 107, 120, 122–124, 176, 179.

Brusilov, A. A., Russian general, 213.

Budenny, S., Soviet general, 252.

Bukovina, 172, 181–196, 208, 239, 241, 291.
See also Austria-Hungary, Romania.

Bunker Hill, 145.

Bulavin, K., Don Cossack ataman, 110.

Bulgarians, 152.

Buturlin, V. V., Russian boyar, 82.

Byliny, 35.

Byron, Lord G. G., 94.

Byzantine Empire, 21, 24, 33, 34, 40, 45, 46, 52, 69.
See also Constantinople, Turkey.

Cadets, Russian political party, 226.

Capet, Hugh, King of France, 10.

Carbonari, Italian secret societies, 164.

Carpathian Mountains, 19, 25, 36, 43, 172, 211, 266.

Carpatho-Ukraine, 174, 182, 195–196, 207–212, 239, 241, 265–272,
288–289, 296, 298.
See also Austria, Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Hungary.

Caspian Sea, 40.

Catherine I, Empress of Russia, 135.

Catherine II, the Great, Empress of Russia, 14, 128, 137–178, 203,
226.

Caucasus, 204, 280, 294.

Cehelsky, L., Western Ukrainian leader, 246.

Central Administration of Press, Russia, 191.

Central Asia, 171, 193, 218, 247, 299.

Central Powers (World War I), 227–231.
See also Germany, Austria-Hungary.

Charlemagne, 36.

Charles XII, King of Sweden, 97–102, 131, 134.

Chernihiv, 36, 39, 42, 81, 152, 165, 185, 204.

Chernivtsy, 241.

Chertomlyk, vase, 32.

Chetniks, 125.

Chetyi Minei, 115.

China, 21.

Chronicles of Kievan Rus’, 26, 31, 32, 115, 150.

Church Schism, 35.

Church Slavonic, 34, 43–51, 108–112, 149–176, 180–199.

Ciceronian Latinists, 150.

College of St. Athanasius, Rome, 116.

Columbus, Christopher, 12.

Communism, 262–292.
Communist Party, 276, 284, 291, 295, 304, 305.
Russian Communists, 274, 306.
Ukrainian Communists, 279–285.
See also Bolsheviks, Soviets.

Communist International, 286.

Concord Bridge, Mass., 14.

Confederation of Bar, 127, 128.

Congress of Ruthenian Scholars, 181, 183.

Constantine, Russian Grand Duke, 165.

Constantinople, 9, 12, 21, 27, 33, 35, 37–52, 66, 90, 94, 107, 108,
117, 122, 152.
Patriarch of, 33, 54, 93, 122, 266.
Church of St. Sophia, 33.
New Church, 38.

Convention of Ukrainian Soldiers and Peasants, 220.

Cortez, H., Spanish leader, 12.

Council of Ambassadors, 255, 258.

Council of Florence, 45, 52.

Council of General Secretaries, Ukraine, 220.

Council of the Regency, Polish, 239.

Councils of Workers’ and Soldiers’, Deputies, 217.

Crimea, 64, 66, 76, 91, 93, 250.

Cromwell, Oliver, 13.

Crusades, 45, 47.

Curzon Line, 249.

Cyrillic script, 192.

Cyril Loukaris, 49.

Czaplinski, Polish officer, 74, 77.

Czartoryski family, Polish, 140.
Prince Adam, 162.

Czech, 153–167, 186, 238, 241, 265–269.
See also Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia, 208, 242, 260–270, 296.
See also Carpatho-Ukraine.

Czernin, Count O., Austro-Hungarian diplomat, 230, 231.

Danube River, 142.

Danzig, 127.

Dardanelles, 20, 235.

Decembrists, Russian revolutionary movement, 165, 167, 186.

Denikin, A. I., Russian general, 234, 244–250, 282.

Direktoria, 235–252.

Dnyeper River, 9, 20, 24, 25, 29, 34, 36, 43, 58–77, 88, 91, 93,
101, 121, 144, 198, 251, 252.

Dnyeprostroy, 278, 283.

Dnyester River, 20.

Dobrovsky, J., Czech scholar, 153, 156.

Dobryansky, A., Carpatho-Ukrainian leader, 182, 196.

Dobrynya Nikitich, bylina hero, 35.

Dolgoruky, V. V., Russian minister, 135.

Don Cossacks, 61, 110, 234.

Don River, 19, 20, 25, 40, 61.

Donets River, 194, 246.

Doroshenko, Peter, Kozak ataman, 92, 93.

Dostoyevsky, F. M., Russian writer, 188.

Drahomaniv, Mykhaylo, Ukrainian publicist, 190, 198, 199, 217.

Drake, Sir Francis, 12.

Druzhina, 33, 38, 40.

Dukhnovich, O., Carpatho-Ukrainian leader, 196.

Duma, 205, 213.

Dunajec River, 212.

Dutch, 118.

Eastern Galicia, 201, 207, 211, 230, 239–260, 270, 272, 280, 283,
289.
See also Galicia, Western Ukraine.

Eastern Ukraine, 196–206, 242.
See also Ukraine.

Educational Society, Galicia, 182.

Eichhorn, German general, 232–233.

Elizabeth, English Queen, 12.

Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, 136, 138.

_Eneida_, work of Kotlyaresky, 155, 158.

Engelhardt, Pavel, owner of the Shevchenko family, 147, 166.

England, 10, 29, 46, 59, 73, 87, 117, 169, 227, 234, 301.

Enlightenment, 156.

Entente (World War I), 214, 227.

Estonia, 253.

Europe, 1–45, 52, 59, 60, 65, 73, 84–89, 105, 106, 113–121, 146,
155.
See also Western Europe.

Finland, 218, 247, 253.

Finnic tribes, 25, 36, 40.

Five Years Plan, 278.

Fort Kodak, 75, 76.

Four Freedoms, 17, 303.

Fourteen Points, 15, 238.

Francis II, Emperor of Austria, 178.

Francis Joseph II, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, 195, 214, 215, 230.

Franko, Ivan, Ukrainian writer, 172, 182, 199, 200, 206, 209, 267,
286.

France, 25, 35, 73, 117, 118, 140, 156, 227, 234, 250, 255, 265,
299.

French language, 147, 150.

French Revolution, 14, 146, 157, 178.

Galicia, 29, 39, 129, 130, 167–214, 230–264.
Princes of, 26, 39, 41.

Galician Diet, 201.

Genghis Khan, 42.

Gennady, Archbishop of Novgorod, 50.

Genoa, 276.

Georgia, 40, 96, 234.
Georgian Soviet Republic, 303.

Germany, 10, 13, 116, 117, 164, 207–234, 263, 269–299.
See also Nazis.

German language, 153, 154, 178, 179.

Godunov, Boris, Tsar of Moscow, 67, 109.

Gogol, N. V., Russian writer, 159, 190.

Golden Horde, 42, 46, 60, 88.

Golden Horn, 45.

Golitsyn, Prince V., Russian minister, 93, 94, 95.

Gonta, Ivan, Haydamak leader, 128.

Great Russian, 19, 112, 139, 160, 194, 199, 204, 218, 276, 278,
286.
See also Moscow, Muscovite, Russian.

Great Russian Language, 111, 117, 151, 169, 181, 188, 191, 192,
205, 267.

Greek, 26, 49, 50, 107–109.
Greek monks, 34–37.
Language, 108.

Greek Catholics, 207, 262.
See also Uniat Church.

Gregory VII, Pope, 10.

Gregoryev, ataman, 246.

Grigoryev, A. A., Russian critic, 160.

Groener, German general, 232.

Halich, 29, 43.

Haller, Joseph, Polish general, 242.

Hanseatic League, 108.

Hapsburgs, 28, 29, 146, 197, 214, 215.
See also Austria, Austria-Hungary.

Haydamaks, 125–128.

Helen, wife of B. Khmelnitsky, 74, 77, 82.

Hellenism, 202.

Henlein, K. Sudeten leader, 268.

Herder, J. G., German writer, 157, 160.

Hetman (title), 13, 63–145, 235.

Hetman’s Council, 133, 137, 138, 140.

Hetman State, 133–162, 184.
See also Kozaks, Ukraine.

Hitler, A., German Fuhrer, 270, 271, 285.

Hlinka, Mgr. A., Slovak leader, 268.

Hlukhiv, 100, 131, 138.

Hoffman, German general, 230.

Holland, 299.

Holovatsky, Y., Ukrainian scholar, 180.

Holovaty, A., Kozak officer, 142.

Holovna Rada (Galicia), 181.

Holubovich, V., Ukrainian minister, 231, 277, 280.

Holy Roman Empire, 10, 36.

Holy Synod, Russia, 116, 119, 133.

Homonai, Hungarian magnate, 173.

Horowitz, Ukrainian Communist leader, 225.

Hrinchenko, B., Ukrainian author, 193.

Hromada, 190, 191.

Hrushevsky, M., Ukrainian president, 206, 211, 217, 230, 259, 277,
280, 300.

Hrynko, Ukrainian Communist leader, 274.

Hungary, 35, 36, 43, 125, 172–179, 195, 197, 207, 212, 265–271,
288.

Hust, 241, 242, 269, 271.

Ilya of Murom, hero of Rus’, 35.

Incas, 12, 59.

Iranian, 25.

Islam, 88, 93.
See also Mohammedanism, Tatars, Turkey.

_Istoria Rusov_, 149, 153, 159.

Italy, 26, 46, 106, 164, 195.

Italian Language, 150.

Ivan III, Tsar of Moscow, 46, 106.

Ivan IV (the Terrible), Tsar of Moscow, 108.

Ivan VI, Tsar of Moscow, 136.

Ivanov, Russian Communist leader, 225.

Izmaylov, Russian Minister, 131.

Jadwiga, Queen of Poland, 47.

Jan Kazimierz, King of Poland, 78.

Japan, 302.

Jena, German University, 166.

Jeremias, Patriarch of Constantinople, 53, 54.

Jerusalem, 78.

Jesuits, 49, 52, 54, 65, 74, 117.

Jews, 125, 266.

Joachim, Patriarch of Antioch, 54.

Joachim, Patriarch of Moscow, 115.

Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, 174, 177, 178, 179.

Judaism, 33, 303.

Judaizers, Russian religious sect, 50.

Jungmann, J., Czech writer, 161.

Kaffa, 66.

Kaganovich, Soviet minister, 279.

Kalinowski, Polish hetman, 75, 76.

Kalka River, 42.

Kalnyshevsky, P., Kozak koshovy, 141, 142.

Kaminets Podolsky, 245.

Karamzin, N. M., Russian historian, 159.

Karl, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, 215.

Kasatin, 237.

Kazak Soviet Republic, 304.

Kazan, 43, 212.

Kentucky, 60.

Kerensky, A. F., Russian politician, 216, 219, 220, 226, 228.

Khan of the Crimean Tatars, 60, 61, 66, 75, 80, 81.

Kharkiv, 71, 104, 204, 225, 274–291.
University of, 162, 292.

Khliborody, 233.

Khmelnitsky, Bohdan, Kozak hetman, 13, 14, 72–97, 103, 104, 110,
116, 121, 125, 126, 133, 160, 163, 168.

Khmelnitsky, Timosh, son of Bohdan, 81, 83.

Khmelnitsky, Yury, son of Bohdan, 84, 92.

Kholm, 214, 230, 232, 296.

Khortytsya, 62.

Khozars, 33.

Khrushchev, Soviet Ukrainian President, 295.

Khvylovy, M., 280.

Kiev, 9–14, 21, 25–42, 47–59, 69, 78–85, 93, 106–119, 121, 127,
129, 144, 151–170, 174, 180, 191–194, 202–212, 217–237,
242–259, 266, 274, 277, 283, 290, 291, 300.
Academy of, 51, 71, 82, 92, 106, 111–190.
Archaeological Commission, 161, 168.
Cathedral of St. Nicholas, 95.
Church of St. Sophia, 38, 95, 283.
Church of the Epiphany, 95.
Church of the Tithe (Desyatinnaya), 34.
Grand Princes of, 10, 11, 107.
Metropolitan of, 37, 41, 79, 93, 110, 122, 123, 136, 175.
Monastery of the Caves, 37, 51, 58, 68, 95.
University of, 162, 167, 190, 198, 206, 292.
See Rus’, Ukraine.

Kochubey, Kozak general judge, 97.

Kolchak, Admiral, Russian leader, 246.

Kolii, 127, 148, 172, 174.

Kollar, J. Slovak writer, 161, 166, 167.

Koniecpolski, Polish general, 70.

Konovalets, E., Ukrainian officer, 237, 259.

Kopistinsky, Bishop of Peremyshl, 55.

Koretsky, Prince, 76.

Korsun, 76, 77.

Kosciuszko, T. Polish leader, 178.

Kossuth, L., Hungarian leader, 182.

Kostomarov, N., Historian, 149, 168, 170, 185, 186, 191.

Kotlyarevsky, I., Ukrainian author, 118, 146, 155, 156, 157, 158,
162, 167, 176, 179, 180, 184.

Kotsyubinsky, M., Ukrainian author, 193.

Kozaks, 11–15, 29, 58–104, 110, 121–154, 156–168, 206.
Host, 12–14, 59–105, 119–125, 132–138, 154, 163, 253, 256, 300.
Officers, 89, 100, 131–138, 141, 147.
Organization, 83, 86, 125, 133, 141, 146.
See also Zaporozhian Kozaks.

Kozaks of the Black Sea, 142.

Krakow, 26, 212, 240, 241
University of, 92.

Kremlin, Moscow, 87, 106, 108, 278, 284, 297.

Krivonos, Maksym, Kozak leader, 76.

Kuban, 142, 162.

Kulish, P., Ukrainian author, 149, 169, 170, 184, 185, 187, 189,
192, 197, 286.

Kulak, 282.

Kurbsky, Prince A., Russian boyar, 50.

Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, H., 160.

Ladoga Canal, 132.

LaFontaine, J. de, French fable writer, 156.

Latin, 28, 48, 50, 51, 111, 112, 130, 150, 153, 154, 176.

Latvia, 253.

League of Nations, 260, 261, 267.

Lemikivshchina, 297.

Lenin, V. I., Communist leader, 221, 226, 227, 232, 273.

Leopold II, Emperor of Austria, 178.

Lesya Ukrainka, Ukrainian poetess, 193.

Leszczynski, Stanislaw, King of Poland, 97, 98, 100, 126, 127.

Levitsky, Dmytro, Ukrainian politician, 259.

Levitsky, Ukrainian diplomat, 230.

Lexington, Mass., 145.

Literary and Scientific Review, 206.

Lithuania, 43–47, 61, 64, 79, 92, 99, 107, 109, 121, 162, 253, 256.
Lithuanian Charter, 139.

Little Russia, 131, 133, 138, 154, 160–183, 191.
Language, 188, 191, 192, 205.
See also Ukraine.

Little Russian Board, 132, 133, 136, 140, 145.

Livonia, 99.

Loewenhaupt, Swedish general, 99.

Lomonosov, M., Russian poet, 111, 114, 156.

Lubinsky, Ukrainian diplomat, 230.

Lubny, battle of, 67.

Lubomirski, Prince, Polish landlord, 126.

Lupul, Vasyl, ruler of Moldavia, 81, 83.

Lviv, 50–57, 78, 122, 130, 189, 195–212, 230, 238, 264, 289, 297.
Cathedral, 297.
University, 177–182, 200, 201, 206, 261.
Staropegian Brotherhood of, 50, 54, 55, 124, 130, 172.

Lvov, Prince G., Russian politician, 216.

Mackensen, German general, 212.

Magdeburg Law, 138.

Magna Charta, 29.

Magyars, 265.
See also Hungary.

Makhno, Ukrainian leader, 245.

Maksimovich, M., Ukrainian scholar, 161, 169.

Mala Rus’, 26.
See also Little Russia, Ukraine.

Manuilsky, D. Z., Ukrainian Soviet politician, 234, 274, 295.

Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 174, 175, 176, 177.

Marko Vovchok (Maria Markovich), Ukrainian writer, 185, 196.

Marxism, 277.

Masaryk, T. G., Czechoslovak president, 208.

Maxim the Greek, 107.

Mazepa, I., Kozak hetman, 13, 94–110, 116, 121, 122, 131, 159, 233.

Mazepintsy, 103.

Mediterranean Sea, 20.

Melnyk, A., Colonel, Ukrainian leader, 271.

Menshikov, A., Russian minister, 133, 135.

Mexico, 59.

Mickiewicz, A., Polish poet, 160.

Miloradovich, Kozak officer, 134.

Militant Communism, 277.
See also Communism, Soviets.

Milyukov, P., Russian politician, 208, 213, 226.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Russia, 133–137.

Mirbach, Count, German minister, 234.

Mliiv, 127.

Mnohohrishny, D., Kozak hetman, 92, 93.

Mohammedanism, 33, 62.
See also Islam.

Mohyla, P., Kiev metropolitan, 51, 71, 115.

Moldavia, 51, 66, 78, 81, 83, 125, 172.
See also Romania.

Moldavian Soviet Republic, 291.

Molotov, V. G., Soviet statesman, 289.

Mongols, 42, 43, 46.

Moravia, 269.
See also Czechoslovakia.

Moscow, 16, 25–28, 40–130, 144, 151, 153, 158, 159, 169, 190, 206,
217, 226, 228, 234, 251, 273–300, 302.
Patriarch of, 53, 107, 109, 116, 123, 133, 297.
See also Muscovite, Russia, Great Russia.

Moscophile party, 181, 196, 197, 199.

Moskals, 157.

Motronin Monastery, 127.

Mstislav, Kiev Grand Prince, 42.

Mukachevo, 173, 175, 269.

Mumm, Baron, German diplomat, 232.

Munich, 268.

Murmansk, 227.

Muscovite, 29, 60–121, 190, 205.
See also Moscow, Russia, Great Russia.

Nalyvaykans, 58.

Nalyvayko, Kozak leader, 68, 159.

Napoleon, French emperor, 164.

Narodniki, Russian movement, 189.

Narva, battle of, 97.

Nazis, 271, 272, 285, 288, 289, 291, 294, 298.
See also Germany.

Neolithic period, 31.

New Economic Policy, 276.

New England, 13.

New York, 188.

Nicephorus, Vicar of Constantinople Patriarch, 55.

Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, 165, 170, 184, 196.

Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 193.

Nikon, Patriarch of Moscow, 78, 82, 109, 110, 112.

Nizhni Novgorod, 211.

NKVD, Soviet secret police, 290.

Normans, 10, 25.

Northern War, 97.

Novgorod, 25, 26, 33, 38, 40, 108, 116.

Obradovich, D., Serb scholar, 156, 161.

Ochakiv, 66, 142.

Odesa, 194, 246.

Old Believers, Russian religious sect, 110.

Oleh, Grand Prince of Kiev, 31.

Olha, Princess of Kiev, 33.

Omelchenko, Kozak colonel, 98.

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, 271.

Orient, 21, 46.

Orlyk, Philip, Kozak hetman, 102, 104, 132.

Orthodox Church, 11, 26, 28, 33, 52–130, 172, 175, 256, 262.
Polish, 262.
Russian, 41, 106–120, 212, 297.
Ukrainian, 93, 143, 292, 297.

_Osnova_, 185, 186, 197.

Ostrih, 49, 50.

Ostrozky, Prince Vasyl Konstantin, 50, 55, 57, 67.

Otto I, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, 10.

Ottoman Empire, 53, 125.
See also Turkey.

Pacific Islands, 303.

Paderewski, I. J., Polish statesman, 208.

Paganism, 33, 36, 107.

Paisius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 78.

Palacky, F., Czech historian, 161.

Paleolithic period, 31.

Paleolog, Sophia, princess of Constantinople, 46, 106.

Paly, 94, 98, 121.

Pan-Slavic Society, 167.

Parliament, Austria, 208.

Paris, 242, 247, 248, 253, 257.

Peace Conference, Versailles, 242, 245, 247, 248, 255, 256, 257,
258.

Peace treaties after World War I, 249.

Pechenegs, 33, 39.

Peremyshl, 55, 57, 173, 241.

Pereyaslav, 82, 87, 88, 91.
Treaty of, 103, 131.

Perm, 212.

Peru, 59.

Perun, pagan god, 33.

Pestel, Russian army officer, 165.

Peter I (the Great), Emperor of Russia, 14, 27, 28, 95–118,
131–137, 152, 153, 167, 171, 226, 233.

Peter II, Emperor of Russia, 135.

Peter III, Emperor of Russia, 137, 139.

Petlyura S., Ukrainian leader, 235–255.

Petrograd, 220, 221, 225, 228.
See also St. Petersburg.

Petrovsky-Sitnyanovich, S. E. 113.
See also Simeon Polotsky.

Petrov, O., 170.

Petryk, Zaporozhian leader, 97.

Petrushevich, Dr. E., head of Ukrainian National Council in Western
Ukraine, 240.

Pilsudski, J., Polish military leader, 214, 239.

Pizarro, F., Spanish leader, 12.

Podebrady, 260.

Podkarpatska Rus, 268.
See also Carpatho-Ukraine, Austria-Hungary, Hungary.

Podolia, 43.

Poland, 26, 28, 35, 36, 43, 45–143, 153, 162, 164, 172–187,
206–208, 212, 239–298, 301.
Constituent diet, 257.
Constitution, 257.
Diet, 258, 259, 261.

Poletika, H., Ukrainian writer, 149.

Polish language and culture, 51, 111, 112, 153.

Polish legions, 214.

Polish National Committee, 28, 214, 239.

Polish revolt of 1831, 162, 166, 167.

Polonization, 139, 147, 150.

Polotsk, 114.

Polotsky, Simeon, Ukrainian writer, 113, 114.
See also Petrovsky Sitnyanovich.

Polovtsy, 29, 39.

Poltava, 101, 155, 204.
Battle of, 103, 116, 131.

Polubotok, Kozak, acting hetman, 133, 134, 135.

Poniatowski, Stanislas August, King of Poland, 128, 140.

Popovich, O., Bukovina Ukrainian leader, 241.

Postyshev, P. P., Ukrainian Communist leader, 279, 281.

Potapov, Russian police official, 191.

Potemkin, Prince G., Russian imperial commissioner, 142.

Potocki family, Polish landlords, 67, 70, 128.

Potocki, N., Polish Crown hetman, 75, 76.

Potocki, S., son of preceding, 76.

Potocki, A., governor of Galicia, 202.

Poty, Uniat bishop, 55, 56.

Prague, 28, 260, 267, 268, 270.

Preshiv, 241.

Prokopovich, Teofan, Archbishop of Novgorod, 115, 116.

Prosvita, 200.

Protestantism, 54, 59, 73, 116, 301.

Prussia, 140, 178, 195.
See also Germany.

Pruth river, 102.

Ptitsky, D., Kievan scholar, 110.

Pulaski, Casimir, Polish leader, 128.

Puritans, 13.

Pushkin, A. S., Russian poet, 159, 160, 167, 169.

Pylyava, battle of, 78.

Rakovsky, communist leader, 234, 274.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 12.

Rasputin, G., Russian “monk”, 216.

Razin, Stenka, Don Cossack leader, 110.

Red Armies, 16, 250, 253, 277, 289, 291, 293, 296, 297, 298, 304.

Renaissance, 11, 113, 116, 150.

Repnin, Prince N., Russian governor-general, 162.

Revolution of 1848, 160, 168.

Revolution of 1905, 189.

Ribbentrop, Nazi minister, 289.

Richelieu, Cardinal, 73.

Rifles of the Sich, 235, 240, 269, 271.

Rohoza, M., Metropolitan of Kiev, 56.

Romania, 236, 241, 245, 250, 291.
See also Moldavia.

Roman Catholic Church, 10, 28, 47–57, 65, 67, 73–82, 100, 107, 108,
124, 129, 147, 150.

Romanov family, Russian sovereigns, 216.

Romanov, Michael, Tsar of Moscow, 67, 73.

Romanticism, 158, 159, 160, 186.

Rome, 27, 45, 55, 112, 116, 152.

Rostov, 115, 119.

Rousseau, J. J., French writer, 157.

Rozumovsky, Alexis, Ukrainian count, 137.

Rozumovsky, Cyril, hetman of Ukraine, 137, 138, 139, 140, 162.

Ruin, 91, 213, 245.

Rumyantsev, P. A., Russian administrator, 141.

Rurik, 25, 31.

Rus’, 11, 24–46, 61, 65, 69, 79, 92, 256.
See also Ukraine, Russia.

_Rus’ska Pravda_, 35.

Russia, 15, 21, 28, 30, 95–103, 117, 126, 129, 133, 140, 152–249,
250, 264, 266, 268, 272, 273, 286, 289, 296, 301.
See also Great Russians, Moscow, Muscovite, Soviets.

Russian Academy of Sciences, 137, 205.

Russian Archaeological Service, 180, 205.

Russian army, 12, 99–101, 122, 126–135, 140, 164, 196, 247.

Russian imperialism, 167.

Russian language, 266, 267, 278, 281.
See also Great Russian.

Russian Provisional Government, 216–229, 247.

Russian revolution, 30, 210–247, 287.

Russian Soviet Republic, 273–284, 294, 295, 303.

Russification, 139, 147, 151, 162, 193, 207, 208.

Russo-Japanese War, 203.

Russophile party in Galicia, 181, 182.
See also Moscophile.

Ruthenia, 28, 29, 64, 175, 177, 183, 197, 202, 263.
See also Carpatho-Ukraine, Galicia, Eastern Galicia, Western
Ukraine.

Ryazan, 115.

Ryleyev, K. F., Russian poet, 159.

Sadowa, battle of, 195.

Safarik, P. J., Czech scholar, 161, 167.

Sahaydachny, P., Hetman of Ukraine, 69.

Saints Cyril and Methodius, 34.

Saint Dmitry of Rostov, 119.
See also Dmytro Tuptalenko.

St. Petersburg, 28, 118, 119, 132, 137, 138, 139, 155, 158, 165,
169, 170, 185, 189, 190, 193, 208, 226.
University of, 170.
Fortress of Saints Peter and Paul, 134.
See also Petrograd.

Samoylovich, Ivan, Hetman of Ukraine, 93, 94.

San Francisco, 295.

Saray, 43.

Satanovsky, Arseny, Kievan scholar, 110.

Saxons, 35.

Scandinavians, 21, 24, 32, 33, 59.
See also Sweden.

Scientific Society, Lviv, 200.

Scranton, Pa., 241.

Scythians, 32.

Serbs, 151, 152, 156, 161, 167.

Sergeyev, Russian communist leader, 225.

Seven Years War, 140.

Seventh Occumenical Council, 47, 107.

Sevryuk, Ukrainian diplomat, 230.

Shakhovskoy, Prince A., Russian administrator, 136.

Shashkevich, M., 180.

Sheptitsky, Andrew, Uniat Metropolitan of Kiev, 202, 257, 259, 262,
291, 297.

Shevchenko, T., 15, 29, 127, 147, 148, 159, 160, 161, 166, 168,
170, 171, 180, 182, 184, 185, 187, 196, 198, 208, 216, 267,
286.

Shevchenko Society, 200.

Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv, 200, 206, 261.
In Kiev, 206.

Shvets, Prof., Ukrainian statesman, 244.

Shumlyansky, J., Metropolitan of Lviv, 123, 124, 130.

Siberia, 183, 189, 193, 212, 246, 283, 292, 299.

Sich, Zaporozhian. See Zaporozhian Sich.

Sichovi Striltsy, 214.
See also Rifles of the Sich.

Sicily, 26.

Sigismund Vasa, III, King of Poland, 56.

Sinope, 66.

Skarga, Peter, Polish Jesuit, 49.

Skoropadsky, Ivan, hetman of Ukraine, 100, 131, 132, 133, 137, 233.

Skoropadsky, Pavel, hetman of Ukraine, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237,
244, 282.

Skovoroda, H., Ukrainian scholar, 149, 155.

Skrypnyk, M., Ukrainian communist, 274, 279, 280.

Slavinetsky, Epifany, Kievan scholar, 110, 111, 112.

Slavs, 29, 32, 35, 66, 152, 158, 160, 166, 207, 226, 297.

Slavonic brotherhood, 167, 168, 186, 198.

Slipy, J., Metropolitan of Lviv, 297.

Slobidshchina, 71, 81, 141.

Slovakia, 153, 265, 268, 269, 270.
See also Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Hungary.

Smith, Jeremiah, American diplomat, 267.

Smolensk, 99.

Smotritsky, Melety, Kievan scholar, 111, 152, 191.

Sochava, siege of, 83.

Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 168, 182, 184, 185, 186,
198, 217.

Society for the Liberation of Ukraine, 213.

Sofia, 152, 198.
University of, 198.

Solferino, battle of, 195.

Solovetsky Monastery, 142.

_Song of the Armament of Igor_, 39.

Sophia, Tsarevna of Russia, 95.

South America, 59.

South Russia, 185, 189, 236.
See also Little Russia, Ukraine.

Southern Branch of the Geographical Society, 189.

Southern Slavs, 111, 167.

Southern Society, 164.

Soviet Army, 209, 294.
See also Red Army.

Soviet Constitution of 1936, 284.

Soviets, 222, 244–300.

Soviet Union, 16, 17, 22, 30, 264–300, 302, 304, 305.

Spain, 12, 46, 59.

Stadion, Count, viceroy of Galicia, 181.

Stalin, J. V., Soviet leader, 224, 226, 271, 279, 281, 283, 291,
296, 304.

Stalingrad, siege of, 294.

Stanislaviv, 241, 243, 258.

Streltsy, guards of the Tsar, 110, 134.

Subotiv, 74, 84.

Sudeten Germans, 268.

Suzdal, 40, 41, 42.

Svyatoslav, Grand Prince of Kiev, 32, 33.

Sweden, 56, 73, 83, 84, 87, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 122,
124.

Switzerland, 198.

Taras Bulba, Ukrainian military leader, 293.

Tatars, 12, 27–29, 39–46, 60–83, 96, 101, 106, 134, 172, 206.
Of the Crimea, 64, 78, 80, 91.

Teplov V. N., Russian official, 140.

Tereshchenko, Russian politician, 220.

Terletsky, Uniat bishop, 55.

Ternopil, 241, 243, 258.

Theophanes, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 69.

Third Rome, 27, 46, 47, 53, 106, 108.
See also Moscow.

Thirty Years War, 13, 73, 97.

Timashev, Russian minister, 191.

Tokolyi, Russian general, 142.

Tolstoy, Count A. K., Russian writer, 190.

Tolstoy, P., Russian minister, 191.

Transylvania, 78.

Treaty of Riga, 252, 255.

Trotsky, L., Communist leader, 227, 231, 232, 273.

Troublous Times of Moscow, 67, 109.

Tsereteli, Russian politician, 220.

Tsertelev, N., Ukrainian scholar, 161.

Tsimiskes, John, Emperor of Constantinople, 33.

Tugai Khan, Khan of the Crimea, 76.

Tugendbund, German revolutionary society, 164.

Tuptalenko, Dmytro, 115, 119.
See also St. Dmitry of Rostov.

Turgenev, I. S., Russian author, 186.

Turkey, 11, 12, 29, 45, 60–77, 88–96, 102, 126, 128, 142, 172,
229, 234.
See also Ottoman Empire.

Tychyna, P., Ukrainian poet, 283.

Ufa, 292.

Ukraine, economic advantages, 21, 22.
Geographical position, 19, 20, 21.
Name, 24–30.
Revival, 155ff.

Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, 277, 279, 280, 283, 292.

Ukrainian Baroque architecture, 95.

Ukrainian Constituent Assembly, 223, 224, 232.

Ukrainian Central Council, 217–233, 244, 274.
See also Ukrainian Rada.

Ukrainian Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, 275.

Ukrainian Council in Western Ukraine, 239.

Ukrainian literary language, 146, 169, 188.

Ukrainian Military Organization, 259, 280.

Ukrainian National Convention, 218.

Ukrainian Progressive Organization, 217.

Ukrainian People’s Republic, 15, 16, 30, 86, 87, 222, 225, 237–281.
Union with Republic of Western Ukraine, 244.

Ukrainian Rada, 220, 222, 235.
See also Ukrainian Central Council.

Ukrainian regional committees, 241.

Ukrainian Revolutionary Army, 298.

Ukrainian Scientific Institute, Warsaw, 261.

Ukrainian socialists, 235.

Ukrainian Soviet Republic, 9, 16, 225, 231, 259, 262, 274–296, 300,
301, 305.

Ukrainophile party, 268.

Uman, 128.

Uniat Church, 56, 57, 68, 69, 116, 127–129, 151, 174–183, 195, 202,
207, 212, 267, 297.

Union of Brest, 28, 55–57, 74–79, 109, 116, 123, 124, 129, 130,
174.

Union of Hadiach, 92, 121, 256.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. See Soviet Union.

Union of Uzhorod, 173.

United Nations Organization, 9, 16, 30, 294, 301, 303.

United States of America, 15, 146, 164, 169, 188, 226, 227, 234,
301, 302.
See also America.

Universals, 220, 222, 225, 232.

Urals, 283.

Uzhorod, 174, 241, 269.

Vahilevich, I., Western Ukrainian scholar, 180.

Valuyev, Count P. A., Russian minister, 188.

Vasily III, Tsar of Moscow, 107.

Varangian Road, 24, 25.

Veche, 38.

Velyaminov, S., Russian officer, 132, 133.

Veneti, 32.

Verlan, Haydamak leader, 126.

Vienna, 88, 123, 164, 178, 196, 200, 201, 213, 214, 215, 250, 259,
277.

Virgil, Roman poet, 155.

Vistula River, 252.

Vladimir, Saint. See Volodymyr.

Vladimir, city, 40.

Vladivostok, 227, 229.

Volga River, 40, 43, 61, 211.

Volkhov River, 25.

Volodymyr, Saint, Grand Prince of Kiev, 10, 33, 34, 37, 39, 41, 69,
116, 144.

Volodymyr Monomakh, Grand Prince of Kiev, 37, 69.

Voloshyn, Mgr. A., Carpatho-Ukrainian leader, 269, 270, 271.

Volynia, 43, 67.

Voynarovsky, A., nephew of Mazepa, 159.

Vulgate, 50.

Vyhovsky, I., Kozak hetman, 84, 92, 121.

Vynnychenko, V., Ukrainian statesman, 220, 235, 236.

Vyshensky, I., Ukrainian author, 56.

Vyshnevetsky, Prince Dmytro, Kozak hetman, 62, 64, 77.

Wallachia, 66, 78, 83, 127.

Warsaw, 77, 81, 92, 242, 252, 258, 261.

Washington, George, 145.

Western Front, World War I, 231, 234, 242.

Western Galicia, 201, 212, 240, 255.

Western Ukraine, 174–183, 197–198, 212, 238–252, 255–264, 265, 267,
277, 280, 283, 288–297, 304.
Republic of, 238–243, 244, 256, 290.
See also Eastern Galicia.

Western Ukrainian Council, 244.

Western Ukrainian Popular Council, 290.

White Russian armies, 234, 244–257.

White Ruthenia, 43, 47, 64, 67, 113, 294.

Wilno, 49, 57, 162, 166.
University of, 92.

Wilson, Woodrow, 15, 238, 303.

Wisniowiecki, Prince Jarema, Polish leader, 77, 80, 81, 87.

Wladyslaw IV, King of Poland, 67, 75, 77.

World War I, 15, 28, 30, 209, 227, 238, 251, 301.

World War II, 16, 263, 301.

Yagello, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, 47.

Yalta Conference, 298.

Yaroslav Jesuit College, 74.

Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41.

Yavorsky, Stefan, acting Patriarch of Moscow, 115, 133.

Yefremiv, S., Ukrainian scholar, 280.

Yuzefovich, M., Russian official, 170, 191.

Zalyznyak, M., Haydamak leader, 128.

Zaporozhe, 62, 76.

Zaporozhian Sich, 12, 14, 62–104, 125–127, 130, 141–146, 162, 278.
Host, 68, 81,
Kozaks, 61, 70, 128, 141–145.
See also Kozaks.

Zatonsky, Ukrainian Communist, 274.

Zbarazh, battle of, 80.

Zboriv, 80,
Treaty of, 80, 81.

Zbruch River, 248.

Zhitomir, 232.

Zhovty Vody, battle of, 75.

Zizany, Lavrenty, Kievan scholar, 111.

Zolkiewski, S., Polish hetman, 67.

_Zora Halitska_, 181.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, W. E. D., The Ukraine. Cambridge, 1940.

Chamberlin, W. H., The Ukraine, A Submerged Nation. New York,
1944.

Doroshenko, D., History of the Ukraine, Edmonton, 1940.

Hrushevsky, M., A History of Ukraine, New Haven, 1941.

Manning, C. A., Ukrainian Literature, Studies of the Leading
Authors, Jersey City, 1944.

Manning, C. A., Taras Shevchenko, Selected Poems, Jersey City,
1945.

Margolin, A. D., From a Political Diary, Russia, the Ukraine,
and America, New York, 1946.

Vernadsky, G., Bohdan, Hetman of Ukraine, New Haven, 1941.

Snowyd, D., Spirit of Ukraine; Ukrainian Contributions to World
Culture, 1935.

Gambal, M. S., Ukraine, Rus and Moscovy and Russia, 1937.

Ukrainian Quarterly, Ukrainian Congress Committee of America,
New York.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.

2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.

3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.

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