The width of the face in the Ukrainians is on the average 180, that of the Poles 181, of the Russians 182, of the White Russians 186; the facial index in the Ukrainians 78.1, in the White Russians 76.2, in the Poles 76.3, in the Russians 76.7. Here, too, we note the great difference of the Ukrainians from their neighbors and the similarity of these to one another.
The color of hair and eyes is by far not so sure an anthropological characteristic as the above-mentioned, yet constitutes an important complement. In this respect, too, the position of the Ukrainians among their neighbor nations is just as independent as in regard to the above discussed characteristics. Among the Ukrainians dark shades predominate, so that out of 100 individuals only 29.5% have light hair and eyes, 35% medium color, and [[165]]35% dark. In the Russians the percentages run 37% light, 41% medium, 22% dark; in the Poles 35% light, 46% medium and only 19% dark. Thus the light type is much more common in the neighboring races than in the Ukrainians.
In the distribution of color of eyes and hair in the Ukrainians the same territorial law holds as in the distribution of stature and shape of skull. In the main zone of the Ukrainian racial type, but especially in the southwest, the color of hair and eyes is most characteristically represented. Near the Polish, White Russian and Russian borders, the Ukrainian type loses much of its peculiarity.
This short anthropological sketch of the Ukrainians, despite its scanty and general character, enables us to perceive very clearly that the Ukrainians show extremely little anthropological similarity to the Poles, White Russians and Russians. On the other hand, all of these neighboring races of the Ukrainians are very similar, and closely related to each other. The Pole, the White Russian and the Russian, stand very close to one another, while the Ukrainian is very different from all his neighbors and, from an anthropological point of view, holds an entirely independent position.
The vanity of the impression that the Ukrainians are Polonized Russians or Russified Poles, therefore, becomes apparent at once. The “unity theories,” Polish and Russian, which are based on perverted historical and philological phrases, are here opposed by a natural science, with its exact results of investigations.
But anthropology discredits not only these theories which are still dominating European science. Several Polish historians have recently evolved a new theory of the origin of the Ukrainians and spread it thru Europe. According to this theory the Ukrainians are a mixture of Slavs and the Mongolian-Turkish nomad tribes which [[166]]traversed and commanded the Ukrainian steppes for centuries; they are a semi-nomadic steppe people, incapable of culture, whose development might bring with it the greatest dangers for European civilization.
The science of anthropology, however, robs this theory of its very foundation. The Mongolian-Turkish nomad tribes were almost all distinguished by low stature, short legs, long arms and round heads. The same characteristics should therefore appear very distinctly in the Ukrainian racial type. But the Ukrainians have a higher stature than any of the neighboring peoples, the longest legs, and arms of medium length. And the brachicephalousness of the Ukrainians is least just in the east, where mixing with the Mongolian tribes could proceed most easily.
The anthropological type of the Ukrainians, then, reveals complete individuality as opposed to the Polish, White Russian and Russian type, and betrays no noticeable trace of a Mongolian admixture. The difference of the Ukrainian type from the types of other Eastern Slavs caught the attention of the great geographer, Reclus, in the eighties of the past century. At that time he noticed the closer relationship of the Ukrainians to the Southern Slavs. Toward the end of the 19th Century, Hamy divided all the Slavs into two large groups, a tall brachicephalous group with dark hair, and a short, less brachicephalous group with light hair. In the first group he included the Serbians, Croatians, Slovenes, Czechs and Ukrainians; in the second the Polabians, Poles, White Russians and Russians. A similar division was accepted also by Deniker. According to his view the Ukrainians belong to the so-called Adriatic (Dinaric) Race, while the Poles and the Russians belong to the two closely related races, the Vistula Race and the Oriental Race, respectively. The Adriatic Race has recently come to be considered by many the specifically Slavic Race. However, it has remained comparatively [[167]]pure only in the case of the Southern Slavs and the Ukrainians, while the Northern Slavic races reveal strong foreign admixtures.
Anthropology shows us, in the Ukrainians, a finely grown, physically sturdy race of men. Another characteristic of the Ukrainian People is its great fecundity. Wherever the Ukrainian People has not yet degenerated thru social pressure and the spread of pauperism, it shows remarkably high birth figures, which, despite the high infant mortality resulting from the low grade of culture, occasion a very rapid increase in population. The birth rate and rate of increase (1900–1904) for the central districts of the Ukraine in European Russia are on the average yearly: Volhynia 4.5% and 2%, Podolia 4.3% and 1.8%, Kiev 4% and 1.4%, Kherson 4.5% and 2%, Tauria 4.2% and 1.9%, Katerinoslav 5.6% and 2.8%, Chernihiv 4.6% and 2%, Poltava 4.3% and 1.9%, Kharkiv 4.9% and 2%. Galicia, in the early years of the century, has had a yearly increase in population of 1.6 to 1.8%. These figures, which are much higher than the corresponding figures in Polish or Russian national territory, constitute one of the less agreeable facts which enable us to look with confidence toward the future of the Ukrainian nation. For the greater increase of the Ukrainians is not due to a higher state of culture of the neighbor nations. The Polish and Russian peasantry is not only not superior to the Ukrainian in respect to culture, but, on the contrary, inferior. The greater increase of the Ukrainians is connected only with their superior racial qualities.