Ukraine, the land and its people

by Stepan Rudnytskyi

In the aristocratic state organization of Poland there was no room for such a lawless democratic state as that of the Zaporogs was in Polish eyes. The entire Ukrainian nation regarded the Zaporog Cossacks as their natural defenders against the terrible Tatar peril, and likewise as their sole hope as opposed to the oppression practiced by the Poles. An ominous discontent prevailed thruout the Ukraine, and after the Poles had naturally taken severe measures, a number of Cossack revolts occurred in rapid succession, beginning toward the end of the 16th Century and filling the first half of the 17th. In these revolts the Cossacks were supported by the oppressed peasantry. But the Polish Kingdom was rather deficient, always, as far as its standing army was concerned, and was obliged to appeal to the Ukrainian Cossack organization, which it could not possibly destroy, to aid in its wars against the Turks, the Russians and the Swedes. [[183]]

Finally, in 1648, the Ukrainian Cossacks, aided by the entire people, from the Dnieper to the San, raised the standard of rebellion, and under the leadership of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, succeeded in annihilating the Polish armies. Thus the Ukrainian Nation fought for and won its independence again after three hundred years of a foreign yoke.

Khmelnitsky, after his victory over the Poles, extended the Cossack organization beyond the narrow bounds of the Zaporoze, over the entire huge area of the Ukraine.

Surrounded by enemies on all sides, the new state needed calm and quiet to enable it to achieve the necessary internal organization. Much time was needed to organize the new order completely in so enormous a country, to bring to a successful conclusion the fight against the Polish social-political order, which had prevailed here so long and was so different from the Ukrainian. It required much time to work out new constitutional forms, which were inevitable, now that the Zaporog organization was extended over great areas. Khmelnitsky negotiated with all the surrounding governments and peoples, with the Poles, the Transylvanians, the Swedes, the Turks, and finally, in 1654, concluded the treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, with which they were related by ties of religion. This treaty provided that the Ukraine should retain a complete autonomy, as well as their Cossack organization, the latter under the suzerainty of the Czar. The Hetman, who was to be elected by the votes of the General Assembly, was even to retain the right of conducting an independent foreign policy.

But Russia had no mind to respect the treaty that bound it in dual alliance with the warlike Ukrainian nation. The democratic form of government in the Ukraine was an abomination to Russia, just as it was to aristocratic Poland.

Once the Cossack republic was under the control of [[184]]Moscow, the Russian government felt that not a stone must be left unturned to destroy this dangerous national organism. Taking advantage of the untimely death of Khmelnitsky (1657), and the incompetence of his immediate successors, Russia began her political machinations in the Ukraine. The Cossack generals were inspired with prejudice against the Hetman, the common Cossacks against their superior officers, and the common people against all who were wealthy and in authority; huge sums of money were spent, successfully, and vast tracts of land granted as fiefs; and Russia thus fished in troubled waters to very good advantage. At every successive election of a new Hetman the autonomy of the Ukraine was cut down, and in the Peace of Andrussovo (1667) with Poland, the country was partitioned. Of the two sections, one, that nearest to Poland, which had been dreadfully devastated and depopulated, was ceded to that country, and this section very soon lost its Ukrainian form of government and its Cossack organization. The section on the other side, the left side, east of the Dnieper, under its dashing Hetman, Mazeppa, made an effort, during the Scandinavian War, to throw off the Russian yoke. Mazeppa made an alliance with Charles XII of Sweden. But the Battle of Poltava (1709) buried all his hopes. He had to flee to Turkey with Charles XII, and the Ukrainian rebellion was put down by Peter the Great with the most frightful atrocities, and finally the guaranteed autonomy of the Ukraine was abolished. To be sure, the title of Hetman was again introduced after the death of Peter the Great, but it had only a wretched semblance of life. Even this shadow of autonomy was destroyed in 1764; in 1775 the last bulwark of the Ukraine, the Zaporog Sich, fell into the hands of the Russians thru treachery, and was destroyed by them. The peasants became serfs.

Russia thus succeeded, in the course of about a century [[185]]and a half, in completely wiping out the later, second Ukrainian state. The devious policy Russia was simultaneously carrying on in Poland, led also to the latter’s downfall. In the successive partitions of Poland (1772–1795), the entire part of that nation which was inhabited by Ukrainians, with the exception of Eastern Galicia and the Bukowina, which fell to Austria, became the property of Russia.

But Russia was not satisfied with political domination alone. Russia already understood, in the 17th Century, that the Ukrainians differed entirely from the Russians in language, customs and views of life. The Russian government, therefore, inaugurated a policy of rigid repression of all these points of difference. As early as 1680 it prohibited any use of the Ukrainian language in ecclesiastical literature. In 1720, the printing of any Ukrainian books at all was forbidden. All Ukrainian schools were closed. In the middle of the 18th Century there were, in the province of Chernihov, 866 schools that had been founded during the period of Ukrainian autonomy; sixty years later not one of these was in existence. This, together with the attempt to introduce the Russian language, which none of them understands, is the cause of the overwhelming percentage of analphabets among the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian orthodox church, which enjoyed absolute autonomy, with a sort of loose subordination to the Patriarch of Constantinople, was made subject to the Patriarch of Moscow (later to the Holy Synod) and became completely Russified. The Greek-United faith, which had many adherents in the Western Ukraine, was completely suppressed by the Russian government, and all who confessed it were obliged, by the most terrible persecutions, to “return to the orthodox belief.” The Ukrainian people became completely estranged from their former national church, which now is a tool wielded for purposes of Russification.

The bloody wars for independence which the Ukrainian [[186]]nation waged against Poland and Russia consequently brought no realization of its political ideals of liberty, equality, and a constitutional, democratic form of government. Instead came a terrible political, social and national oppression, which threatened to bring about the downfall of the tortured nation.

But the Russification of the Ukraine seemed to be making very little headway. To be sure, many educated Ukrainians, for the sake of personal advantage or for other considerations, did renounce their nationality, and some in fact, like Gogol, became great lights of Russian Literature. Yet there always remained the feeling of national independence, together with a living historical tradition, which continued to groan despite all obstacles. The rise of Ukrainian Literature did most to aid this great movement.