The idea of working for national independence was revived first in the Russian Ukraine, and found its logical starting point in the tradition of the one-time autonomy of the country. As early as the forties of the 19th Century, the national ideology of the modern Ukrainian movement was complete in all essential respects. It then made its way very rapidly to the Austrian Ukraine, and Galicia, particularly, soon became a national Piedmont to the Ukrainian people, who were so ruthlessly oppressed in Russia.
The present-day political efforts of the Ukrainian nation are a direct continuation of the former efforts, and a logical result of the historical tradition of the Ukraine. The ideal of these efforts was, and is, liberty and equality and the participation of all in government and legislation. Not until the present time has this ideal ceased to be an anachronism; only the present has opened to the Ukrainian nation a field of political activity; only in the present have these forms of political life, which the Ukrainian nation strove for, without success, so many centuries, become the [[187]]common possession of the entire civilized world. Hence, we may look with confidence toward the future. Now, at last, the times have come in which the Ukrainian nation may freely develop its political life; the times in which the political ideals which have been sacred to this nation for centuries, have become the common goal of civilized humanity.
The idea of the revival of the Ukrainian state developed gradually from a movement with modest aims to one of larger aims. It was generally recognized that the free development of the Ukrainian Nation could take place only outside of Russia. Hence, in the 20th Century, an independent democratic Ukraine, enclosed in its ethnographic boundaries, became the highest national ideal. Toward this goal all political parties of the Ukraine are striving today. The path leading to this goal is the fight for the autonomy of the Ukrainian territory in the frame of the states dominating it. In Russia, the efforts of the Ukrainians are almost hopeless. On the other hand, the Ukrainians place much hope in Austria, who has afforded her Ukrainians opportunities for political and cultural development.
The historico-political traditions of the Ukrainians are entirely different from those of the nations adjacent to them. The Polish tradition is a tradition of a one-time great kingdom, which was probably built up upon a local constitution similar to that of the oldest Ukrainian State. But fate permitted Poland to live thru the sorrowful period of partitions and civil wars, while, at the same time, the old Kingdom of Kiev was destroyed by the Mongols. Poland consolidated into a strong united kingdom, western influences destroyed the old local constitution entirely, the common people became serfs, and the classes of the aristocracy, nobility and bourgeoisie were formed. Thru wars, and particularly thru its union with Lithuania, [[188]]Poland increased considerably in size, for a time including almost the entire bridge of land between the Baltic and the Black Seas, and, in the 15th Century, became the most powerful state of Eastern Europe. At that time the Poles became the dominant race over the Lithuanians, White Russians, and Ukrainians. The entire ideology of the dominant caste became a characteristic of the Poles. In this very property of a ruling people lies the basis of the aristocratic nature of the historico-political tradition of the Poles. This aristocratic quality has a more important foundation in the historical development of Polish society. The middle class in Poland declined very rapidly, and the nobility and the magnates dominated the entire political, social and intellectual life of the country, so that Polish society, in the last centuries of the existence of the Polish kingdom, was purely aristocratic, and was supported on the backs of the completely submerged peasant and middle classes. Even tho, in the patrician republic, when the power of the kings was extremely limited, mobocracy or even anarchy very often prevailed, these forms also were aristocratic. This aristocratic tradition is responsible for the fact that democratic currents still find little encouragement among the Poles. Even the social democrats are obsessed with the Great-Polish state-idea.
From these facts, we perceive that the historico-political traditions of the Poles are entirely different from those of the Ukrainians. Just as great is the difference in their present aspirations. The Poles, with an endurance that is worthy of admiration, and awakens universal sympathy, are striving for the reorganization of their independent state. But not with ethnographic boundaries like the Ukrainians, but with ancient historical boundaries from the Baltic to the Dnieper and the Black Sea. To attain this goal, the Poles are trying, above all, to hinder the adjacent peoples, the Lithuanians, White Russians and Ukrainians, in their [[189]]national progress, and, whenever possible, to assimilate them. These efforts are responsible for the very sharp conflicts of the present day between the one-time rulers and their one-time subjects.
The Russian historico-political traditions are quite as different from and as opposed to those of the Ukrainians as the Polish, but in another direction. The Muscovite State was created out of the petty principalities which the ancient Kiev dynasty had founded among the Eastern Slavic races and the Finnish tribes of the north. From the blending of the Slavs and the Finns came the foundation of the present Russian or Great Russian (Muscovite) Nation. The name “Russian” was derived from the name of the dynasty. But the state was in reality simply Muscovite, for the Muscovite people gave this state a substance which was entirely different from the substance of the old Kingdom of Kiev. As early as the 12th Century we observe the Muscovite people striving for centralization and absolute power for the princes in their state. It was to the advantage of the prince to undermine the influence of the Boyar nobility and the clergy, and to attain absolute or even despotic power in the state. Not equal rights and liberty for all citizens as with the Ukrainians, or for certain classes as with the Poles, but the despotic authority of the Great Prince (later Czar), is the basis of the historico-political tradition of the Russian people. The absolute power of the ruler, that everlasting bugbear of the Poles and Ukrainians, becomes a sacred object to the Russian nation, and makes it possible for them to establish a Russian Empire which devours Poland and the Ukraine. For a comparison of the three adjacent states, the second half of the 16th Century affords the best illustration. At the same time that the radical-democratic Cossack republic originated in the Ukraine, and Poland was a paradise of golden freedom for the aristocrats and the nobility, with a [[190]]powerless kingship and a suppressed people, we witness in Russia the bloody orgies of the despotism of Ivan the Terrible.
The historico-political tradition of the Russian people places the Czar only slightly below God. The entire people, without class distinction, are slaves (kholopi) of the Czar, his property. The individual counts for nothing; everything must be sacrificed to the general good, which is embodied in the Czar. The reforms of Peter the Great, altho they gave Russia the external appearance of a civilized state, had no significance for the historico-political tradition of Russia. At most, they even strengthened the prestige of the absolute rule of the Czar, thru arguments repeated after the Western European absolutism. Even the Russian revolution of 1905 could not weaken this historico-political tradition. At best the revolution undermined its significance in some spheres of the Russian intelligenzia (numerically small). And, even in these spheres, it meant only the modification of the authority for which the Russian national spirit retains an immutable respect.
The present-day aspirations of the Russian Nation are hardly definite in their outlines. Nevertheless, it can already be clearly seen that they will follow the beaten path of the century-old tradition. The greatest possible expansion and strengthening of the Empire and the assimilation of all foreign peoples (including the Ukrainians too), will constitute the main substance of these aspirations. The Muscovite world has always been extremely intolerant of divergencies in faith, language and customs. This intolerance has always existed, and always will exist, even tho it may sometimes conceal itself behind a very cleverly adjusted mantle of commonplaces.