The climate of the Ukraine, then, is the continental climate of the Pontus. Toward the west it merges into the Central European climatic zone at the border of Poland, into the Eastern European continental climate at the border of White and Great Russia, into the Aralo-Caspian dry climate at the eastern border. The southern borderlands of the Ukraine, like those of France, constitute a transition to the Mediterranean climate. [[11]]
In respect to its flora, the unique position of the Ukraine depends upon the fact that it embraces almost the entire region of the prairie-steppes of the Pontus, with their regions of transition to the Northern and Central European forest zone. Right east of the Don begin the steppes and desert-steppes of the Caspian region. Consequently, the Ukraine is the only country in Europe which has the prevailing character of the steppes. Here, again, this circumstance is of geographical importance and makes the Ukraine, in this respect also, a geographic unit.
The most important signs of independence as a geographic unit, however, are imparted to the Ukraine by its anthropogeographical conditions, to which we shall turn our attention in Book II of this little work.
We have now become acquainted with the natural foundations of the Ukraine as a geographic unit. One important characteristic of this geographic entity must especially attract our attention. The name of the country is Ukraine, which means border-country, march-land. It is an old historical name which originated in the course of the centuries and has become customary. And yet it is significant as hardly another name of a land or people could well be. For the Ukraine is a true borderland Europe, between Eastern Europe, and Western Asia. It lies on the borders of the European plicated mountain-girdle and of the Eastern European table-land. The Ukrainian Horst constitutes a tectonic border-post for the development of the entire European folded area. In the morphological sense as well, the Ukraine constitutes a decided borderland. Here the glacial formations give way to the erosive and flattening formation. Climatologically, too, the Ukraine is a decided borderland. Yet, most of all, does the character of the Ukraine as a land of boundaries and transitions appear in its biogeographical and anthropogeographical [[12]]conditions. In the Ukraine are merged the boundaries of two European forest regions—of the sub-steppes, transition-steppe, prairie-steppe zone, and of the Mediterranean region. The Ukraine is situated upon the boundaries of the European family of peoples—of Slavdom, of European culture—and, at the same time, upon the boundaries of that anthropogeographical structure which is so remarkable and so little known—the body social of Eastern Europe.
Location and Size
The Ukraine lies between 43° and 54° north latitude and between 21° and 47° east longitude from Greenwich. If we look for our country on a map we will find that it lies as the northern hinterland of the Black Sea, in the southern part of Eastern Europe, just on the threshold of Asia. From the foot of the Tatra Mountains, from the sunny Hegyalia and cloud-wreathed Chornohora, from the silver-rippled San, from the dark virgin forest of Biloveza and the immense swamps of Polissye, to the delta of the Danube—so often sung in the lore of the Ukrainian folk—to the Black Sea, to the gigantic Caucasians and the Caspian, surrounded by brown desert steppes, extends our fatherland, the Ukraine. From the beginnings of the historical life of Eastern Europe, for one thousand two hundred years, the Ukrainian race has resided in this region, and has been able, not only to preserve its boundaries, but, after heavy losses, to regain and even to pass beyond them. And this continued thru centuries of stress, thru bloody wars, after the loss of the first and second national governments, and under the merciless pressure of neighboring states and peoples. That other nations, as the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, should have preserved their original seats, is not surprising; they were protected on all sides by high mountains and deep seas. All the more, therefore, must we admire the great vitality of the Ukrainian [[13]]nation, which has been able to retain in its possession a mother-country lying open, almost without any protection, to mighty enemies.
For the Ukraine lies at the southeastern edge of Europe, on the threshold of Asia, at the point where the easiest overland route connects the two continents. For an entire period of a thousand years, this border position was most disadvantageous and dangerous for the Ukraine; for Nature and History did not bring the Ukraine, placed as it is, into the proximity of that part of Asia which for thousands of years past had been inhabited by the rich civilizations of that continent. The Ukraine has always been the nearest European neighbor of the steppe-country of Central Asia. There, from the earliest beginnings of history, dwelt pillaging hordes of Nomads, who would flood Europe from this point. The Pontian steppes of the Southern Ukraine were, for these steppe-people, the natural military road to the West and Southwest, where the rich, civilized lands of the Mediterranean region lay invitingly open. For more than a thousand years, from the beginnings of the history of the Ukraine, these nomadic Asiatic tribes traversed the South Ukrainian steppes, covering the entire Ukraine with war and unspeakable misery. Huns, Avars, Khazars, Magyars, Pechenegs, Torks, Berendians, Polovs, Tatars, Kalmucks, infested the Ukraine in succession. Of all the European peoples, the Ukrainians always had to be the first to oppose these steppe-plunderers. The nomads always had first to force their way thru the Ukraine. Many of them were annihilated by the ancient Ukrainians; thus, the Khazars, Pechenegs, Torks and Berendians; others were held off, as the Polovs or the Kalmucks. But the Ukraine exhausted its strength in this eternal warfare, and, in the terrible stress occasioned by the Tatars, lost their ancient culture and their mighty state.
If, therefore, any one of the European nations may [[14]]claim the credit of having been Europe’s shield against Asiatic barbarism, it is the half-forgotten Ukrainian nation.