Even among the Ukrainians themselves, the opinion is very widespread that they are a steppe-people. The enemies of the Ukraine have largely represented them in the eyes of Europe as a semi-nomadic steppe-people, devoid of all culture, which thru their growth and development might threaten the cultural treasures of Europe. These views, tho based partly upon the great part the steppe has played in the history of the Ukraine, and partly upon the unquestionable fact that three-fourths of the present Ukrainian territory lies within the steppe region of Eastern Europe, are, nevertheless, incorrect. For, a glance at the floral map of Europe is enough to show that the so-called old Ukraine, that is, the original Ukrainian territory, lies almost completely within the forest region. That means Galicia, Kholm, Western Podolia, Western Volhynia, Kiev, Chernihiv, etc. From here the most ancient Ukrainian colonization advanced to the Black Sea, only to lose all the steppe districts again upon the sudden nomad attack. For centuries the steppes of the present Ukraine were the stamping-ground of Mongolian-Turkish nomad tribes. The Cossack organization at last wrested great areas from them, and made these accessible to Ukrainian colonization. And only the last colonial expansion of the Ukrainians has been able to reach the Pontian shore again. The Ukrainians, then, were originally a forest and wood-meadow people. They have become in part a steppe people, but only thru their latest colonial expansion. And, just as today we would not call the English or the North Americans steppe peoples, merely [[241]]because they colonized the American prairies and now inhabit them, so we can no more call the Ukrainians a steppe people, merely because they have colonized the Southern European steppes.
Not the steppe, but the forest and the wood-meadow are the native floral conditions of the Ukrainian. In the forest zone and in the adjacent parts of the forest-meadow zone, the seed of the Kiev State originated. In its expansion, this state first of all embraced the forest regions of the Ukraine, while the steppe regions were conquered later and kept under the dominion of the state for a comparatively short time only. The second center of the old Ukrainian historic life also lies within the forest zone of the Ukraine, namely, the Galician-Volhynian. Even the center of Ukrainian historical life that extended farthest into the steppe, the Zaporog Sich, was dependent for its existence upon the great wooded areas of the Veliki Luh on the Dnieper and its tributaries, and thus bound to the forest country.
The pronounced inclination of the Ukrainian people to agriculture, from the most ancient times down to the present, is another proof that it is a forest people, paradoxical tho it may seem. For it is an undisputed fact that, altho the steppes have apparently been most favorable to the cultivation of the grain grasses, and altho the present main centers of the grain production of the world lie in the steppe country of the prairies, pampas, Ukraine, yet nowhere in the whole world have the steppes brought forth an agricultural people. No steppe-people, anywhere, ever began agriculture of its own accord. The forest peoples had to teach the steppe-races agriculture in the first place. Only in case of bitter necessity do the inhabitants of the steppes take to the plough, and never has agriculture become part of their system to them.
How great was the part of the Ukrainian forest region [[242]]in the past life of the nation has already been suggested in Book I. Only to the forests does the Ukrainian nation owe its preservation during the Tatar attacks. The forests were the only refuge of the people, to the forest zone the inhabitants of the steppes retreated whenever the steppes were threatened by the nomads, moving back again at a favorable opportunity.
The Ukrainian forests have also been of great importance as boundaries. The function of the forest to form important boundaries for races on a low grade of culture is familiar to anthropogeography. In Ukrainian history, too, this characteristic of the forests has appeared prominently. The forests of the Ukrainian Polissye were of great importance for the fencing-off of the East Slavic tribes, and by forming a wide zone, difficult of passage, separating the East Slavic tribes of the south from those of the north and west, they have contributed a great deal to the formation of the three East Slavic nations of today. In the days of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev, the centers in which the Muscovite nation later developed bore the name of Salissye (land behind the forest). There was a Pereyaslav Saliski, Vladimir Saliski, etc.
The significance of the forest as a boundary has also made itself felt in the internal history of the Ukraine. For the grade of culture upon which the Ukraine remained thruout the Middle Ages and in the early centuries of the modern era, the forests constituted good boundaries. The forest divided the population into small groups, which lived apart in separate clearings, every group living its own life. The forest made communication difficult and did not permit the organization of a powerful central state. The forest character of the old Ukraine was the natural chief cause of the formation of principalities in the ancient Kingdom of Kiev, and advanced that fateful particularism. It is not by mere accident that Kiev lies on the border of [[243]]the forest zone of the Ukraine. Together with other causes, the thinner forests were an aid to the more rapid development of the Kiev principality, and made it the natural starting point for the great expansion under the reigns of Oleh, Sviatoslav, Volodimir.
From his original territory the Ukrainian took with him his great preference for trees, a love of trees which causes the white huts of a typical Ukrainian village to be bordered with the fresh green of leaves. The green of the trees in which the Ukrainian huts disappear, enables us immediately to differentiate a Ukrainian from a Russian village, which seems to be afraid of trees.
Consequently, the steppe is not originally native to the Ukrainian. The words of the Cossack song, “The steppes so wide, the joyous land” were not composed until the latter days of the Cossack organization. For centuries the steppe meant to the Ukrainian the terrible, mysterious, “wild field,” from which at every moment the nomad hosts, like a swarm of locusts, invaded the Ukraine. The struggles of the Kingdom of Kiev with the nomads show an anthropogeographer very plainly the reason of their final failure. The ancient Ukrainians, being forest dwellers, simply could not successfully fight the riders on the natural steppe or the artificial steppe of their own fields. The ancient Ukrainians did not feel at home in the steppe. A long evolution was necessary before the Ukrainians adapted themselves to the steppe, and the beginning of this adaptation was the Ukrainian Cossack organization. Not until after the formation and development of the Cossack organization could the Ukrainian people successfully advance into the steppe zone and colonize it. Yet the denser settlement of the steppes did not take place until toward the end of the 18th Century. Some of these early Ukrainian settlements have, to this day, not lost the character of new colonies. But these steppe districts were colonized by so great a [[244]]mass of Ukrainian colonists, and they increased so rapidly in the fertile country, that today more than half the Ukrainians live in the steppe zone, and thereby favor the widespread commonplace that the Ukrainians are a steppe people.
The wealth of its flora and fauna very soon enabled the Ukraine to prosper. Very early it was called a land “where milk and honey flows.” This natural wealth of the organic world possessed the greater worth for the reason that it was not soon exhausted, and offered, as it still offers, to the population, an opportunity for constant work, enduring activity and steady development. The natural treasures of the Ukrainian territory are not the treasures of tropical countries which favor laziness, but the treasures of a more thrifty Nature, which require constant work to properly exploit them.
Man has changed the natural conditions of the flora and fauna of the Ukraine to a great extent. These changes are not as fundamental as in Western and Central Europe, but they have a great anthropogeographical significance. The forest zone of the Ukraine is thinned even beyond the normal and in places destroyed. The artificial steppe of the cultivated land has penetrated very far to the north and west. Certain plant species have become rare, others have entirely disappeared, while, on the other hand, new ones have been acclimated. The original wealth of game of the Ukraine is a thing of the past now, and the great abundance of fish is almost all gone. On the other hand, man has increased the number of domestic animals enormously.