The border position of the Ukraine was fatal also, for the reason that the country lay, and lies, so far distant from the cultural centers of Europe. As long as the Byzantine Empire, with its cultural wealth, remained firm, a strong stream of culture flowed from the Pontus into the Ukraine. The decline and fall of the Byzantine Empire suddenly transferred the Ukraine to the furthest (in respect to culture) corner of Europe, close to the Ottoman Empire, which was at that time hostile to culture. The western neighbors of the Ukraine, the Magyars and Poles, acquired little of the culture of Western Europe in the time of their independence, and allowed still less to slip thru into the Ukraine. The Russians entered the circle of European culture only two centuries ago, and have made only superficial cultural progress since.
And yet the geographical location of the Ukraine is not without favorable features. The Ukraine embraces the entire northern coast of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof, and holds considerable possibilities for oversea commerce. The proximity of Asia is no longer dangerous, but, on the contrary, very advantageous. A century and a half has passed since the power of the steppe-races was finally broken. Their heritage has been taken possession of, altho in a different manner, by the Ukrainian peasant, who has thickly settled the Pontian steppes. With plow in hand, he has reconquered the lands which his ancestors tried in vain to defend with the sword. Ukrainian colonization is still advancing irresistibly in the Crimea and in the fore-country of the Caucasus, and will, no doubt, within a very short time, flood these countries completely.
A further advantage of location lies in the circumstance that the Ukraine is situated on the shortest land-route from [[15]]Central Europe to the southern part of Central Asia and India, and commands a good portion of this route. This fact may, in the very near future, be of the greatest political and economic importance. At the same time, the Ukraine is the only one of all the East European countries which, thru its location, stands in the closest relations to the Mediterranean countries.
Reserving the detailed discussion of the Ukraine’s geographical location for the anthropogeographical part of my little book, let us now consider the size of the Ukraine.
The area of the Ukrainian territory is 850,000 square kilometers.
We see before us, therefore, a European country which is surpassed in area only by present-day Russia in Europe. No European people, with the solitary exception of the Russians, possesses so large a compact national territory as the Ukrainians. This characteristically Eastern European spaciousness of the territory, combined with the natural wealth of the region would, if coupled with Western European culture, make a fit dwelling-place for a world-power. On such ground as this, the possibilities for the development of a material and intellectual culture are almost unlimited.
But alas! The greatest poet of the Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko, has characterized his fatherland all too fittingly as “Our Land, but not belonging to us.” Upon its large and rich territory the Ukrainian nation has had to endure so many hard buffets of fate, that it must be considered, along with the Jews, the most sorely tried civilized race on earth. Even down to the present moment the Ukrainians are a helot race, which is forced to unearth the treasures of its fatherland for its hostile neighbors.
The Black Sea and its Coasts
Altho for many centuries separated from the Pontus by the nomad-haunted steppe-border, the Ukrainian [[16]]nation is closely identified with this sea. An enormous number of legends and songs of the Ukrainian people deal with it; even in fanciful love-songs it is mentioned. And the intimacy of this East European nation with the Sea need not surprise us. The Black Sea, with which so much in Ukrainian song and story is connected, has had a significance in the history of the Ukraine which has not been forgotten in the unwritten traditions of the people. How many cultural and warlike memories are connected with the Black Sea! How much Ukrainian blood has mingled with its waters!