The history of the Ukrainian question, as it offers itself to us to-day, dates from the middle of the seventeenth century, that is, the time of the great Ukrainian Revolution of 1648, which had
6given a glaring publicity to the problem, and caused at the same time the partition of the Ukraine between the Muscovite Empire and the Kingdom of Poland. From that day began the decadence of National Ukrainian life. Yet at the same time one could already observe in the people new aspirations towards the re-establishment of their independence. These aspirations tended to put aside all obstacles which opposed the intellectual, social and political development of the country. They can be traced in the movement now taking place in the Ukrainian provinces of both the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. The causes which have determined the more recent phases of this movement have their origin in the past centuries. They are a result not only of the political life of the people, but also of the geographical peculiarities of the territory inhabited by this people, of its situation, its physical nature, and of the conditions in which the colonization of the soil was accomplished.
The country inhabited by the Ukrainians is very vast, very fertile, and well watered. Already, in the days of ancient Greece it was one of its granaries, and the Greeks drew therefrom their larger supply. Later, at the beginning of the modern period, these lands provisioned to a large extent Central and Northern Europe in wheat, cattle, and wood. The country possesses immense natural riches—such as iron, coal, salt and other minerals. It furnishes at the present to Eastern Europe most of its cereals, meat, sugar, salt, iron, mercury, etc.
From the very early times the Ukraine has for various reasons awakened the thirst for conquest in its neighbours. Its situation at the centre of the vast plains that join Central Europe to Central Asia on the broad way which, so far as our memory can stretch, various peoples have always followed, and which served for the exchange of the products of civilization—for the coast of the Black Sea offers an especially favourable road for relations 7between west, east, and south—all this made of the Ukraine a land of dreams for each of the neighbouring States, as soon as they thought of any political expansion. This longing was facilitated by the fact that the natural frontiers of the country offer almost nowhere any obstacle of importance to invasion.
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar