Classic Audiobook Collection - The Ukrainians and the European War by Various ~ Full Audiobook [history]

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

The Ukrainians and the European War by Various audiobook. Genre: history Published in 1915 as the First World War tore through Eastern Europe, The Ukrainians and the European War is a compact, urgent collection of essays, reports, and proclamations aimed at explaining the Ukrainian cause to an English-speaking audience. In short pieces by advocates and observers such as George Raffalovich, Alexander von Nuber, Dr. Samuel Max Melamed, and several anonymous contributors, the booklet introduces Ukrainians (often labeled Ruthenians) as a distinct people whose lands had become a prize in the struggle between Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. Centering on Galicia, the writers describe how cultural and political breathing room under Austrian rule encouraged Ukrainian national life, and why Russian authorities saw that development as a threat to be crushed or absorbed. Accounts of military occupation, propaganda campaigns, protests against Russian administration, and the wider hopes of the 'small nations' sketch a world in which borders, languages, and loyalties are being contested in real time. Part political argument, part wartime snapshot, the collection captures a moment when national self-determination was not yet a settled principle but a risky demand, pressed by a people trying to be heard over the roar of empire and war. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:10:57) Chapter 02 (00:22:34) Chapter 03 (00:31:16) Chapter 04 (00:38:39) Chapter 05 (00:44:30) Chapter 06 (00:52:30) Chapter 07 (01:03:41) Chapter 08 (01:14:34) Chapter 09 (01:20:56) Chapter 10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ukrainians and the European War The forgotten nation of Eastern Europe, the Ruthenian question. The present European war will decide the fate of many nations, which formerly had their own independence, but which has been lost to them by reasons made famous in history. The Ukrainians, sometimes called Ruthenians, are one of these nations. At the present time, the war between Austria-Hungary and Russia is raging on the Ukrainian territory.

It is evident that in such a war, an interested people must raise their voice. For that reason, the Ukrainians who have immigrated to United States cannot remain neutral, but they must, of necessity, be watching with the utmost interest the various incidents of war between Austria-Hungary and Russia. In the meantime, the Ukrainians of this country are holding meetings and lectures

in order to discuss this political situation and to prepare themselves for every necessity. We therefore deem it essential that we give to the American people who are practically the only large, powerful, neutral nation, some facts pertaining to our Ukrainian nation and its people. The Ruthenians, Ukrainians or Little Russians, number at the present nearly 40 million souls.

They occupy the richest portion of the European continent. Ukraine, Ruthenia, or Little Russia, is a compact geographical unit which comprises practically the whole of the famous black soil zone. It abounds in coal, iron, and oil, and is the granary of Europe. As seen from the map below, which shows clearly enough the advantages of its position and its relative size, the territory is included between the Carpathian Mountains in the west, and the River Don and the Caucasus Mountains in the east between the northern tributaries of the Dnieper and the Black and Assov seas. Politically speaking, Ukraine of today is divided between Russia and Austria-Hungary.

It is, however, still united in race, sentiment and aspirations, just as in the past it was also united in the political sense of the word. The map shows the extent of the Russian and of the Austro-Hungarians' sphere, and the frontier line dividing them. The Austro-Hungarian rule in Ruthenia, Ukraine, in its modern origin chiefly dates from 1795, or from the last partition of Poland. Of the same age is the Russian domination over the contiguous lands comprised between the Austro-Russian boundary and the banks of the River Niper. The Kingdom of Poland at the time of the partitions included those lands as its portion. They fell under the Polish sway, in consequence of the dismemberment of the Ruthenian

Cossack Republic of the 17th to 18th centuries, which was brought about by joint efforts of Russia and Poland. As to the eastern portion of the lands of that republic, those that spread beyond the Knieper, they were in uninterrupted connection with Russia, or, to use the proper terminology, Muscovy, from an earlier date, namely since 1654, or the year which saw the conclusion of an alliance between Bodan Chmelniki, the Hetman of Ukraine, and Alexis Mikhailovits, the Tsar of Muscovy. This alliance marked one of the most momentous events in the career of that republic set up in 1648, and finally broke up at the end of the 18th century, when the last remnant of it, the Zaporogean siege was abolished by the Ucas of the Empress Catherine the Great.

The Republic was born out of a revolt of the Ruthenians against the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, under whose scepter they lived for some two and a half centuries previously to the event. It has been a case of reassertion on their part of their national independence which they so fatally lost during the 14th century, when their country was simultaneously harassed on all sides by the Tartars, Poles, and Lithuanians. The period of national life between the 9th and the 14th centuries is still looked back upon across the dividing Gulf of nearly 6th centuries as the Golden Age. Ruthenia then was the largest and probably the most civilized among the countries of Europe. Its relations with Spain, India, Persia, Egypt, Constantinople, in short, with east, west,

and south were numerous and important. Enemies feared the Ruthenian warrior, and the name of the country was famed throughout the world. In language, they are related to other Slavonic peoples, just as Latin or Germanic peoples are related among themselves. The Ruthenian language stands in about the same relation to Russian and Polish as Italian to French and Spanish, or German, to Norwegian and Dutch. In religion, the Ruthenians are divided into four main, classes, the Orthodox who form the vast majority, about 34 millions, the Greek Catholics, who used to be very numerous, but having been subjected to much persecution, have dwindled down to five million. Their stronghold is Galicia. The Protestants are to be found chiefly in the Russian part of the

country, where, since the establishment of religious toleration, they are spreading almost unhindered. The Roman Catholics are mostly found among the members of the old aristocracy. In temperament, the Ruthenians are curiously representative of both the South and the North and West and the East, combining stubbornness and endurance with a vivid imagination and a love of the beautiful. They are possessors of a remarkably rich and varied folklore. Their songs are famous. They still recently made formidable fighters. They are now achieving a splendid progress in the fields of industry and commerce. The Ukrainians were often praised by foreigners for their excellent physique. They average 5 feet, 10, and 6 feet, and some of the picked regiments of Russia and Austria-Hungary

are formed exclusively of Ruthenian recruits. Of late years, owing to unfavorable influences of the international market upon the Ruthenian economic life, extensive emigration of agricultural workers set in. A couple of millions of them have left the country and settled in Asiatic Russia, USA, Canada, Brazil, and the Argentine. Hundreds of thousands go yearly to Germany as seasoned laborers. There are living in the United States about one million Ukrainians, and in Canada about half a

million. They are mostly laborers, especially miners, farmers and retail businessmen. In spite of this division between these two countries, and notwithstanding the fact that these people have had for a long time no national freedom. They have raised with their own power and by almost superhuman deprivation, their own literature, science, educational and economical institutions. The part of Ukraine, which at the time of division of the country was allotted to Austria, has enjoyed to some extent its national life, and in spite of very hard and trying circumstances, these people for the last 60 years were able to attain their proper place among the other

nationalities of Austria. After developing their literature and science, the Ukrainians daily discussed the erection of a university at Lembock. This question had been almost realized when the war unexpectedly intervened and prevented its accomplishment. After the development of their literature and science followed their development of economies, all the towns and villages of Galicia have been covered by cooperative, commercial, and agricultural associations, which had a centralized head or union at Lemberg, Galicia. In late years, the Ukrainians, finding the necessity of education, established private high schools, professional schools, and grammar schools, all of which have been supported by contributions by the people in Galicia, as well as the Ukrainians

in America. The Ukrainians who lived in Russia, however, prospered, but little. The Russian Russian autocracy, having since 1654, destroyed little by little their political independence, united them individually and politically with the Russian Empire, thus destroying all ambitions for a national independence. This union finally resulted from the blow dealt by Russia in 1876, when she issued an imperial Ucausa, Order of the Tsar, by virtue of which they were then forbidden to use their mother tongue in public life. They were not allowed to publish either books or newspapers in the Ukrainian language,

and this language was expelled from all public and private schools. This condition continued until the Great Russian Revolution in 1906, which gave some national liberty to the Ukrainians. The development of Ukrainian people in Austria was a thorn in the sides of the Russian nationalists, who under the guidance of Count Bobrinsky began a strong agitation with Russia, looking to the institution of war with Austria in order to seize Galicia and to destroy the sole center of culture of the Ukrainians. This agitation, as we now see, has borne fruits,

and what these poor oppressed but enlightened people are now suffering at the hands of Russia on the territory seized by the Russians are daily reported in the newspapers. It is really a tragedy of the people who had but scarcely begun to live intellectually, and who are now being cut to the root, because of their endeavor to accomplish that which God has given and intended to all mankind, personal liberty and equality of mankind. Personal liberty to secure education so as to fit themselves to stand on an equality with mankind and earn the mean of supporting himself and his family properly,

and enjoying the fruits of this world equal with other enlightened nations. End of Section 1, read by Sandra, Montreal, 22. Section 2 of the Ukrainians and the European War. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Read by Pratibha.

The Ukrainians and the European War The Conquest of Galicia by George Raffalovic. From time to time, I have endeavoured to keep the New Age readers acquainted with the progress of the Ukrainian revival. My friends are now passing through a period of anguish and sorrow. It is on their own soil and over their homes and fields that Russian and Austrian armies have been fighting from the first. They stand today a chance of being reunited to their fellow Ukrainians of Russia. Now the Ukraine ever had enemies, Muscovy, Turkey, Poland, Lithuania and the German hordes. The cition of Galicia Boreseia, Bolivia,

Kovina and the Hungarian Carpathians would rid them of the Polish and the Teutonic rule. Turks and Lithuanians have long ceased to trouble them. There remains but one enemy, Russia. From racial and international, the problem becomes a national one. It is no less acute to the Ukrainians themselves. Immediately upon the declaration of war against Russia, the Ukrainians created an organization which should correspond to the new circumstances. They intend to, tended to act at the frontier and in the nearest neighborhood of the first battlegrounds. It was confidently expected that the Ukrainians on the other side of the frontier were making arrangements as well in order to cooperate in the fight for the deliverance of the Ukrainian people

from the Polish and Muscovite yoke. There lay the error. Nearly all the Ukrainian leaders of Russia were arrested on the first day. The rest were terrorized. The leading personalities of the Galician Ruthenians met at Lemberg. After short negotiations, they formed a common political organization of all Ruthenian parties, including even the Social Democrats. The Central Ukrainian National Council stood as the embodiment of the Ukrainian aspirations and set itself the task of taking all necessary measures and of making arrangements for the war against Russia. In its further consolidation, this association of all the Ruthenian groups was to be extended so far as to comprise all Ukrainians of all lands.

The Central Ukrainian National Council placed itself in communication with the Ruthenian Rifle Association, which was formed 18 months previously. It created, with the help of these volunteers, a general Ukrainian fighting body, to which the Ruthenian gymnastic body, Sitch, was joined. In a manifesto, all the Ukrainians able to bear arms were invited to enter the Rifle Association, and in every large Ruthenian community, committees were formed in the short time available to gather the able-bodied men,

prepare them for service and give their military equipment. At the same time, they began with the collection of a war fund to which from all circles of the Ukrainian population considerable sums were sent. According to the Scanty reports which were received at first from the Russian Ukrainians, the Russian government did its utmost to put down the movement and arrested nearly all Ukrainian men

leaders. Especially in the southern part of the Ukraine, did the Russian gendarmes play unmerciful havoc. The body of volunteers Trialadzei, raised by the Ukrainians, was brought to a large figure. Even the Jews, but the Zionist Jews only, decided officially through their central organization in Lemberg to help materially and morally that free corps. Upon request, the Vienna government decided to give the Ukrainian volunteer units army officers of Ukrainian nationality for Cardas. So much for the Ruthenian pan-Slavism. So much for their hatred of the Teuton.

Demoralized by Russians and Poles alike, they would hardly be, at least in Galicia, expected to show anti-Austrian feelings. Austria is not Prussia. If conquered in square battle, and if their lot is improved mentally and economically by their new masters, then the Ruthenians will no doubt prefer the new regime.

They could not, however, have been expected in June 1914 to long for the date of their fellow Ukrainians of Russia. A whole issue of the New Age would not suffice to correct the misstatements which have appeared in the English press since the beginning of the war concerning Galicia and my unfortunate Ukrainian friends, many of whom are now being shot down or imprisoned by the Russian troops for no other reason than their respect for their oaths of loyalty to the Austrian Emperor. What makes it so vivid to me is that I have just come back from Lemberg, after a three-months visit to Eastern Galicia. That visit I did not pay alone, but with three Englishmen,

reinforced on one or two occasions by three others. Their names and addresses are at the disposal of anyone who doubts my veracity or ability to diagnose. Today, we read of Ruthenians fraternising with the Russian troops, of Hungarian troops being placed behind the Ruthenian soldiers to shoot them down if they refuse to march. We hear of the rejoicings of the population of Lemberg at the capture of their town.

Who can have rejoiced therein, but the polls of whom after my visit to Galicia am ready to believe anything, and the political scum of the Ruthenians? Who would rejoice? The thousands of volunteers, all Slavs, mind you, whom I saw drilling in order that they could march into Russia to deliver their Ukrainian brothers

from stifling oppression, the intellectuals of the nation, journalists who wrote every day what they thought of Russian rule, organizers of the peasants, the more progressive peasants themselves, and the nationalist professors. Would it be the most venerable and patriotic archbishop of the Ruthenian Uniatt Church? All the Ruthenians of Galicia are Uniats, but in Russian Ukraine that right is suppressed

and its priests forbidden access to Russian territory. Would the dead rejoice in their graves? Hardly, when they may have to share the fate of Shevchenko, the great national poet of the Ukraine, whose tomb in Russia was this very year guarded by soldiers that the peasants should not approach it, lest the remembrance of his life should lead them into bad thoughts. Three months ago, I witnessed in Lemberg the festivities of the centenary of Shevchenko. That was on June 28, when Ukrainians gathered from all Galicia, from Hungary, Bukovina, and many also from Russian Ukraine. There was in the morning a procession of some 20,

28,000 peasants, men and women, in full national costume. One of the songs they sang was, Neipora, no longer shall we have to serve the Poles and Muscovites. Another 20,000 peasants watched them and sang with them. Thousands of others remained in their villages, but had celebrations of their own. Sochols, Sitch, Socholines, Scouts, Khosaks and horseback in ancient costumes,

intelligents, peasants, and peasant girls in rich native dress, Houdzules, bands galore, all classes participated. It was impressive to see the faith in the eyes of those people and to hear the surprised exclamations of those Ukrainian spectators who are too often prone to disparage or to despair of their country and the future of their nation. There was order, organisation, brains behind this unexpected large gathering, which I am convinced had a large bearing upon Russia's attitude before the war. It was time to act or lose her last chance,

of taking Galicia. In the afternoon, we were invited to witness the sports. The Stath-Halter, or Viceroy of Galicia, himself a pole, yet presided over the display of gymnastics and athletics. Suddenly, a telegram was handed to him. He was seen to sigh and to speak to his neighbour, the leader of the Ukrainian party in Parliament. For half an hour, already curious whispers were heard on all sides. Slowly the viceroy rose and disappeared in his motor car.

Then the news filtered through the assembly of some 30,000 people. The greatest tragedy that could happen to the Ukrainians had taken place. The heir apparent Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been fouledly murdered by the Servians, a nation expert at the game at the instigation of a certain unofficial Russian clique. He was almost the only French the Ukrainians had around the emperor. His noble dreams of a triple monarchy, Germans, Hungarians and Slavs, each holding their own, still born. Well could the Russians say, as they wrote the next day, to their Ukrainian subjects, Your Tsar is dead. Now ours is coming. By the express desire of the Stath-Halter, the games went on,

but the heart was not in them. Everyone felt oppressed by a dread which we are now helping to foster. The London press may advocate the floating of the Russian flag in this country. Let the Union Jack wave marshaly side by side with it to commemorate the final descent into the grave of a nation of 40 million men. The present war is perhaps a just war. It is certainly a necessary one. But must the Ukrainians pay for Prussian misdeeds? There is no lack of patriotism in proclaiming one's opinion

that we have not acted squarely by Austria before the war. Austria had a case and we could have held Russia back. Let her defend Belgium by all means, although England was once described in Europe and not without some basis of truth as the champion. treaty breaker. At all events, during the last two years, we have most respectively sat upon one treaty and two conventions with apparently no qualms of conscience. Right or wrong, England still. Moreover, I cannot admit that we are the worst offenders in that direction. Russia is the champion

pledge breaker. Pledges to Poland, to the Ukraine, to Finland, there are many still unredeemed on the statute book of the empire. We are now fighting for the distinctions. We are now fighting for the destruction of Prussian hegemony, and it was time we did. But we must not believe that Russia is fighting for us, nor need we force ourselves into the belief that her government has suddenly undergone a change for the better. It has not. Unless we guarantee the rights of all small nationalities, the promises of Russian Tsars and Grand Dukes are not worth the prize we must pay for the London rags that extoled them. For the sake of the Russian peasant and of Russian civilization, we must insist

and persist. We must do it also because it is just what we should and because we owe it to our Canadian Ruthenians. The British Empire will never be the same again. A new era will follow the war when Labour will be aristocratized or else the scaffold will know the reason why. If we cease to lick the Muscovite boot and treat the Russians from today as men who are our allies,

our friends, but who need to hear the truth now and then, we will also avoid the necessity for them to set up the guillotine. New Age, London, September 17, 1914. End of Section 2. Section 3 of the Ukrainians and the European War. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org.

Read by Pratibha. The Ukrainians and the European War. The Menace of the Great Bear Russia and the Ruthenians, a face of pan-Slavism by Alexander von Neuber, Austro-Hungarian Consul General. It is safe to assume that most of our readers are unaware that the Ruthenians, or little Russians as the Russians christened them, or Ukrainians as they style themselves, are a people numbering 40 millions.

The Western world hardly suspected the existence of this nation, which ranks second among the Slav. The Ruthenians have been moved to a more prominent place in European politics lately, their future destiny being one of the main causes of the present war. Of the 40 millions of Ruthenians, more properly called Ukrainians, about 4 million live in Eastern Galicia and half a million in Upper Hungary, whereas more than 35 millions are at home in southern Russia, in the fertile plains stretching from both banks of the Naipur to the dawn and the Black Sea.

As far back is the 10th century, Ukraine was a mighty country, and its capital, Kiev, then, was the largest, wealthiest and the most advanced city in Eastern Europe. In those days, Western Europe fully realized the Ukrainian rulers' power. Foreign rulers sought their friendship. Prince Volodymyr Monomach was married to Harrell's, the Saxon King of England's daughter, Gita, and his daughter Anne became Queen of France. After the destruction of their flourishing country by the invading Tartars, the Ukrainians came under Lithuanian, the Polish, and finally Russian domination. Russia was quick to realize that were the national civilization of such a large population

occupying the most fertile parts of the empire allowed to subsist, this would ever be a source of danger for herself. It was therefore decided to denationalize the Ukrainians, and drastic, unscrupulous were the methods applied to this end. The very existence of the nation was denied. Its language was summarily decreed to be the little Russian, dialect and was prohibited in schools in official life. Not content with this, official Russia prohibited the printing of Ukrainian texts, even of prayer books. The total suppression of national existence which threatened the Ukrainians was happily averted when a fraction of them came under Austrian rule as a consequence of Poland's partition. With the constitutional freedom

granted by Austria, the Ukrainians in that country were enabled to maintain and develop their national existence and culture. Ukrainian schools and colleges were founded beside many national clubs or associations for upholding the people's economic and ideal interests. Ukrainian was officially recognized as the country's language, and acts were passed in the local county councils and parliament safeguarding Ukrainian rights. The people were inaugurating a national renaissance. Their culture and literature were once more going ahead.

The Austrian government, well appreciating the situation, had agreed last year to the establishment of an Ukrainian university in Lemberg. The national resurrection of the Ukrainians, though materially confined to Austria, had a moral effect far beyond the Russian borders. Comparing their lot with that of their happier fellow countrymen in Austria, the Ukrainians in Russia gave signs of unrest, and Russia had to realize that her yoke was unbearable to the people who looked to Galicia as to their paymont.

The Ukrainian aspirations were not passed unnoticed by the watchful Russian officials who quickly perceived that a new threat was arising to their government's despotism. Nationally enlightened Ukrainians would not willingly submit to Russian oppressive rule and would even attempt to free themselves. Official Russia then declared that the annexation of Galicia was the safest cause to take in order to offset the threatening danger. When this would be achieved, the time-honoured Russian al-Khossack methods would nip in the bud the resurrecting Ukrainian culture.

These official Russian views were disseminated in periodicals and at public meetings. As long as a powerful Austria stood in the way, such theories could be advanced in speech and print, but they could not be put into practice. Since annexation by violence was not possible, one had to resort to other means. The Ukrainian Renaissance was declared by official Russia to be but a malicious invention of the Austrian government, nay, the very existence of Ukrainians in Galicia was flatly denied, and the Ukrainians were described by Petersburg as Russians, brothers who were subject to utterly intolerable religious and national oppression. The Petersburg government gave its financial support to the recently launched Russian-Galician

society and Slav Benevolent Society, both inspired by Count Bob Brynski, with the sole object of promoting Russian political agitation in Galicia. In this campaign, which started both an educational and religious, lines, the chief Russian weapon was the rubble. At first, Galicia was flooded by Russian emissaries. Those agents provocateurs were entrusted with the disaffectioned mission of the poorer class of peasants who were to be promised a free hand in the partition of the dominial estates and the robbing of the Jews once the Tsar would have conquered the country. Numbers of these poor peasants' children were taken to Russia, there to be educated in convents

to be fit agitators for the Russian Orthodox Church. The Ukrainians in Galicia are members of the Roman Catholic Church, though they have retained Greek rights. Once their education completed, the students were sent back to Galicia with sufficient funds and with order to agitate and also to act as military spies, as the prosecutions in Marmaroz Ziegath and Lemberg have amply disclosed. Free boarding schools for poor peasant sons were founded with Russian funds,

the educational work being carried on in a country. accordance with Russian aims. Galicia was flooded with Russian anti-Austrian literature, the prayer books containing prayers for the Tsars, and the Russian benefactors gave all these good things free, without wanting anything in return. Even certain English newspapers were influenced so far as to publish accounts of the unparalleled oppression of the Russians in Galicia. The authors, being Bo Borenski, and also J.W. Berk-Pick, an English man acting as Russia's agent for England. Bob Rinsky did not shrink from going to Galicia, and there to speak in terms, which should,

had the Austrian authorities concerned not been too lenient for peace's sake, have led him to detention for political crimes. Attempts were also made to persuade the Austrian government through diplomatic channels that peace with Russia could be maintained only if the Russian agitation in Galicia were tolerated. At the very time, Petersburg's bureaucrats declared Galicia would soon be ripe for picking. In as much as public opinion exists in Russia, it was carefully prepared and familiarized with the idea that war with Austria is unavoidable and that Galicia must be annexed. This policy was succinctly expressed by Bobrinsky's characteristic exclamation. We shall not rest ere the Russian flag flies on the Carpathians.

To bring war about and at the same time to conceal her aggressive policy, Russia started the anti-Austrian campaign in Serbia. The unsuspecting reader might fancy that Russia's attitude and backing Serbia is the outcome of a sincere feeling of Slav solidarity, but the initiated knew perfectly well that Russia could reach Lemberg best by way of Belgrade. Let us finally consider what was the Ukrainian's attitude when this was started. From the very first minute it was well-defined and unanimously supported. We shall fight for freedom and Austria. Immediately hostilities began, numerous Ukrainian volunteer companies took the field against Russia, their archbishop in Lemberg, Count Sheptecki, having devoted his entire fortune to this purpose.

The Archbishop has already been made prisoner and sent to Russia, where he shall have to answer for his unswerving patriotism. Count Sheptiki will be one of the many noble victims of a just cause. The Ukrainians will hold his memory in high esteem and honour. It is to be anticipated that the hopes of his enduring and cultured nation will be fulfilled at an early date. Western civilization would fare all the better by. it. The fatherland, October 21, 1914. End of Section 3. Section 4 of the Ukrainians and the European

War. This is Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Ukrainians and the European War. The War in Galatia by George Rofovic. Sir, it was not without cause that I protested. against the exaggerated importance given by the London press to the reports of Russian victories. Much as I hope in the victory of the French and Belgian troops, with the help of the British, I am less happy at the Russian advance, and the words of one of the members of the Russian Duma, who was arrested and court-martialed recently, quote, The lesser evil would be a Russian defeat, end quote.

I am well content to leave it at that insofar as the Russian Russia is concerned. The lie is thus given bluntly to the knave, who would have us believe that all is well in Russia today. All is not well. Political terrorism has not abated anywhere in the whole of the empire. Our unfortunate and gallant allies are the worst governed nation of the whole world. Well, terrorism has begun in Galatia, and I am going to prove it with no other information than that given by the Petrograd

correspondence of our leading newspapers. If their sub-editors were not hopelessly overworked and ignorant mortals, they would see to it that such information is withheld from us, as they know so well how to withhold it usually. To one who knows Galicia and the Ukraine, they afford damning evidence. I was much surprised, for instance, on December 5th, to read a certain paragraph in the Evening Standard. It had a heavy headline, Horrors in Galicia. The sub-editor, to be sure, must have thought the horrors were caused by the Huns, the blonde beasts. He was mistaken. The Russians are in possession. By the way, the Muscovites contain in their ranks a much larger quantity of fair people

than any army in the world. But to the information, quote, The Archbishop of Peshemichel has arrived here after enduring great sufferings. Speaking of the situation in Galicia, His grace said that all his efforts to communicate with other Latin or Greco-Ruthanian Catholic bishops were vain, and the reports circulating about their condition most alarming, end quote. With my knowledge of the Ruthanian question of Galicia, these are my conclusions.

The Archbishop has gone to Rome to complain to the Pope about the conduct of the Russians in eastern Galicia. The river sand divides Galicia in two parts, eastern Ukraine, western Polish. They are as two worlds. The eastern part, which is the only one with which I am concerned, and roughly speaking, the part which the Austrian government under the Prussian pressure was compelled to evacuate before the Russian invasion, is populated by Ukrainians or Ruthenians. These are in proportion of 97% Reco-Catholics and religion. The Archbishop of Lemberg, Major Count Shepetsky, is the Metro Polite. He belongs to a family older than that of the Hatsbergs, and wealthy, at least as charitable and open-handed as rich.

He is not unknown in this country and has been in Canada and the States to study the conditions of his folk who have emigrated there. Knowing the misery and the sufferings of the Ukrainians of Galicia, He did his best to group them together and took full advantage of the nationalist revival to affect that purpose. No radical was ever too radical for him. Ten years ago, the Russian government authorized all religions in the empire, with one exception, i.e. the Greco-Catholic Church, the only church which had any cause to fear. When the Russian Arby's approach Lemberg, the Archbishop was urged to leave, but he refused. He was arrested and taken to Kiev. Scores of priests and nationalist peasants followed him.

Russian missionaries were sent to Eastern Galicia. The new governor was a certain Count Babrinsky, a cousin of the most notorious and infamous Count Vladimir Bobrinsky, the corruptor of the Galician peasants, the arch-enemy of the Ukrainians of Russia, perhaps the politician who is the most entirely devoid of scruple in the whole of Russia, a descendant by Catherine II, of one of the Orlovs. He was promptly appointed by his cousin to supervise relief.

That is exactly what he had been doing for several years. The Byzantine meaning of the word relief is well known. I repeat, all my information for recent facts is taken from the London press. Over 400,000 Ruthenian refugees fled to Vienna and to Hungary. This shows how delighted the Ukrainians must be at the Russian advance. They inhabit also part of Hungary around the Carpathian passes. As a correspondent of the Morning Post informed us, quote, it was not the military that drove the Russians back, but the peasants with scythes

and revolvers, end quote. In this fashion did they welcome the Cossacks, who, by the way, burned every house in haystack as they withdrew, leaving the church's standing. Was that in derision? The Bobrinsky clique used before the war, which is their greatest achievement, to boast that there was no such thing as a Ruthenian language, that it was pure Russian, yet it read in the star of November 23rd that quote, the Russians are organizing five educational centers in eastern Galicia at which Galician professors will receive instruction in the Russian language, end quote. The truth is that a decently educated Russian who knows well another Slav language besides his

own can rapidly learn Ukrainian, that any Slav who speaks to Slav languages can learn a third one in a few weeks. This fact does not make the Serbs, the Slavics, or the Bulgarians, members of the Russian happy, family. Why should the Ukrainians be thus chosen? It is, of course, because they number nearly 40 million and occupy the richest territories of the Russian empire. Well, let the Russians burn houses, invert the Ukrainians and teach their own language. Let them even, as they are doing, arm and enroll by force the population of the conquered

territory. We have, for the present, no control over our apparently much-needed allies. But when the peace negotiations are in progress, do we intend to allow Russia to annex to her empire, a population that is not of her own blood, even though it may be of the same blood as their 35 million subject Ukrainians? The Bulgarian government has, I understand, promised to support the Ukrainian claims. If we object to them, we shall be committing a crime, although very likely one of ignorance on our part. If the crime is perpetrated and we allow England's signature to be affixed the treaty that enslaves another few million Ukrainians,

hitherto comparatively free, then I honestly hope that hundreds of people in the British Empire will help and facilitate the revolution which will follow sooner or later in the whole of Ukraine. In the meantime, is it too much to ask that the United States government and that of Canada to facilitate the emigration of those Ukrainians who prefer to seek freedom of conscious and of language as far afield as possible from the tentacles of the Muscovite Octopus? George Rofalovich New Age, London, December 17th, 1914 End of Section 4

Read by Gray Pickett on November 8th, 2020 Section 5 of the Ukrainians and the European War This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Librevox.org The Ukrainians and the European War

Protest of the Ukrainians by various authors Russia is taking advantage of the prevailing unsettled conditions of her transient occupation of East Galicia with its capital Lemberg and the northern part of the Bukovina above all else to destroy the Ukrainian nation during this focus of its present development to undermine the foundations of this development and to exterminate the Ukrainian element

In protest, published three weeks ago by the Ukrainian representation of Parliament, this act of violence, which was perpetrated by Russia against the religious liberty of the Ukrainian people in Galicia of the Greek Catholic United Church. This act of violence was immediately followed by a second, more brutal and criminal, because directed against the whole nation, against its holiest possessions, its highest achievements, and against the foundations of its existence. Governor General of War, Lieutenant Count Barrenski, appointed by the Russians for Galicia, issued a proclamation on the 30th of September 1914 in Lemberg, which was proclaimed also to be

enforced for Bukovina by then Russian governor von Sernovich-Jevryanov. This proclamation contains, in four parts, a statement in which, under penalty of three months in prison or three thousand roubles fine, it is forbidden to sell or loan from the libraries, those books which have appeared outside the Russian border in the Russian language or in the Ukrainian tongue, and at the same time ordered that all such books everywhere must be separately collected and suppressed. Since no Russian books appeared in Galicia and in Bukovina before the Russian invasion, yet on the other hand the Ukrainian literature, bounded and forbidden in Russia, has since 40 years ago developed almost exclusively in Galicia and

Bukovina and its productions, above all, printed and spread abroad in the city of Lemberg. It is evident that these snaky statements are directed plainly and exclusively against the Ukrainians of these two provinces. These statements indicate nothing else than a continuance of the policy of extermination which Russia maintained for centuries against the existence and continuation of the Ukrainian nation. The same policy which induced Russia's ruler in the year 1680 to prohibit the whole church literature in the Ukrainian language. And in the year 1720, all Ukrainian books, whatever,

in the second half of the 18th century during the time of Ukrainian autonomy to destroy the wonderfully developed Ukrainian school system and in the 19th century to oppose the holy leaders with brutal persecutions, unheard of repressions, which policy reached its zenith in the year 1876, Tsar Alexander II in the U-case which completely banned the Ukrainian word out of literature and from all public activity of church and school. By this means, Russia aims today to introduce the same conditions in the transient occupied territory, which became the home of the banished Ukrainian literature, and as the above-mentioned proclamation applied to the whole Ukrainian literature,

proscribing every printed word without exemption, and also all Ukrainian school books from elementary instruction up to university studies, and also to church and prayer books, therefore it has doubtless no other object than to destroy at one blow the whole religious life of the Ukrainians, all their achievements, all results of their most zealous efforts of the last decades in the field of literature, science school, and church systems, and the entire Ukrainian religious culture. Against this unheard of brutality, tending to the mockery and disgrace of the 20th century, the continual oppression, which is even in gross contradiction to the point of view of the Academy of Science of Petrograd,

which has expressly acknowledged the independence of the Ukrainian nation and whose free development it took under its protection, in the name of the culture, the representatives of the Ukrainian nation raise a most solemn protest, and that the name of the deeply wounded Ukrainian people. We are thoroughly convinced that even though these barbaric measures of Russia are unable to destroy the existence of R, so sorely tried nation, that the underdying spirit of this nation,

which during the previous whole centuries of persecution and oppression, on the part of, quote, the Liberator of Slav Brothers, end quote, was not broken, will in the present help to overcome these sad times and not bow before oppression. The conduct of Russia against our nation, its hasty destructiveness, at a time and place where it has no right to act or to decide, may give new evidence for the civilized world and for history, how the holiest of human rights are handled by this country, and may add to the characteristic of the ethical foundations of that country. Vienna, November 1914.

For the Supreme Ukrainian National Council of Austria, Dr. Kostlovitsky, president. Dr. Vladimir Bacchensky, secretary. For the Ukrainian parliamentary representatives, Sir Nikolai Fonswazilico, Dr. Javan Putroshavich, Dr. Javan Olisnetsky, Dr. Javan Levyznyzky, Dr. Yvyn Levyzky, Sir Vladimir von Sinkolovich. Sir Elias von Samaka For the Union of the Liberation of Ukraine Alexander Skoropis Yoltukovsky

Volodymyr Doroshenko End of Section 5 read by Gray Pickett on November 10th, 2002 Section 6 of the Ukrainian and European War This is a Librivox recording All Librivox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org.

The Ukrainian and the European War The Ukraine and the Small Nations by George Ravlovak. Let me make one more attempt to bring before your readers the reality of the tragedy of the Ukraine. One does not expect much from Mr. T.P. O'Connor, but his last dictum, that we are fighting a cause of the small nationalities,

make sad readings to me. It is so utterly untrue. While we're fighting, two nations at least are being crushed to death by Russia. Finland is Morinbund, and the Ukraine movement loses its Piedmont. I am only concerned with the latter case because of the tremendous spiritual and intellectual possibilities I believe to lie in a free Ukraine. Dr. Dillon, in the telegraph, assured us that the Ruthenians were Russians at heart. I know that is contrary to the truth.

It is so much easier to take the word of Russian nationalization. journalist? Other like Mr. Wells would probably assert that there is a Ukraine, but that it is a Habsburg babe, suckled by that idea of wet nurse, Prussia. It is useless to say that the little Russians are Russians, unless you concede at the same time that the Russians are not Russians. Let me explain. The word Russi was used centuries ago to describe the inhabitants of Ukraine. Muscovy absorbed them later on. And the name of Muscovy was dropped and that of Russia, a very similar one, adopted for the whole. If you ask a Ukrainian what he is, he will use the word Rushki to describe his language and Rosiski for that of the great Russian.

Another argument is that the Ukrainians are happy as they are. Yes, so did the 17th century landlord said that the peasants of France, were pleased to be treated as cattle. But they were not, and proved it. That is the great trouble of the Ukraine. It is a criminal offense in the Russian-Ukraine to teach the Ukrainian language. Letters addressed in Ukrainian are not delivered.

Only the worst and the least moral of Ukrainians will accept to teach Russians to their pupils. And the whole population is thus gradually demoralized. But the great little welses go to Russian. Others of the same water goes to Galicia. They question, being strangers, the only people they can question. An ambitious priest, a dissatisfied official, a landowner of Polish or Jewish, or Muscovite race, or a few peasants, carefully selected by their guide.

In careful selected districts, they see a pretty village, prosperous-looking farmers, and the rosy-faced children. That is a pleasant change after dreary Moscovy. But these strangers never have the opportunity of seeing below the crust. They never realize the stifling oppression. They cannot even imagine they inarticulate aspirations. I do not imagine them. I know them.

And after a month of heart and I can assure you wholly disinterested work on their behalf, I have been able to reach the hordes of those Ukrainian of Russia who dare to speak. I have spoken with scores of them, poor and rich. The Ukrainian peasant is fond of his land. He thinks of the hated Muscovy as of a thief who stole his birthright, who forbids him to use his own tongue, who sets pies upon him, even Orthodox priests themselves to discover his secret cache where he keeps the much-fingered books in the Ukrainian tongue. He may be articulated.

He may hate the Prussians as much as he hate the Poles, but he does not wish to be absorbed by the Muscovite. They get all and get on at all cost Muscovite. The truth is that you people of England do not believe in your hearts in the rights of the small nationalities. Only the Irish and perhaps the Welsh do that. When it suits you, you take up the dear oppressed people. When it does not, you turn a deaf ear to their claims.

English love for the weak is a piece of errant humbug, a la Gladstone. Take the Belgian case. The violation of Belgian as an argument used against Germany is weak. We know very well that Prussia will not retain Belgian after the war, even though Sir Roger Casement and the Albanians are sad to have sided with the Kaiser. We have had a good deal of evidence showing that the Belgian government and ours knew long ago that Germany had altered her war plans, to fit in with the Franco-Russian alliance, and meant to pass through Belgian willy-nilly. Yet, afflicted by our foolish tolerance of the pacifists,

we and the Belgians, failed to act. We did not foil Germany's plan. Sir Edwards-Gray failed to assert in Parliament that we would always protect Belgian territory by force of arms. And brave Frenchmen and Englishmen are now paying the penalty. Let us forever drop the same. silly prattle about helping small nations. We allow Russia our ally who depends today on our staff officers for the brains of her army and on our chancellor of the exchequer and our German-Jewish

financiers for several million pounds monthly to establish her government over Europeans who are not Russians. I am very sorry for the trustful Poles. Neither Poles nor Ukrainians are Russians. There were no Russians in Galicia, paste Dr. Dylan, with the exception of the agent's provocateur, before the war. My English friends and I never heard of any others. Does Russia propose to hand back Bessarabia and lower Bukovina to Romania? Or the Baltic province to Germany? Why should not Italy wish to take the Ticino canton from Switzerland, the Nice District

from France, as well as the Trentino and the Trest from Austria? Why should Russia take Armenia? This is another indiscreet question, is it not? To all this, the answer is the same. Any European diplomacy that is strong and cunning enough to get the soldiers of other nations to do their beatings will always reap the benefits. A nation must remain strong in order to hold her conquest.

It will ever be so. Will there be anyone in England who will be perverse enough to advise disarmament after this war on the plea that all is well with the small nationalities. Prussian rule is in our way and we must smash it. But there are other Prussians in the making. Whenever they oppress other small nationalities, it will be like the case of the Ukraine. Our ears will be closed.

Our eyes will be shut. What Ukrainians need is a friendly statesman with two million bayonets behind him. This they will never get from England. until it suits England's book. Seize then to rave about chivalry. Do not insult our intelligence by pratting about the sacred cause of smaller nationalities or else help them all alike.

George Rofalovic, the New Age, London, January 14th, 1915. End of Section 6. Read by Cormax in California, January 2023. Section 7 of the Ukrainians and the European War. This is a Libri-Box recording. All Libby Box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Mario Pineda The Ukrainians and the European War

Hops of the Little People of Russia, Part 1 by Dr. Samuel Max Melamed. Many small nationalities under the Tsar's rule long for their freedom. significance of these ethnographic differences in the present war. Independence, their dream. While the Allies' fleet is bombarding the Dardanelles and the Russians are underway to invade Turkish territory from another side with the object of capturing Constantinople, emissaries of many small nationalities in the Russian Empire have taken their headquarters

in the Turkish capital to be in touch with the Turkish government. I have been officially informed that one emissary from Ukraine, little Russia, two emissaries from the Caucasus, and two from the Crimean Peninsula have been sent to Constantinople to induce the Turkish government to look after the interest of these oppressed nations when peace is to be concluded. Talad Bey, so an Ukrainian friend tells me, has received the Ukrainian emissaries to Russian subjects and promise them on behalf of the Turkish government that Turkey will spare no effort to bring about the independence of the Ukrainians and independent Ukraine.

Ukraine forms the third part of the European Russian Empire and is the richest and most fertile part of Russian soil. If Ukraine is independent, Russia as a European power can no longer exist. But the Ukrainians are not the only ones among the many little nationalities of Russia, who long for national freedom and independence. In the west of the empire, there are the Poles, Lithuanians, and Leds. Further north, there are the Finns. In the heart of Russia itself there are the white Russians,

Bieloroski, a Slavonic tribe comprising 10 million souls, who are dreaming of tribal or national liberty. And in the Caucasus and the Crimean Peninsula, there are more than half a dozen little nationalities, like the Armenians, Georgians, many Mohamedan tribes, etc., who are striving either to establish their old national sovereignty or to establish a new one because they are not too happy under the Russian rule. Ethnographic Statistics Taking the superficial conspectus of the Russian Empire, we see that the Russian people themselves

are surrounded on nearly all sides by either non-Slavic nations, as is the case in the Caucasus, or by foreign nationalities of the Slavonic race, who still live their own tribal or national life, and who yearn for separation from Russia. A few years ago, the Russian Home Office published ethnographical statistics of the Russian Empire, which got to show that altogether, not less than 42 foreign tribes and nationalities are living within the realm of the Tsar. In the West and Northwest, the foreign nationalities are much superior in civilization and culture to the Russians themselves.

The Poles, for instance, are certainly more refined in culture than the Russians. Even the Lithuanians have more and greater culture and traditions than the Russians themselves. The Finns have produced a wonderful system of civilization, and they consider themselves much superior to the Russians. In spite of the fact that they have been oppressed by Russia for the last two decades, they nevertheless succeeded in preserving the system of national education, and have cultivated literature, science, and art. Helsing force, geographically so near to Petrograd,

resembles a Teutonic city much more than a Russian one. In the Baltic provinces, the German nobility and the Lederic people are also superior to the Russian nobility and to the Russian peasantry. But still, all these nationalities do not form a majority, or, to be more exact, a considerable majority in the Russian Empire. The Great Russians, Belikoroski, on the other hand, do form one united mass that is situated in the center of the empire, and that aims at the assimilation of all the small nations around the center. But it seems that the Great Russians are rather eccentrical power, because these smaller nationalities are not greatly attracted by the Great Russians.

And here, the Great Historical Tragedy sets in. The 70 million great Russians, who by sheer numbers are stronger than any other nations living within the Russian Empire, are eager not only to rule the other nations, but also wish to assimilate them. Up to now, all attempts to absorb these small nations were in vain because these small nations are intellectually and morally much stronger than the ruling Russians. The Russians, having failed to absorb and assimilate the small nations by moral, political, and intellectual means, have taken refuge in barbaric and despotic measures. If the Russian literature and the Russian clergymen failed to attract the smaller nations, the Russian Naut was the last resort of the statesmen in Pratrograd and Moscow. The smaller nationalities were to be forced to abandon their separate nationalism and were

to be made Russians, but even the Russian Naut was unable to bring about the Russianizing of the smaller nationalities. Revolution of 1905 Ten years ago, this struggle between the Russians and the center of the empire and the small nationalities on the outskirts had already reached such dimensions that the catastrophe seemed to be the only possible outlet. What is really known in history as the Russian Revolution of 1905 was not really a revolution of the Great Russians against the Tsar, but a revolution of the small Russian nationalities against the rulers.

The so-called liberal parties in Russia consists either of members of the small nationalities or of the new Russian proletariat that was created artificially by the policy of Count Whit. The so-called constitutional Democrats represent the small section of the Russian intellectuals. The leaders are a few Europeanized intellectuals of the progressive wing of the Russian nobility. As a matter of fact, the revolution was overcome not so much by governmental reprisals as by the Russian inhabitants of the large cities who are known by the name of real Russian people. The title these dark masses have assumed burst out my statement that the revolution of 1905 was a rebellion of the small nationalities against the ruling Great Russians.

The victory the Great Russians have won by crushing the revolution has considerably strengthened their position and has given them a predominance to which they are scarcely entitled. They are much stronger today than they have ever been. One of the results of their victory was the rise of the Panoslavistic movement, which is one of the historic causes of the present European conflagration. The policy of Russianizing these small nationalities was carried out by the government before the revolution took place, while now it is in the hands of the great Russians. The brutal policy of rationizing was forced upon the Russian government by the Duma.

No Russian cabinet would be able to remain in office for even a day if he had dared to oppose this rationalizing policy. The government, naturally being a government of the Great Russians, was but too ready to follow the lead of the Duma, knowing very well that the predominance of the Great Russians is simply identical with the predominance of conservatism and real Russian sarism. The failure of revolution The failure of the revolution and the intense rationalizing policy that followed upon it

so intimidated the smaller nationalities that they dared not utter even a whispered threat against their oppressors. The foremost revolutionary leaders were either executed or suffered banishment to Siberia or imprisonment for life, and the weaker elements were either intimidated or corrupted by the system of spying or of bribery or counter-espionage. espionage. The foreign nations of the empire were too weak and too frightened to resume the struggle. They silently hoped for a war between Russia and a Western power which might result in a Russian defeat and in a possible dismemberment of the empire. Men who are acquainted with the conditions in Russia had reason to hope that soon after the outbreak of the war, all the opposed nations in the Russian Empire would rise against their oppressors and help the invasion.

Many friends of these oppressed nations are greatly disappointed because they have not revolted. As far as the Poles and the Ukrainians are concerned, I have it from the best authority that everything was prepared for an uprising, but that the developments of military operations have prevented the realization of these plans. The explosion in the wars of Settledal and the revolutionary uprising in Odessa and in many many other parts of the Ukraine during the first days of the war are not forgotten, and one also remembers a proclamation of the Grand Duke Nikola Nikolaevich in which he warns the Polish

jocles not to help the enemy under the threat of being court-machled. This is not a mere presumption of mine, but I know it from official Finnish, Polish and Ukrainian personalities that all these respective nationalities had expected the Germans to invade Poland and occupy Warsaw in the early days of the war, Man also proposed to invade Finland, while the Austrians were expected to occupy parts of the Russian-Ukrainia in the first weeks of the war. Had this taken place, the Poles, the Ukrainians, and the Finns would have openly declared a sympathy with the invading liberator. But as the Russian forces prevented such an invasion, there was only one curse open to them, this to remain silent.

Two of the more important Slavonic nations, the Poles and the Ukrainians, have suffered a great deal from the non-realization of their hopes and plans. End of Section 7. Section 8 of the Ukrainians and the European War. This is a Libri-Box recording. All Libri-Box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libri-box.org. Read by Mario Pined by Mario Pineda.

The Ukrainians and the European War Hops of the Little People of Russia Part 2 by Dr. Samuel Max Melamed Russian Poles helped invaders As long as the Austrian forces were successful while operating in the government of Lublin, the Russian Poles at the advice of their con-nationalists in Austria

rendered great service to the invading army. But as soon as the fate of the war, the battle turned in favor of Russia, the same Poles took up the cause of Russia against Austria because they saw or believed they saw an Austrian defeat, while at the same time they had a solemn official promise from Russia that in case of a Russian victory, Polish national independence would be re-established under the sovereignty of the Tsar. The same promise, of course, was made to them by Austria. With the varied results of the war, the Poles changed their attitude. according to the impressions of the moment, with this result, that they are considered traitors

by the Russians as well as by the Austrians. Russia as well as Austria will after the war find a thousand reasons not to keep their promise to Poland, and no matter in whose favor the war ends, Poland will be economically ruined, nationally paralyzed, and politically weaker than ever. In order to say what is still possible, the polls will be economically ruined, and politically weaker than ever. In order to say what is still possible, the Poles is, in Russia are at present anxious to demonstrate the Russian patriotism, and in order to achieve this, they denounce the Jews living among them as German spies. At first, they were successful with this policy, and one of the Russian generals in Poland,

General Demych Kjikov, ordered the execution of a few hundred poor Polish Jews, victims of the Polish denunciations. But today, even the Russians refused to believe the Polish stories of Jewish treachery, and instead they are charging the Poles themselves with treachery to the Russian cause. That is at least the view taken today by the head of the Russian Black Hundred, Mr. Prudischkevich. In short, the Poles in seeking their own salvation, betrayed the Austrians as well as the Russians, and they are today in a most critical position. If Russia ever had any reason to fear the Poles,

she has no reason to fear them today or even in the near future. In Galicia, also the fate of the Poles will not be very unviable because the Viennese government says today that they are convinced of the Polish trickery. The Austrian government was compelled to dissolve the Eastern Polish region, led by Count de Scarbeck, consistent of 20,000 men, because this legion, although formed unarmed by Austria, refused to take the oath of allegiance to Emperor Francis Joseph. But eight weeks ago, hundreds of Polish officials in those parts of Galicia, which are still controlled by Austria, have been dismissed from their posts, and many of them were arrested on the suspicion of high treason. Strength of the Ukrainians But the Poles, although the most gifted of all the Slavonic rations, are not the most dangerous opponents. The real danger to present Russia is the Ukrainian nation.

They are forming a compact mass and numerically they are masters of the soil. They are politically and nationally not weakened, as are the Poles, because nine-tenths of the peoples are living in Russia, while only one tent are living in Austria-Hungary. Had the whole Ukrainian people lived in Russia, they would form no danger to the Russian Empire because they are in Russia a rather undeveloped peasantry, a huge, invomable mass. Russia knew how to keep this problem. people down and hope to prevent their national development. Until 1905, the Ukrainian language, a Slavonic idiom, was not officially recognized in Russia as a separate

language, and the publication of books in that language or the importation of books from Austria was prohibited. But fortunately, or unfortunately, over three millions of these little Russians are living in Austria-Hungarian territory. In the course of a 30-year's struggle. with the Poles in Galicia, the Athenians, the Ukrainians are so-called in Galicia, have more or less succeeded in overcoming their Polish oppressors and in developing a system of national education and national political organization

which influenced their con-nationalists in the Russian Empire. The Austrian government had proposed to erect the Ukrainian university in Galicia after they founded 12 Ukrainian Gymnasia high schools leading up to the university. For the last two decades, intellectual and political life flourished among the Ruthenians in Galicia and the Ruthenian agitators from Galicia went across the border and preached the theory of Ukrainian nationalism to the inhabitants of Russian Ukraine. The Great Russians recognized the danger of this spread of Ukrainian nationalism in the Russian Ukraine, and they took immediate steps to stop it.

For the last ten years, Pan-Slavic agitators traveled from the war. village to village in Galicia to preach pan-Islavism and Greek orthodoxy to the Ruthenians. When this influence failed, they resorted to bribery, and the Russian rubble greatly attracted the poor Ruthenian peasant. Thus, the so-called Rosophile party came into existence in Galicia. Of course, the Galician Poles were very glad to see the Ruthenian opposition weakened by its being split up into parties. The Pan-Poles in Galicia, who are are themselves rusophiles, actually helped the Russians' efforts among the Ruthenians. After ten years' work in making propaganda and stirring up agitation among the Ruthenians in

Galicia, the Russians thought that they had succeeded in winning over the majority of the Ruthenians to their cause. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, the Russian Generalismus, when arriving at the head of his troops in Lembert photographed to the Tsar. The Austrian danger has been overcome, What he meant to say is very clear. Russian rule in the east of Galicia, which is inhabited by Ruthenians, would kill Ukrainian nationalism and thus prevent the further development of Ukrainian nationalism in the Russian Empire. But it seems to me that Nikolai Nikolaevich was greatly mistaken. Only a small percentage of Ruthenian peasantry could be worn over to the Russian cause.

The bulk of the Ruthenians in Galicia still consider Russia their most dangerous enemy. The Ruthenian intellectuals did not wait for the arrival of the Russian troops in Galicia. They fled to Vienna, from where they are continuing the efforts in favor of establishing an independent Ukraine. There exists today in Vienna a Ukrainian-Sher national rat, represented by Ukrainians, Rethynians from Galicia, Russia, and Hungary. The Ukrainian National Ratt is on the best terms with the Biennese government, and I understand that the Biennese government has pledged itself to help to establish either an autonomous or an

independent Ukraine should Austria emerge victoriously from the war. Defense, a culture of people with wonderful traditions, have not entered into relations with any foreign government and have preserved a neutral attitude during the whole crisis, knowing very well that as long as Russia is not bitten, it would be foolish for them to entertain any hubs of national liberation. The opinion taken by leading fans is that their independence will come naturally as soon as Russia is positively either defeated or exhausted. But should she be victorious, the great Russian oppressors will have no occasion to charge them

with treachery. As far as the Jews are concerned, I am able to state that, although they have been caught between three fires, Videliset, Russians, Poles, and Germans, they have been careful enough to refrain from forming a policy before their fate is decided. Of course, they have learned from the past how unwise it is to anticipate events. To say that they are dissatisfied with the Russian oppressors would be but using a moderate expression. They have no other choice and must remain quiet. In any case, they are doomed.

A defeated Russia would make the Jews responsible for the defeat and organized pogroms on a large scale. Should the Russians, however, be victorious, the Jews would be the first to suffer through a victorious Panislavism and Russian clericalism. In the East, the oppressed people of the Caucasus expected a great deal from the Turkish invasion, but they also have been greatly disappointed

with the course military events have taken, and they are certainly today less optimistic than they were five months ago. As things stand today, the fact that the Great Russians are encircled by foreign small nations has proved to be of advantage to the Great Russians themselves. These small nations have been weakened by the war economically and politically, and have thus been literally brought between two fires. Not the soil of the Great Russians was invaded, but the soul of these small nations was the scene of these battles.

The longer the war lasts, the more are the small nations weakened and crippled. But that is exactly what the Great Russians won. There is no hope today that Russia will be completely defeated and be compelled to yield parts of her territory to her foes. If things remain unchanged, even then the Great Russians will be the victors, not of course against the external foe, but against the internal. foe. Then the great Russians will be able to resume their struggle against the foreign nations within the Russian Empire and the great tragedy will begin again. And of Section 8.

Section 9 of the Ukrainian and the European War. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. The Ukrainians and the European War. Protest Russian rule in Galicia. made by representative of the Ruthenian in the Austrian Parliament. Their language forbidden, Orthodox religion forced upon them. Those Slavs, he says, they are not Russians, but Ukrainians. A protest against Russian possession of the newly seized territory of Galicia by the armies of the Tsar is made by Dr. Kiliwitsky, presidents of the Ukrainian parliamentary delegation in Austria,

in a communication to the journal of Geneva. Eastern Galicia, he says, the northwest of Bukovina and the northeast of Hungary are inhabited by 4,200,000 Ukrainians, generally known this country as Ruthenians. More than 30 million Ukrainians live in Russian governments of Kome, Volina, Pedolia, Cherson, Kiev, Cherinigov, Poltava, Charkov, Ekaterinoslav, Taurya, Kuban, and a part of the government of Bessarabia, Grodn, Minsk, Korsk, etc. These are not little Russians. That name was imposed upon them by the Russian government. In the 17th and 18th century, and the Ukrainians inhabit in Austria

did not begin to be called Ruthenians until the 18th century. The name of Ukraine and Ukrainians are the only ones in actual use among the intellectual of the nation over a territory of about 850,000 square. kilometers, about 328,185 square miles. The Ukrainians are not a branch of Russian people. They are a nation as independent and as different from the Russians as the Poles or the Bogers. Their great popular art and poetry are entirely original.

The Ruthenian language is more different from Russian than Bohemian is from Polish. Because of the Ruthenians ignorance of Russian, which is the language exclusively used in the schools, there is a fearful high proportion of illiterates in the Ukrainian provinces of Russia. Russians claim upon the Ukraine are justified only insofar as are those of France upon Germany, and vice versa. This later states were once part of the empire of the Charlemagne, as Russia and the Ukraine were of that of Vladimir the Great of Kiev. But Russia claims all of the old inheritance,

and since the 16th century has been making a collection of Russian countries. The Ukrainians in the 16th century and the 17th century formed a warlike organization of the Cossacks of Zaporosa and in 1648 wrestled their independence from the Poles. Menace on every side the young Ukrainian state in 1654 had to join itself to Russia as a tributary but autonomous state. But Russia betrayed the unsuspected Ukrainians. She divided the Ukraine with Poland, restricted the freedom which had been accorded to the country, crucified the Ukrainian church, which had before being independent and began a war of extermination

against the language, customs, literature, and culture of the Ukraine. In 1876, the Tsar issued a decree forbidding the printing of any work in the Ruthenian language, a measure and exempled in history, which enslaved the Second Slav nation for 30 years. Now the collectors of Russian countries have arrived in Eastern Galicia as its deliverers. For the Ukrainians of Galicia, the Russian occupation is no doubt a liberation, but one from their national and political life. They are condemned by the Russians to national death. The Austrian government has, as a matter of law,

accorded to Ukrainians in Galicia, the same guarantees as other Austrian's nationalities. But in fact, they have been oppressed by the more powerful poll. and have been hampered in their development. Notwithstanding all this, the Ukrainian in Galicia have been able to maintain their language in official usage, in the church, the schools, and in the university. The Russian invasion of Galicia destroyed at a blow all this work of many years. The Ruthenian language has been forbidden as an official medium of communication in the service of the church and in the schools.

All the routineian newspapers in Galicia have been supported. The library is destroyed, the Ruthenian books belonging to individuals confiscated, and the collection of the museums sent to Russia. All Ukrainians' association have been dissolved. Hundreds of Galician notable of Ukrainian nationality have been sent to Siberia, the United Greek Church, to which for more than two centuries all the Ruthenians of Eastern Galicia have belonged, which has become a national church, is now persecuted in every way. Its head, the Metropolitan Archbishop Count Andrew Chapchisky, has been taken into the interior of Russia. Many priests have been exiled, the people terrorized, and in the half-famished state converted by the aid of threats, and promised by the Orthodox popes imported from Russia. In the United Greek and Catholic churches, Orthodox masses are celebrated in accordance with the pre-Sat, an example of Elojews.

Bishop of Olinia, the celebrated Prostal Ticer. Now, they are beginning to transform by force the Catholic Greek churches into Orthodox, because they say they were Orthodox two or three hundred years ago, and ought to become so again. The introduction of Russian orthodoxy, with its Russian sermons which are impossible of comprehension by the people, with interdict of the mother tongue, even in converse with God. Is this really synonymous with the return to the religion of our fathers? End of Section 9. Red Bar Cormax in California, January 2022.

Section 10 of the Ukrainians and the European War. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. The Ukrainians and the European War, woman bears sword in army of Austria. Frelein Olena Stepanif is cadet aspirant Stepanif among the soldiers, has won silver medal for courage and command of a small guard by her conduct. While peace campaigns are being conducted in the name of women in many nations,

at least one woman is revealing that, on the other hand, not all of her sex are unmoved by the active war spirit. Freulein Olena Stepanif of Viznyovchiki in the Ukraine is at the front with a regiment of Ukrainian sharpshooters in the Austrian army and her conduct has won her the silver medal for courage and the command of a small company of men with the rank of cadet aspirant. She hopes to become regularly commissioned as an officer in the Austrian service. How she came to go to the front and with what enthusiasm she has accepted the hardships and dangers of life as a fighter on equal terms with men is told as follows by the Eukanishes correspondence Blat of Vienna. A few days ago, there appeared in the office of our paper, a young soldier who, as the blue and yellow

rosette on his cap showed, was one of the Ukraine sharpshooters. He asked if we had any word of the Ukrainians who had fled out of Galicia. Instead of answering him, we all stared at him in wonder. We knew that there were very young, even 18, 17, and the same. 16-year-old Ukraine sharpshooters, but this boy, with his childlike face, and more than that, already a cadet aspirant. How old are you? asked one of us after a moment. The soldier smiled. He knew already why we were staring at him so, and why we asked his age. It was not the first, nor the second time, that he'd heard that question. Instead of answering about his age, he replied smiling,

I'm a girl. No one insulted him, or rather her, with further questions. we knew what sort of person we had before us. Here we give other people the story of this young feminine sharpshooter, repeating information that a copy of the Noia Vina Takaplat brings. For several days there has been lodged in Vienna, a young girl who has undertaken service at the front in the Ukrainian legions, after overcoming manifold difficulties, out of love of the fatherland and the inward impulse to action,

and who has received the silver medal for courage in recognition of her brave conduct in the field. Freulein Olena Stepanif, that is the name of the undaunted Amazon, reached the grade of Cadet Aspirant and hopes in secret that she may yet become an officer, if the difficulties can be overcome, which her sex puts in the way of such an undertaking. This young feminine Cadet Aspirant has been in the field since the outbreak of the war, and was detailed after a short term of military instruction with a band of men comrades of the Ukrainian legions to a core of the regular army, with which she did patrol duty before the works for the protection of the artillery,

and also fired industriously at the side of her masculine comrades several times in the trenches, and took part with them in attacks by storm upon the positions of Russian troops. Foyland Stepaniv remained unwounded and is now taking advantage of a short Christmas leave of absence to search for her parents, who fled at the beginning of the war from their home in Viznyovtiki, where her father was a Greek Catholic priest. Fuland Stepanif spent a Ukrainian Christmas Eve with her brother, who was with the 80th Infantry Regiment in Feldbach, as a one-year volunteer. Since her brother also had no word of their parents,

Froyland Stepanif came to Vienna, where she will continue her search, in company with her brother-in-law, a field curate with the 20th, Lantfer Regiment. Early thought of fighting Russia. One of the men of our staff had a lengthy conversation with Freuland Stepan if yesterday, in which the young Amazon described her experience in the battles in the Carpathians. After a happy and carefree childhood in my father's rectory, so she began, during which I always practiced gymnastics, zealously, and followed sports of all kinds, I went about a year ago to the University of Lemberg to devote myself to the study of philosophy,

I soon became known in the athletic circles of Lemberg and later founded together with a band of college women and men, the Ukrainian Sichchschauer-Schuzhen-Varein. Even at the time of its founding, we were led by the thought of some time taking part weapon in hand in a war for the liberating of the Ukrainians from the Russian yoke and striking a blow for our Austrian fatherland. I had devoted myself to the affairs of the Schutzenferrein with considerable zeal, and thereby won quickly the regard and esteem of my masculine colleagues. Then when the Ukrainian National Council sounded the wardrum in the first days of August, legionaries offered themselves as volunteers from all parts of our Ukrainian fatherland. It was clear to me that I too must get into the fight, whatever difficulties were put in my way.

On equal terms with men. Finally, after various delays and attempts to put her in the sanitary service instead of allowing, her to attain her desire to fight, Freeline Stepanif gained permission to accompany her colleagues of the Schitzinferrand to the front. She said, I lived during the strenuous march on equal terms with my comrades. No patrol, no watch, was omitted for me,

and that was what I wanted. The commander of our company made me a column leader after a month, and I was appointed as instructor of a few newly enlisted legionaries. During a five-day rest in St. Miklos, I brought my charges, by dint of persistence in zeal, to such a state of capability that Captain B praised me especially. As a subordinate officer, I became commander of a patrol, and soon had opportunity to render worthy service in the battles in the Carpathians. In the past, at Viscov, we first went under fire. In silence, I greeted this first danger. From then on,

we were always put on serious and difficult service by the brigade commander. Now we were a protection for artillery, now advanced guard, now rearguard, then from time to time a scout patrol. On the 10th of November, our troop made a flank attack upon the heights of Comarnica. The Russians were hurled back, and our Ukrainian legionaries had a good part in the success. I was selected for recognition, and General F presented to me the silver medal at Anabek, with an address of praise while the soldiers present at the celebration honored me by a raid. I could have cried with emotion, but although I am a woman, I wanted to avoid tears, and thanked them only with a formal military salute, even command of a guard.

Soon after that, I received command of a guard, and at the same time the rank of Cadet Aspirant with the sleeve stripe on my arm as a mark. The brave and spirited soldiers of my little command followed out all my orders zealously, and made the task of leadership easy in all respects. I never had to enter the camp to upbraid or punish them, but I certainly would have done so if it had been necessary. Aside from danger, we had to endure great labors. We made forced marches, as for example when we laid 56 kilometers behind us in one day. In the trenches I fired beside my brave companions, I believe, with accuracy,

and nothing was more painful to me than to have them stare or marvel at me. Cadet Aspirant Stepanif says her interviewer, retained from the beginning to the end of her narrative, a feminine shyness and modesty, blushed frequently during the story of the recognition of her courage, and turned away all praise with embarrassed laughter. I don't know why, she said, but here in Vienna, among so many strangers and seeing so many women, I feel cramped and become as helpless as a child. In the field among my comrades, all that passes away. No one thinks of the fact that I am a woman, and I too forget it. On the 16th I shall return to my troop, and then, once more, she smiled, I shall be a regular soldier.

Naturally, comments the article, Freuline Stepanif does not retain as a soldier her feminine name of Olena, but is enrolled as cadet aspirant, Olle, Stepanif, and her comrades do not address her as Freiline, but as Cameratatat or Herr Cadet. She wears her uniform with a dash, and as if it were a matter of course. It is of rough commissary cloth stained by dust and weather on long marches. With the full knee trousers, she wears

tourist leggings and heavy commissary shoes, which nevertheless betray a small foot. From her shoulders hangs a rough tourist cloak. An infantry saber swings at her left side, and upon her small head, with short-cropped blonde hair, the grey infantry cap perches, Sossily.

On the street, Frelein Stepan, forups herself in the regulation big gray soldiers cloak made of heavy cloth with green shoulder straps. Only a few of the passers-by noticed the handsome little cadet aspirant. She greets with a military salute all the officers who pass her, and receives with thanks all the signs of honor which men and officers accord to her without hesitation. The New York Evening Post, Saturday, March 13th, 1915, number 99. End of Section 10, read by Sandra near Montreal, 2022. End of the Ukrainians and the European War by various.