— 5 —
For centuries the Ukrainian people and the people of Russia have not had even common frontiers. The wandering tribes occupied vast lands, and the Ukrainians came to inhabit the Northern part, and especially the Western district of the country, whilst the Great Russians congregated in the North, near to Moscow. They did not dare to venture very far into the Southern Steppes, where the nomad tribes had formidable forces. It was not until later, when these forces had diminished, that the Ukrainians, emigrating towards the East (in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) met the Russians who were emigrating towards the South.
If two nations, more or less connected, as, for example, the Serbians, and the Bulgarians, lived near to each other through the centuries, they would inevitably have had in the period of their formation an influence on each other, and they would necessarily have inter-mixed on their frontiers. But the Great Russians and the Ukrainians were brought together at the time when their ethnic culture was accomplished: and it is for that reason they ought not to and cannot have an influence over each other.
The same may be said, and the same explanation be given, concerning the languages. The existence of a Ukrainian language is no longer debatable. It is established that it is a quite independent language, belonging to the Slavonic group of the East (Ukrainian, Great Russian and White Russian). This is not only admitted by the Ukrainian scholars, but also by the best Slavists of Europe, including the philologists of Russia. When in 1905 the Academy of Petrograd was consulted by the Government to know whether they ought to authorise publications in the Ukrainian language, a memorandum was presented by some Russian Academicians, such as Shakhmatoff, Korch, Fortunatoff, Lapo-Danilievsky, Ovsianiko-Koulikovsky. In this memorandum, it was scientifically recognised and affirmed categorically, that the Ukrainian language was indeed an individual language, and in explaining
