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weakness as against the West. In contrast with the Western nations, which pushed without exception toward East and South, Russia colonised first the North, and only later turned toward the East and South both in Europe and Asia.
The most acute national question has been the Polish, but this is not a question of nationality only, but also of politics and culture in general (Catholicism and Western culture). The same is true of the Finnish (Protestantism and racial difference). The Germans in Russia do not possess a continuous territory, they are colonists; their colonies, especially in the Baltic districts, date from the period of the knights of military orders. There are no German provinces in Russia; but there are Polish provinces in Prussia. If William, after the conclusion of the peace with Trotsky and Lenine, declared solemnly that the Baltic Germans might thereafter publicly call themselves Germans, that only proves that not even the war has cured the man of his talkativeness. The Baltic provinces are not German but Lithuanian, Lettish and Esthonian, and a considerable part, perhaps the majority, of the German barons and burghers did not share the opinions of Schiemann and Rohrbach, but were reconciled to Russia, especially the official Russia, which allowed them to exploit the non-German population and the country very effectively. The non-German population of the Baltic provinces has frequently protested, through its spokesmen, against the German occupation and the design to settle German dynasts there.
40. In the Ukrainian problem we must carefully distinguish the question of language and nationality from the political question. The point lies in this: Are the Ukrainians a separate nation or a Russian tribe? Is the Ukrainian language a separate language or a Russian dialect? Even the philologists (Slavic) are divided on this question. Following the analogy of other nations, however, we may say that the Ukrainians, even granting that their tongue is merely a dialect of the Russian—and that is my opinion—may separate themselves from the Russians on other grounds as well—on grounds economic, social and political. Political independence does not depend on language alone, as the independent German States best prove. What applies to the West can be applied to the East. Of course, Western history shows that the individuality of dialects became subordinate to the cultural advantages derived from the union with the larger and more cultured nations; in France, for instance, Provençal differs from literary French more than the Ukrainian differs from the Russian. Even the German Plattdeutsch and other dialects show a greater difference from the literary language than there exists between the Ukrainian and Russian. It is true, of course, that the French and German literature and culture are richer than the Russian, and France and Germany have not proceeded against their dialectic individualities as foolishly as the Russian Tsarism.
Politically, the Ukraine herself, in the Third “Universal,” acknowledged the Central Russian State, and declared herself to be a part of the Russian federation; it is natural that the politically unripe body of the Ukraine felt the need of leaning on Russia. Only later (the Fourth “Universal”) the Ukrainian Rada declared the Ukraine to be an independent State not connected with Russia; in that, of course, it had the backing of the Germans and the Austrians. The Pangermans in Germany and Austria did not forget the Ukraine, encouraging the Ukrainians to play an anti-Russian part.[1]
Austria employed the Ruthenians of Galicia (and Bukovina), not only against Russia but also against the Poles, and she looked upon
- ↑ For example, “The permanent Russian danger may be abolished in any case only by the formation of an Ukrainian State, and thereby our doubts regarding the Polish question will be solved.”—Prof. Jaffe, 1917.“Whoever wants to overcome Russia must carry the fight to the Ukraine; whoever wants to destroy Russia, or to injure it severely, must take away from her the Ukraine.”—Garierre, 1917.
