In Russian Poland, the Ukrainians inhabit the newlycreated Government of Kholm, and for five centuries they have had to ward off the eastward expansion of the Poles. Nevertheless, the Polonizing of the country began to progress under Russian rule, as a result of the inconsiderate Russification policy of the authorities and the sympathy of the Ukrainian population with the Greek-Catholic faith, ruthlessly suppressed by the Russians, to which the Ukrainians of the Kholm country still belonged half a century ago, a sympathy which is not yet extinct.
The boundary line between Poles and Ukrainians in the Kholm country has, on both sides, a more or less wide zone of a mixed population and numerous ethnographic islands. It passes thru Tarnogrod, Bilhoray.Shteshebreshin, Zamostye, Krasnostav, Lubartiv, Radin, Lukiv, Sokoliv, Dorohichin and Bilsk, reaching the Narev River in the Government of Grodno. Here the borders of the Ukrainian and the Polish national territory meet the White Russian border and the northern border of the Ukraine begins.
The Ukrainian-White Russian boundary extends thru the Governments of Grodno and Minsk, at first along the Narev River, up to its source in the Biloveza Forest. Then the line passes Pruzani over to the Yassiolda River, turning off near Poriche toward the northeast and reaching the lake of Vihonivske Ozero. From here it turns toward the southeast and reaches the Pripet River at the mouth of the Zna. Then this river forms the boundary up to where it joins with the Dnieper. Only below Mosir the White Russians push forward in an obtuse salient to the right bank of the Pripet. It should be observed that the White Russians along the boundary described form a transition in respect to language and ethnology between the real White Russians and the real Ukrainians, who, in this region, are called Pinchuki. The transition zone is 30 to 50 kilometers in width.
The Dnieper forms the boundary of the Ukraine only along a short stretch in the Government of Chernihiv, from the mouth of the Pripet to the mouth of the Sol near Louv. Then the border runs northeast past Novosibkiv, Nove misto and Suraz, as far as Mhlin, where the White Russian country ceases and the Russian begins.
To sketch accurately the boundary of the Ukraine toward Muscovy is not easy, even tho there is by no means a gradual transition here, as there is on the White Russian border. The boundary of the Ukraine is even much more sharply defined here than in the region where it separates the Ukrainians from the Poles, Roumanians and Magyars. But it is hard to determine without detailed investigation on the spot, for the official Russian statistics have been compiled very much in favor of the ruling race. In addition, it must be observed that the districts along this border were not thickly settled until the 17th and 18th Centuries. The settlers came from the Ukraine on the one side and from Muscovy on the other, and established themselves in separate settlements. To this day a purely Ukrainian village or small town often borders on one made up entirely of Russians, and the number of ethnographic islands is rather large on both sides.
The boundary of the compact Ukrainian territory in the Governments of Kursk and Voronizh passes thru Putivil, Rilsk, Sudza, Miropilia, Oboian, the sources of the Psiol, and Vorskla, Bilhorod, Korocha, Stari Oskol, Novi Oskol, and Biriuch, and reaches the Don River near Ostrohosk. The Don forms a smaller part of the border of the Ukraine than the Dnieper. The boundary line leaves the river at the mouth of the Icorez, cuts the Bitiuh River and, passing Baturlinivka and Novokhopersk, reaches the Khoper River in the country of the Don Cossacks. Here begins the eastern boundary of the Ukrainian country. It extends first along the Khoper River southward, crosses the Don perpendicularly at the mouth of the Khoper, passes along the Kalitva and the Donetz, crossing the Don for the third time near Novocherkask, and, pursuing a wide curve along the Sal River, reaches Lake Manich. Right opposite, on the left bank of the Don, the Ukrainians confront the Kalmucks, the advance guard of the sub- Caucasian and Caucasian medley of races. Among these thinly scattered and culturally inferior tribes, a strong flood of Ukrainian and Russian colonization has been pouring in the course of the past century. The Ukrainian element is gradually predominating in the entire region of Ciscaucasia and is constantly pushing forward toward the east and southeast. New islands of Ukrainian-speaking people are forming and are growing constantly and uniting to form larger complexes.