From these facts, we perceive that the historico-political traditions of the Poles are entirely different from those of the Ukrainians. Just as great is the difference in their present aspirations. The Poles, with an endurance that is worthy of admiration, and awakens universal sympathy, are striving for the reorganization of their independent state. But not with ethnographic boundaries like the Ukrainians, but with ancient historical boundaries from the Baltic to the Dnieper and the Black Sea. To attain this goal, the Poles are trying, above all, to hinder the adjacent peoples, the Lithuanians, White Russians and Ukrainians, in their national progress, and, whenever possible, to assimilate them. These efforts are responsible for the very sharp conflicts of the present day between the one-time rulers and their one-time subjects.
The Russian historico-political traditions are quite as different from and as opposed to those of the Ukrainians as the Polish, but in another direction. The Muscovite State was created out of the petty principalities which the ancient Kiev dynasty had founded among the Eastern Slavic races and the Finnish tribes of the north. From the blending of the Slavs and the Finns came the foundation of the present Russian or Great Russian (Muscovite) Nation. The name "Russian" was derived from the name of the dynasty. But the state was in reality simply Muscovite, for the Muscovite people gave this state a substance which was entirely different from the substance of the old Kingdom of Kiev. As early as the 12th Century we observe the Muscovite people striving for centralization and absolute power for the princes in their state. It was to the advantage of the prince to undermine the influence of the Boyar nobility and the clergy, and to attain absolute or even despotic power in the state. Not equal rights and liberty for all citizens as with the Ukrainians, or for certain classes as with the Poles, but the despotic authority of the Great Prince (later Czar), is the basis of the historicopolitical tradition of the Russian people. The absolute power of the ruler, that everlasting bugbear of the Poles and Ukrainians, becomes a sacred object to the Russian nation, and makes it possible for them to establish a Russian Empire which devours Poland and the Ukraine. For a comparison of the three adjacent states, the second half of the 16th Century affords the best illustration. At the same time that the radical-democratic Cossack republic originated in the Ukraine, and Poland was a paradise of golden freedom for the aristocrats and the nobility, with a powerless kingship and a suppressed people, we witness in Russia the bloody orgies of thedespotism of IvantheTerrible.
The historico-political tradition of the Russian people places the Czar only slightly below God. The entire people, without class distinction, are slaves (kholopi) of the Czar, his property. The individual counts for nothing; everything must be sacrificed to the general good, which is embodied in the Czar. The reforms of Peter the Great, altho they gave Russia the external appearance of a civilized state, had no significance for the historico-political tradition of Russia. At most, they even strengthened the prestige of the absolute rule of the Czar, thru arguments repeated after the Western European absolutism. Even the Russian revolution of 1905 could not weaken this historico-political tradition. At best the revolution undermined its significance in some spheres of the Russian intelligenzia (numerically small). And, even in these spheres, it meant only the modification of the authority for which the Russian national spirit retains an immutable respect.
The present-day aspirations of the Russian Nation are hardly definite in their outlines. Nevertheless, it can already be clearly seen that they will follow the beaten path of the century-old tradition. The greatest possible expansion and strengthening of the Empire and the assimilation of all foreign peoples (including the Ukrainians too), will constitute the main substance of these aspirations. The Muscovite world has always been extremely intolerant of divergencies in faith, language and customs. This intolerance has always existed, and always will exist, even tho it may sometimes conceal itself behind a very cleverly adjusted mantle of commonplaces.
Ukrainian Culture
When we speak of culture as a distinguishing mark of a specific nation, we mean, of course, not culture in the widest sense of the word, but those well-known cultural peculiarities which characterise every European nation.
The Ukraine lies wholly within the confines of the greater European cultural community. But its distance from the great culture-centers of Western and Central Europe has, of course, not been without profound effect. The Ukraine is at a low stage of culture, and must be measured by Eastern European standards.