Introduction The Earliest Times
Ukraine means borderland. It is an appropriate name for a land that lies on the southeastern edge of Europe, on the threshold of Asia, along the fringes of the Mediterranean world, and astride the once important border between sheltering forests and the open steppe.
Another crucial geographical feature of the land is its lack of natural borders. Except for the Carpathian Mountains in the west and the small Crimean range in the south, 95% of Ukraine’s territory is a plain that gradually slopes from the elevated, wooded plateau of Galicia, Volhynia, and Podilia in the northwest down to the gently rolling forested plains on both sides of the Dnieper River and finally to the huge, flat, open steppe that stretches along the Black Sea coast in the south. Indeed, vast plains dominate the Ukrainian landscape to such an extent that a geographer in the early part of this century wrote that “nine-tenths of Ukrainians have certainly never seen a mountain and do not even know what one looks like.”1 In these rolling plains and steppes Ukraine’s famous and remarkably fertile black soil (chernozem) regions are found. They encompass about two-thirds of Ukraine’s territory. However, the black soil does not extend to the northern and northwestern parts of the country, where forests (which cover only about one-seventh of the country’s territory) and less fertile land predominate. Ukraine is rich in mineral deposits, notably coal and iron ore, which are located in the southeast. On the whole, nature has served the land well. One may even argue that in terms of natural resources it is the richest country in Europe.Flowing southward into the Black Sea are three major river systems that provide Ukraine with an adequate water supply: the mighty 2285-km-long Dnieper (Dnipro in Ukrainian), which bisects the land, the southern Buh, and the Dnister.
The climate, although capable of temperature extremes, is generally moderate. Within its present boundaries, Ukraine encompasses about 600,000 sq. km and extends approximately 1300 km from west to east and 900 km from north to south. After Russia, it is the second-largest country in Europe in terms of area. And its current population of about 50 million is close to that of France.
Map 1 Geographic zones
Because science and technology have greatly reduced the dependence of modern people on nature, they often forget the tremendous impact that the physical environment exerted on their ancestors. In Ukraine this fading awareness is doubly suprising because the very name of the land emphasizes the importance of geography. And much of Ukraine’s history is a function of its location. Lying astride the main routes between Europe and Asia, Ukraine was repeatedly exposed to various frequently competing cultures. By means of the Black Sea, Ukraine gained access to the invigorating civilization of Greece, both ancient and Byzantine. In contrast, its position on the western fringe of the great Eurasian steppe exposed it to repeated invasions by warring nomads and the bitter struggle against them sapped the country’s human and material resources. It also gave rise to the Cossacks, the frontier warriors who became archetypical figures in Ukrainian history and culture.
The vast stretches of chernozem, which are among the largest and most fertile in the world, also had a decisive impact on this region’s inhabitants. It was in Ukraine that the earliest agrarian civilizations in Europe developed. And, until very recently, agriculture has been the hallmark of Ukrainian life. The effect that Ukraine’s fertile soil has had on its inhabitants is especially striking when compared to the impact of poor soil on the peasants of neighboring Russia. In the Russian north, the barren, sandy soil, the harsh climate, and the shorter growing season – by at least a month compared to Ukraine -forced Russian peasants to pool their resources and to work the land communally.
In Ukraine, however, individual farming was much more widespread. Such divergences helped to create important distinctions between the mentalities, cultures, and socioeconomic organization of these two related peoples. These differences became even more profound when, in time, poor agricultural yields forced Russian peasants to seek more promising living conditions in the cities where they were exposed to modernizing influences, while Ukrainian peasants remained in their bucolic but traditionalist villages.If nature has been generous to Ukraine, history has not. Because of its natural riches and accessibility from ancient past to most recent times, Ukraine, perhaps more than any other country in Europe, has experienced devastating foreign invasions and conquests. Consequently, foreign domination and the struggle against it is a paramount theme in its history. Played out on a vast, open, and richly endowed stage, this history is long, colorful, and unusually turbulent.