BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Evening Star, Issue 23376, 20 September 1939, Page 6

BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

THE TROUBLED UKRAINE Included in Hitler’s territorial ambitions as set out in ‘ Mein Kampf ’ was the annexation of Soviet Ukraine. If, however, the reports of _ the Russo-German decision to subdivide Poland after its conquest are correct, it would appear that the German leader’s plans have been sacrificed as the price of the non-aggression pact between the Nazi and the Soviet Governments. It would also appear that the Soviet Government is anxious to consolidate the position of all Ukraine peoples hv taking over those portions of Poland substantially inhabited by Ukrainians. By far the largest and most prosperous part of Ukraine is that which. . forms one of the republics of the Soviet Union. It has a population of 26.000. Next in size is the region in the south-east of Poland, including East Galicia, part of the ancient province of Volhynia and country to the north as far as the marshlands. This region contains between 5,000,000 and. 6.000. Ukrainians. The Ukrainians of Galicia comprise three-quarters of the people living in that province east of the San River.. . . ... SCATTERED GROUPS. Turning to smaller groups, there are 500,000 Ukrainians in CarpathoUkraine (Ruthenia), and in Bessarabia and Bukovina together another 800,000. Finally there are about 100,000 Ukrainians in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and other countries of Eastern Europe. • To combine all these territories into an independent Ukrainian State with its capital at Kiev (in the Soviet Ukraine! is said to be the ultimate dream of pan-Ukrainian nationalism. The history of the Ukrainian people is largely a record of their exploita- , tion, persecution, enserfment. and struggle for freedom. _ Spread _ over Eastern Europe, and, in the main, of Slav origin, they for centuries were under the domination of the Poles or , the Russians. Collectively they have no frontiers: their homelands extending from the Carpathians to the Black Sea. It was from these fugitives from oppression that the famous Cossack* sprang. The majority of the sixteenthcentury Cossacks were Ukrainian peasants. Their numbers were Ancreased by other sections of Russian* seeking independence from the tyranny existing in those days. The majority devoted themselves to the task of exterminating the Polish and Ukrainian landlords. • THROUGH THE CENTURIES. The centuries of revolts and suppression had not clarified the position of the Ukrainians by the twentieth century. In 1914 Galicia and Bukovina 1 were provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Bessarabia and East Ukraine, also the greater part of the old kingdom of Poland, were incorporated in the Russian Empire. The Great War, which saw the defeat of Germany and the collapse' of both Tsarist Riissia and Austria-Hungary, had profound effects on the Ukrainian people. Bessarabia and (Bukovina were ceded to Rumania.

Ukraine fell into confusion. It became first the battlefield of Bolshevists and “White ” Russians,, and later the scene of warfare between Russians and Poles. Ultimately the Ukraine was partitioned between Poland and Soviet Russia, since when the two sections of the Ukrainian people have followed different destinies. A POLITICAL PROBLEM.

In Poland the Ukrainian question ha* been in the foreground of internal politics since the establishment of tbe 'Republic.. Efforts at Unionization proved abortive, since the Ukrainians constituted some 2o to 30 per cent, of the national population, and subsequent Polish attempts at forcible assimiliation led to a considerable growth of national feeling. _ ■ In Soviet Ukraine, however, the problem partook more of an economic than of a political character, the'new social order weighing heavily against .the Ukrainian farmer, who was_ obliged to submit to a policy of collectivisation in an area which had formerly been a stronghold of individualistic farming. This was the position which brought Ukrainian nationalism to the forefront after the Munich Pact and Germany’* annexation of Czecho-Slovakia. Hitler’* aims made it clear that Ukraine nationalism was to become one of the most important political developments in Eastern Europe. Russia naturally was deeply involved, as the bulk of the Ukraine people are settled in the famous “ black earth ’* region, one of the world’s richest wheat producing areas, and it has already been hinted that there is a secret nereement between Germany and Russia over the Ukraine question. At the moment Gennanv and Russia appear to he planning future of Ukraine nationalism. Whether the matter will rest at that, however, is very much a matter for conjecture.