Ukraine

The use of Great Russian in schools and in printed works was a contributory cause of the illiteracy of the Ukrainian peasant. In 1926 the literacy rate was 41.3% among Ukrainians, as against 45.1% among Russians. Ukrainian is now the official language of the republic and a keen appreciation of the present linguistic free dom has resulted in marked development of education, and at present the Ukraine takes third place in Russia in the provision for education, though here, as everywhere in Russia, many chil dren still receive no education. Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa have scientific and educational institutes and the museums and art galleries of Kiev are famous.

The Ukrainian steppes and South Russia are of peculiar interest historically and archaeologically. Rostovtzeff points out that the French emigrants who found a home in Russia after the Revolu tion first gave a stimulus to the study of the archaeology of the region. Russian scholars became interested and a copious litera ture and rich museum collections now exist. The presence of palaeolithic man has been demonstrated at Kiev, and the relics of neolithic man are everywhere abundant. The intersection here of routes from the Orient via the Caucasus and the Black Sea, of Greek influences, of influences from the west via the Danube and from the north via the Dnieper is reflected in the cultural wealth of the early civilisations, while the openness of the steppes to the east led to their repeated submergence by nomads from the steppe. Easy portages connected the rivers, the steppe to the south was open and treeless, while the forests on the loess to the north were younger and less dense than those of the north, and were also intersected by glades : the reasons for the lesser density of forest on the loess steppe are not yet fully worked out.

The conquerors in the region have too often been considered as transitory nomads, but there is ample evidence to prove that the fertility of the region and the ease with which tribute could be extracted from the inhabitants encouraged settlement as well as conquest, thus leading to a rich variety of cultural intermix ture. Little is known of the Cimmerians and the extent of their kingdom, but the Iranian Scythians certainly had centres on the steppes between the Don and the Dnieper. These Cimmerian and Scythian kingdoms were the base on which the Greek colonies of the Black Sea depended; later history goes to show that such colonies could not exist without a fairly stable civilisation on the steppe to the north. Sarmatian tribes, Iranians like the Scythians, succeeded to this kingdom, and the blending of Greek and Iranian culture had a marked influence on the civilisations of Central and Eastern Russia.

The neolithic civilisation of the Ukraine, the so-called Tripolye (q.v.) culture, named from the finds at that place, as evidenced by its incised and painted pottery was peculiarly rich and belonged to an agricultural people. The kurgan or barrow graves, common to steppe and woodland, and containing skeletons daubed with red paint and buried in the contracted position, though probably con temporary, show evidence of a nomadic people, while graves in the Kharkov district seem to indicate an absorption of the steppe nomads into agriculture. This juxtaposition of settled agriculture and nomadic tribes is still to be observed in the region to the east, where the Kalmucks and some Kirghiz tribes at the present time lead nomadic lives.

In the course of the eighth and seventh centuries

B.C. the mouths of the Dniester, Bug and Dnieper were occupied by Milesian fish ing colonies, Tyras on the Dniester and Olbia on the Bug and Dnieper. Olbia became the outlet for the furs, slaves and amber of the north and an inlet for Greek influences, which penetrated as far as the Kama; the Milesian power decayed in the fifth century B.C. and Athens took its place in trading relations with Olbia, the corn of South Russia being increasingly needed for the Mediterranean civilisations. With the advance of the Sarma tians to the steppe between the Don and the Dnieper in the second half of the 3rd century B.C. the Scythians moved farther to the north and west, as evidenced by their remains in Kiev and Poltava, but their advance was checked by Germanic tribes, and anarchy began to prevail in the steppe. From their first appearance on the Dnieper the Sarmatian Alans allied themselves with the Germanic tribes in a struggle against Rome and destroyed Olbia and the Roman fortresses on the Crimea. Celtic civilisation in the region is represented in the basin of the Dnieper by La Tene finds, probably remains of the Galatian tribes. Roman influence was felt in the Black Sea region under Hadrian and his successors, who established a fort at Olbia, but in the third century A.D. Roman influence declined on the Ukrainian shore. (R. M. F.) History.—The people of the Ukraine are for the most part descended from Ruthene immigrants from the north who, to es cape the oppression of the Polish and Lithuanian princes and nobles, escaped "to the frontier" where, though nominally under Lithuanian rule, they formed free democratic communities, and came to be known as Cossacks (q.v.). The whole Ukraine formed part of the Polish-Lithuanian empire until 1667, when the portion east of the Dnieper was ceded to Russia by the treaty of An drussowo. The rest was absorbed by Russia at the second parti tion of Poland, in 1793.