Before the Tatars evacuated Russia, Galicia and Oukraina became 

 parts of the kingdom of Lithuania, and its prince, Olgerd, gave the 1 atar 

 invaders a heavy blow by repelling them into their plains. 



In 1 386 the Lithuanian Prince Yagailo married the Polish Princess 

 Hedvige, and was crowned King of Poland in 1 386 in the city of Crakow. 



In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Turks and Tatars, which are 

 akin to them, raided the settlements of Oukraina, and the population, who had 

 to protect themselves against these incursions, banded themselves into a per- 

 manent army, the army of the Cozaks (Cossacks). 



This army at last concentrated on an island situated on the river Dnie- 

 per, some hundred and fifty miles north of the Black sea. The centre of cul- 

 ture was in the city of Kiev, where during centuries academies flourished, and 

 while the kingdom of the Moscow Tsars groped in darkness and ignorance, 

 Kiev abounded with learned men who were versed in Latin, Greek and Slav- 

 onic, and who influenced even the northern Russian towns by their culture. 



We wish to quote a piece of poetry by the Russian poet, Rylaef, in the 

 gifted translation of T. Hart-Davies, of the Bombay Civil Service. 



NALEVAIKO'S CONFESSION. 

 By Rylaef. Translated by T. Hart-Davies. 



Try not with threats my soul to shake, 

 Persuasive words no change can make, 

 hor hell to me is to have viewed 

 My loved Ukraine in servitude; 

 To see my fatherland set free, 

 This, this alone, is heaven for me. 



E'en from the cradle was my breast 

 With love of liberty possessed; 

 My mother sang me glorious lays 

 Of those long-past historic days, 

 Whose memory yet lives 'mongst men, 

 For no fear seized Ukraina then. 



This poetry pictures the exalted patriotic feeling of Nalevaiko, a Cozak 

 chief of the Ukraine. 



Another fragment of Rylaef's poems gives an insight into the fierce expedi- 

 tions of these war-like Cozaks: 



Freedom we breathed, and loved her breath, 

 And oft would we who mocked at death 

 Unsleeping o'er the wild steppe born 

 Taste but a handful of dry corn, 

 Heav'n's air to us was meat; and when 

 We went, a band of gallant men, 

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