On some wild raid, the bright star showed 

 And lighted up our darkling road, 

 Or else the heaped mounds we traced 

 By the wind howling o'er the waste: 

 Then like a cloud in thund'rous skies 

 We roused the stillness with our cries. 

 In some strange land in wild foray, 

 1 he hostile troops we swept away ; 

 Village and town it was our joy 

 Alike to level and destroy. 



Several centuries were spent in Oukraina in this struggle with the Tar- 

 tars and also the Poles, who succeeded in holding their power for a time over 

 Kiev and whose realm reached at a time from the Baltic to the Black Sea. 

 After a war with the Poles, the leader of the army of Cozaks, Bogdan Chmel- 

 nitski, on conferring with his people resolved to apply to the Tsar of Moscow, 

 Alexis, asking the protection of Moscow against the outward foes. 



An alliance was then concluded between the Tsar of Russia, Alexis 

 Michaelovitch, and the Republic of Kozaks, at Pereyaslav, and then Ouk- 

 raina enters upon a new period of her history. 



This event took place in 1654, when Oliver Cromwell ruled over the 

 Commonwealth of England. 



Oalicia which had been meanwhile under the power of Poland during 

 three centuries, became a province of Austria in 1 772. The farming and 

 working classes of the Ruthenian nationality were in an oppressed economi- 

 cal condition although for the last 50 years the poorer classes were somewhat 

 better favored with schools than in Russia. 



Another province of Austria, Boukovina, is mostly inhabited by Ruth- 

 enians known as Boukovinians. These people had been for a long time 

 under the power of Mo'davian gospodars or princes and have been less privi- 

 ledged with good schools than Galicia. The Boukovinians adhere to the Greek 

 Church. 



During centuries the learned classes wrote in a kind of archaic dialect 

 which was a mixture of the church language with the vernacular Ruthenian. 

 In Russia, after the alliance of 1 654, the educated classes gradually gave up 

 their mother tongue to use the Russian language for literature. 



Some 65 years ago a patriot of Oukraina, John Kotlarevski, started a 

 literature in the vernacular tongue. His example was followed by others and 

 now several periodicals are being printed in that language both in Austria, 

 Russia and America. 



The national poet of the Ruthenians is Taras Shevtchenko (literally: 

 Taras Shoemaker's-son). This son of the people, born in the province of Kiev, 

 displayed great literary talent. He was privileged to receive his education 

 in St. Petersburg and was developed as an eminent painter and poet. His 

 name is a rallying-point for the national feeling of the Ruthenians and a na- 

 tional watch-word. His songs are filled with mournful tones, recording the 



11 



