THE FUTURE OF UKRAINE 301 The Story of the Ukraine _INTRODUCTION_ In the spring of 1945, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was formally accepted at the Conference in San Francisco as a member of the United Nations Organization. This could not satisfy the aspirations of the forty million Ukrainians who were suffering under Communist yoke and were witnessing the attempt to eradicate from their country all those principles of freedom and democracy for which they had so long been struggling, but it did bring prominently before the public opinion of the world that Ukraine was not the creation of a series of propagandists but a nation with its own geographical area, its own population, and its own history. The rulers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had thought fit to bring before the representatives of the United Nations a situation that had been denied for centuries by Russian officials and scholars. After long denying its existence, the world was forced to acknowledge that Ukraine really did exist and it will be impossible for students in the future to take again the old widespread attitude that Ukraine is only a figment of the imagination. It will be impossible in the future to write European and world history, without taking account of this people which for good or ill have inhabited their homeland for over one thousand years and have taken part in nearly all the great movements of thought and action that have swept over Europe. There is no need to delve into prehistoric times and to endeavor to identify the various tribes and cultures that have passed forgotten into the composition of Ukraine. It is over one thousand years since the first known dynasty was established at Kiev on the Dnyeper River and the country was launched upon its historic course. It is nearly one thousand years since monks from Constantinople, the imperial city on the Bosphorus, were invited to Kiev and baptized the sovereign, Saint Volodymyr, and his court and made Kiev one of the civilized capitals of Christendom.