Language is not an absolutely necessary distinguishing characteristic of a nation, as is shown by the examples of the Swiss, the North Americans, and the Spanish and Portuguese daughter-nations in America. If the Ukrainians, [168]determining to be considered an independent nation, had the remaining characteristics of an independent nation, they would certainly be one even if their language were identical with the Russian, White Russian or Polish. But, in this regard, the Ukrainians are in the favorable position of really calling an independent language their own. To be sure, the opinion has been to a great extent spread thruout Europe that the Ukrainian language is a rural dialect of the Polish language, and official Russia is still encouraging the view that there is only a “Little Russian dialect” of the Russian language; European science and publicism opened the doors to both the above-mentioned unity theories, and the Russian unity theory has become the solely dominating one even in German science. Slavic philology passes a different judgment. With the exception of a few Pan-Russian philologists (Florinsky, etc.), who, as a matter of fact, are not capable philologists at all, the entire philological profession is decided on the point that the Ukrainian language is related to the Russian and the Polish only to the extent that the Serbian and Bulgarian are, for instance, or the Polish and Czechic. The investigations of Miklosich, Malinovsky, Dahl, Maksimovich, Potebnia, Zitetsky, Ohonovsky, Shakhmatov, Broch, Baudouin de Courtenay, Fortunatov, Korsh, Krimsky, Satotsky, and others, have proved beyond a doubt that the Ukrainian language is not a dialect of the Russian language, but an independent language of equal rank with the Russian. The same opinion has been expressed most forcibly by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in its famous official decision, “Concerning the Removal of the Restrictions on Little Russian Publications, St. Petersburg, 1905.” The Academy emphasized expressly that the Russian and Ukrainian languages are two independent languages of equal rank. The Russian written language is not built up on a general East Slavic, but only on a Great Russian [169]foundation. Hence, it cannot be forced upon the Ukrainians, since they have a completely developed written language at their command.