[Contents] The Districts and Settlements of Ukraine For centuries robbed of its political independence, the Ukraine today simply vegetates, instead of living in a state of full development. The fatal results of its lack of independence are visible in every aspect of the material and spiritual life of the country. The present political-administrative division of the Ukraine is also a result of the want of political independence of this nation. This division corresponds neither to the natural nor to the anthropogeographical conditions, and to a great degree represents only entirely antiquated, now worthless remnants of the statesmanship of former centuries. Even the state boundaries are very unnaturally drawn in the Ukrainian territory. The Austrian crown-province of Galicia embraces parts of Rostoche, Volhynia, Podolia, Pokutye, while other parts of this natural territory lie outside the state border, in Russia. The topography and the people are the same on both sides of the cordon; only [308]the state authorities and the ruling races are different. The Carpathian boundary between the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the Ukraine, to be sure, seems a good natural boundary, but in reality it would be that only if it ran along the southern foot of the range. For the Carpathian region of the Ukraine, as a result of its easy communications constitutes not only a physico-geographical, but also an anthropogeographical unit. On both sides of the border live the same Lemkos, Boikos and Hutzuls. More glaringly still does the unnaturalness of the present political division of the Ukraine stand out, when we view the administrative units in the framework of the states which at present dominate the Ukraine. In Hungary, the Ukrainian part of the land is united into one great whole, together with Slavonia, Transylvania, Alföld, Banat, etc. All is centered in Budapest. Even the boundaries of the autonomous countries are so constructed that, besides a piece of Ukrainian territory, they embrace an equally great or even greater, but, at any rate, heavily peopled piece of a foreign national territory, e.g., of the Roumanian, Magyar, Slovenian. As a result of this scattering allotment, the Ukrainians of Hungary possess no political influence.