The Ukraine lies between 43° and 54° north latitude and between 21° and 47° east longitude from Greenwich. If we look for our country on a map we will find that it lies as the northern hinterland of the Black Sea, in the southern part of Eastern Europe, just on the threshold of Asia. From the foot of the Tatra Mountains, from the sunny Hegyalia and cloud-wreathed Chornohora, from the silver-rippled San, from the dark virgin forest of Biloveza and the immense swamps of Polissye, to the delta of the Danube—so often sung in the lore of the Ukrainian folk—to the Black Sea, to the gigantic Caucasians and the Caspian, surrounded by brown desert steppes, extends our fatherland, the Ukraine. From the beginnings of the historical life of Eastern Europe, for one thousand two hundred years, the Ukrainian race has resided in this region, and has been able, not only to preserve its boundaries, but, after heavy losses, to regain and even to pass beyond them. And this continued thru centuries of stress, thru bloody wars, after the loss of the first and second national governments, and under the merciless pressure of neighboring states and peoples. That other nations, as the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, should have preserved their original seats, is not surprising; they were protected on all sides by high mountains and deep seas. All the more, therefore, must we admire the great vitality of the Ukrainian [13]nation, which has been able to retain in its possession a mother-country lying open, almost without any protection, to mighty enemies.