With it all, in a demoralized and disorganized Ukraine, where the national life was flickering to a new low, he revealed the possibilities of a newer and different democracy and a kindly and humane outlook on life. His was not the task to sponsor or to lead a reaction against the prevailing system. His was not the task to defend the existing order. He endeavored to stand apart and thereby he kindled a spark of hope in the people by ignoring, rather than by defying the prevailing system. He taught the value of the individual in a day when the individual was neglected. He taught the dignity of man as man in a day when rank and external glory was the supreme good. He taught calm and deliberate thinking at a time when people cared for little except external pomp and show. He emphasized the reality of the spirit and of the truth when the will of the sovereign was the supreme law. That was his teaching and he proved it by his own example. It is small wonder that he did not take the next step and yet that the men of the next generation felt his influence and were glad to express their obligations to him in fields and in ways that he never would have believed possible or valuable. CHAPTER THREE IVAN KOTLYAREVSKY Four years after the death of Skovoroda, there began to circulate in the country near Poltava manuscript copies of an amusing travesty of Vergil’s _Aeneid_, written by one Ivan Kotlyarevsky. It attracted attention not only because of its subject matter and treatment but because the author had for the first time endeavored to write in the ordinary vernacular of the day. In other words, modern Ukrainian literature had been born. To understand the value and significance of this, let us glance at the political situation in Eastern Ukraine. In 1764 Catherine the Great had induced the last of the Hetmans, Cyril Rozumovsky, to resign his post, and in return he received from the Empress large grants of land. The position of Hetman was replaced by a Little Russian Board which worked strenuously for the Russifying of the country. There still remained the Zaporozhian Sich which had lost much of its former power but which still gathered around it many “unruly” Kozaks. In 1775 after the war with Turkey and the suppression of the revolt of Pugachev, Catherine sent a large army against this and confronted with overwhelming force, the Kozaks were obliged to submit. The regular Russian system of landholding was introduced and the Kozaks who did not join the Russian army had to become serfs. A large number refused to accept either of these alternatives and during the next years emigrated to Turkey. Then in 1783 the last remains of the Hetman state were abolished.