In the beginning, and here was the geographical root of the tragedy of Ukraine, the Slavs who spoke this language lived in a belt of greater or narrower width from the Carpathian Mountains to the sea of Azov. Their land was longer from east to west than it was from north to south and it cut across the central portions of all those great rivers that flow from the north into the Black Sea. Nowhere except in the west were there any natural boundaries in the form of mountain ranges. To the north and east there were only the great plains of eastern Europe which were open to every invader from the depths of Asia and these invaders had appeared for millenia in an almost uninterrupted sequence, when the first Slavonic state was erected around the city of Kiev. It was an unfortunate geographical situation, for it imposed upon the princes the constant and never-ending task of guarding a long and indefensible frontier with a relatively small population and enormous distances. Without modern methods of communication, the task was hopeless. The princes were unable to hold more than a small area under their personal supervision and the evils that were attendant upon feudalism were not slow in making their appearance. In vain the more competent and conscientious rulers tried by almost superhuman efforts to hold their positions. Almost without their knowledge large regions grew up into quasi-independent realms and civil war was the result of the interference of even the best beloved monarch. The provinces and regions went on their own sweet way with little thought of obedience to a distant central authority and they were far too ready to seize a momentary advantage by an alliance with some one of their neighbors. At some time during the last thousand years, part at least of the people of Ukraine have been allied with Muscovites, Poles, Lithuanians, Rumanians, various Mongolian tribes, Turks, and Tatars of the Crimea. For a long period Lithuanians and Poles were able to assert a secure political control and today the Soviet Union and Germany are fighting for the same area. Ukraine paid bitterly for all these feuds of her neighbors, for her position was difficult and desirable. As we have seen, the state cut across all the rivers that ran into the Black Sea. They were the natural method of communication between the Baltic and the Black Seas, even as Ukraine contained the normal land route from Asia to Europe. It is small wonder then that the rich agricultural land was the welcome and alluring prize to many an invader from time immemorial to 1941. Bad as all this was, the situation was made worse by the fact that the territory of Ukraine became the battleground between the Byzantine and Latin cultures. The great cleavage in the Christian world was often fought out on Ukrainian soil and religious feuds were added to the personal quarrels and ambitions of the neighboring sovereigns.