Foreign comments about Ukraine

[Perun]

Sadly the link doesnt work anymore, but here are some excerpts I posted elsewhere:

http://www.sabre.org/ukrlib/books/si...HAPTER%20EIGHT

One such Western European writer was MALTEBRUN, an excellent Danish geographer, who in his book Tableau de la Pologne, published in Paris in 1807, wrote:

"The Ukrainians (les Ukrainois) are the descendants of Kievan Rus. The peasants in Ukraine are much more economical than those in Muscovy: they do not lay waste their forests in a barbarous manner. The houses of the Ukrainian peasants are beautiful and sturdy. No one wears ragged shoes, as in Muscovy. They are well-built, and are more enlightened than the peasants, say, in Lithuania... The Ukrainians are very intelligent, and the spirit of freedom manifests itself even in their external manners..."
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Another Frenchman, CHARLES LOUIS LESUR (d. 1849), a publicist and member of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, in his book Histoire des Kosaques (1812), characterizes the Ukrainians as follows:

"The Ukrainians are more magnanimous, more sincere, more polite and hospitable, more industrious than the Russians. They I offer a living proof of the superiority which civil liberty gives to men over people born in slavery." (p. 571).

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Travelling through the Kuban and Slobozhanshchyna, Clarke first met Ukrainians and recorded them in his book on page 47:

"We met frequent caravans of the Malo-Russians, who differ altogether from the inhabitants of the rest of Russia. Their features are those of the Polonese and Cossacks. They are a much more noble race, and stouter and better looking people than the Russians, and superior to them in everything that can exalt one set of men above another. They are cleaner, more industrious, more honest, more generous, more polite, more courageous, more hospitable, more truly pious, and of course, less superstitious. (Vol. I., p. 278).

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Another German writer BARON F. HAXTHAUSEN in his Studien (Hanover, 1847, translated into English by Robert Fairie, London, 1856) draws striking contrasts between the Ukrainians and Russians in almost every field. Of the Ukrainians, he writes:

"The Little Russian is meditative; he loves to ponder over the antecedents of his nation, and revels in the recollection of the deeds of his ancestors. If you ask him what he is, he replies proudly and joyously, 'A Cosack' -- the title of honor among his people." (Vol. I, p. 353).

"The Little Russians are an imaginative and poetical people, and a number of popular songs, tales and legends have been preserved among them. The abundance of these is wonderful, and treasures of poetry and history may still be hidden and unknown here... The Little Russians have much talent for the fine arts; they have generally a clear, full voice and so correct an ear and memory, that without teaching, they learn to sing and play upon different instruments with great precision and ability. They have also a decided talent for drawing and painting and without any instruction they often perform what seems incredible in these arts. They are extremely pious and devotedly attached to their church." (Vol. I, pp. 413ff).