"Edwin Bjorkman explains the origin of the Ukrainians in the south of Poland and Russia...Ukraine means borderland." -Open Court (1916)
"Edwin Bjorkman the famous critic...gives a complete historical survey of the Ukrainian state, following its changing fortunes after the...prohibition of the Ukrainian language by the ukase of the Czar." -The International (1914)

What is the history of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia, and is Ukraine really a part of Russia or instead does Russia have a history of robbing the Ukrainians for the benefit of Russians?

In 1915, American author Edwin Bjorkman (1866-1951) answers these questions and more in a book of numerous collected articles under the title, "Ukraine's Claim to Freedom."

In describing the Russian designs on Ukraine, the book relates:

"Russia's claims upon the Ukraine are justified only in so far as are those of France upon Germany, and vice versa. These latter states were once part of the empire of Charlemagne, as Russia and the Ukraine were of that of Vladimir the Great of Kiev. But Russia claims all of the old inheritance, and since the sixteenth century has been making a collection of Russian countries. The Ukrainians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries formed a warlike organization of the Cossacks of Zaporozhe, and in 1648 wrested their independence from the Poles. Menaced on every side, the young Ukrainian State in 1654 had to join itself to Russia as a tributary but autonomous State. But Russia betrayed the unsuspecting Ukrainians. She divided the Ukraine with Poland, restricted the freedom which had been accorded to the country, russified the Ukrainian Church, which had before been independent, and began a war of extermination against the language, customs, literature, and culture of the Ukraine."

About the author:

Edwin Bjorkman was born 19 Oct. 1866 and he died 16 Nov. 1951. He was a newspaper editor, journalist, literary critic, and translator, who came in 1891, came to the United States and living at the Scandinavian colony in Minnesota, He worked for the Minneapolis Times from 1894 to 1897 and the New York Sun and New York Times from 1897 to 1905. He fought with the Twenty-third Regiment of the New York Militia during the Spanish-American War. In 1906 he worked for the New York Evening Post, becoming department editor of the World's Work in 1909. From 1912 to 1915, Bjorkman attained international eminence for his translations of plays by August Strindberg and Arthur Schnitzler.

During World War I, Bjorkman worked for the British Department of Information (1915–1917) and as Director of the Scandinavian Bureau of the American Committee on Public Information (1918–1919). In 1919 for his wartime service he was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog by the Danish for his war service. In 1920–1921 he was assistant director of the League of Nations News Bureau. He later lectured at Yale University.