Ukrainian poet Volodymyr Sosiura (1898-1965) in his poem “Love Ukraine” (1944) stated that one cannot respect other nations without respect for one’s own.

Love Ukraine by Volodymyr Sosiura (1944)

Love your Ukraine, love as you would the sun,
The wind, the grasses and the streams together…
Love her in happy hours, when joys are won,
And love her in her time of stormy weather.

Love her in happy dreams and when awake,
Ukraine in spring’s white cherry-blossom veil.
Her beauty is eternal for your sake ;
Her speech is tender with the nightingale.

As in a garden of fraternal races,
She shines above the ages. Love Ukraine
With all your heart, and with exultant faces
Let all your deeds her majesty maintain.

For us she rides alone on history’s billows,
In the sweet charm of space she rules apart,
For she is in the stars, is in the willows,
And in…