The heritage of autonomy in Carpathian Rus’ and Ukraine's Transcarpathian region

Abstract

As the Soviet Union disintegrated and eventually dissolved in 1991, many of its peoples, both so-called titular nationalities and national minorities, put forth demands for independence or, at the very least, self-rule for territories that were said to represent the national patrimony. Among the many peoples who put forward such demands were Carpatho-Rusyns, who, together with fellow citizens of other national backgrounds, demanded autonomy or self-rule for the region (oblast) of Transcarpathia in far western Ukraine. This essay examines from a historical perspective the question of autonomy or self-rule for Carpatho-Rusyns and for all or part of the territory they inhabit, historic Carpathian Rus’. The autonomy question in Carpathian Rus’ is hardly new, but one that goes as far back as 1848.

Keywords:

• autonomy
• Carpatho-Rusyns
• Czechoslovakia
• Transcarpathia
• Ukraine

Notes

1. For a general introduction to political developments among Carpatho-Rusyns during this period, see Mel'nikova (1952), Žeguc (1965, 23–52), and Danilak (1972, 157–190).

2. On Dobrians'kyi's further activity on behalf of enhancing the autonomous status of the Uzhhorod/Rusyn District, see Vergun (1938).

3. On the various Carpatho-Rusyn national councils in Europe and North America and political proposals at the close of the World War I, see Magocsi (1975, 1976).

4. The complex legal relationship of Subcarpathian Rus’ to the rest of the Czechoslovak Republic is discussed in Peška (1934, 2009).

5. The autonomy question in Subcarpathian Rus’ elicited much interest among authors in Poland (Zawadowski 1931); France (Martel 1935); Great Britain (Macartney 1937, 200–250); Italy (Scrimali 1938); and Germany (Ballreich 1938). During the entire period of Communist rule and Soviet influence in central and eastern Europe (1945–1989), the positive aspect of Subcarpathian Rus’ and its relationship to bourgeois Czechoslovakia was a taboo subject. That relationship was only dealt with by authors living in the West (Walter Hanak, Petro Stercho, Vikentii Shandor, and Paul Robert Magocsi, among others). Since the radically changed political environment after 1989, several monographs have appeared on the subject by scholars working in post-Communist Slovakia (Švorc 1996, 2006; Mosný 2001), the Czech Republic (Shevchenko 2006), Ukraine (Boldyzhar and Mosni 2002), Hungary (Botlik 2005a, 128–243), and Russia (Pushkash 2006, 65–160).

6. The text of the 1937 law and discussion of its implications is found in Peška (1938).

7. The classic studies on the autonomy period (written from a pro-Ukrainian perspective) appeared among emigrés (Stercho 1971, 1995; Shandor 1997). After nearly half-a-century of being dismissed by Soviet Marxist authors as a “fascist” and “puppet-like regime” in the service of the Nazi Germany, in post-1991 independent Ukraine the few months of autonomous Carpatho-Ukraine have become a subject of numerous conferences, public celebrations, and publications (Vony boronyly Karpats'ku Ukraїnu 2002; Vegesh 2004; Vegesh and Tokar 2009).

8. The declaration of 15 March 1939, however fleeting, has not only been a subject of positive analysis by scholars in post-Communist Transcarpathia. The day has also been transformed into an occasion for annual anniversary celebrations on a national level, especially during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko, whereby the region's “independence” back in 1939 is considered an honorable precursor to Ukraine's own achievement of independence in 1991.

9. This little known incident was not made public until reported in a local Transcarpathian newspaper in 1995; the full text of the petition was later reproduced (Dovhanych, Sheketa, and Delehan 2000, 45–48).

10. The phrases are drawn from the Manifesto of the First Congress of People's Committees of Transcarpathian Ukraine, held in Mukachevo, 26 November 1944 (Dovhanych, Sheketa, and Delehan 2000, 70–73).

11. This little known incident concerning post-World War II border issues in the Soviet sphere has only recently been discussed (Vegesh and Horvat 1998, 72–82).

12. As for Kampov, although his sentence beginning in 1970 was commuted in 1977, he was arrested again and re-sentenced in 1981. He was to earn the dubious distinction as one of the last political prisoners released from Soviet incarceration as late as 30 August 1989, that is, well into the Gorbachev era.

13. The debate was touched off with a five-part article (Chuchka 1989) in Zakarpatskaia pravda, the official organ of the Transcarpathian regional branch of the Communist party of the Soviet Union, which subsequently ran for one year from August 1990 a popular column entitled, “Ukraine and Rusynism” (Ukraїna i rusynizm).

14. The voting pattern at the district (raion) level for both referenda and the presidential election is available (Zakarpattia v etnopolitychnomu vymiri 2008, 661–662).

15. The full texts of the “official” and alternative proposals are found in the regional newspapers Novyny Zakarpattia, 1 February, 22 February, and 27 February 1992; and Karpats'ka Ukraїna, 20 February 1992.

16. Among the more prominent media examples are Uralov et al. (2008), Johnson (2008), Rud and Kravchuk (2008), Toth (2008), The Economist (“Ruthenia” 2009), Hvat’ (2009), and numerous Russian, Ukrainian, and British print and Internet media outlets.

17. The conference in Budapest, titled “The Efforts and Problems of Rusyn Self-Determination,” included among its participants the influential Russian parliamentary deputy Konstantin Zatulin, together with the editor-in-chief of the Moscow newspaper Izvestiia, Vladimir Mamontov.