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Czechoslovakia The Emergence of Subcarpathian Ruthenia (Carpatho- Ukraine)
The Ruthenians (from the Ukrainian Rusyn--a name used
for Ukrainians in the Hapsburg monarchy) were Ukrainian-speaking
mountain people who lived in the deep, narrow valleys of the
Carpathian Mountains. In the eleventh century, Ruthenia (also
known as Subcarpathian Ruthenia) came under the Hungarian crown.
Poor peasants, grazers, and lumbermen, the Ruthenians were
vassals and serfs of the Hungarian magnates dominating the plains
of the Tisza River. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
Ruthenia lay within the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire.
Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, most Ruthenians were
converted from Eastern Orthodoxy to the
Uniate Church (see Glossary).
Combining spiritual allegiance to Rome with Orthodox
rites, the Uniate Church enabled the Hungarian clergy to win the
loyalty of their Eastern-oriented subjects.
The Ruthenians remained a poor, agrarian, and politically
inert people. Ruthenian delegates did, however, attend the Slavic
Congress in 1848 and later appealed to Vienna for autonomy and
the right of cultural development. The great awakener of
Subcarpathian Ruthenia was Oleksander Dukhnovych, a Uniate
priest, who through his pedagogical, literary, and publishing
activities attempted to save the Ruthenians from
Hungarianization. The Ruthenian revival was fueled further by a
vigorous movement in Galicia (under Austrian administration). But
the Compromise of 1867 virtually eliminated the possibility of
educational progress; Hungarianization affected all secondary
schools and most elementary schools in Ruthenia. Many Ruthenians
emigrated (over 50,000 before World War I). Russian pan-Slavic
propaganda had an impact beginning in the late nineteenth
century, and many Ruthenians became converts to Eastern
Orthodoxy.
Political activity on behalf of Ruthenia during World War I
was conducted by Ruthenian emigrants in the United States. They
formed groups with varying political objectives: semiautonomy
within Hungary, complete independence, federation in a Ukrainian
state, inclusion in a Soviet federation, or union with the
Czechs. The American Ruthenian leader, Gregory Zatkovic,
negotiated with Masaryk to make Subcarpathian Ruthenia part of
the Czechoslovak Republic. This decision received international
sanction in the Treaty of Saint-Germain (September 10, 1919),
which guaranteed Subcarpathian Ruthenia autonomy within the
Czechoslovak Republic.
Data as of August 1987
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