The Rusyn Orientation
Interwar history is often invoked in any attempt to explain the underlying causes of the 1938-39 conflicts on the territory of Subcarpathian Rus/ Carpatho-Ukraine. Paul Robert Magocsi, the most prominent Western scholar of this region, has championed the idea that Carpatho-Rusyns (also sometimes called Rusyn-Ukrainians or Ruthenians) constitute a fourth East Slavic identity.
He has promoted Rusyn as a literary language, not simply a dialect of Ukrainian, and has argued that a common identity unites the various groups on the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, who today find themselves in the neighboring states of Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, and Romania. This unique identity, according to Magocsi, has persisted because the people share a distinct territory, language, historical experience, and social attitude, which includes peaceful coexistence between various groups. Magocsi has claimed that there was “never any violence between Rusyn and Magyar villagers or townspeople who lived alongside them or nearby,” and that the territory “is perhaps unique in central and eastern Europe in that there has never been an anti-Jewish pogrom of any kind there. [...] The Other that all groups feared equally was the state” (Magocsi 2008-2009, 332-334). Today, in his words, even “the Lemko problem has not gone away,” since this group, which he includes among the Rusyns and which was dispersed by the Polish government after the Second World War, is now reviving (Magocsi 1990, 201).2During the interwar years, the largest concentration of Rusyns (or Rusyn-Ukrainians) was to be found in the easternmost territory of Czechoslovskia. In 1930, the population of this Subcarpathian (Transcarpathian) land was estimated at 725,000, and consisted of Rusyns (63%), Magyars (15.4%), Jews (12.8%), Czechs and Slovaks (4.8%), and Germans (1.9%) (Magocsi 2008-2009, 330-331).
The territory’s autonomous status had been discussed as far back as 1848, but the issue received impetus at the end of the First World War when the Austro-Hungarian state ceased to exist and the Carpatho-Rusyns proposed various changes to their political status (Magocsi 2015, 581-582). They preferred autonomy within a Ukrainian state. When this proved impossible, their second choice was autonomy within a federated Czechoslovakia. Magocsi has stressed that the population presented a common front in these discussions. Since that time, a part of the Carpatho-Rusyn community has continued to see itself as a separate group and has embraced a local identity, even though much of this population has over time come to identify as Ukrainians. This is certainly true of the Boikos, Hutsuls, and many in the Lemko community, all of whom Magocsi identifies as Rusyns.3 According to most observers, there are today three orientations among the population of the Transcarpathian region. The Rusynophile and Ukrainophile remain the two most prominent ones, while the formerly important Russophile orientation (sometimes called Moscophile) has been steadily losing ground since the first half of the twentieth century.Magocsi is critical of pro-Russian and pro-Hungarian currents who in the interwar period tried to undermine Carpatho-Ukraine’s autonomous existence by plotting to reattach it to Hungary. They nurtured the Russophile orientation in order to discredit Ukrainophiles (Magocsi 1978, 242). He has described the fear of a “Ukrainian terror” that accompanied the declaration of Ukrainian as the official language of Carpatho- Ukraine, the Ukrainization of schools, and the appearance of Ukrainian newspapers (ibid., 141-2, 176).4 At the same time, he has expressed criticism of the “fanatical” Ukrainian nationalists who came from Galicia
The War for Carpatho-Ukraine in 1938-39 101 and fomented anti-Czech feelings because they refused to see any difference between the governments of Prague and Warsaw (ibid., 244).
In his view, the election in Carpatho-Ukraine on 12 February 1939, in which 92.8% of the population voted for the Ukrainian slate of candidates, should be viewed primarily as an expression of local patriotism and of non-confidence in Prague, which had delayed granting autonomy for almost twenty years, even though this had been a requirement of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919-20 and the Czechoslovakian constitution of February 1920 (Magocsi 2015, 582). In contrast to the ideas of Ukrainian nationalists from Galicia, who viewed Carpatho-Ukraine as “the first Ukrainian land to gain its freedom,” and for whom all Russophiles and Rusynophiles were traitors, Magocsi stresses that there was never an abandonment of a Rusyn orientation or a desire for autonomy in the region’s population (Magocsi 1978, 245). The Carpatho-Ukrainian government tried to reign in the rhetoric of the nationalists who had arrived from Galicia, hoped to remain part of a federated Czechoslovakia. It remained loyal to Prague and even circulated a directive banning anti-Czech agitation (Delehan and Vyskvarko 2009, 152-153).