Ruthenia

Home > Places > Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Nations > CIS and Baltic Political Geography

Ruthenia. In its widest historical sense, Ruthenia relates to the whole of non-Russian Ruś (i.e. Belorussia and Ukraine): but in contemporary usage Ruthenia (Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia or Carpatho-Ukraine) is usually reserved for the easternmost province of inter-war Czechoslovakia. With its administrative capital at Užhorod, the province's Ukrainian peasant population eked out a poor living in a remote corner of the Carpathian mountains. Though Ukrainian in origin, Ruthenia had been an integral part of Hungary for a thousand years.

During the First World War, émigré Ruthenian political activists in the USA led by Dr Grigory Žatković took Ruthenia out of Hungary and into Czechoslovakia. Czech promises for an elected Diet never materialized, but inclusion in Czechoslovakia undoubtedly bestowed economic and social benefits while fostering Ukrainian nationalism.

The Munich agreement of September 1938 diminished Czecho slovakia and led to Ruthenian autonomy under the leadership of a Uniate priest, Monsignor Augustine Voloshin. But in November Ruthenia was obliged by the first Vienna award to cede its southern districts, including its capital, to Hungary (see Map 49). In March 1939, after Germany annexed Bohemia and Moravia, it declared itself the independent Carpatho-Ukraine, but Hungary reasserted its claim to the province, and although the invading Hungarian Army met organized Ruthenian resistance, annexation brought bloody oppression and a policy of Magyarization to Ruthenia.

The Red Army liberated Ruthenia from Hungarian rule in October 1944. Wartime discussions between the Czechoslovak government-in-exile and Stalin had pointed towards a return of Ruthenia to Czechoslovakia. Stalin's policy abruptly shifted in the closing stages of the war and Czechoslovakia formally ceded the province to the USSR in June 1945 when it became part of Ukraine. Ruthenia's value to the Soviets was largely strategic, providing as it did a convenient land bridge to Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

Paul Latawski

Bibliography

Rothschild, J. , East Central Europe between the Two World Wars (Seattle, 1977).
Seton-Watson, H. , The East European Revolution (3rd edn., New York, 1968).
Seton-Watson, R. W. , A History of the Czechs and Slovaks (London, 1943).

Ruthenia , Latinized form of the word Russia. The term was applied to Ukraine in the Middle Ages when the princes of Halych briefly assumed the title kings of Ruthenia. Later, in Austria-Hungary, the term Ruthenians was used to designate the Ukrainian population of W Ukraine, which included Galicia , Bukovina , and Carpathian Ukraine. After 1918 the term Ruthenia was applied only to the easternmost province of Czechoslovakia, which was also known as Carpathian Ukraine, or by its Czech name, Podkarpatská Rus [Sub-Carpathian Russia]; for the history of this area from 1918, see Transcarpathian Region . The inhabitants of Carparthian Ukraine, known as Rusyns or Ruthenians, speak a language (Rusyn or Ruthenian) is closely related to Ukrainian, but culturally, however, the Rusyns were distinct from the Ukrainians, especially after 1596, when the Orthodox Church of the Western Ukraine entered into union with the Roman Catholic Church, and after 1649, when a similar union was effected in Hungary. The Ruthenian Uniate Church of the Byzantine (see Roman Catholic Church ) thus included the majority of the Rusyns in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, while the Orthodox Church was fully restored (17th cent.) in the Russian part of the Ukraine. When most Rusyns were united (1945) in Soviet Ukraine, government pressure resulted in the secession of the Ruthenian Uniate Church from Rome and its reunion with the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, the Soviets classified the Rusyns, who had been divided as to whether to regard themselves as ethnically Rusyn, Russian, or Ukrainian, as Ukrainian. This position also was adopted by Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia and Poland with respect to their Rusyn minorities. In 1989 the Uniate Church broke with the Russian Orthodox Church and reestablished its ties with Rome. The end of Communist rule in E Europe also brought a resurgence of a distinct Rusyn identity, although Ukraine has not recognized Transcarpathian Rusyns as an ethnic minority.

Ruthenia, Ukraine A historic region that takes its name from the Rutheni. This is a Latinized form of Russian, although the Ruthenians are Ukrainian; they have, however, been called Little Russians. Part of the Austro‐Hungarian Empire (where the Ukrainians were called Ruthenians or Rusyns), it was partitioned between Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania in 1918. When Czechoslovakia ceased to exist in March 1939, Ruthenia declared itself to be independent with the name Carpatho‐Ukraine. The very next day it was occupied by Hungarian forces and annexed. It was overrun by Soviet forces at the end of the Second World War and incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic where it became the Transcarpathian Province.