Transcarpathia
Transcarpathia may refer to:
Place
* relative term, designating any region beyond the Carpathians (lat. ''trans-'' / beyond, over), depending on a point of observation
* Romanian Transcarpathia, designation for Romanian regions on the inner or ...
) that became an autonomous region within that country in September 1938. It declared its independence as the "Republic of
Carpatho-Ukraine
Carpatho-Ukraine or Carpathian Ukraine ( uk, Карпа́тська Украї́на, Karpats’ka Ukrayina, ) was an autonomous region within the Second Czechoslovak Republic, created in December 1938 by renaming Subcarpathian Rus' whose full ...
” in 15 March 1939, however being occupied and annexed by
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
the same day. Starting with October 1944, the Soviet
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
occupied the territory and short period the territory of the region was organised as , until it was incorporated into the
in 1946. In total between 1939 and 1944 80,000 Carpathian Ukrainians perished.
Independence and subsequent annexation
In November 1938, under the
First Vienna Award
The First Vienna Award was a treaty signed on 2 November 1938 pursuant to the Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace. The arbitration and award were direct consequences of the previous month's Munich Agreement, which ...
, which resulted from the
Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...
,
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; cs, Protektorát Čechy a Morava; its territory was called by the Nazis ("the rest of Czechia"). was a partially annexed territory of Nazi Germany established on 16 March 1939 following the German oc ...
. On 15 March, Carpatho-Ukraine declared its independence as the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine, with the Reverend Avhustyn Voloshyn as head of state. Hungary immediately occupied and annexed the new republic. The remnants of the Czechoslovak Army abandoned the newly-formed republic, and Carpatho-Ukraine tried to defend itself by local self-defence groups, organised by the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( uk, Організація українських націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization esta ...
as
Carpathian Sich
The Carpathian Sich ( uk, Організація народної оборони Карпатська Січ, Orhanizatsiia narodnoii oborony Karpatska Sich – National Defense Organization Carpathian Sich) Over 75,000 Ukrainians decided to seek asylum in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, almost 60,000 of whom died in
gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
Ukrinform
The National News Agency of Ukraine ( uk, Українське національне інформаційне агентство), or Ukrinform ( uk, Укрінформ), is a state information and news agency, and international broadcaster of ...
(15 March 2019) The territory covered by the Governorate of Subcarpathia was divided into three, the administrative branch offices of Ung (''Ungi közigazgatási kirendeltség''), Bereg (''Beregi közigazgatási kirendeltség'') and Máramaros (''Máramarosi közigazgatási kirendeltség''), having Hungarian and the Rusyn language as official languages.
Persecution of the Jewish population
Beginning in 1939, the Jewish laws passed in Hungary were extended to the newly-annexed territories, including the rest of Carpathian Ruthenia. Then in the summer of 1941, Hungarian authorities deported about 18,000 Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia to the Galician area of the occupied
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
under the guise of expelling alien refugees, but in practice most of those expelled were from families that had lived in the region for the previous 50–100 years, but their legal identification was problematic because of the numerous change of status quo. Also, the laws and regulations did not help them confirm their former Hungarian citizenship. Later, most of the deportees were handed over to German '' Einsatzgruppen'' units at Kaminets Podolsk and machine-gunned over a three-day period in August 1941. Hungarian authorities conscripted Jewish men of working age into slave labor gangs in which a high proportion perished.
In March 1944,
Operation Margarethe
Operation Margarethe (''Unternehmen Margarethe'') was the occupation of Hungary by German Nazi troops during World War II that was ordered by Adolf Hitler.
Course of events
Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Kállay, who had been in office from ...
had German forces overthrow the Hungarian government and install
Döme Sztójay
Döme Sztójay ( sr-cyr, Димитрије Стојаковић, 5 January 1883 – 22 August 1946) was a Hungarian soldier and diplomat of Serb origin, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary in 1944, during World War II.
Biography
Born i ...
as prime minister. In April 1944, 17 main ghettos were set up in cities in Ruthenia. 144,000 Jews were rounded up and held there. Starting on May 15, 1944 Jews were taken out of these sites to Auschwitz every day until the last deportation on June 7, 1944. By June 1944, nearly all the Jews from ghettos of Carpathian Ruthenia had been exterminated, together with other Hungarian Jews.The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary Wayne State University Press, Randolph L. Braham pages, 117-120, 137 Of more than 100,000 Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia, around 90,000 were murdered.
Transcarpathian Ukraine
In October 1944, the German and Hungarian forces occupying Carpathian Ruthenia were expelled by the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
s. With the assistance of the Soviet military administration, the territory was temporarily organised as an independent transitional state, namely , and it remained as such until the territorial dispute between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union was settled in 1946.
Territorial dispute
A Czechoslovak delegation under František Němec was dispatched to the area which was to mobilize the liberated local population to form a Czechoslovak army and to prepare for elections in cooperation with recently established national committees. However, loyalty to a Czechoslovak state was tenuous in Carpathian Ruthenia. The
Czechoslovak government-in-exile
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile, sometimes styled officially as the Provisional Government of Czechoslovakia ( cz, Prozatímní vláda Československa, sk, Dočasná vláda Československa), was an informal title conferred upon the Czechos ...
led by President
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš (; 28 May 1884 – 3 September 1948) was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1945 to 1948. He also led the Czechoslovak government-in-exile 1939 to 194 ...
issued a proclamation in April 1944 excluding from political participation former collaborationist Hungarians, Germans, and the Russophile Ruthenian followers of Andrej Brody and the Fencik Party (who had collaborated with the Hungarians). This amounted to approximately one-third of the population. Another one-third was communist, leaving one-third of the population presumably sympathetic to the Czechoslovak Republic.
Upon arrival in the territory, the Czechoslovak delegation set up headquarters in
Khust
Khust ( uk, Хуст; hu, Huszt) is a city located on the Khustets River in Zakarpattia Oblast ( province) in western Ukraine. It is near the сonfluence of the Tisa and Rika Rivers. Serving as the administrative center of Khust Raion (distr ...
and on 30 October issued a mobilization proclamation. Soviet military forces prevented both the printing and the posting of the Czechoslovak proclamation and proceeded instead to organize the local population. Protests from Beneš's government-in-exile went unheeded. Soviet activities led much of the local population to believe that Soviet annexation was imminent. The Czechoslovak delegation was also prevented from establishing a cooperative relationship with the local national committees promoted by the Soviets.
On 19 November, the communists, meeting in
Mukachevo
Mukachevo ( uk, Мукачево, ; hu, Munkács; see name section) is a city in the valley of the Latorica river in Zakarpattia Oblast (province), in Western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of Mukachevo Raion (district), the city ...
, issued a resolution requesting separation of the territory and the incorporation into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. On November 26, the Congress of National Committees unanimously accepted the resolution of the communists. The Congress elected the National Council and instructed that a delegation be sent to Moscow to discuss union. The Czechoslovak delegation was asked to leave the area.
Negotiations between the Czechoslovak government and Moscow ensued. Both Czech and Slovak communists encouraged Beneš to resign on the territory. The Soviet Union agreed to postpone annexation until the postwar period to avoid compromising Beneš's policy based on the pre-Munich frontiers.
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, in June 1945, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union signed a treaty ceding Carpathian-Ruthenia to the Soviets. The inhabitants - Czechs, Slovaks and Rusyns - were given the choice of Czechoslovak or Soviet citizenship. In 1946, the area became part of the
Zakarpattia Oblast
The Zakarpattia Oblast ( uk, Закарпатська область, Zakarpatska oblast) is an administrative oblast located in western Ukraine, mostly coterminous with the historical region of Carpathian Ruthenia. Its administrative centre is ...
('Transcarpathian
Oblast
An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdo ...
').
Impact on Hungarian population
The end of the war was a cataclysm for the ethnic Hungarian population of the area: 10,000 fled before the arrival of Soviet forces. Many of the remaining adult men (25,000) were deported to the Soviet Union; about 30% of them died in Soviet
gulags
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...
. As a result of war losses, emigration and extermination of Hungarian
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, the Hungarian-speaking population of Carpathian Ruthenia decreased from 161,000 in 1941 (Hungarian census) to 66,000 in 1947 (Soviet census); the low 1947 number is doubtless in part a result of Hungarians' fear to declare their true nationality.
History of the Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia
Jews settled in Transcarpathia as early as the 15th century. Local rulers allowed Jewish citizens to own land and practice many trades that were precluded to them in other locations. Jews settled in the region over time and established communiti ...
*
History of Ukraine
Prehistoric Ukraine, as a part of the Pontic steppe in Eastern Europe, played an important role in Eurasian cultural contacts, including the spread of the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, Indo-European migrations and the domestication of the hor ...
*
Lemko
Lemkos ( rue, Лeмкы, translit= Lemkŷ; pl, Łemkowie; uk, Лемки, translit=Lemky) are an ethnic group inhabiting the Lemko Region ( rue, Лемковина, translit=Lemkovyna; uk, Лемківщина, translit=Lemkivshchyna) of C ...
Rusyns
Rusyns (), also known as Carpatho-Rusyns (), or Rusnaks (), are an East Slavic ethnic group from the Eastern Carpathians in Central Europe. They speak Rusyn, an East Slavic language variety, treated variously as either a distinct langu ...
*
Ruthenians
Ruthenian and Ruthene are exonyms of Latin language, Latin origin, formerly used in Eastern and Central Europe as common ethnonyms for East Slavs, particularly during the late medieval and early modern periods. The Latin term Rutheni was used in ...
West Ukrainian People's Republic
The West Ukrainian People's Republic (WUPR) or West Ukrainian National Republic (WUNR), known for part of its existence as the Western Oblast of the Ukrainian People's Republic, was a short-lived polity that controlled most of Eastern Gali ...