After Donbass - Transcarpathia?
At a rally in support of Donbass and Novorossia in general, held in Moscow on June 11, representatives of the DPR and LNR, as well as Transcarpathian Rusyns, announced the plans of Kiev, more precisely, of the West to eliminate the Russian factor on Ukrainian territory by any means.Everything is clear with the Donbas and Lugansk, but as for the participation of representatives of Transcarpathian Rusyns in this forum, here, apparently, a brief excursion into history.
Uzhgorod region (the current Transcarpathian region) was incorporated into Ukraine in July 1945. Prior to that, he was part of Hungary, and until the spring of 1939 of the year - Czechoslovakia. A very short period - May-June 1945-th - this territory was again in reconstituted Czechoslovakia, but on June 29 in Moscow 1945, an agreement was signed on joining the region - “the former Subcarpathian Rus”, as stated in the document, into the Ukrainian SSR. And 22 January 1946, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declared this region Transcarpathian region of Ukraine.
The Soviet side, not without purpose, insisted on the term "Podkarpatska Rus". At that time, a very significant part of the population (not less than 40%) of Transcarpathia was made up of ethnically close Russian Rusins, professing, in the overwhelming majority, Orthodoxy. Despite the evictions, assimilation and anti-Orthodox policies (forced Catholicism), carried out in this region by the Czechoslovak and Hungarian authorities. It is also characteristic that Prague and Budapest banned the use of the name “Subcarpathian Rus”, pursuing supporters of the national administrative autonomy of this region.
At the end of 1940-x, the beginning of 1950-x, Stalin planned to strengthen the Russian-Slavic factor in a number of republics, namely: the creation in 1953-1954. Russian national autonomous okrugs in Latvia (with a center in Daugavpils, which should have been given the Russian name Dvinsk), in northeastern Estonia (with a center in Narva), in northeast Kazakhstan (with a center in Ust-Kamenogorsk), in Transcarpathian autonomous region, as well as the return of the historical name “Tavria” to Crimea.
The Transcarpathian project, many of the actors involved in it, were reasonably called the “New Transcarpathian Rus”.
But this and a number of other plans of Stalin in the last years of his life were not unsuccessfully opposed by Stalin's “comrades-in-arms” - as it turned out later, cunning opportunists and sophisticated Russophobes.
After 1953, the policy of discrimination against Rusyns and Russians in the Transcarpathian region continued, albeit privately. Directly or indirectly, they were forced to be mentioned in the census of the population by Ukrainians; the national-cultural originality of the Rusyns was ignored and, therefore, was reduced to nothing. Or, at best, she was treated as pro-Ukrainian, but not pro-Russian. The areas inhabited by Rusyns and Russians (mostly eastern and northern) received much less cash subsidies from the regional and Ukrainian budgets.
As a result, according to 2011-2012, the share of Russians and Ruthenians in the total population of Transcarpathia did not exceed 5% (about 25 thousand people), although it remains fairly large in the eastern and northern regions of the region - over 30%.
One can say that the complex assimilation policy of the post-Stalinist and post-Soviet authorities of Ukraine with regard to the Ruthenians is confirmed by the following fact: in Ukraine they still qualify as an ethnographic group of Ukrainians, although not only in Russia, but even in Poland, Croatia, Serbia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the Rusins are recognized as an independent ethnos.
The situation of Rusyns aggravated after the “Orange Revolution”. The situation began to deteriorate sharply after the notorious events in Ukraine in January 2014. And in the Transcarpathian region, the self-proclaimed “Network Rusyn Movement” and “People's Government of the Republic of Subcarpathian Rus” were recently created. Naturally, they support the anti-fascist resistance of New Russia.
Petr Getsko, the head of the mentioned Ruthenian organizations in Transcarpathia, in his speech at a Moscow rally, noted that Uzhgorod “and the surrounding settlements in Transcarpathia will also soon insist on autonomy. Even if Russia does not interfere in any way with the situation in Ukraine, Donbass and Transcarpathia will still achieve autonomy, only with more blood. ” In his opinion, it is necessary to jointly resist the "metastases of fascism," otherwise "one by one they will crush everyone." The time of the bystander passes - the time has come for “active collective solidarity”.
As P. Getsko believes, “it is required to create a single network of resistance”. Rusyn, according to their leader, Galician Russophobia "hardly threatens to a lesser extent than Donbass, and the whole of New Russia."
Therefore, these regions need a common strategy of action and mutual assistance.
By the way, the content of her recent conversation with A. Yatsenyuk became known from the entourage of Yulia Tymoshenko. The latter, they say, is deeply concerned about the manifestations of right-wing radicalism, and therefore Yatsenyuk can see a possible solution in transferring three Galician regions to Poland: Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk. Therefore, Yatsenyuk, according to Getsko, “is negotiating for such a transfer to take place before the end of the year.” And the pretext is - "saving the population from a humanitarian catastrophe, which, apparently, is expected in Kiev by this time."
Recall in this regard that even on March 21, the position of the Rusyns was described in detail in their appeal to V.V. Putin with a request for the peacekeeping operation of the Russian Federation "to neutralize Galician Nazism in Transcarpathia."
The document noted, in particular, that “a very high level of civilizational values (education, science, employment, stability and social benefits for the Ruthenians), which were brought by the fraternal Russian people to Subcarpathian Russia since the autumn of 1944, were destroyed in Ukraine over the last 22 of the year . The urgency of this appeal is caused by the illegal seizure of power by the nationalists of Galicia and in the areas adjacent to the Transcarpathian region. As a result of the last Western stronghold of the Russian World, Transcarpathia was threatened with the mayhem of the Galician nationalists ... ”
It further says that “... a humanitarian catastrophe began for the Ruthenian people and all the residents of Transcarpathia at the hands of the Galician Nazis and local collaborators. A possible new tragedy with the mass destruction of Rusyns is brewing, as it happened 100 years ago in the Austrian concentration camps of death in 1914 (Terezin, Talerhof) and in 1939 (Camp Dumen, near Rakhov) ”. The appeal to the President of the Russian Federation “... rests on the Decisions of the 2 European National Congress of Podkarpackie Rusins from October 25 2008, the Act proclaiming the reestablishment of the Republic of Subcarpathian Rus, the election of the Ruthenian National Government of Subcarpathian Rus and the Decisions of the First World Congress of the Subcarpathian Rusins 25.04.2009 in Czech Pardubice.
The reason for the appeal to the.The. Putin is alone: "... Rusyns of the region do not want to be part of such Ukraine, where the Nazi riots of Galich are ripening, threatening the Ruthenians with ethnic cleansing."
Meanwhile, the Hungarian and Romanian national minorities act in Transcarpathia with the requirements of the maximum level of autonomy and dual citizenship. These requirements are supported by the authorities of Hungary and Romania. The Romanian political analyst Alton Faryan told me this: “If the demands of the Rusyns, the Romanians, the Hungarians in Transcarpathia will be ignored in Kiev, then this can lead to the division of this territory into quasi-state national entities. That is, it can be a geographically reduced version very similar to the current Bosnia and Herzegovina. ”
In political terms, according to A.Faryan, today the Hungarians are most active in Transcarpathia, and “if they succeed, local Romanians and Ruthenians will probably follow this example. And with such a development of the situation, the Transcarpathian region will in fact be removed, if not from the composition, then at least from the administrative administration of Ukraine. ”
But, as the expert believes, “it will not be easy for the Romanians, Hungarians, Rusyns, Ukrainians to agree with each other about the clear boundaries of“ their ”territories”.
Note that the situation in Transcarpathia is directly related to the economic interests of the Russian Federation: up to 65%, the volume of gas exported from Russia to Europe has been pumped through the Transcarpathian region since the middle of the 1970s.
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