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The Hungarians in Transcarpathia (Subcarpathian Rus')

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Paul Robert Magocsi
Paul Robert Magocsi*
Affiliation:
Multicultural History Society of Ontario, Toronto
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Extract

As in other countries of the Danubian Basin, the Hungarians of historic Subcarpathian Rus' (Hungarian—Kárpátalja), present-day Transcarpathia, did not become a national minority until 1919. Before then they were simply Hungarians—and part of the dominant state nationality—living in the northeastern corner of the Hungarian Kingdom. With the border changes that occurred in 1919-1920, the Hungarians of Transcarpathia/Subcarpathian Rus' found themselves within the borders of the new state of Czechoslovakia. Since then borders and countries have changed several times, so that Transcarpathia's Hungarians have found themselves in Czechoslovakia (1919-1938), again in Hungary (1938-1944), in the Soviet Union (1945-1991), and in an independent Ukraine (1991-present). Regardless of what state may have ruled Subcarpathian Rus'/Transcarpathia, it has remained a distinct administrative entity—at times, with a degree of autonomy—throughout most of the twentieth century.

Information

Type
II Hungary and Hungarian Minorities
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , September 1996, pp. 525 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Association for the Study of Nationalities of Eastern Europe and ex-USSR, Inc. 

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References

Notes

1. The various changes in the area's political status have included: (1) an autonomous region, Rus'ka Kraina, during the period of the short-lived Hungarian republic (December 1918-April 1919); (2) a semi-autonomous province of Subcarpathian Rus' in the first Czechoslovak republic (May 1919-September 1938); (3) an autonomous province of Carpatho-Ukraine in a federated Czecho-Slovak state (October 1938-March 1939); (4) the territory of Subcarpathia (Kárpátalja vajdaság) in an expanded wartime Hungary (March 1939-September 1944); and (5) the Transcarpathian oblast of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (January 1946-August 1991) and an independent Ukraine (September 1991-present).Google Scholar

2. The statistics on urban areas are from 1981 and are found in Károly Kocsis, “Kárpátalja,” Êlet és tudomány, XIV (Budapest, 1989), p. 436.Google Scholar

3. Statističky lexikon obcí v Podkarpatské Rusi [1921] (Prague, 1928), p. 45; Statističky lexikon obcí v Zemi podkarpatoruské [1930] (Prague, 1937), p. xv; Kopchak, V. P. and Kopchak, S. I., Naselenie Zakarpat'ia za 100 let (L'viv, 1977), pp. 66–71; Stephen Rapawy, Ukraine and the Border Issues (Washington, DC, 1993), p. 39.Google Scholar

4. Reisch, Alfred A., “Transcarpathia's Hungarian Minority and the Autonomy Issue,” RFE/RL Research Report, 7 February, 1992, p. 18.Google Scholar

5. Naselennia Ukraïns'koï RSR za dannymy vsesoiuznoho perepysu naselennia 1989 r. (Kiev, 1990), pp. 153–161. The name Rusyn is not recognized in official documents and is classified as Ukrainian; therefore, it is impossible to know how many Rusyns there are. Of the 977,000 Ukrainians recorded in the 1989 census, the number of Rusyns (according to Rusyn and Hungarian sources) is estimated between 600,000 and 800,000. A survey conducted in late 1991-1992 by the Institute of Sociology of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences reported that from a sample of 1,300 Transcarpathian residents, 28 percent (by statistical projection circa 350,000) considered Rusyns to be a distinct nationality. Petro Tokar, “Tko my es'me?,” Podkarpats'ka Rus' (Uzhhorod), 10 September, 1992.Google Scholar

6. According to the 1930 Czechoslovak census there was an equal number of Roman Catholics and Reformed Calvinist adherents. Since World War II, there are 84 Reformed Calvinist churches and 53 Roman Catholic parishes and affiliates. József Botlik and György Dupka, Ez hát a hon…: tények, adatok, dokumentumok a kárpátaljai magyarság életéböl 1918-1991 (Budapest and Szeged, 1991), pp. 255–260.Google Scholar

7. For further details on the interwar period, see Paul Robert Magocsi, “Magyars and Carpatho-Rusyns,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies, XIV, 3-4 (Cambridge, MA, 1990), pp. 429–438.Google Scholar

8. On the wartime years, see Magocsi, Paul Robert, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1849-1948 (Cambridge, MA, 1978), pp. 234–249.Google Scholar

9. For further details on the early years of Soviet rule, see Botlik and Dupka, Ez hát a hon, pp. 54–66 and 141-152.Google Scholar

10. For further details on the period of Soviet rule before Gorbachev, see ibid., pp. 67–121 ff.; and Steven Bela Vardy, “The Hungarians of the Carpatho-Ukraine: From Czechoslovak to Soviet Rule,” in Stephen Borsody, ed., The Hungarians: A Divided Nation (New Haven, CT, 1988), pp. 209-227—an expanded version appeared as “Soviet Nationality Policy in Carpatho-Ukraine Since World War II: The Hungarians of Sub-Carpathia,” Hungarian Studies Review, XVI, 1-2 (Toronto, 1989), pp. 67–91.Google Scholar

11. Lizanec, Péter, “A magyar nyelv és irodalom oktatása az uzsgorodi Allami Egyetemen,” in Judit Róna, ed., Hungarológiai oktatás régen és ma (Budapest, 1983), pp. 36–40. A comprehensive bibliography of the results of the Department's scholarship is in a recent monumental dialectal atlas of the region by Transcarpathia's leading Hungarian linguist: P. N. Lizanec, A kárpátaljai magyar nyelvjárások atlasza/Atlas vengerskikh govorov Zakarpat'ia, Vol. I (Budapest, 1992), esp. pp. 59–66.Google Scholar

12. Botlik and Dupka, Ez hát a hon, pp. 250–254.Google Scholar

13. Among the best known writers from this period are László Balla (b. 1927) and Vilmos Kovács (1927-1977). See Takács, Lajos M., comp., Vergödö szél: a kárpátaljai magyar irodalom antológiája 1953-1988 (Budapest and Uzhhorod, 1990).Google Scholar

14. The following is based in large part on Reisch, “Transcarpathia's Hungarian Minority,” pp. 17–23; and the chronology of events by Kálmán Móricz, “Kárpátalja (Ukrajna),” in Magyarság és Európa: évkönyv 1992 (Budapest, [1993]), pp. 167–207.Google Scholar

15. Magocsi, Paul Robert, “The Birth of a New Nation, or the Return of an Old Problem? The Rusyns of East Central Europe,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, XXXIV, 3 (Edmonton, Alta., 1992), esp. pp. 207–212.Google Scholar

16. Kuzio, Taras and Wilson, Andrew, Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence (Edmonton, Alta., 1994), p. 196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. The debates for and against Transcarpathian autonomy both before and after the 1 December, 1991 referendum are discussed in each issue of the quarterly Carpatho-Rusyn American, XV-XVI (Pittsburgh, PA, 1992-1993).Google Scholar

18. “Obrashchenie Vremennogo pravitel'stva Podkarpatskoi Rusi k narodam Zakarpatskoi oblasti,” Podkarpats'ka Rus' (Uzhhorod), 3 July 1993.Google Scholar