Paul Robert Magocsi, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, has been writing about Carpatho-Rusyns for almost half a century now and this book represents a condensation, if not culmination, of his scholarship on the subject. It is intended for a broad audience—readers with little to no historical knowledge about Central and Eastern Europe. For them, Magocsi produced a well-written and accessible account with minimal references, which are tucked away in endnotes. For those interested in further reading on the subject matter the author has included an excellent bibliographic essay. The main body of the text is accompanied by outstanding maps (thirty-four in total). By contrast, black-and-white illustrations placed at the very end of the book are of passable, but far from great, quality. The best feature of the book, at least in terms of narrative structure, is what the author calls “text inserts.” They range from half a page to several pages and discuss in greater detail a specific issue, term, or phenomenon without disrupting flow of the main text.

The book is based on two premises. First, Magocsi postulates that there is a historical region in Europe, called Carpathian Rus’. For some reason, he does not explain origins of the term, which was coined in the early nineteenth century and carried different meanings in the past. According to him, Carpathian Rus’ is divided between four states at present. The largest part belongs to Ukraine as its Transcarpathia province (Carpatho-Rusyns prefer to call it Subcarpathian Rus’). The rest is in Slovakia (the Presov region), Poland (the Lemko region), and Romania (the Maramureş region). Second, Magocsi maintains that the indigenous population of Carpathian Rus’ is a separate, fourth Eastern Slavic ethnicity—Carpatho-Rusyns. Magocsi claims their worldwide numbers at 1,762,500 (c. 2012) but officially there are only 110,750 (1). Both premises are contentious issues, especially for Ukrainian scholars who in their turn arrange historical geography of these lands differently and regard indigenous Eastern Slavs as the westernmost fringe of the Ukrainian ethnic group.

For historians of the so-called stateless nations, Magocsi's main narrative will strike a familiar chord. He tells a story of people who have existed from the ancient times under foreign powers (Hungarian for the most part) but have been inhibited from developing fully due to the lack of self-rule and governmental policies against them. The author gives little attention to prenational history of Carpatho-Rusyns, his focus is on the post-Herder period when this ethnic group had to be “awakened” and revived from its nonnational existence or otherwise it would perish. According to Magocsi, thus far Carpatho-Rusyns experienced three such revivals, that is periods during which their national expression was encouraged and supported, or at least not suppressed by ruling states. The first revival was from 1848 to 1868 when anti-Hungarian policies of the Habsburgs benefited national minorities of the Hungarian Kingdom, including Carpatho-Rusyns. The second was from 1919 until 1944 (with the brief interruption of a five-month Carpatho-Ukrainian period in 1938–39) when both democratic Czechoslovakia and authoritarian Hungary either allowed or facilitated development of Carpatho-Rusyn identity. Finally, the third ongoing period started in 1989–91 when the fall of the Communist regimes in Europe and of the Soviet Union allowed again Carpatho-Rusyns to self-identify as such. But this revival, Magocsi points out, is not without issues: Carpatho-Rusyns are essentially gone from two parts of Carpathian Rus’ (the Lemko and the Maramureş regions), are in very low numbers in their core territory (Transcarpathia/Subcarpathian Rus’), and only in Slovakia do they fare relatively well in terms of national existence. Other periods of Carpatho-Rusyn modern history Magocsi describes as experiences of either imposed or voluntary assimilation—Magyarization, Slovakization, and Ukrainianization (strangely enough, Russification is never mentioned though it also occurred). Besides the fate of Carpatho-Rusyns in their historical homelands, he also discusses their diasporas in the former Yugoslav republics and in North America and their connection with the ancestral lands. In short, this story of national existence between assimilations and revivals is the substance of the book.

Magocsi knows the history of Carpathian Rus’ exceptionally well. I did not encounter any factual inaccuracies in his discussion of the region's past, but he makes a number of them when he moves up from local to general history. For example, right after mentioning that the Habsburgs held the title of Holy Roman Emperor, Magocsi writes that in the sixteenth century “they also ruled [over] a powerful central European state, Austria [sic]” (75) while the map on the preceding page correctly gives the name of that state as the “Holy Roman Empire.” France of 1790 can hardly be described as “Napoleonic” (108). In that year, the country was still ruled by King Louis XVI. The name of the French Prime Minister who signed the Munich Agreement of 1938 (for some reason the author calls it a pact) was Édouard Daladier, not Pierre Deladier (271). The General Government, contrary to what Magocsi claims, was never incorporated into the Third Reich (281).

I reserve my major criticisms for distribution of the material, its lack of proportionality, and its presentation. The book claims to cover two millennia of history (xix), but the last one hundred years, post-1914 period, take up roughly 60 percent of the main text (167–412). I understand the need (and temptation) to concentrate on the modern period, but still, a disparity of such magnitude is unjust. The root of this imbalance lies in Magocsi's clear preference for the past that he can identify with the development of the Carpatho-Rusyn nationality. As the result, he dives into national and church affairs to a much greater depth (down to a folklore ensemble) than into social and cultural matters despite promising in the introduction that he made “a concerted effort” to give them all a balanced treatment (xviii). Similarly, other ethnic groups of Carpathian Rus’ receive undeservedly little attention compared to Carpato-Rusyns. This is especially evident in the case of Hungarians, who have been living there for more than a millennium and whose well-documented presence and influence in Transcarpathia/Subcarpathian Rus’ is hard to overestimate. Only their situation during the interwar period of the 1920s–30s is described in somewhat adequate detail. There is no discussion of local Hungarians and Germans after the 1940s though their history had quite important developments, particularly after 1991. Another example is Roma who appear in the book out of nowhere (264) with no explanation when and why they settled in Carpathian Rus rather than in wealthier neighboring lands and are also forgotten after the 1940s. In addition, it is hard to agree with Magocsi's assertion that history of the Ukrainian national orientation amongst Carpatho-Rusyns starts in the 1920s (217) because there is a solid evidence of pro-Ukrainian feelings from the 1890s (Iurii Zhatkovych and Hiiador Strypskyi). It is even harder to accept his other claim on the same page: “[B]y the end of the interwar period [1930s], all three national orientations [Carpatho-Russian, Carpatho-Ukrainian, and Carpatho-Rusyn] were exerting more or less equal political and social influence throughout Subcarpathian Rus’.” This is just plain inaccurate—either of the first two orientations clearly dominated over the third one.

Despite these inaccuracies and criticisms, With Their Backs to the Mountains will certainly prove to be a valuable book for those interested in the Carpatho-Rusyn perspective on the history of these lands by the Carpathians and the question of ethnic/national identity of their indigenous Eastern Slavs.