New state borders and (dis)loyalties to Czechoslovakia in Subcarpathian Rus, 1919–25

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article aims to discuss how useful the data from the censuses and election results of the early 1920s are in reconstructing the loyalties and disloyalties of the Subcarpathian population towards the Czechoslovak state. It argues that the priority for the new state was territorial expansion, which would allow it to function in economic and military terms, even though it was clear that such a course of action would mean the inclusion of a disloyal Hungarian minority within the new state. Although the Jewish minority was also viewed with suspicion by the largely Czech administrators, it was soon realized that its recognition in a census would diminish the strength of the Hungarian minority. Even though the Hungarian rural population voted in large numbers for pro-government parties in the elections of 1924 and 1925, despite the lack of Hungarian candidates on the ballots, there was no serious effort on the part of the Czechoslovak state to turn them into loyal citizens. In the case of the Rusyn population, the Czech authorities expected their loyalty almost automatically in gratitude for their liberation from ‘the Hungarian yoke’. However, it soon became clear that the political ambitions of the Rusyn elite were not a priority for the Czechoslovak state, and most of the Rusyn population also started to adopt disloyal attitudes, either in the form of communism or nationalism. The results of the 1921 census served the government as justification for its decision to grant the Rusyn political elites less territory than they demanded and to weaken the Ukrainian movement within the Rusyn public. The reason for the spectacular communist victory among Rusyns in the 1924 and 1925 elections was a combination of the generally precarious social situation and some Rusyns’ refusal to endorse the existing form of the Czechoslovak state. Although almost a similar number of Rusyns were loyal to the Czechoslovak state, this was not enough for the Czech administrators to grant autonomy to Subcarpathia or to include within it the eastern strip of Slovakia, which the Rusyn leaders had demanded.