The position of Subcarpathian Rus’ and Rusyns in 1919 in the assessments of Czech officials (According to the materials of the Prague Archive of the Office of the President of the Republic)

Abstract

The article analyzes the situation in the historical lands of Subcarpathian Rus’ and the problems of the local Eastern Slavic population, which became part of the Czechoslovak state right after the First World War in 1918, in the assessments of Czech officials, who visited Subcarpathian region during 1919. Czech officials paid enormous attention mostly to the internal political situation in this region, the relationship between various cultural and national currents among the local Rusyn population, as well as the attitude of local Rusyns towards the Czechoslovak Republic. Most Czech officials were quite critical of the representatives of the traditional Russophile trend among the Rusyns, who considered the Carpathian Rusyns to be part of a single Russian people and focused on the Russian literary language and Russian culture. According to Czech officials, the Russophile trend was distinguished by obvious pro-Hungarian sympathies and a disloyal attitude towards Czechoslovakia. In their opinion, more acceptable for Prague was the so-called “local”, as well as the Ukrainian direction, which focused on the local language and declared loyalty to the Czechoslovak state. It was this circumstance that predetermined the policy of so-called “soft Ukrainization”, which was carried out by the Czechoslovak administration in Subcarpathian Rus’ in the 1920s and which gradually contributed to the spread of Ukrainian identity among the local Rusyn population.