Place:Zakarpattia, Ukraine

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The Zakarpatska Oblast is an administrative oblast located in western Ukraine, coterminous with the historical region of Carpathian Ruthenia. Its administrative centre is the city of Uzhhorod (Ungvár), Other major cities within the oblast include Mukachevo (Munkács), Khust (Kuszt), Berehove (Beregszász) and Chop (Csep) which is home to railroad transport infrastructure.

Zakarpatska Oblast was established on 22 January 1946, after the resignation of Czechoslovakia on the territory of Subcarpathian Ruthenia, incorporated into the Soviet Union and attached to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, under a treaty between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. Some scholars say that during the Ukrainian independence referendum held in 1991, Zakarpatska Oblast voters were given a separate option on whether or not they favoured autonomy for the region.^[1] Although a large majority favoured autonomy, it was not granted.^[1] However, this referendum was about self-government status, not about autonomy (like in Crimea).

Situated in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine, except the Southwestern Hungarian populated region that belongs to the Hungarian plain, Zakarpattia Oblast is the only Ukrainian administrative division which borders upon four countries: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. The Carpathians are an important tourist and travel destination housing many ski and spa resorts, meaning that they play a major part in the oblast's economy.

With its almost , the oblast is ranked 23rd by area and 15th by population as according to the 2001 Ukrainian Census, the population of Zakarpatska Oblast was 1,254,614. Current population is This total includes people of many different nationalities of which Hungarians, Romanians and Rusyns constitute significant minorities in some of the province's cities, while in others, they form the majority of the population (as in the case of Berehove).

History

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According to the Chronicon Pictum, the earliest state established in Zakarpattia was Ungvari in 677 AD. The name Ungvar derives from a migration of the Onogurs of Poltava who were ruled by the northern Kubiar sons of Kubrat. The Onogur tribes entered Etelköz through the Verecke Pass. Some of Ungvari's Kubiars under Khan-Tuvan eventually joined the Rus' to form Rus' Khaganate. In the late 9th century Ungvari's ruling Árpád dynasty began to fulfil their ambitions for the Carpathian basin where by 895 they had relocated to rule over the Magyars.

According to the Gesta Hungarorum, as Prince Álmos entered on the castle of Hung and there he appointed his son Árpád as the primary ruler, hence he was called of the leader of Hungvária, while all of his valiant soldiers as Hungvárus, so since then all the Magyars have been known by this name internationally.

In 895 the Hungarian tribes entered the Carpathian Basin from here through the Verecke pass, and the lands of Transcarpathia were part of the Principality of Hungary since 895, which transformed the Kingdom of Hungary in 1000.

Since 1867, it was part of Hungarian side of Austria-Hungary until the latter's demise at the end of World War I. It approximately consisted of four Hungarian counties (comitatus): Bereg, Ung, Ugocsa and Maramaros. This region was briefly part of the short-lived West Ukrainian National Republic in 1918. The region was occupied by Romania by the end of that year, mostly the eastern portion such as Rakhiv and Khust. It was later recaptured by Hungarian Soviet Republic in the summer of 1919. Finally, after the Treaty of Trianon of 1920 it became part of Czechoslovakia with a supposedly equal level of autonomy as the Slovak lands and Bohemia-Moravia-Czech Silesia (Czech lands). The province has a unique footnote in history as the only region in the former Czechoslovakia to have had an American governor: its first governor was Gregory Zhatkovich, an American citizen who had earlier emigrated from the region and represented the Rusyn community in the U.S. Zhatkovich was appointed governor by Czechoslovakia's first president, T. G. Masaryk in 1920, and served for about one year until he resigned over differences regarding the region's autonomy. In 1928, it adopted the name of Subcarpathian Rus'. Nevertheless, such autonomy was granted as late as in 1938, after detrimental events of the Munich Conference; until then this land was administered directly from Prague by the government-appointed provincial presidents and/or elected governors.

Following the Munich Agreement, the southern part of the region was awarded to Hungary under the First Vienna Award in 1938. The remaining portion was constituted as an autonomous region of the short-lived Second Czechoslovak Republic. After the Slovak declaration of an independent state on 14 March, the next day Carpatho-Ukraine was proclaimed as an independent Republic but was immediately occupied and annexed by Hungary., while the next day the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed. Voloshyn asked support for recognition in advance from Hitler, but received no answer. The state is known as 'the one-day republic' because it did not exist more than one day. The military operations and the occupation of Carpatho-Ukraine was finished by the Hungarian troops on March 18.^[2]

The Hungarian invasion was followed by a few weeks of terror in which more than 27,000 people were shot dead without trial and investigation.^[2] Over 75,000 Ukrainians decided to seek asylum in the Soviet Union; of those almost 60,000 died in Gulag prison-camps.^[2] Others joined the Czechoslovak Army.

The major Jewish communities of the region had existed in Mukachevo, Ungvar, and Khust. During the German occupation of Hungary (March–December 1944) almost the entire Jewish population was deported; few survived the Holocaust.

In October 1944 the region was occupied by the Red Army. On 26 November 1944 in Mukachevo took place the First Congress of People's Committees of Zakarpattia Ukraine,^[3] elections to which took place on November 10–25, 1944. On June 29, 1945, Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš signed a treaty formally ceding the area and the next month it was united with the Ukrainian SSR through the "Manifest for unification with Soviet Ukraine" that was accepted by the 1st Congress of People's Committees of Sub-Carpathian Ukraine without any knowledge of common people. It was then annexed into the Ukrainian SSR as Zakarpattia Oblast.^[4]

Zakarpattia in Soviet Ukraine

Between 1945 and 1947, the new Soviet authorities fortified the new borders, and in July 1947 declared Transcarpathia as "restricted zone of the highest level", with checkpoints on the mountain passes connecting the region to mainland Ukraine.

In December 1944 the National Council of Transcarpatho-Ukraine set up a special people's tribunal in Uzhgorod to try and condemn all collaborationists with the previous regimes – both Hungary and Carpatho-Ukraine. The court was allowed to hand down either 10 years of forced labour, or death penalty. Several Ruthenian leaders, including Andrej Bródy and Shtefan Fentsyk, were condemned and executed in May 1946. Avgustyn Voloshyn also died in prison. The extent of the repression showed to many Carpatho-Ruthenian activists that it was not possible to find an accommodation with the coming Soviet regime as it had been with all previous ones.^[1]

After breaking the Greek Catholic Church in Eastern Galicia in 1946, Soviet authorities pushed for the return to Orthodoxy of Greek-Catholic parishes in Transcarpathia too, including by engineering the accident and death of recalcitrant bishop Theodore Romzha on 1 November 1947. In January 1949 the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo was declared illegal; remaining priests and nuns were arrested, and church properties were nationalised and parcelled for public use or lent to the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) as only accepted religious authority in the region.^[1]

Cultural institutions were also forbidden, including the russophile Dukhnovych Society, the ukrainophile Prosvita, and the Subcarpathian Scholarly Society. New books and publications were circulated, including the Zakarpatska Pravda (130,000 copies). The Uzhhorod National University was opened in 1945. Over 816 cinemas were open by 1967 to insure the indoctrination of the population to Marxism–Leninism. The Ukrainian language was the first language of instruction in schools throughout the region, followed by Russian, which was used at the university. Most new generations had a passive knowledge of Rusyn language, but no knowledge about local culture. XIX-century Rusyn intellectuals were labelled as "members of the reactionary class and instruments of Vatican obscurantism". The Rusyn anthem and hymn were banned from public performance. Carpatho-Rusyn folk culture and songs, which were promoted, were presented as part of Transcarpathian regional culture as a local variant of Ukrainian culture.^[1]

As early as 1924, the Comintern had declared all East Slavic inhabitants of Czechoslovakia (Rusyns, Carpatho-Russians, Rusnaks) to be Ukrainians. As the 1946 census, all Rusyns were recorded as Ukrainians; anyone clinging to the old label was considered a separatist and a potential counter-revolutionary.

Already in February 1945, the National Council proceeded to confiscate 53,000 hectares of land from big landowners and redistribute it to 54,000 peasant households (37% of the population). Forced collectivisation of land started in 1946; around 2,000 peasants were arrested during protests in 1948–49 and sent for forced labour in the gulags. Collectivisation, including of mountain shepherds, was completed by May 1950. Central planning decisions set Transcarpathia to become a "land of orchards and vineyards" between 1955 and 1965, planting 98,000 hectares with little results. Attempt to cultivate tea and citrus also failed due to climate. Most vineyards were uprooted twenty years later, during Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign in 1985–87.^[1]

The Soviet period also meant the upscaling of industrialisation in Transcarpathia. State-owned lumber mills, chemical and food-processing plants widened, with Mukachevo's tobacco factory and Solotvyno's salt works as the biggest ones, providing steady employment to the residents of the region, beyond the traditional subsistence agriculture. And while traditional labour migration routes to the fields of Hungary or the factories of the Nort-West United States were now closed, Carpathian Ruthens and Romanians could now move for seasonal work in Russia's North and East.^[1]

The inhabitants of the oblast grew steadily in the Soviet period, from 776,000 in 1946 to over 1,2 million in 1989. Uzhgorod increased its residents five-fold, from 26,000 to 117,000, and Mukachevo likewise from 26,600 to 84,000. This population increase also reflected demographic changes. The arrival of the Red Army meant the departure of 5,100 Magyars and 2,500 Germans, while the 15–20,000 Jews survivors of the Holocaust also decided to move out before the borders were sealed. By 1945, around 30,000 Hungarians and Germans had been interned and sent for labour camps in Eastern Ukraine and Siberia; while amnestied in 1955, around 5,000 did not come back. In January 1946, 2,000 more Germans were deported. In return, a large number of Ukrainians and Russians moved to Transcarpathia, where they found jobs in the industry, the military, or the civilian administration. By 1989, around 170,000 Ukrainians (mainly from nearby Galizia) and 49,000 Russians were living in Transcarpathia, mainly in new residential blocks in the main towns of Uzhgorod and Mukachevo, where the dominant language had soon turned from Hungarian and Yiddish to Russian. They kept being considered newcomers (novoprybuli) due to their disconnect from the Rusyn- and Hungarian-speaking countryside.^[1]

Zakarpattia in independent Ukraine

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine held an independence referendum in which the residents of Zakarpattia were asked about the Zakarpattia Oblast Council's proposal for self-rule. About 78% of the oblast's population voted in favour of autonomy; however, it was not granted.^[1]

At the first Presidential elections in Ukraine in 1991, voters from Transcarpathia supported Leonid Kravchuk by 58%. At the 1994 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Transcarpathia elected 9 independent MPs over 11 to the Rada. The same year, voters in the region supported the incumbent Leonid Kravchuk over Leonid Kuchma by 70.5% At the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Transcarpathia turned out to be one of the strongholds (together with Kyiv and L'viv) of Viktor Medvedchuk's Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united), which back then ran on a moderate Ukrainian nationalist ideology. One year later, at the Presidential elections, Transcarpathian voters supported the re-election of Leonid Kuchma by 85%.

At the 2002 Ukrainian parliamentary election, voters from Transcapathia supported the Our Ukraine Bloc, in line with voters from all Western Ukraine. At the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Transcarpathians voted in majority for Viktor Yushchenko. At the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election, voters from Transcapathia supported the Our Ukraine Bloc and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, in line with voters in Ciscarpatian East Galizia. At the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election, the Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc linked with former President Viktor Yushchenko won in most of the region, while the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc came out first in Uzhgorod and its raion.

On 7 March 2007, the Zakarpattia Oblast Council recognized the Rusyn ethnicity.

On October 25, 2008, 100 delegates to the Congress of Carpathian Ruthenians declared the formation of the "Republic of Carpathian Ruthenia". The prosecutor's office of Zakarpattia region has filed a case against priest Dymytrii Sydor and Yevhen Zhupan (members of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine and in close relations with the Russkiy Mir Foundation), an Our Ukraine deputy of the Zakarpattia regional council and chairman of the People's Council of Ruthenians, on charges of encroaching on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine. On May 1, 2009, National Union Svoboda blocked the holding of the third European congress of the Carpathian Ruthenians (a pro-Russian entity).

At the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election, Yulia Tymoshenko won in most raion of Transcarpathia save for Mukachevo, Berehove and Vynohradiv, where Viktor Yanukovych gained a majority.

In the 2010 and 2015 local elections, the United Centre won majorities in Transcarpathia. The 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election saw both the United Centre and the Party of Regions win districts in Transcarpathia.

In the 2014 presidential election, Transparthia helped elect Petro Poroshenko as president of Ukraine. Turnout in the east of the region was among the lowest in Ukraine, below 40%, while it reached 65% in its west. At the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election, electoral results in Transcarpathia saw districts being won by Arseniy Yatsenyuk's People's Front and by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.

Ukraine's 2017 education law makes Ukrainian the required language of study in state schools. Since 2017, the Hungary–Ukraine relations rapidly deteriorated over the issue of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.

Transcaparthian voters supported Volodymyr Zelensky as new President of Ukraine at the 2019 elections. At the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People won a plurality in Transcarpathia too. Electoral turnout in the region was the lowest in the country (<42.5%)

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