The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/Uhro-Rusins Join Czechoslovaks

Uhro-Rusins Join Czechoslovaks.

At the time of this writing the Austrian half of the former Dual Monarchy has been all broken up into a number of national states; but Hungary outside of Croatia, was still holding together. People in America know something of the problem of Slovakia or Upper Hungary, which will form an important part of the new Czechoslovak Republic; and they are aware of the fact that four million Roumanians in Transylvania and the Banat must be joined to independent Roumania. But only a few men in this country realize that between the Slovaks in the north and the Roumanians in the West of Hungary there lie eight counties which are inhabited by a distinctive Slav race. It is the people known as Uhro-Rusins.

If we take language as the special mark of nationality, then the Uhro-Rusins are most closely related to the Ukrainians, who number about four million in Galicia and Bukovina, across the Carpathania Mountains from the Uhro-Rusins, and upward of thirty million in what was the Russian Empire before the war. However, the Ukrainians speak a large number of dialects which on one side blend gradually with the Great Russian language, and on the other side, in the west, pass over into the Slovak tongue; even scholars are in doubt, as to whether dialects spoken in certain Carpathian villages in Hungary should be classed with the Slovak or the Uhro-Rusinian groups. At any rate, the people on the southern slope of the Carpathian Mountains have been separated from their kinsmen on the other side of the great range for more than a thousand years, and they feel that they are a distinct people with their own individuality, their own history and even their own special name. The name by which they distinguish themselves from other Slavs, especially from the Ukrainians or Ruthenians, is Uhro-Rusins.

Of all the races settled in Hungary for ages the Uhro-Rusins are the smallest and most completely cut off from contact with their kinsmen. As a result they have been more exploited than the other nationalities of Hungary and exposed to artificial Magyarization. The official Hungarian census of 1910 gives their number as 472,587. There is no doubt that their real number is considerably larger; how large, will only be shown by the next census which will presumably be carried out in 1920 under far different conditions than the former censuses.

One reason why the number of Uhro-Rusins in Hungary is so small may be found in the fact that the national and economic oppresion has driven hundreds of thou sands of them to the United States. It is no exaggeration to say that fully one half of this small people is to be found in America. The United States census of 1910 unforunately offers no reliable guide, because it knows no such mother tongue as the Uhro-Rusinian. But the real number of this interesting nationality in the United States may be estimated on the basis of figures which show membership in their principal fraternal societies. They are extremely well organized in this country. Most of their men are either coal miners or steel workers; being exposed to the many hazards of their calling they have established two fraternal organizations which pay death and sick benefits. Their principal organization is known as the “Greek Catholic Union of Rusin Brotherhoods of the United States of America;” it numbers over 90,000 paying members. In addition to that they have a smaller society called “The United Societies of the Greek Catholic Religion of the United States of America” with some 9,000 members. It is note worthy that these Rusin immigrants from Hungary never mix with the Ruthenians or Ukrainians of Galicia in this country, a fact which confirms the claim of Uhro-Rusins to be a separate nationality.

The nationalist movement which played such a great part in the life of other oppressed races of Austria-Hungary was not felt to any great extent among the Uhro-Rusins. Their small number and the utter hopelessness of their position under the heel of ten million Magyars made the work of Magyar chauvinists easy. But their im migrants in America, under the influencee of the spirit of freedom prevailing here, have long desired to do something to make their brothers across the sea free, and many years ago a fund of some thousands of dollars was collected which was to be used in case of an opportunity presented itself to do something for the liberations of the Uhro-Rusins.

The great war furnished the opportunity. The two fraternal organizations together with the representatives of the Greek Catholic clergy combined to form the American National Council of Uhro-Rusins. A memorandum was prepared by this body and submitted to President Wilson on October 17th, 1918. It recites the grievous wrongs suffered by their people from the barbarous rule of the Magyars and asks the President to help this small nation to be allowed to determine its own future. It is said that President Wilson was pleasantly surprised by the sound political judgment displayed by the representatives of the Uhro-Rusins. They naturally said that their ideal would be, like that of any other nation, to have their own independent state, but that since they were so small they feared that this ideal would be hard to realize and that therefore they were willing to accept the alternative of constituting an autonomous state attached to one of the larger neighboring nations. In the reconstruction of the old Hapsburg empire into free national states the territory of the Uhro-Rusins will have four neighbors; the Czechoslovaks on the west, the Ukrainians across the Carpathian Mountains on the east and the northeast, the Roumanians to the southeast and the Magyars to the Southwest. None of the Uhro-Rusins would think of joining their fate with that of the Magyars, for they have suffered too much from them, even if nothing be said of the Asiatic language of the Magyars, so different from the Slav tongue.

There is no quarrel between the Uhro-Rusins and their Roumanian neighbors, but the difference of language is so fundamental that annexation of the Uhro-Rusin counties to Transylvania and with it to Roumania would not work well. Thus the only alternative for this little people is choice between union with the Ukrainians or the Czechoslovaks.

In language the Uhro-Rusins are nearer to their kinsmen in Galicia and the Ukraine, but the Czechoslovak language, especially its Slovak branch, is so closely related that the Uhro-Rusins have no difficulty in understanding it. And so the American National Council of Uhro-Rusins considered and balanced economic and other advantages which their people at home would derive from the eastern and the western neighbors. A meeting was held by the directors of the Council at Scranton, Pa., on November 12th. It is not known what motives influenced this body of representative men to vote for union with the Czechoslovak Republic. No doubt the strongest motive in their minds was the fear that their small people would be swallowed up and its individuality lost in a Ukrainian state which would number of 30 million people at the very least, and which may quite likely be a part of the great federated Russian state. The motion carried in the meeting of the Uhro-Rusin Council provided that the Uhro-Rusins, after receiving guarantees that they would have full powers of local self-government, should join the Czechoslovak Democratic Republic. And in order that this decision might carry more weight, it was also decided that a plebiscite be carried out among the Uhro-Rusin immigrants in America in the local lodges of the two principal organizations and in the parishes of the Greek Catholic church. It was provided that voting should be completed within three weeks and no doubt was felt by the leaders that their decision unanimously arrived at would receive unanimous approval by their people.

At the same time the National Council felt that the Uhro-Rusin immigrants in America could not bind their brothers in the old country, even though the American Uhro-Rusins were almost as numerous as those remaining in Hungary. It was there fore decided that a delegation composed of three persons should proceed at once to northern Hungary, advise the leaders of the people there of the decision arrived at in America and explain to the people at home the reasons, why union with the Czechoslovaks should be adopted by them as the most advantageous course open to the Uhro-Rusins. The delegation is composed of Gregory I. Zsatkovich, Chairman, Julius G. Gardos, and the Rt. Rev. Valentine Gorzo. As soon as the result of the plebiscite is obtained, there delegates will proceed to Hungary to perform its mission.

The Uhro-Rusins of America are very fortunate in that they have found an unusually able spokesman in Gregory I. Zsatkovich, a young lawyer of Pittsburgh. He interpreted their desires before President Wilson, he represented them before the Mid-European Union and secured their admission to this body on the same terms as other far more numerous people. In fact, it might be said of him that he put Uhro-Rusinia on the map.

As far as the Czechoslovaks are concerned, they are naturally pleased that this mark of confidence was reposed in them by the Uhro-Rusins of America. If the people at home approve the decision taken here, the Czechoslovak Republic will welcome their Uhro-Rusin kinsmen as a distinctive and self-governing part of the newly estab lished country. One advantage which this arrangement would have for both the Czechoslovaks and for the entire new structure of Central Europe consists in this that the Czechoslovak Republic would then have a common frontier with Roumania. Poland, Bohemia and Roumania would thus constitute a barrier from the Baltic to the Black Sea, separating the Germans from the Russians and the East.

St. Vaclav Square of Prague, scene of wild rejoicing on Oct. 28, 1918. (Pages 194–197)