the fall of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires in 1917 and 1918 to set up a government of their own according to the Wilsonian principle of self-determination, and by the formation of the Ukrainian National Republic, 1917-1919, consisting of all those sections and their population as mentioned above (with the exception of Podkarpatska Rus).
In July 1919, pressed from the west by the Polish army, attacked simultaneously on one side by the Russian Bolsheviki and by Denikin’s army on the other and from the southwest by the Rumanian armies, the Ukrainian forces were cornered in a “Quadrangle of Death”. The Ukrainians fought heroically for several months before their defense collapsed. An epidemic of typhus, lack of food and medical supplies finally wiped out the Ukrainian armies who suffered under the most horrible conditions of famine and disease. (Reports of this were vividly described by Col. Davison of the American Red Cross).
Once more Ukrainian lands became divided among foreign rulers, Russia, Poland, Rumania and Czechoslovakia, which governments continued to deny the existence of such a nationality as the Ukrainians and the recognition of their desires for self-rule.
For a while, in the recent division of Czechoslovakia, it seemed as though Carpathian-Ukraine might have a chance at last for self-rule. During the time of the formation of the Ukrainian National Republic, this section had from its beginning preferred to become an autonomous state under Czechoslovakia rather than join in with the new Republic and risk the danger of annexation by Poland or Russia. Czechoslovakia had promised Carpathian Ukraine (or Podkarpatska-Rus) self-rule which promise was never carried out. After a wait of 19 years, she was about to get complete autonomy, when Poland interfered by demanding that Ruthenia be divided between herself and Hungary. Since division of Czechoslovakia
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