Soviet annexation of Carpathian Ukraine
The Soviet annexation of the Carpathian Ukraine ( Czech Sovetsky Zabór Podkarpatské Rusi ) was the assignment of the Czechoslovakia belonging Carpathian Ruthenia to the Soviet Union in the period of 1945/1946.
prehistory
Between Czechoslovakia and Hungary
The population of the mountainous, economically underdeveloped region known as "Carpathian Ukraine" consisted mainly of Ruthenians and Hungarians at the beginning of the 20th century . She was one of the countries of the Hungarian crown before after the First World War in the wake of Trianon and Sèvres of Czechoslovakia as a newly formed country of the former Habsburg monarchy was slammed shut. The autonomy of Carpathian Ukraine, which was also formally agreed in the Treaty of Saint-Germain , was not fully recognized by the Czechoslovak government. When Czechoslovakia came under pressure from the German Reich, nationalists from all directions took the opportunity and tried since spring 1938 to enforce full autonomy for Carpathian Ukraine within the Czech Republic. About a month after the Munich Agreement of September 1938, an autonomous government was formed under Avgustyn Voloshyn . On November 2, 1938, the connection to Czechoslovakia was largely withdrawn in the First Vienna Arbitration Award. In the conflict between the various ethnic groups in Carpathian Ukraine, the “Ukrainophiles” prevailed and increasingly supported the option of joining an independent Ukraine. All political parties except the Ukrajinské národní sjednocení were banned. On March 14, 1939, Jozef Tiso proclaimed the independence of Slovakia . Carpathian Ukraine also declared itself independent. The Hungarian Teleki government and Horthy were instructed by Hitler on March 12th that they had 24 hours to resolve the Ruthenian question. Hungary responded immediately with the military occupation of the whole of Carpathian Ukraine. Before that, Hungary had already claimed and received some Hungarian-populated areas in southern Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine. Hungary thus gained an area in the Carpathian Ukraine with 552,000 inhabitants, of which 70.6% declared themselves to be Ukrainian, 12.5% to Magyar and 12% to German nationality . In Slovakia there were 70,000 Ruthenian and Slovak residents.
In the armistice agreement, which was signed in Moscow on January 20, 1945, Hungary had to renounce the areas won in the Vienna arbitration awards. The waiver was confirmed again at the Paris Peace Conference in 1946 and recorded in the 1947 Peace Treaty. The Carpathian Ukraine no longer belonged to Hungary, but also to the Soviet Union under international law.
Road to Ukraine
The London government in exile under Edvard Beneš negotiated in Moscow with the Soviet Union, with which it had been allied since 1943, to restore the state of Czechoslovakia. On May 8, 1944, Beneš and the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin signed an alliance treaty that guaranteed that the territory of Czechoslovakia would be liberated by the Soviet army and placed back under Czechoslovak civil control. Carpathian Ukraine was reintegrated into Czechoslovakia while maintaining this status. In October 1944 the part of the country was liberated by the Red Army and occupied by the Soviet Union. A Czechoslovak delegation led by František Němec was sent to the area. Their task was to mobilize the population in order to form a new Czechoslovak army . Furthermore, the delegation had to win the support of the population to stay with Czechoslovakia, because the loyalty of Carpathian Ukraine to a new Czechoslovak state was weak as a result of the Second World War. In April 1944 all former collaborators were expelled from the political level. The collaborators included Magyars , Germans and those Ruthenians who were supporters of István Fencik's party (which had worked with the Magyars). This affected about a third of the population. Another third were communists, so that only a third of the Ukrainian population probably sympathized with the Czechoslovak Republic.
After arriving in Carpathian Ukraine, the Czechoslovak delegation announced the planned mobilization at its headquarters in Khust on October 30th. The Red Army stopped the news from spreading and instead began rallying popular support. Protests from Beneš's government were ignored. Soviet activities resulted in 73% of the population in favor of annexation.
The Czechoslovak delegation was also allegedly prevented from establishing relations with the Ukrainian minority, which caused disappointment among the population.
The assignment
On November 26, 1944, the first meeting of the newly elected People's Committee, organized by representatives of the Communist Party of Carpathian Ukraine, took place in Mukachevo . It proclaimed the exit from Czechoslovakia and the "union with her great mother, Soviet Ukraine ." The Czechoslovak delegation was asked to leave the area.
The negotiations between the Czechoslovak government and the Soviet government were not yet completed. While the right-wing conservative Czechoslovak parties voted against an assignment , the KSČ promoted an assignment of the Carpathian Ukraine. At the end of 1945, Beneš also confirmed the assignment. It was agreed with the Soviet Union to postpone the annexation to 1946; the assignment to the Soviet Union was contractually regulated in Moscow on June 29, 1945 , and the agreement came into force on January 30, 1946 . Czechoslovaks and Ukrainians living in Carpathian Ukraine were given the choice between Czechoslovak and Soviet citizenship.
consequences
A large part of the Czechoslovak population did not notice the annexation. Over 120,000 people emigrated from the former part of the country. Of the 15,800 Ruthenian Jews , 8,000 emigrated. As a result of the assignment, Czechoslovakia lost 12,777 km 2 of its national territory and around 450,000 inhabitants.
literature
- Paul Robert Magocsi: The Shaping of a National Identity. Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948. Cambridge, Massachusetts / London, England 1978.
- Vincent Shandor: Carpatho-Ukraine in the Twientieth Century. A Political and Legal History. Cambridge, Mass .: Harvard UP for the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, 1997.
- Albert S. Kotowski: “Ukrainian Piedmont”? Carpathian Ukraine on the eve of the Second World War. In: Yearbooks for the History of Eastern Europe. 49. 2001, No. 1, pp. 67-95.
- Ivan Pop: Enzyklopedija Podkarpatskoj Rusi , Uschhorod 2001 (Ukrainian); Encyclopedia of Rusyn history and culture , ed. by Paul R. Magocsi and Ivan Pop, University of Toronto Press, 2002/05, ISBN 0-8020-3566-3 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Book 6 Československá vlastiveda , p. 210.
- ↑ Frank Grelka: The Ukrainian national movement under German occupation 1918 and 1941/42 , Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 9783447052597 , p. 174.
- ↑ Sherrill Stroschein: Ethnic Struggle, Coexistence, and Democratization in Eastern Europe , New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-107-00524-2 , p. 81.
- ^ Jörg K. Hoensch: History of Hungary 1867-1983, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-17-008578-6 , p. 140.
- ↑ Jörg K. Hoensch: History of Hungary 1867-1983, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-17-008578-6 , p. 155.
- ^ Constitutional texts Hungary. Peace treaty with Hungary, signed in Paris on February 10, 1947
- ↑ Katrin Boeckh: Stalinism in the Ukraine: The Reconstruction of the Soviet System after the Second World War , Wiesbaden 2007, p. 122.
- ↑ Book 6 Československá vlastiveda , p. 138.
- ^ Katrin Boeckh: Stalinism in the Ukraine. The reconstruction of the Soviet system after the Second World War, Wiesbaden 2007, p. 125.