Transcarpathia
Transcarpathia is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast.
From the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin to the end of World War I, most of this region was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. In the interwar period, it was part of the First and Second Czechoslovak Republics. Before World War II, the region was annexed by the Kingdom of Hungary once again when Germany dismembered the Second Czechoslovak Republic.
After the war, it was annexed by the Soviet Union and became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1991, Transcarpathia became part of Ukraine as the Soviet Union dissolved.
It is an ethnically diverse region, inhabited mostly by people who regard themselves as ethnic Ukrainians, Rusyns, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, and Poles. It also has small communities of Jewish and Romani minorities. Prior to World War II, many more Jews lived in the region, constituting over 13% of its total population in 1930. The most commonly spoken languages are Rusyn, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak, and Polish.
Toponymy
The name Carpathian Ruthenia is sometimes used for the contiguous cross-border area of Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland inhabited by Ruthenians. The local Ruthenian population self-identifies in different ways: some consider themselves to be a separate and unique Slavic group of Rusyns and some consider themselves to be both Rusyns and Ukrainians. To describe their home region, most of them use the term Zakarpattia. This is contrasted implicitly with Prykarpattia, an unofficial geographical region in Ukraine, to the immediate north-east of the central area of the Carpathian Range, and potentially including its foothills, the Subcarpathian basin and part of the surrounding plains.From a Hungarian perspective, the region is usually described as Subcarpathia, although technically this name refers only to a long, narrow basin that flanks the northern side of the mountains.
During the period in which the region was administered by the Hungarian states, it was officially referred to in Hungarian as Kárpátalja or the north-eastern regions of medieval Upper Hungary, which in the 16th century was contested between the Habsburg monarchy and the Ottoman Empire.
The Romanian name of the region is Maramureș, which is geographically located in the eastern and south-eastern portions of the region.
During the period of Czechoslovak administration in the first half of the 20th century, the region was referred to for a while as Rusinsko or Karpatske Rusinsko, and later as Subcarpathian Rus or Subcarpathian Ukraine, and from 1928 as Subcarpathian Ruthenian Land..
Alternative, unofficial names used in Czechoslovakia before World War II included Subcarpathia, Transcarpathia, Transcarpathian Ukraine, Carpathian Rus/Ruthenia and, occasionally, Hungarian Rus/Ruthenia.
The region declared its independence as Carpatho-Ukraine on March 15, 1939, but was occupied and annexed by Hungary on the same day, and remained under Hungarian control until the end of World War II. During this period the region continued to possess a special administration and the term Kárpátalja was locally used.
In 1944–1946, the region was occupied by the Soviet Army and was a separate political formation known as Transcarpathian Ukraine or Subcarpathian Ruthenia. During this period the region possessed some form of quasi-autonomy with its own legislature, while remaining under the governance of the Communist Party of Transcarpathian Ukraine. After the signing of a treaty between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union as well as the decision of the regional council, Transcarpathia joined the Ukrainian SSR as the Zakarpattia Oblast.
The region has subsequently been referred to as Zakarpattia or Transcarpathia, and on occasions as Carpathian Rus’, Transcarpathian Rus’, or Subcarpathian Rus’.
Geography
Carpathian Ruthenia rests on the southern slopes of the eastern Carpathian Mountains, bordered to the east and south by the Tisza River, and to the west by the Hornád and Poprad Rivers. The region borders Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, and makes up part of the Pannonian Plain.The region is predominantly rural and infrastructurally underdeveloped. The landscape is mostly mountainous; it is geographically separated from Ukraine, Slovakia, and Romania by mountains, and from Hungary by the Tisza river. The two major cities are Uzhhorod and Mukachevo, both with populations around 100,000. The population of the other five cities varies between 10,000 and 30,000. Other urban and rural populated places have a population of less than 10,000.
History
Prehistoric cultures
During the Late Bronze Age in the 2nd millennium BC, the region was characterized by Stanove culture; however, it only gained more advanced metalworking skills with the arrival of Thracians from the South with Kushtanovytsia culture in the 6th-3rd century BC. In the 5th-3rd century BC, Celts arrived from the West, bringing iron-melting skills and La Tène culture. A Thracian-Celtic symbiosis existed for a time in the region, after which appeared the Bastarnae. At that time, the Iranian-speaking Scythians and later a Sarmatian tribe called the Iazyges were present in the region. Proto-Slavic settlement began between the 2nd-century BCE and 2nd century CE, and during the Migration Period, the region was traversed by Huns and Gepids and Pannonian Avars.Slavic settlement
By the 8th and 9th century, the valleys of the Northern and Southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains were "densely" settled by Slavic tribe of White Croats, who were closely related to East Slavic tribes who inhabited Prykarpattia, Volhynia, Transnistria and Dnieper Ukraine. Whereas some White Croats remained behind in Carpathian Ruthenia, others moved southward into the Balkans in the 7th century. Those who remained were conquered by Kievan Rus' in the late 10th century.Hungarian arrival
In 896 the Hungarians crossed the Carpathian Range and migrated into the Pannonian Basin. Nestor's Chronicle wrote that Hungarian tribes had to fight against the Volochi and settled among Slavs when on their way to Pannonia. Prince Laborec fell from power under the efforts of the Hungarians and the Kievan forces. According to Gesta Hungarorum, the Hungarians defeated a united Bulgarian and Byzantine army led by Salan in the early 10th century on the plains of Alpár, who ruled over territory that was finally conquered by Hungarians. During the tenth and for most of the eleventh century the territory remained a borderland between the Kingdom of Hungary to the south and the Kievan Rus' Principality of Halych to the north.Slavs from the north and east—who actually arrived from Podolia via the mountain passes of Transylvania—continued to settle in small numbers in various parts of the Carpathian borderland, which the Hungarians and other medieval writers referred to as the Marchia Ruthenorum—the Rus' March. These new immigrants, from the north and east, like the Slavs already living in Carpathian Ruthenia, had by the eleventh century come to be known as the people of Rus', or Rusyns. Local Slavic nobility often intermarried with the Hungarian nobles to the south. Prince Rostislav, a Ruthenian noble unable to continue his family's rule of Kiev, governed a great deal of Transcarpathia from 1243 to 1261 for his father-in-law, Béla IV of Hungary. The territory's ethnic diversity increased with the influx of some 40,000 Cuman settlers, who came to the Pannonian Basin after their defeat by Vladimir II in the 12th century and their ultimate defeat at the hands of the Mongols in 1238.
During the early period of Hungarian administration, part of the area was included into the Gyepű border region, while the other part was under county authority and was included into the counties of Ung, Borsova and Szatmár. Later, the county administrative system was expanded to the whole of Transcarpathia, and the area was divided between the counties of Ung, Bereg, Ugocsa, and Máramaros. At the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, during the collapse of the central power in the Kingdom of Hungary, the region was part of the domains of semi-independent oligarchs Amadeus Aba and Nicholas Pok. Although King Leo I of Galicia–Volhynia attempted to extend his influence over parts of the Carpathian region during the late 13th century, there is no reliable historical evidence that north-western Carpathian Ruthenia was permanently annexed to his kingdom. A document from 1299 proves vassal relations of the Count of Bereg with "Leo, Prince of Ruthenians", but Galician rulers are not mentioned in latter documents from the area. Contemporary Hungarian royal charters from the period confirm that the region — including key fortresses like Huszt and Munkács — remained under the control of the Kingdom of Hungary.
Historians such as Gyula Kristó and Pál Engel agree that Leo's interventions were temporary and opportunistic, taking advantage of internal conflicts within Hungary, but they did not lead to lasting occupation.
Thus, the claim that north-western Carpathian Ruthenia belonged to the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia between 1280 and 1320 is not supported by primary sources or mainstream historical scholarship.
The assumption that Transcarpathia briefly came under the rule of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia is, in this context, primarily the result of Ukrainian historiography’s attempt to establish historical rights and continuity over the region — suggesting that "medieval Ukraine" had annexed it even before 1946.
This narrative is further reinforced by the frequent appearance of Transcarpathia on maps of Kievan Rus' as if it had been part of, or directly linked to, Kievan Rus'. However, this claim is not supported by either archaeological or historical evidence. On the contrary, both the historical sources — which indicate the settlement of Ruthenians in the region during the 13th and 14th centuries — and the archaeological record — which shows a lack of Orthodox church remains from that period — argue against such interpretations.
Between the 12th and 15th centuries, the area was probably colonized by Eastern Orthodox groups of Vlach highlanders with accompanying Ruthenian populations. Initially, the Romanians were organized into the Voivodeship of Maramureș, formally integrated into Hungary in 1402. All the groups, including local Slavic population, blended together, creating a distinctive culture from the main Ruthenian-speaking areas. Over time, because of geographical and political isolation from the main Ruthenian-speaking territory, the inhabitants developed distinctive features.