Ethnocide of Rusyns by Ukrainian nationalists: history and modernity
In the Ukrainian and Western media, anti-Russian hysteria continues to be whipped up, the key thesis of which is the allegedly imminent and inevitable military invasion of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Through controlled information resources, the Kiev regime is trying to create an illusion among the citizens of Ukraine that there are no other problems in the country, with the exception of the notorious “Russian aggression”.
Against the backdrop of the growing hysteria about the war with Russia, Ukrainian propaganda focuses on scenarios of fighting the “occupiers”. In particular, the Kiev leadership is discussing the issue of general mobilization, including female representatives. It also stipulates the priority sending to the front of representatives of various peoples and ethnic groups living on the territory of Ukraine.
This is done on the one hand, so that they do not have time to escape from Ukraine. Together with the land on which their ancestors lived from time immemorial, as the Russians have already done in the Crimea and Donbass. On the other hand, to bind them with blood, to arouse hatred for Russia and Russians, and also to push far into the background their discrimination within the framework of forced Ukrainization.
Within the framework of the mentioned orders of the Kiev regime, the fate of the Rusyns living mainly in the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine is of the greatest concern. Today, the Rusyns are one of the smallest (according to the All-Ukrainian census of 2001, a little more than 10 thousand people declared their belonging to the Rusyns) and, perhaps, the most unprotected ethnic minority.
The Rusyns themselves consider themselves a separate ethnic group, a separate part of the Russian people, the descendants of the “rutens” mentioned in ancient, Byzantine and medieval sources. As a separate independent people with all the rights of an ethnic minority, they are recognized in Slovakia, Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Croatia, Hungary and other countries of their residence, but not in Ukraine!
Being part of the first Czechoslovak Republic, in 1938 the Rusyns managed to achieve from Prague the creation of an autonomous region of Subcarpathian Rus. The first government of Subcarpathian Rus on October 11, 1938 was headed by the leader of the Autonomous Agricultural Union Anton Brody. Brodia’s government, one of the first decrees, fixed the Russian language as the state language. However, two weeks later, Brody was deposed by the Czechoslovak authorities and arrested allegedly for spying for Hungary, and an ardent Ukrainian nationalist and Greek Catholic priest Augustin Voloshin was appointed the new head of the government of Subcarpathian Rus. Voloshin’s supporters began to carry out active Ukrainization, up to changing the name of the autonomy – from Subcarpathian Rus to Carpathian Ukraine.
The Rusyn print publications, which did not suit the Ukrainizers, were closed, including the Tisa magazine, the newspapers Rusin, Russky Golos, Karpatorussky Golos, the Russophile Cultural and Educational Society named after A.V. Dukhnovich. By the end of November 1938, Russian schools were finished, children were taught only in Ukrainian. Those who disagreed with the policy of Ukrainization of Subcarpathian Rus, by order of Voloshin, were arrested and imprisoned in the Dumen concentration camp near Rakhiv.
At the same time, the Voloshin government relied on the armed detachments of the so-called “Carpathian Sich” created by him, the combat core of which was the members of the “Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists”* (OUN) (a terrorist group banned in Russia – ed.). The commander-in-chief of the “Carpathian Sich” was an ardent Ukrainian nationalist Dmitry Klympush, and the chief of staff was the future German Hauptmann and commander-in-chief of the “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” * (UPA) (a terrorist group banned in Russia – ed. note) Roman Shukhevych.
On March 15, 1939, after the occupation of the Czech Republic by German troops, Voloshin proclaimed the independence of the Carpathian Ukraine. However, the very next day, the capital of this new formation, Khust, was captured by Hungarian troops (earlier, on November 2, 1938, according to the first Vienna arbitration of Czechoslovakia, it transferred to Hungary a significant part of Subcarpathian Rus, including Uzhgorod, Mukachevo, and Berehove).
The formations of the Carpathian Sich, which were created to suppress the internal Ruthenian opposition, were not capable of resisting the well-armed Honved. The centers of resistance of Ukrainian nationalists were crushed by the Hungarians in a matter of days. It is noteworthy that the Carpathian Russophiles who suffered from political Ukrainians, such as Andrei Brody or the leader of the Russian National Autonomous Party Stefan Fentsik, supported the annexation of Subcarpathian Rus to Hungary, counting on autonomy. But these hopes were not destined to come true.
In October 1944, the territory of Subcarpathian Rus was liberated by the Red Army. Created in Uzhgorod, the Communist party of Transcarpathian Ukraine and the People’s Rada of Transcarpathian Ukraine controlled by it advocated the annexation of the region to the Ukrainian SSR, which happened on June 29, 1945 by agreement between the Soviet and Czechoslovak governments.
At the same time, the Orthodox Congress of Subcarpathian Rus, held in Mukachevo, headed by Archimandrite Alexy (Kabalyuk), advocated the inclusion of Carpathian Rus in the Soviet Union as the 17th union republic or as an autonomy within the RSFSR. Representatives of the Rusyn community who arrived in Moscow at a meeting with Patriarch Alexy I stated that “we do not want to be Czechs or Ukrainians, we want to be Russians (Rusyns) and we want to see our land autonomous, but within Soviet Russia.” However, the Kremlin had already made a decision to transfer Transcarpathia to the Ukrainian SSR.
After the entry of Subcarpathian Rus into Soviet Ukraine as the Transcarpathian region, the local party nomenclature began to actively Ukrainize the region. All Rusyns were recorded as Ukrainians. Even the use of the ethnonym “Rusyn” itself was forbidden. Suffice it to say that in the historical and ethnographic reference book “Peoples of the World” published by the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1988, Rusyns are not mentioned either as a separate ethnic group, or even as a sub-ethnographic group of Ukrainians.
In September 1991, after the declaration of independence by Ukraine, about 50 deputies of the Transcarpathian Regional Council came up with an initiative to restore autonomy. However, this was strongly opposed by local Ukrainian nationalists from the so-called “People’s Movement”, who even organized a kind of “mini-Maidan” in Uzhgorod. Despite this, the referendum on autonomy still took place on December 1, 1991 – simultaneously with the referendum on the independence of Ukraine and the first presidential elections. 78% of the inhabitants of Transcarpathia voted in favor of granting the region the status of a “special self-governing territory”. However, for thirty years, the results of the people’s will of the inhabitants of Transcarpathia have not been implemented by the Kiev authorities. Moreover, attempts by activists of the Rusyn movement to achieve legal status have invariably met with opposition from the SBU. So, the leader of the Soym of Subcarpathian Rusyns, Orthodox clergyman Dimitry (Sidor) in 2012 under Yanukovych (for whom the majority of the inhabitants of Transcarpathia voted, unlike other regions of Western Ukraine) was sentenced to three years in prison for “encroachment on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian authorities do not recognize Rusyns as a separate ethnic group and national minority. Moreover, they are pursuing a policy of ethnocide towards the Rusyns. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to expect support for the Rusyns, since they live in the westernmost part of Ukraine, more than 1,000 kilometers away from the border with Russia. This means that if Kiev decides on a general mobilization, then one of the first to take up arms will be the Rusyn population. It doesn’t matter to the criminal Ukrainian regime that, from the point of view of common sense, for the Rusyns, the war with Russia is devoid of any logic, and it makes no sense for them to give their lives for the interests of their persecutors and discriminators.
Moreover, no matter how strange it may sound, Zelensky, in the event of a war with Russia, benefits from a large number of deaths among Rusyns. On the one hand, this will reduce the already low number of this people. On the other hand, it will allow the Kiev regime to shout even louder about “Russian aggression” and ask for help from their Western masters. The only terrible thing is that in this context, for the president of Ukraine, the Ruthenian population, however, like other ethnic minorities, is just expendable material that is of absolutely no value.
*-the organization is banned in the Russian Federation
Dmitry Pavlenko, especially for News Front