by Paul Robert Magocsi
Paul Robert Magocsi's study, first published in Nationalities Papers
in 1993, examines the Lemko Rusyn Republic (Ruska Lemkivska
Respublyka) -- an independent government proclaimed in the Lemko
Region of what had been Austrian Galicia and became Polish territory
after the First World War. Though based on a Carpatho-Rusyn population
often assumed to be a straightforward part of the "Ukrainian question"
of the interwar period, the republic's own debates over whether to
align with Russia, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, or a separate Carpatho-Rusyn
identity reveal a far more contested and locally specific political
landscape. The essay closes with the author's full scholarly apparatus:
fifteen endnotes citing period sources, memoirs, and secondary
literature.
The Ukrainian Question Between Poland and
Czechoslovakia:
Volume XXI, No. 2, Fall 1993*
During the closing months of World War I in late 1918 and the break-up of
the historic multinational empires that for centuries had ruled most of East
Central Europe, it became common practice for the varying ethnolinguistic or
national groups to form councils whose goals were to determine their group's
political future. These national councils, as they became to be known, seemed to
appear everywhere, but perhaps most frequently in the former Austro-Hungarian
Empire. It was not only the "large" former minorities like the Czechs,
Poles, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes, Romanians, or Ukrainians who formed national
councils, but many smaller groups acted in the same way. And, like the national
councils of the larger groups who very soon created independent republics alone
or in cooperation with their immediate neighbors so too, did some of these
smaller groups proclaim their independence. This, in the newspapers of the time
and scholarly monographs of today one can still find references to the Baranya,
East Slovak, Hutsul, or Przemysl "republics" among others, which
during the last few months of 1918 seemed to sprout up like mushrooms after a
rainfall, but for the most part ceased to exist when the borders of East Central
Europe began to stabilize as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that opened
its deliberations in early 1919 [1].
One of the least known, yet ironically perhaps the longest lasting, of these
postwar "republics" was the Lemko Rusyn Republic (Ruska Lemkivska
Respublyka), which existed for a full sixteen months from December 1918 to March
1920. Despite its relatively long existence in comparison with other post World
War I ephemeral "states", The Lemko Rusyn Republic has never been
treated in a serious manner in scholarly literature, so that all that exists on
the subject are a few small published and unpublished articles or parts of
studies that deal with Lemkos in general [2]. This study will attempt
to outline the basic facts concerning the existence of the Lemko Rusyn Republic
and, in particular, to determine how the discussions about that republic's
orientation shed light on the more general problem of political thought in
western Rus' (Ukrainian) lands in the first half of the twentieth century.
Although it was based in historic Austrian Galicia, which after the war
became Polish-ruled territory, The Lemko Republic was closely linked to the fate
of fellow Rusyns living in the Carpathian Mountains in the Presov Region of what
became Czechoslovakia (see map 1). Using more modern terminology, the political
activity of the Lemkos and Rusyns on both sides of the Carpathians in 1918-1920
could be considered part of the larger Ukrainian question in interwar Poland and
Czechoslovakia. However, while it is true that scholarly literature since at
least World War II generally refers to the Lemkos and Rusyns as Ukrainians, most
of the very people that are the subject of this discussion would not in the
years 1918-1920 have considered themselves part of a "Ukrainian question"
for the simple reason that they did not consider themselves Ukrainians. The
explanation for this varies. Some commentators have argued that the
Lemkos/Rusyns had not yet reached the stage of becoming nationally conscious,
that is they did not identify as Ukrainians. For other commentators, however,
the group was already quite conscious of belonging to an historic entity called
Rus'. To avoid the potentially confusing and anachronistic use of modern
terminology for earlier periods (only since World War II has the group
officially been known as Ukrainians), I will use here the historic terms Rus'
and Rusyn to describe respectively the territory and the East Slavic population
which lived in the former Austrian province of Galicia and in the northeastern
counties of Hungary, areas which after World War I became respectively parts of
Poland and Czechoslovakia.
As for the term Lemko, it is a local name that had in the early twentieth
century been adopted by those Rusyns who lived along the northern slope of the
Carpathians just west of the San River in historic Galicia [3]. This
area was immediately adjacent to Polish ethnographic territory so that the
Lemkos were geographically set off from the mass of Rusyns (Ukrainians) on the
other side of the San River in East Galicia. The Lemko Region (Lemkivshchyna)
was itself divided into a western and eastern half more or less at the point
where the Dukla Pass crosses the Carpathians. The eastern Lemko Region had by
the outset of the twentieth century been more influenced by the Ukrainian
national revival that had gained strength beyond the San in East Galicia. In
contrast, the western Lemko Region retained its sense of association with
historic Rus'.
In the eastern Lemko Region, a meeting was called in early November 1918 by
a Greek Catholic priest from about thirty villages who were generally of a
Ukrainian orientation, this group formed what came to be called the Komancza
Republic. [4] The formation of the Komancza Republic was only a "temporary"
measure, however, undertaken until the whole Lemko Region would be united with
the West Ukrainian People's Republic, founded on November 1 in L'viv, the
administrative center of East Galicia. In fact, the Komancza Lemko Republic
lasted only until January 23, 1919, when Polish troops occupied Komancza as part
of their military advance during the Polish-Ukrainian war, that, by July, had
driven the West Ukrainian People's Republic entirely out of Galicia.
Meanwhile, in the western Lemko Region, councils were formed in several
villages, and on November 27, 1918, about 2,000 Lemkos met in the town of
Gladyszow (Gorlice county) to discuss their political future and, in particular,
the Wilsonian call for "the right of peoples to self-determination."
At Gladyszow, Lemko leaders formed a Rusyn Council (Ruska Rada), which rejected
the Ukrainian orientation of the Komancza Republic and called instead for union
with Russia. The meeting also decided that the various smaller Lemko councils at
Czarna (Grybow county), Snietnica, later Binczarowa (Grybow county), and Krynica
(Nowy Sacz county) should with Gladyszow be consolidated at an all-Lemko
national congress to be convened in the town of Florynka on December 5.
More than 500 Lemko-Rusyns representing 130 villages and towns in the
western Lemko Region did meet, as planned, at a national congress in Florynka
(Grybow county) on December 5, 1918. Also present were representatives from
among Rusyns living south of the mountains in the so-called Presov Region of
northeastern Slovakia and from immigrants in the United States (Viktor Hladyk),
as well as an official from the new government in Poland at the county seat of
Grybow (Kazimierz Romult).
At Florynka it was decided to form a self-governing entity that would
include an executive council (Nachal'nyi Socit) headed by the Reverend Mykhal
Iurchakevych and a central national council (Ruska Rada) headed by Dr. Iaroslav
Kachmarchyk. This was the birth of what became known as the Lemko Rusyn Republic
whose leading figure remained from beginning to end Dr. Kachmarchyk. Almost
immediately, the new Lemko government set up a national guard and organized
schools and cooperatives. [5]
Hoping that the Lemko Republic would be opposed to the West Ukrainian
People's Republic and, therefore, of use to Polish interests in the area, the
Polish official present at the Florynka proceedings offered Lemko leaders the
building of the former town hall in Grybow as its governmental headquarters and
provided some arms for the Lemko national guard. However, Polish expectations of
Lemko loyalty proved to be misplaced. Whereas the Lemko Republic was
ideologically opposed to the West Ukrainian People's Republic, it did not join
Poland's efforts to drive that Ukrainian government out of Galicia.
[6] And whereas the Lemko Rusyns welcomed Poland's initial support,
they were primarily concerned about implementing for themselves Wilson's precept
of self-determination.
For the Lemko Republic's national council now based in Grybow
self-determination meant union with a democratic Russian state that would "reunite"
all of Galicia with the East as had only recently been the case under the
leadership of the tsarist army during the winter of 1914-1915. Thus, one week
after the Florynka meeting, the chairmen of the Lemko national and executive
councils, Dr. Kachmarchyk and the Reverend Iurchakevych, joined other
pro-Russian Galician leaders at Sanok, where on December 13 they signed a
memorandum that rejected all foreign pretensions over their homeland, whether
Hungarian, Polish, or "Habsburg-Ukrainian", proclaiming instead that,
as "Russians" living in Galicia, they should be incorporated into a "single,
great Russian state." [7] By 1919 however, Russia was plunged
into a civil war and it seemed unlikely that any government there, whether
Bolshevik or non-Bolshevik, would be able to make its influence felt in the
Carpathians. In such circumstances, Lemko leaders began to look for other
alternatives.
Already in January 1919, Lemko representatives met with their Rusyn brethren
south of the mountains in Presov, where under the leadership of a former member
of the Hungarian Parliament, Dr. Antonii Beskyd, they joined in the creation of
a united Carpatho-Rusyn National Council. This council proposed the idea that
Galician Lemkos and all Rusyns south of the Carpathians formed one people who
would comprise a territory called Carpathian-Rus' that would seek union with the
new state of Czechoslovakia. [8] The pro-Czechoslovak orientation was
approved by Galician Lemko leaders at several meetings in March in Florynka,
Brunary and Krynica, and a delegation was sent to the Paris Peace Conference to
support the idea of union with their Rusyn brethren south of the mountains. This
proposal was formalized in a memorandum submitted on April 20 by the chairman of
the Carpatho-Rusyn National Council in Presov, Dr. Beskyd, to the Paris Peace
Conference.[9] The 23 page Paris memorandum issued in French and
English also included a fold out map delineating the boundaries of what was
called the united state of Carpathian Rus' (Karpatska Rus'), which included not
only the Lemko Region in Galicia, but also the Rusyn-inhabited Presov Region in
Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' on the southern slopes of the mountains (see map
2).
At the same time that the Paris memorandum was being presented to diplomatic
circles at Versailles, the Lemko Republic's leader, Dr. Kachmarchyk, was meeting
with Poland's prime minister, from whom he received assurances that the Polish
government would not interfere in the affairs of the Lemko Republic until final
decisions were reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Nonetheless, Polish Army
troops broke up demonstrations in the Lemko Region and by late April arrested
and put on trial the Reverend Iurchakevych for his Czechoslovak activity. In the
end, when diplomatic decisions finally came, they were not favorable to the
Lemkos. On May 8, 1919, Rusyns living south of the Carpathians declared at
Uzhhorod their desires for union with Czechoslovakia. During the following week
of talks at the Uzhhorod Central Rusyn National Council, representatives of the
Lemkos asked to be included as well, but the Rusyn-American immigrant activist
Gregory Zhatkovych, who later became the first governor of Czechoslovakia's
province of Subcarpathian Rus', opposed any union of the Lemko Region, which he
considered would complicate further the yet unresolved border of Galicia[10].
Then, in June, the Paris Peace Conference authorized the Polish government to
occupy temporarily all of Galicia, which in theory remained under the ultimate
authority of the Allied and Associated Powers.
Rebuffed by their brethren south of the mountains, Kachmarchyk returned for
a while to the idea of union with Russia, even if it would be under Bolshevik
rule. [11] But considering the anarchic conditions in the East, union
with a Russia of whatever political orientation seemed as unlikely as ever.
Realizing that the international situation was working against them, on March
12, 1920, Kachmarchyk convened a second all-Lemko national congress, once again
at Florynka and this time with 600 delegates. At that meeting, a government for
the Lemko Region was formally established, with Dr. Iaroslav Kachmarchyk as
president; the Reverend Dmytro Khyliak as minister for international affairs;
the Reverend Vasyl' Kurylo as minister of foreign affairs; and Mykola Hromosiak
as minister of agriculture. The Florynka congress also authorized the Lemko
government to initiate once again contacts with the government in Czechoslovakia
in an effort to be united with their Rusyn brethren south of the mountains.
However, by 1920, Poland and Czechoslovakia had strained relations over
other areas along their long common border in Silesia (Cieszyn/Cesin) and
Slovakia (Orava-Spis), and neither needed the Lemko Region to be added to their
problems. Thus, before the end of March, the Poles arrested Karmarchyk and the
rest of the government, effectively putting an end to the sixteen-month
existence of the Lemko-Rusyn Republic. More than one year later, on June 10,
1921, Kachmarchyk, Khyliak, and Hromosiak were put on trial. They were accused
of trying to separate the Lemko Region from Poland and of promoting internal
conflict in the area. Although all three were acquitted of the charges, any
hopes for Lemko self-government or union with Czechoslovakia definitely ended.
In March 1923, the Allied and Associated Powers made a final decision regarding
this part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Galicia in its entirety was
recognized as part of Poland. This meant that the Lemko Region, like
Ukrainian-inhabited East Galicia, became integral parts of the Polish
administrative system with no provisions for any kind of territorial autonomy.
There remain several aspects of the Lemko Rusyn Republic that still need to
be clarified. The basic chronology of events has not yet been established, and
in existing secondary accounts they are related in contradictory manner
[12]. Furthermore, what did the texts of the Florynka national
council's memorandum actually say? When and how did the change from a
pro-Russian to pro-Czechoslovak political orientation actually take place? How
did the Lemko government administer its territory? What territory did it
actually claim and what did it effectively administer? These are only some of
the basic questions that await scholarly research. Yet, as interesting as the
Lemko Republic may be in and of itself, what does it tell us of the broader
subject under consideration, namely, the Ukrainian question between Poland and
Czechoslovakia during the interwar years?
Perhaps the issue that the story of the Lemko Republic most effectively
illuminates is the evolution of political thought among the East Slavic
population of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, specifically territory in East
Galicia, northern Bukovina and northeastern Hungary. For the sake of discussion,
these three regions will be referred to as a single unit called western Rus',
whose population was then known as Rusyns and today as Ukrainians.
Modern political thought in western Rus' could be said to date from 1848,
when the revolution that began in that year in Austria-Hungary opened up new
possibilities for the many nationalities of the empire. The Rusyn/Ukrainians of
western Rus' also took an active role in what became know throughout much of
East Central Europe as the Spring of Nations. Two basic principles were
initiated in 1848, and they were to remain the cornerstones of western Rus'
political thought for the rest of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth
century until the final collapse of Austria-Hungary in late 1918. These
principles were (1) that western Rus - East Galicia, northern Bukovina, and
northeastern Hungary - should be united, because the East Slavic inhabitants who
lived there were on linguistic and cultural grounds the same people who called
themselves Rusyns (rusyny); and (2) that since these Rusyns of Austria-Hungary
were linguistically and culturally related to other East Slavs in what was at
the time the Russian Empire, they should maintain at the very least, cultural
relations with their brethren in the East if not, as some leaders would later
propose, be united with them in one state [13].
Whereas most western Rus' spokespersons would, without exception, agree with
these two basic principles, a problem arose as to the extent of the relationship
to the rest of the East Slavic world. Concern with defining the specifics of the
eastern relationship increased already during the last decades of the nineteenth
century, but this became particularly crucial with the end of Austro-Hungarian
rule in late 1918.
In short, that relationship could be visualized as consisting of three
concentric circles. The first and largest circle comprised the former
Austro-Hungarian or western Rus' lands together with the entire East Slavic
world, referred to as Russia. This was commonly called the Russophile view. The
second circle was smaller, including the western Rus' lands joined only to the
southern branch of the Eastern Slavs, namely the Ukrainians. This was called the
Ukrainophile view. The third and last circle was narrower still, comprising only
part of the western Rus' lands, specifically the Lemko Region (the East Slavic
lands of Galicia west of the San River) together with the Presov Region and
Subcarpathia Rus' (the former northeastern counties of Hungary). This last
approach, which retained a sense of cultural affinity with the East but which
was satisfied with a reduced territorial base , was known as the Carpatho-Rusyn
view [14].
It is interesting to note that all three political orientations in western
Rus' adapted to the new political reality of the immediate post-World War I era.
For instance, the traditionally conservative and pro-tsarist Russophile
orientation included some leaders who were willing to accept the idea of union
with Russian even if under Bolshevik rule. For their part, the Ukrainophiles
were willing to sacrifice the idea of a united Ukrainian state (Soborna Ukraina)
if they could be assured of wide-ranging autonomy or independence for at least a
western Ukrainian (East Galician) state [15]. Rusynophiles both north
and south of the Carpathian mountains moved from the idea of some kind of vague
unity with East to the more realistic possibility of union with a democratic
Czechoslovakia from whom they expected guarantees of autonomy. No orientation,
however, ever considered association with Poland as an acceptable option.
The Lemko Region, which was examined above in some detail during the
post-war era, experienced all three western Rus' political orientations. Of the
two national councils and Lemko Republics which evolved in late 1918, the
short-lived one in the eastern Lemko village of Komancza was clearly Ukrainian
in orientation; the longer lasting republic in the western Lemko centers of
Florynka/Grybow moved between the Russian and Carpatho-Rusyn orientation.
For the rest of the interwar period, all three of the traditional political
orientations remained options for the Rusyn population whether in Poland or
Czechoslovakia. Russophilism was propagated by local conservatives, who together
with newly arrived Russian émigrés hoped fro a phoenix like
rebirth of a democratic - even tsarist Russia, as well as by left-wing Communist
activists who hoped some day to be included in a Bolshevik Russia that, at most,
might pay lip-service to the national distinctions among the East Slavs. [16].
As for Ukrainophilism, it seemed the dominant force in Polish East Galicia and
was a growing movement in Czechoslovakia's Subcarpathian Rus' as well. Through
both legal political movements and undergroup conspiratorial activity,
Ukrainians awaited the day when Europe's' boundaries would be revised and the
western Rus' lands would finally end up where they belong - in an independent,
non-Bolshevik Ukrainian state
[17]. Finally, the Rusynophile orientation flourished primarily south
of the Carpathians, where its leaders hoped to reach a permanent settlement with
Czechoslovak authorities that would grant them political and cultural autonomy
as an East Slavic people somehow distinct from both Ukrainians and Russians.
Such attitudes also remained alive among the Lemko-Rusyns in Poland during the
interwar years and were expressed through cultural and educational activity,
including the creation of a distinct Lemko Greek Catholic jurisdiction [18].
It is, therefore, not surprising that during the wide ranging political changes
that took place both on the eve of (1939) and toward the close of (1944) World
War II, the Lemko Rusyns issued feelers calling for unification with their
brethren south of the mountains into a single entity called Carpathian Rus'.[19]
Thus, at least in the realm of political thought, the Ukrainian question in
Poland and Czechoslovakia during the interwar years reflected patterns that had
been established already during the second half of the nineteenth century. With
the close of World War II and the dominant presence of Soviet power in the
region, the old three-fold.
Russophile, Ukrainophile, Rusynophile political options seemed to have
little validity, since most of the western Rus' lands were united with the rest
of the East Slavic world, albeit within the context of a Soviet state and its
politically subordinate allies, Poland and Czechoslovakia. In such a situation,
the traditional tripartite debates within western Rus' political thought were
suppressed in favor of an administratively-imposed "Ukrainian"
orientation. However, with the political changes instigated after 1985 by
Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union and the revolution of 1989 in East Central
Europe, the old debates in the western Rus' world about national and, therefore,
political identity have been revived once again. But that is a subject for
another essay. [20]
Notes
-
For information on some of these smaller and often ephermal "republics,"
see C.A. Maccartney, Hungary and Her Successors: The Treaty of Trianon and Its
Consequences, 1919-1937 (Oxford, 1937); and Ladislav Tajtak,
Narodno-demokraticka revolucia na vychodnom Slovensku v roku 1918 (Bratislava,
1972). -
V.R. Vavrim,: "Russkaia Norodnaia Respublika 'Lemkov'"
(unpublished 11-page manuscript); P. Kohutov, "Lemkivshchyna u borot'bi za
vozz'iednannia" (unpublished 11-page manuscript); Andrezej Kwilecki, "Fragmenty
najnowszej historii Lemkow," Rocznik Sadecki, VIII (Nowy Sacz, 1967), esp.
Pp. 254-257; and Bohdan Horbal', "Lemkivska Narodna Respublyka, "
Holos Vatry, No. 5 (Bortne, 1988), pp. 5 and 12 as well as his more
comprehensive "Dzialalnosc polityczna Lemkow na Lemkowszczynie Zachodniej I
Srodkowej w latach 1918-1921" (unpublished manuscript). See also below,
note 4. -
On the origin of the term Lemko and its introduction as an ethnonym among
the populace, see Bohdan Struminsky, "The Name of the Lemkos and Their
Territory," in Jacob P. Hursky, Studies in Ukrainian Linguistics in Honor
of George Y. Shevelov; Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences, XV
(New York, 1981-83), pp. 301-3078. -
Work on the literature of the more ephemeral Komancza republic is
slightly better than that on the Lemko Rusyn Republic. The most detailed survey
is a chapter on the Komancza republic in Tadeusz Andrzej Olszanski, Bieszczady
1918-1919 (Warsaw, 1984), pp. 41-52. Other descriptions of the Komancza
republic, which also include brief and usually critical appraisals of the Lemko
Rusyn Republic are: Frants Kokovs'kyi "Lemkivs'ki republyky v 1918-1919
rokakh," in Istorychnyi kaliendaral' manakh Chervonoi kalyny na rik 1935
(L'viv, 1934), pp115-117; Iuliian Tarnovych, Iliustrovana istoriia Lemkivshchyny
(L'viv 1936), esp. Pp. 246-258; and Ivan Hvat, "Istoriia pivnichnoi
Lemkivshchyny do vyhannia lemkiv," in Bohdan O. Strumins'kyi, ed.
Lemkivshchyna, Vol. I, Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenks, Vol. 206
(New York, Paris, Sydny, and Toronto, 1988), esp. Pp. 179-186. -
On the background to the Florynka meeting and its actions, see Ivan
Krasovs'kyi, "Zakhidnio-Lemkivs'ks Respublyka," Nashe Slovo (Warsaw),
November 30, 1980, p.4; and Horbal, "Dzialalnosc polityczna Lemkow,"
pp. 2-7. -
The pro-Ukrainian Kokovs'kyi, "Lemkivs'ki republyky," p. 117,
who otherwise had little sympathy for the Lemko Rusyn Republic, nonetheless
concluded that "the leadership of this republic conducted itself in a
completely loyal manner toward the Ukrainians, and although there were efforts
to divide Muscophiles [Russophile Lemkos] from Ukrainians, both sides took the
position that this was only an internal matter which would be resolved among the
two orientations." -
": Memorandum Narodnago Sovieta Russkago Prikarpat'ia,"
reprinted in Zdenek Peska and Josef Markov, "Prispevek k ustavnim dejinam
Podkarpatske Rusi," Bratislava, V (Bratislava, 1031), pp. 528-531. -
See the memorandum, dated Presov, January 31, 191, in ibid., pp. 531-532.
-
The 23 page memorandum that included a fold out map delineating the
boundaries of a united Carpathian Rus' (the Galician Lemko Region up to the San
River as well as the Presov Region and Subcarpathian Rus' south of the
Carpathians) was issued in French and English; The Origin of the Lems, Slavs of
Danubian Provenance: Memorandum to the Peace Conference Concerning Their
National Claims [Paris, 1919]. -
Protokoly obshchago sobreniia podkarpatskikh russkikh rad I pervykh 5-ti
zasiedanii Tsentral' noi Russkoi Narodnoi Rady (Uzhhorod, 1919). The question of
territorial unity with the Lemko Region was discussed at Uzhhorod during the
second day (May 9). It was raised by Dmytro Vislots'kyi, secretary of the Presov
National Council and native of the Lemko Region. The Rusyn-American Zhatkovych,
who at the time had the greatest political influence, expressed dismay over
those Galician leaders (Russophiles who sometimes spoke on behalf of the Lemkos)
who called for union with "Great Russia"; this, he felt would
undermine the efforts of Carpatho-Rusyns to find an advantageous political
position within Czechoslovakia. -
Ever since the Lemko leaders Kachmarchyk and Iurkachevych joined
Galician Russophiles at Sanok (December 13, 1918) in calling for union with
Russia (see above, note 6), the leading prewar Galician Russophile spokesman,
former Austrian parliamentary deputy Dmitrii Markov, was empowered to speak on
behalf of Lemkos. For instance, he presented the Lemko declaration made at the
Florynka national congress to Clemenceau. Markov was clearly anti-Bolshevik and
preferred to see some sort of democratic Russian state or even a return to
tsarism. See his Memoire sur les aspirations nationales des Petit-Russiens de
l'ancien empire austro-hongrois [Paris, 1919] and Belgium of the East: An
Interview with Dr. Dimitri A. Markoff (Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1920).
According to Kohutov, "Lemkivshchyna." P. 6, the Lemko republic
also dispatched two representatives to the "Soviet Union" in the
spring of 1919.
-
For instance, most authors mentioned above in note 2 refer to the Lemko
Republic existing sixteen months and ending with the arrest of its leaders in
March 1920, yet Kohutov, "Lemkivshchyna", pp. 7-8, states the arrest
and end of the republic did not come until January 1921. Similarly, Kohutov
states the whole movement began with the meeting at Gladyszow on October 30,
1918, while Horbal's, "Lemkivs'ka respublyka," p. 5 states that
meeting took place on October 9. These are some examples of the many
inconsistencies in the existing accounts. -
For details on western Rus' political thought in the second half of the
nineteenth century, see Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity:
Subcarpathian Rus', 1848-1948 (Cambridge, MA, 1978), pp. 42-75; Mykhalio
Lozyns'kyj, "Obopil'ni stosunky mizh Velykoiu Ukrainoiu I Halychynoiu v
istorii rozvytku ukains'koi politychnoi dumky XIX I XX v.," Ukraina V, 2
(Kiev, 1928), pp. 83-90; O.A. Monchalovskii, Sviataia Rus' (L'viv, 1903). -
An expanded variant of the third circle existed as long as the
Austro-Hungarian Empire existed. It encompassed all the western Rus' lands whose
Old Ruthenian leaders, as they were known, maintained a political vision that
basically was encompassed by the borders of the Habsburg Empire. The viability
of such a territory, which was called Carpathian Rus', ended in 1918, after
which the narrower third circle described here became a concrete and, as some
thought, feasible goal. Cf. Paul Robert Magocsi, "Old Ruthenianism and
Russophilism: A New Conceptual Framework for Analyzing National Ideologies in
Later 19th Century Eastern Galicia," in Paul Debreczyn, ed., American
Contributions to the Ninth International Congress of Slavists, Vol. II
(Columbus, OH, 1983), pp. 305-324. -
Such an orientation, which looked for a revival of the medieval
Galician-Volhynian Kingdom through the establishment of an independent West
Ukrainian Republic was not completely eliminated as a political option until the
1923 decision of the Allied and Associated Powers. Cf. Mykhalio Lozynz'kyi, Za
derzhavnu nezalezhnist' Halychyny: chomu ukrains'ka Halychyna ne mozhe pryity
pid Pol'shchu (Vienna, 1921); Nekhai zhyve Nezalezhena Nalyts'ks Derzhava:
zbirka statei (Vienna, 1922); The Case for the Independence of Galicia (London,
1922). -
For the conservative view, see N. Pavlovich, Russkaia kul'tura I
Podkarpatskaia Rus', Izdanie Obshchestva im A. Dukhnovicha, No. 23 (Uzhhorod,
1926); Antonii Lukovich, National'naia I iazykovia prinadelzhnost' russkago
naseleniia Podkarpatskoi Rusi, Izdanie Obshchestva im A. Dukhnovicha, No. 40
(Uzhhorod, 1929); and Ivan Teodorovich, "Lemkovskaia Rus',"
Nauchno-literaturnyi sbornik Galitsko-russkoi Matitsy, VIII (L'viv, 1934), pp.
10-21. For the Communist view, see I.K. Vasiuta and Iu. Iu. Slyvka, "Borot'ba
trudiashchykh Zakhidnoi Ukrainy, Bukovyny I Zakarpattia...za vozz'iednannia z
Radians'koiu Ukrainoiu," in M.M. Oleksiuk et al., eds. Torzhestvo
istorychnoi spravedlyvosti (L'viv, 1968), pp. 434-479. -
Bohdan Budurowycz, "Poland and the Ukrainian Problem, 1921-1939,"
Canadian Slavonic Papers, XXV, 4 (Toronto, 1983), pp. 473-500; Alexander J.
Motyl, The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of
Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919-1929 (Boulder, CO and New York, 1930), esp. Pp.
129-161; Magocsi, Shaping of A National Identity, esp. Pp. 227-233. -
Jan Husek, "Rodi se podkarpatorusky narod?" Podkarpato-ruska
revue, I, 7-8 (Bratislava, 1936), pp. 6-8; Magocsi: Shaping of A National
Identity, esp. Pp. 106-110 and 221-224; I.F. Lemkin, Ystoryia Lemkovyny
(Yonkers, NY, 1969), pp. 154-175. -
Ivan Vanat, Narysy novitn'oi istorii ukrainstiv Skhidnoi Slovachchyny,
Vol. II (Bratislava and Presov, 1985), p. 220. -
Cf. Paul Robert Magocsi, "Nation Building or Nation Destroying:
Poles, Lemkos and Ukrainians in Present Day Poland," Polish Review, 1990; "[Rusyns
and] the Revolution of 1989," Carpatho-Rusyn American, XII, 4 (Fairview,
NJ, 1989). Pp. 5-9.
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Paul Robert Magocsi's study "The Ukrainian Question Between Poland and
Czechoslovakia: The Lemko Rusyn Republic (1918-1920) and Political
Thought in Western Rus'-Ukraine" (copyright 1993 Paul Robert Magocsi and
Nationalities Papers, Volume XXI, No. 2, Fall 1993) is hosted at
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author, Paul Robert Magocsi, and Nationalities Papers. Footnote
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