„We bring order, discipline, Western European democracy, and culture to this land of former...

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Włodzimierz Borodziej, Stanislav Holubec, Joachim von Puttkamer (Eds.): Mastery and Lost Illusions. Space and Time in the Modernization of Eastern and Central Europe (Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. Publications of the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena, Vol. 5). ISBN 978-3-11-036420-0 © Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag München 2014.

Stanislav Holubec“We bring order, discipline, WesternEuropean democracy, and culture to thisland of former oriental chaos and disorder.”Czech Perceptions of Sub-Carpathian Rus and itsModernization in the 1920s

After the collapse of the communist regime, the Czechs started to rediscover, dis-cuss and rewrite theirmodernhistory. TheFirst CzechoslovakRepublicwasa focalpoint of post-communist historical narratives. Scorned for its capitalist characterunder communism, after 1989 it became a symbol of democracy and an inspira-tion for the new Czech state. The story of Sub-Carpathian Rus is part of the nar-rative about Czechoslovakia’s ‘golden twenty interwar years’.¹ According to thisnarrative, the former Hungarian territory inhabited mainly by the Rusyn ethnicgroup became prosperous under Czech rule and was ‘stolen’ by Stalin after 1945.Public interest in Sub-Carpathian Rus rose dramatically in the 1990s in the CzechRepublic; numerous publications on the territory appeared; excursions were or-ganized; and in certain circles reunification was even discussed. Czech interestin the territory persists today, although it is less intense than immediately after1989. In the past decade historians have challenged the overwhelmingly positivepicture of interwar Czechoslovakia, especially in studies on the issue of nation-alities.² However, a critical analysis of Czech rule in Sub-Carpathian Rus has yetto be written. For a long time, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian and Rusyn histor-

1 The territory situated in the CarpathianMountains between the cities of Uzhhorod and Yasinyahas no historical name. Up to the dissolution of the Kingdom of Hungary, the districts of Bereg,Ung and Máramaros were located here. In the nineteenth century some Rusyns and other Slavsused the term ‘Hungarian Rus’ or the Hungarian term ‘Kárpátalja’ in reference to this territory.The term Sub-Carpathian Rus emerged in 1918 in the United States in the context of negotiationsbetween Czechoslovak and Rusyn émigré associations. The region was renamed ‘CarpathianUkraine’ after September 1938 to reflect the victory of the Ukrainian nationalists. In March 1939,when the territory was integrated into Hungary, it became officially known as ‘Karárpátalja’.When the region was integrated into the Soviet Union after 1945, it was renamed Zakarpate(Trans-Carpathia).2 For example, Jaroslav Kučera: Minderheit im Nationalstaat. Die Sprachenfrage in dentschechisch-deutschen Beziehungen 1918–1938. München 1999; Tara Zahra: Kidnapped souls.National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands. 1900–1948. Ith-aca/London 2008;Mirek Němec: Erziehung zum Staatsbürger? Deutsche Sekundarschulen in der

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224 | Stanislav Holubec

ians also seemed to reproduce established national narratives and are only nowexpressing more balanced views on the modern history of this territory.³

Even today, the narrative of the successful cultural and economic develop-ment of Sub-Carpathian Rus under Czechoslovak rule persists in Czech historicalmemory andhistoriography.⁴ Foreign publications are, however, less enthusiasticabout the role of the Czech administration in the region.⁵ In order to assess theCzechoslovak contribution to the economic and social development of the regionin the twentieth century, we would need to compare it with the previous Hun-garian and later Soviet efforts to modernize Sub-Carpathian Rus. In the absenceof reliable studies, this is difficult. Yet the Czech narrative of the economic devast-ation of the regionunderHungarian andSoviet rule should not be accepted at facevalue. Unfortunately, studies by non-Czech historians are of little help here. In hishistory of Sub-Carpathian Rus from the Russian perspective, Andrey Pushkash iscritical of the periods of Hungarian and Czechoslovak rule, but praises Soviet ef-forts to modernize the region.⁶ And a collective monograph by Hungarian andRusyn authors views the Czechoslovak and Soviet periods critically, highlightingthe discrimination against the Hungarian minority in both periods, and acknow-ledges the progress made under Hungarian rule.⁷

Tschechoslowakei 1918–1938. Essen 2009; Nancy M. Wingfield: Flag Wars and Stone Saints: Howthe Bohemian Lands Became Czech. Cambridge 2007.3 See, for example, Paul RobertMagocsi: AHistory of Ukraine. The Land and its Peoples. Toronto2010; Peter Švorc: Zakletá zem. Podkarpatská Rus 1918–1946. Praha 2007; Česko-slovenskáhistorická ročenka 1997. Brno 1997. On the Jews in the region see: Yeshayahu A. Jelinek: TheCarpathian Diaspora. The Jews of Sub-Carpathian Rus’ and Mukachevo 1848–1948. New York2007. On identity issues see: Elaine Rusinko: Straddling Borders. Literature and Identity in Sub-Carpathian Rus. Toronto 2003. For the Russian perspective on the history of the country see:Андрей Пушкаш: Цивилизация или варварство: Закарпатье (1918–1945) [Andrey Pushkash:Tsivilizatsiya ili varvarstvo. Zakarpate 1918–1945]. Moskva 2006. For the Hungarian-Ukrainianperspective see:Csilla Fedinec/Mikola Vehes (eds.): Zakarpattia 1919–2009 rokiv: Istoria, politika,kultura. Uzhhorod 2010 (in Hungarian: Karpatalja 1919–2009. Tortenelem, politika, kultura.Budapest 2009). On the history of the Hungarian minority in Sub-Carpathian Rus throughoutthe twentieth century in English see: Nador Bardi/Csilla Fedinec/Laszlo Szarka (eds.): MinorityHungarian Communities in the Twentieth Century. New York 2011. On the socio-economic de-velopment of the Rusyn ethnic group in Hungary before 1918 see: Maria Mayer: The Rusyns ofHungary. Political and Social Developments 1860–1910. New York 1997.4 See, for example, Ivan Pop: Podkarpatská Rus. Praha 2005 and the publications of the Societyof Friends of Sub-CarpathianRus (Společnost přátel podkarpatskéRusi) including: JaromírHořec:Nedělitelná svoboda. Podkarpatská Rus. Praha 1992; idem: Podkarpatská Rus – země neznámá.Jinočany 1994.5 Magocsi, A history of Ukraine, 642–654.6 Pushkash, Tsivilizatsia ili varvarstvo.7 Fedinec et al., Zakarpattia 1919–2009 rokiv, 63–67.

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Czech Perceptions of Sub-Carpathian Rus and its Modernization | 225

The following article aims to critically examine the first years of the Czech ad-ministration in Sub-CarpathianRus, thus contributing tomore nuancedhistoricalwriting on the region. In an analysis of the integration of Sub-Carpathian Rus intothe Czechoslovak state after 1918, I show how integration was not only a politicaland administrative task, but also occurred on a symbolic level. The descriptionof the inhabitants of this territory in a way that legitimized Czech rule over it wasone important aspect of its symbolic integration. I argue that in their descriptionof the territory and its inhabitants, the Czechs used the typical language of Euro-pean orientalism, as analyzed by scholars such as Edward Said, Larry Wolff, andMaria Todorova.⁸ I also argue that the concept of orientalist or colonial thinkingis useful in understanding Czech discourse on this territory during the interwaryears. As I show, this discourse was constructed from the perspective of those inpower and the inhabitants of Sub-Carpathian Rus became a classical ‘imaginedother’ in Czech eyes.

I The political integration of Sub-Carpathian Rusinto Czechoslovakia

The idea of uniting the future Czech state with the Hungarian territory inhabitedby the Rusyns was first mooted in late 1917 in the United States, where the Czechpolitical émigré community led by Tomáš G. Masaryk was trying to persuade theAmericanpublic andpolitical elites to support the idea of an independent Czecho-slovakia. At the same time, Rusyn émigrés in the USA led by Gregory Zhatkovichwere agitating for either the autonomy of Sub-Carpathian Rus within Hungary orits absorption byRussia after thewar. Before 1917, the Czechs hadhadno intentionof integrating the Hungarian Rusyns into their future state and were convincedthat the integration of Sub-Carpathian Rus into Russia was the most likely scen-ario. However, after the Bolsheviks came to power, more and more Rusyns beganto doubt that they would ever be integrated into Russia. As Peter Švorc argues,the idea of becoming part of the future Czechoslovakia may also have germinatedin Rusyn émigré circles in America due to their positive experience of cooper-ating with Slovak émigré associations before the war.⁹ The first submissions to

8 Edward Said: Orientalism. New York, 1978; Larry Wolff : Inventing Eastern Europe. The Mapof Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. Stanford 1994;Maria Todorova: Imagining theBalkans. New York 1997.9 Peter Švorc: Začlenenie Podkarpatskej Rusi do ČR (1918–1920), in: Česko-slovenská historickáročenka 1997. Brno 1997, 39–60, 47.

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Masaryk by individual Rusyns proposing the inclusion of the Hungarian territ-ory inhabited by the Rusyns in a future Czechoslovakia were recorded in May1918. Yet a memorandum from the American National council of Uhro-Rusysnssubmitted to President Wilson in October 1918 did not mention integration intoCzechoslovakia as an option. Here the preferred scenarios were an independentRusyn state (either with Rusyns only or together with Ukrainians from Galicia)or autonomy within Hungary. In response to the memorandum, President Wilsonindicated that he favoured the idea of autonomy not within Hungary, but as partof Poland or Czechoslovakia.¹⁰ The final decision was approved in a plebisciteamong the American Rusyns (1 113 votes), in which 66 per cent voted in favourof autonomy within Czechoslovakia. In early 1919 Rusyn organizations in Sub-Carpathian Rus also accepted the accession of their territory to Czechoslovakia.

Before 1918 Czech public discourse had paid far less attention to Rusynsthan it had to Slovaks and other Slavs in the Monarchy. Indeed, the territoryand its inhabitants were hardly known in the Czech lands.¹¹ The leaders ofthe Czechoslovak resistance in the USA welcomed the incorporation of the Ru-syn territory into their future state, when they became aware that there wasnow little chance that it would be absorbed by Russia, a solution they wouldhave preferred. They were also reluctant to leave it in Hungarian hands or letit be used as a basis for a future Ukrainian state, which the Czechs fearedwould become too pro-German. The integration of the territory into Czecho-slovakia was justified by portraying it as a bridge to Russia, a kind of geopol-itical safeguard against German influence. Later, probably in the context ofthe escalation of the Czech-Polish conflict over Těšín, the territory began tobe called a “bridge to the Slavs”.¹² This term, which ignored the Slavic char-acter of Poland, was commonly used in subsequent years. After the Polish-Czechoslovak War, it seems that the Czechs no longer recognized Poland as atruly Slavic state, in contrast to the South Slavic nations or Russia. It is also inter-esting that the perception of the territory as a bridge to Russia survived into the1920s, despite the fact that it was clear after the defeat of the Soviet army nearWarsaw in 1921 that Sub-Carpathian Rus would be bordered only by Polandand Romania, with the Soviet-Polish border located more than one hundredand fifty kilometres further to the east. It seems that the Czechs did not be-

10 Ibid., 49.11 On the Czech perception of Rusyns before 1918 see: Roman Holec: Postoj Čechov a Slovákovk Rusínom v predvečer prvej svetovej vojny, in: Česko-slovenská historická ročenka 1997. Brno1997, 29–37.12 Zprávy čs. červeného kříže. Volume 2, 15.02.1923, 39.

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lieve that the border drawn between Poland and the Soviet Union would last.Many Czechs would have preferred the prospect of a democratized Russia an-nexing the Ukrainian-speaking territories in Poland, thereby establishing acommon Russian-Czechoslovak border. As we will see, a future handover ofSub-Carpathian Rus to Russia was not completely against the wishes of manyCzechs, including both communists and pro-Russian nationalists. After 1922 theidea of a bridge to the Slavs gradually lost its appeal and Sub-Carpathian Rus wasagain seen as a strategic bridge, this time, however, to Romania, dividing hostilePoland and Hungary. One liberal author even expressed his delight in 1929 thatCzechoslovakia did not share a border with the Soviet Union.¹³

The incorporation of Sub-Carpathian Rus into Czechoslovakia and the newborders that resulted from this were formalized in the Saint-Germain Treaty inSeptember 1919. For economic reasons, the new borders of the territory also en-compassed the lowlands inhabited by ethnic Hungarians (most of the trafficroutes, including the railroad connecting the east and the west of the country,were situated there). The Saint-Germain Treaty also redefined the territory’s bor-ders with Slovakia. This prompted fierce criticism from representatives of theRusyns, as it meant that approximately 85 000 Rusyns (or one fifth of that eth-nic group in Czechoslovakia) now lived on Slovak territory. In this case, theCzechs again pointed to economic reasons, claiming that the Rusyn territoryon the Slovak-Polish border was accessible only with great difficulty from Sub-Carpathian Rus, because themountain valleys opened to the south and not to theeast. However, the establishment of this border was not only a matter of access-ibility, but also reflected Slovak interests in the larger territory. The ability of theSlovaks to assert these interests in Prague was crucial.¹⁴

Thefirst Czechoslovakmilitary units arrived inUzhhorod, the townwhichhadbeen declared the capital of Sub-Carpathian Rus,¹⁵ in January 1919 and reachedthe centre of the region by April 1919.¹⁶ They found it difficult to assert their au-thority and win the respect of the local population. The political situation in theterritory in the first half of 1919 was characterized as ‘chaotic’. Some communeshad their own administration, some were under Bolshevik rule, and others were

13 Otakar Slezák: Naše Malé Rusko, in: Přítomnost, 9.05.1929, 278.14 Paul Robert Magocsi: The Rusyn-Ukrainians of Czechoslovakia. An Historical Survey. Vienna,1983. 35–38.15 In this article, I use the English transcription of the Ukrainian and Russian name for the city.In other languages, it is known as Ungvár (Hungarian), Užhorod (Czech and Slovak), Ужгород(Uzhgorod, Russian and Ukrainian), and Ungwar (German).16 Magocsi, The Rusyn-Ukrainians, 34.

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still controlled by Hungarian authorities. The eastern part of the territory hadbeen occupied by the Romanian army during its conflict with the Hungarian So-viet Republic in April 1918 and was only handed over to the Czech administrationin July 1919.¹⁷ This lack of order led to the introduction of military rule in Sub-Carpathian Rus, which lasted until January 1922.

The Czech authorities soon realized that the territorywas problematic not justfrom a political point of view, but also in religious, ethnic and economic terms.Extending over approximately 13 000 square kilometres, the territory had a popu-lation of 604000, comprising Rusyns (63 per cent), Hungarians (17 per cent) andJews (13 per cent), with insignificant German and Roma minorities.¹⁸ The Rusynswere an ethnic group in the midst of a nation-building process. They lived in im-poverished conditions in the Carpathian Mountains with an economy based onpasturage and farming. According to statistical data, the Rusyn-speaking popu-lation had the lowest social status and the lowest standard of living of any othergroup in the former Kingdom of Hungary.¹⁹ They had no distinct ethnic identityand tended to identify either with their localities or at best with their own eth-nic group (tribe) – the Boykos, the Lemkos, or the Hutsuls, each of which spokedifferent dialects. Their only shared source of identity was their religious affili-ation to the Eastern Catholic (Uniate) Church. According to statistics on religion,the population of the territory was mainly Eastern Catholic (Uniate) (54 per cent),with some Jews (15 per cent), Russian Orthodox Christians (10 per cent), Protest-ants (10 per cent), and Catholics (9 per cent).²⁰ The few Rusyn intellectuals weredivided on the question as to what a prospective Rusyn ethnic identity should bebased upon: the Ukrainian affiliation, the Russian affiliation, or an exclusivelyRusyn affiliation. The Ukrainian affiliation was attractive due to the proximity ofthe languages andUkraine’s successful nation-buildingprocess; the appeal of theRussian affiliation lay in the existence of the tsarist empire; and the Rusyn affil-iation was advocated by the Eastern Catholic Church and to some extent also bythe Hungarian authorities.

Economically, the region had been the least developed part of the Kingdomof Hungary, with high rates of illiteracy and infant mortality, which were at thattime, however, comparable with those in Transylvania or Galicia. The impover-ishedmountain areas of the region contrasted starklywith the lowlands inhabitedby Hungarians, which were comparable with the rest of the Hungarian agricul-

17 Švorc, Začlenienie Podkarpatske, 55.18 Vladimír Srb: Obyvatelstvo Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Demografie 3 (1999), 207–219, 214.19 László Katus: Hungary in the Dual Monarchy. Boulder 2008, 317.20 Ibid., 216.

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tural lowlands in socio-economic terms. Before 1919 the region had one of thehighest emigration rates in the whole of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.During the war, it had been devastated to a far greater extent than other parts ofHungary (the frontline was located there from December 1914 to May 1915). Eco-nomic difficulties were compounded after 1918 when the territory was cut off fromthe Hungarian lowlands by the newly drawn borders. This proved to be an eco-nomic disaster, because it meant that the inhabitants of the Carpathians could nolonger find seasonal work in Hungarian agriculture. Interestingly, Czech observ-ers rarely mentioned the economic obstacles caused by the establishment of thenew border or the destruction of the territory during the war.²¹ In Czech writingthere was a clear preference for narratives of the ‘thousand years of Hungarianoppression and exploitation’.

The 1920 Czechoslovak constitution promised the autonomy stipulated byAmerican Rusyns when they agreed to integration into Czechoslovakia in 1918.Sub-CarpathianRuswas to have its ownassembly, legislation in its own language,its own schools, its own religion, and a local government led by a governor of Ru-syn origin. According to the constitution, the governor would be appointed bythe president of the republic, but he would be accountable to the Sub-Carpathianassembly. Although this constitutional clause was fulfilled (with the appoint-ment of former Rusyn émigré Gregory Zhatkovich as governor), the real power inthe region became concentrated in the hands of his deputy (the vice governor),who was always a Czech official. The elections to the regional assembly and theCzechoslovak parliament were postponed. This was justified by the claim that itwould be better to wait until the situation in the region had calmed down.²² Thefirst parliamentary elections were not held until 1924 and the assembly was notcreated until 1938. Apart from representatives of local elites, Czech politiciansresiding in Prague (such as the Social Democratic politician and expert on the re-gion’s affairs Jaromír Nečas (1888–1945)) also stood for election. Furthermore, thenumber of seats in the national parliament was somewhat lower than it shouldhave been, given the size of the population.²³ Therewere other signs of the region’sinsufficient representation in central organs: noRusynpoliticianwasmade amin-ister in the national government or a general in the Czechoslovak army, althoughRusyns accounted for about three per cent of the Czechoslovak population. The

21 B. Albert: Čs. červený kříž v Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Zprávy československého červeného kříže.Volume 1 (2), 1.12.1920, 18; “Volby na Podkarpatské Rusi”, in: Národní politika 63, 4.03.1924, 1.22 Švorc, Začlenienie Podkarpatskej, 47.23 The number of seats was calculated based on the adult population, so regions with a highchild population were at a disadvantage.

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division of Czechoslovakia into political units called země (lands) in 1927 (theCzech, Moravian-Silesian, Slovak, and Sub-Carpathian lands) petrified or evenworsened the territory’s legal status.²⁴ Although these lands had their own localauthorities – a president, a government (both appointed by the Czechoslovakminister of the interior) and a partly elected diet – the power of these authoritiesremained very limited. Sub-Carpathian Rus was in fact placed on the same levelas the other three lands. After the 1927 reform, the only vestige of the promisedautonomy was the Rusyn governor, who held his office alongside the president ofSub-Carpathian Rus, a Czech official.

II Symbolic integration into CzechoslovakiaIn late 1919 the Czech government decided to send about twenty thousand offi-cials to Sub-CarpathianRus, entrustedwith the task of establishing the rudimentsof a functioning state apparatus. Hungarian officials were dismissed across theboard. This was justified by the Czech claim that they were not willing to takethe oath of loyalty to the republic.²⁵ The journey to Sub-Carpathian Rus was it-self a challenge to the first Czech officials sent there. The train connection fromPrague to Slovakia was disrupted by the Czech-Polish War and floods that madeit impossible to travel via Těšín. For that reason, the officials were forced to takelonger route through Bratislava. On their journey through Slovak territory severalHungarian conductors placed obstacles in their path. Those officials who had toserve in eastern Sub-Carpathian Rus had to travel through Romania because therewas no railway connecting the centre and the east of the region.²⁶ The journeyfrom Prague to Uzhhorod took about 24 hours, approximately the same length asthe journey from Prague to Paris. A further eight hours was required to get to theeast of Sub-Carpathian Rus. Even after the situation had settled down, the jour-ney Prague–Uzhhorod took fifteen hours, whichwas still longer than the six-hourtrain journey Budapest–Uzhhorod before the war.²⁷

24 See Marcel Pencák: Cesta k uzákonění zemského zřízení v roce 1927, in: Český časopis his-torický 4 (2006), 821–870.25 Václav Drahný/František Drahný: Podkarpatská Rus, její přírodní a zemědělské poměry. Praha1924, 97.26 Josef Linek: Podkarpatská Rus. Úvahy a poznámky. Třebechovice pod Orebem 1922, 40–41.27 Karel Hostaša: Na okraj dopravy a zájezdů na Podkarpatskou Rus, in: Jaroslav Zatloukal (ed.),PodkarpatskáRus. Sborník hospodářského, kulturního a politickéhopoznání PodkarpatskéRusi.Bratislava 1936, 159, 174–176.

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I should mention that the Czechs were not completely inexperienced when itcame to governing other nations. Some Czech officials had worked with the Aus-trian authorities governing Bosnia after 1878 and others had gained experienceas officers in Galicia or Bukovina.²⁸ In 1919 patriotic rhetoric was used to lureCzech officials into service outside the country. In addition, officials were prom-ised higher salaries and a faster career track.²⁹ However, many complained laterthat in Sub-Carpathian Rus not only the salaries were higher, but also the prices.The benefits paid by the statewere also lowered after a couple of years, fuelling ru-mours that officials were sent to Sub-Carpathian Rus as a punishment for variousoffences (in Austrian-Czech bureaucratic slang the territory was called a Straf-station – štráfštace).³⁰ There are, however, no records of any such policy beingimplemented.

After their arrival in Sub-Carpathian Rus, Czech officials started to carry outtheir daily administrative tasks, but they also took in their new environmentand wrote about it in order to familiarize Czech readers at home with the region.They developed different arguments to suggest that the integration of the regioninto Czechoslovakiawas legitimate and rational. They claimed that their activitieswere contributing to the economic and cultural development of the region. In 1926one Czech observer noted the main results of Czech “diligence”: “repaired roads,well-built schools, well-kept fields, drained moors, clean restaurants, friendlyadministrative offices, efficient hospitals, post offices and shops.”³¹ It is an indis-putable fact that the Czech administration initiated numerous ambitious projectsincluding electrification, the erection of telephone lines, and the construction ofhospitals, schools, roads, hydroelectric plants, bridges,³² and an airport in Uzh-horod. Nevertheless, Sub-Carpathian Rus remained the least developed part ofCzechoslovakia and we cannot really say that the gap between it and the otherCzech lands closed at that time. Quite tellingly, in 1932 the region boasted just fourtractors and four ambulances, vehicles that were already common in the Czechlands at that time.³³

28 See the memoirs of a Czech policeman in Bosnia: František Valoušek: Vzpomínky na Bosnu.Brno 1999; Vzpomínky průkopníků technické služby v zemi podkarpatoruské. Užhorod 1933, 29.29 Emil Kasík: Obrázky z Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Nová doba 68, 9.03.1924, 3.30 Slezák, Naše Malé Rusko, 277.31 F. Skácelík: Podkarpatská Rus nedávno a dnes, in: Lumír 10, 28.01.1926, 529.32 In the period from 1918 to 1932, 54 new bridges were constructed, 30 wooden bridges and24 concrete bridges. See František Beneš: Mosty, in: Jaromír Musil (ed.), Technická práce v zemipodkarpatoruské. Užhorod 1933, 28–32, 30.33 Jaromír Musil: Úvod. Vývoj a činnost SIA odboru Spolku československých inženýrův Užhorodě, in: idem, Technická práce v zemi, 3–7, 4.

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If we examine some projects in detail, we can see that they often didn’t pro-gress as smoothly as the Czechs would have liked. A good example is the onlyairport in Sub-Carpathian Rus. Plans to build the airport were made immediatelyafter 1918. However, due to the controversy over which city to designate regionalcapital (Mukachevo or Uzhhorod) and problems finding a suitable location, con-struction only got under way in 1927 and the airport was not finished until 1929.A lack of materials, the insufficient experience of local workers, and their strikewere cited as reasons for this delay. Plans to establish a flight connection fromUzhhorod to Bucharest via Cluj also took some years to be realized.³⁴ From 1929to 1930 two daily flights operated from Uzhhorod to Košice, but it soon becameclear that one was sufficient. The number of people taking flights to and fromPrague was much lower than the number of people who continued to take thetrain from Prague to Uzhhorod even though it took about five hours longer.³⁵ Fearof flying was not the only reason for this preference; the plane ticket cost twiceas much as the train ticket and flights were often cancelled due to bad weather.Although there is no available data on the cost of running the airport and the rev-enue it produced, the project seems to have been prestigiouswithout yielding anyprofits.

There were also other projects that never got beyond the planning stages dur-ing the twenty years of Czechoslovak administration, such as the early plan tobuild a railway connecting the east and west of Sub-Carpathian Rus (eliminat-ing the necessity of travelling 40 kilometres through Romania) or the motorwayproject connecting western and eastern Czechoslovakia proposed by the entre-preneur Jan A. Baťa in 1937.³⁶ It is doubtful that a better train or road connectionwith the Czech lands would have made Sub-Carpathian goods more competitive,because transportation costs would still have been too high, not to mention thediscriminatory rail tariffs imposed on goods from the region. Bending to the res-istance put up by the Czech and Moravian towns on the line, the authorities evenfailed to establish a direct train service from Prague to Uzhhorod with only onestop at Košice.³⁷

Uzhhorod can be called the biggest success story of Czechoslovak modern-ization. One Czech observer characterized it soon after the arrival of the Czechs

34 Václav Mareš: Užhorodské státní letiště, in: Hlasy východu, 14.04.1929, 2.35 Idem: Vývoj letecké dopravy, in: Jaromír Musil, Technická práce v zemi, 44–48, 47.36 Jan Rychlík: Zapojení železnic podkarpatské Rusi do sítě drah Československa, in: Česko-slovenská historická ročenka 1997, 115–121, 118; Jan Antonín Baťa: Budujeme stát. Zlín 1937.37 Karel Hostaša: Na okraj dopravy, 175.

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as “a small, ugly and non-regulated town in an impoverished state”.³⁸ The Czechadministration in the city soon took steps tomodernize it andmake it a represent-ative regional centre. Among the numerous projects it embarked on, it is worthmentioning the regulation of the river Uz and the construction of a water sup-ply system, four hundred apartments for state employees and numerous publicbuildings.³⁹ The population of Uzhhorod grew from 20000 in 1918 to 30 000 in1930 (by comparison, the population grew from 11 000 in 1890 to 20 000 in 1918and from 17 000 in 1944 to 117 000 in 1989).⁴⁰ In 1935 the same observer expressedhis delight that the city had lost its Hungarian-Jewish character and becomemoreSlavic thanks to its large Czech population (according to the 1930 census, Czechsaccounted for 31 per cent of the population). Hungarian lost its status as the city’sofficial language after the 1930 census showed that Hungarians represented lessthan 18 per cent of the population.⁴¹

Various measures were taken in the public sphere to demonstrate the sym-bolic integration of Sub-Carpathian Rus into Czechoslovakia. First of all, Czech-Rusyn bilingualism was introduced, replacing the Hungarian monolingualismthat had previously characterized the territory. However, on old photographs wesometimes see only Czech signs, especially on amenities that were supposed tobe usedmainly by the Czechs, such as leisure time facilities (the local spa, moun-tain cottages). Major streets in Sub-Carpathian towns were named after Czechpersonalities such as Masaryk, Miroslav Tyrš, the founder of the Czech sportsorganization Sokol, and Alois Rašín, the Czechoslovak finance minister who wasassassinated in 1923.⁴² The territory was re-mapped, with many places gainingCzechized names. An exhibition about the new territory, which opened in Praguein 1924, stressed its folklore and Rusyn traditions to the exclusion of other ethnicgroups.⁴³ Memorials of Masaryk and Tyrš were erected in Uzhhorod and other

38 Alois Raušer: Užhorod, hlavníměsto zeměPodkarpatoruské, in: Zatloukal, PodkarpatskáRus,158–163, 159.39 The town cinema, the slaughterhouse, the poorhouse, the town jail, a commercial school, aRoma school, the police headquarters, themilitary headquarters, the regional and local courts ofjustice, the postal and telegraph office, the public health authority building, the revenue author-ity building, the Ministry of Public Works building, and the aforementioned Governor’s Palace.40 Khto mi I skilki nas v Uzzhorodi? Naselenja miasta, at: http://uzhgorod.ws/nature-stat.htm[last accessed on 1.05.2013].41 Alois Raušer, Užhorod, 162.42 Prokop Kroupa: Kroupův průvodce Podkarpatskou Rusí. Praha 1934, 12.43 Sergej Makovskij (ed.): Katalog výstavy ‘Umění a život Podkarpatské Rusi’ pořádané podzáštitou guvernéra Podkarpatské Rusi Dra Antonína Beskida školským odborem civilní správyPodkarpatské Rusi v Užhorodě. Praha 1924.

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Sub-Carpathian towns. A memorial plaque commemorating a visit by Masarykand a second one with soil from Zborov (a battlefield where Czech legions foughtthe Austrian army in 1917) were erected at the entrance to the Governor’s Palacein the capital city.⁴⁴ In the late 1920s Czechs were the largest ethnic group in Uzh-horod, accounting for about one third of its inhabitants.⁴⁵ Yet in the territory as awhole, Czechs represented just two per cent of the population. The CzechoslovakTourist Club established marked hiking trails with Czech signs in the mountains.(The locals joked that the Czechs were preparing their future escape route.⁴⁶)The construction of a separate Czech residential area and a government districtin Uzhhorod called Užhorodské Dejvice (named after a district of Prague withmany government buildings) is reminiscent of colonial praxis. Czech residentialdistricts were also built in other towns, for example Masaryk’s Colony in Khustand the Czech Colony in Mukachevo.⁴⁷ One Czech commentator claimed that theCzech residential districts would have an “educative effect” (působit výchovně)on the local Rusyn and Hungarian populations.⁴⁸ (The tendency to invest mainlyin Uzhhorod was criticized at that time even by some Czech observers.)⁴⁹ Thesymbolic subordination of Sub-Carpathian Rus is clearly illustrated by the trans-portation of six Sub-Carpathian wooden churches to Czech towns, given either asa ‘present from the Rusyn people to the Czechs’ or purchased by the Czechoslovakstate from the locals for a very low price (it was claimed that transportationwouldsave them from destruction).⁵⁰ This is reminiscent of the transportation of severalEgyptianmonuments to Europe by British or French authorities in the nineteenthcentury. It must be stressed, however, that the Czechs completely denied that theterritory was their ‘colony’.⁵¹ They presented themselves rather as its “savioursand educators”, who had “lots of duties and responsibilities without any rightsand advantages”, and insisted that their investment in the territory exceeded theirgains.⁵²

44 Jaroslav Dostál: Podkarpatská Rus. Praha 1933, 11–12.45 Ibid.46 Karel Matoušek: Podkarpatská Rus (všeobecný zeměpis se zvláštním zřetelem k životu lidu).Praha 1924, 119.47 In this article, I use the English transcription of the Ukrainian name for the city. In other lan-guages it is known as:Munkács (Hungarian),Mukačevo (Czech and Slovak),Мукачеве (Ukrain-ian),Мукачево (Russian and Rusyn), andMunkatsch (German).48 Karel Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 220.49 Jan Anděl: Republika Československá. IV. Slovensko-Podkarpatská Rus. Praha 1934, 397.50 Kostelík z Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Jas – rodinný ilustrovaný měsíčník, 29.08.1929, 2.51 Zprávy čs. červeného kříže 2. 15.02.1923, 39.52 J. Bouda: Dělnická turistika, in: Rozhledy, 14.01.1927, 3.

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The Czech mass sports organization Sokol played an important role in theideological integration of the territory into Czechoslovakia. The Czech officials,whowere almost obliged to bemembers of Sokol, soon established local groups inSub-Carpathian Rus and tried to recruit new local members, particularly amongschoolchildren. As early as 1921 the Uzhhorod Sokol group sent 30 Rusyn boysto the Sokol festival in Prague “to pay homage to the Czechoslovak capital”.⁵³Thousands of Sokol sportsmen from the Czech lands also visited Sub-CarpathianRus and demonstrated their mass gymnastics to the locals to show “how theylove their brothers who have until recently been separated and oppressed.”⁵⁴ Theauthor admitted, however, that “not everybody understood the reason for ourvisit.”⁵⁵ The Czech Catholic press took a different view of Sokol’s activities in Sub-Carpathian Rus. It claimed that the Sokol organization had little chance of flour-ishing in the region, because it was ignored by both ordinary Rusyns and thelocal intelligentsia. The Catholic press suggested that the bulk of the Rusyn nationwould be more interested in joining the Czech Catholic mass sport organizationOrel (Eagle).⁵⁶ In actual fact, the Rusyns were interested in neither organization:the desire to engage in sport was alien to them. In the First Republic membershipof both Sokol andOrel was insignificant in Sub-Carpathian Rus compared to otherparts of Czechoslovakia.

In the 1930s someCzechs on the left of the political spectrumbegan to criticizethe colonial features of the Sub-Carpathian integration project. The best-knownexample is Ivan Olbracht, the Czech novelist and author of themost famous novelabout the territory, Nikola Šuhaj loupežník (Nikolai Schuhaj, Highwayman; pub-lished in 1932). In his reports from the early 1930s, Olbracht criticized the concen-tration of power in Czech hands throughout Sub-Carpathian Rus. He argued thatwhile exclusively Czech rule had perhaps been necessary shortly after 1918, therewas no justification for it now. In this way, Czechs were only blocking educatedRusyns from entering important positions in the state apparatus. Olbracht alsocriticized the myths fabricated by Czechs about Hungarian cruelty and oppres-sion, which had no basis in reality, and he made various critical remarks aboutthe Czechization policy.⁵⁷ According to Olbracht, Czech officers were just as un-happy as the Rusyns because they felt as though they were stationed in a foreigncountry.

53 Drahný/Drahný, Podkarpatská Rus, 110.54 Václav Bartoníček: O významu zájezdu sokolského na Slovensko a Podkarpatskou Rus, in:Sokol 11–12 (1921), 237.55 Ibid.56 Na podkarpatskou Rus!, in: Našinec, 21.02.1923, 2.57 Ivan Olbracht: Hory a staletí. Praha 1982, 39–43.

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To further the symbolic integration of Sub-Carpathian Rus into Czecho-slovakia, the local inhabitants were portrayed as being in need of Czech ruleand preordained to live in a common state with the Czechs. Czech authors de-scribed the Rusyns as the ethnic group that was entitled, by virtue of its historyand ethnicity, to rule over the region. Rusyn’s were alleged to be both similarto the Czechs (their ‘Slavic brothers’) and different from them (backward, andtherefore in need of Czech help).⁵⁸ It was also important to identify the allegedenemies of the Rusyn people, from whose yoke the Czechs would liberate andprotect them.

In descriptions of the Rusyn population as backward, I found repeated at-tempts to orientalize Sub-Carpathian Rus. Czechs typically portrayed the regionas the non-European East in contrast to the European West. Their articles, bro-chures andbooks often talked about the “uncultured east of our republic”⁵⁹wherethere was “complete disorder and oriental colourfulness” and “many things re-semble[d] the near orient”.⁶⁰ The most common term used to describe the regionin the 1920s was “Czechoslovak Bosnia”.⁶¹ Since the late nineteenth century, thispart of the former Ottoman Empire had been a synonym for backwardness andpolitical instability in Czech discourse.⁶² We also find the name “our Belgium”,suggesting that the region had been seriously damaged during the war and wasin need of reconstruction.⁶³ Some authors looked further afield to find parallels.Vojtěch Lev claimed that “the Hungarians turned Sub-Carpathian Rus into a partof darkest Africa.”⁶⁴ The term “Czechoslovak Tahiti”, which emerged in the late1920swhen the first Czechwriters and painterswent to Sub-CarpathianRus, high-lighted the lure of the territory for artists, especially painters.⁶⁵ We also find theterm “Czechoslovak Canada”, which probably reflected the fact that much of theregion was under forest.⁶⁶

58 Ladislav Šíp: Pro positivní práci na Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Národní politika, 23.07.1923, 1.59 Ibid., 121.60 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 105; Iva Němejcová-Měkká: Podkarpatská Rus. Průvodce astručný nástin zeměpisný. Praha 1932, 6.61 Slezák, Naše Malé Rusko, 278.62 Smutné poměry v Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Československá republika (189), 11.07.1920, 1. Thenickname ‘Czechoslovak Bosnia’ was still being used in 1927. See Jaromír Nečas: PodkarpatskáRus a poslání sociální demokracie na východě republiky, in: Nová doba, 1.05.1927, 6. It graduallydisappeared in the 1930s.63 Zprávy čs. červeného kříže, (3), 15.03.1923, 33.64 Vojtěch Lev: Brána na východ – Karpatská Rus. Praha 1921, 16.65 Pop, Podkarpatská Rus, 131.66 Jaroslav Nauman: Naši na Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Přítomnost, 17.10.1921, 654.

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An oriental character was also ascribed to many of the inhabitants of Sub-Carpathian Rus. As one observer wrote, “the semi-oriental nature of the countryattracted numerous Asiatics: Hungarians, Jews and Gypsies.”⁶⁷ Yet the Rusynsthemselves were described not as oriental, but as Slavic. In Czech discourse atthat time descriptions of the Hungarians and the Jews as oriental were common.EvenPresidentMasaryk,whowas critical of xenophobia andanti-Semitism,wroteabout Hungarians in this way.⁶⁸ This negative stereotyping had deeper roots inthe nineteenth-century Czech discourse on the Slovak Magyarization policy. Inlate nineteenth-century Czech novels, Hungarians were shown in an even morenegative light than Germans.⁶⁹ Hungarian politics during World War I and themilitary conflict between the Hungarian Soviet Republic and Czechoslovakia alsoreinforced anti-Hungarian sentiment.⁷⁰

As we know from Said, from the European perspective the Orient is character-ized by a different flow of time. Oriental time is slower (but sometimes also muchfaster), random and disorganized; it is either not measured at all or measured ina very haphazard way. Czech officials and visitors to Sub-Carpathian Rus oftenreferred to the local inhabitants’ inability to express themselves in numbers andmeasure time and space. For the Czech authorities, the Rusyn delegations that ap-proached them were too large (at times they comprised about a hundred people)and their submissions were too “long-winded and garrulous”.⁷¹ The local inhab-itants often didn’t know the exact age of the older people in their communities.This presented the Czech statisticians compiling data on the territory with a newchallenge. For example, locals would often claim that a seventy-year-oldmanwasa hundred years old.⁷² One Czech journalist also complained about the slownessof the locals. In his view, the Rusyn had “lots of time for everything, and he like[d]to contemplate the different mysteries of his dream-world and religious issues”.⁷³

67 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 82.68 Masaryk called Hungary “Mongolian” in 1920 (Tomáš Garigue Masaryk: Nová Evropa (Stano-visko slovanské). Praha 1994, 118.) and claimed that it was “a country without a deeper culture”(ibid., 126) and an “overly aristocratic nation” (ibid., 127).69 Vladimíra Borová: Obraz Němců v české historické beletrii 1890–1900, in: Luďa Klusáková(ed.), Obraz druhého v historické perspektivě. Praha 1997, 11–39, 14.70 Orientalizing tendencies can also be found in the aforementioned exhibition on the newcountry. For example, the authors of the exhibition catalogue saw the roots of local folk embroid-ery in the Altai region, Tibet, India, and Mongolia. Local carpets were said to be “Persian style”.Sub-Carpathian art was seen to blend relatively modern Central European motifs with more an-cient motifs originating in a mythical Asia, seeMakovskij, Katalog výstavy, 12.71 Cyril Kochannyj: O Podkarpatské Rusi. Praha 1929, 87.72 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 69.73 Josef Pešek: Kulturní poměry a osvětová práce v Podkarpatské Rusi. Užhorod, 1921, 11.

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Different calendars existed for the different religions and only 130 days in the yearwere not holidays of some kind. As the Czechs saw it, this distracted the local pop-ulation from their work. Czech entrepreneurs claimed that the huge number ofholidays – “twice as high as in our lands” – discouraged them from investing inthe region.⁷⁴

The classic texts of European orientalism refer to threemain orientalizing ste-reotypes. The first of these is the ‘noble savage’, a term often used to describethe ‘simple’ cultures discovered by Europeans. The second is that of the servilebut treacherous Easternmerchant. The fanatical and cruel warrior who oppressesother peoples represents the third orientalizing stereotype.We encounter all threestereotypes in descriptions of the threemain ethnic groups of Sub-CarpathianRusby Czech observers.

III Rusyns, Jews and HungariansWe can detect the stereotype of the ‘noble savage’ in descriptions of the Rusynmajority. Here the category of the ‘people’ or ‘folk’ (lid) was almost sacralized.The Rusyn people were said to be “actually good, kindhearted”, but also passive,desperate, naive, childish and backward.⁷⁵ Some commentators also appreciatedtheir “natural helpfulness and modesty”.⁷⁶ One tourist guidebook recommendedhiring a Rusyn guide for hiking in themountains: “He knows the land, carries theluggage, knows the shelters, cottages and wells, prepares the fire; he is a faithfulbearer and servant.”⁷⁷

Amore negative stereotype of the Rusyns was common among Czech officialswho had served for a long time in the region and had been cured of their originalidealism. In this variant, the Rusyns were lazy, incompetent and corrupted bytheir former lords and Jews. It was alleged that they had exploited Czech idealismand learned how to bargain from the Jews. Czech visitors complained that localsellers were demandingmuch higher prices for their goods than in the past.⁷⁸ OneCzech journalist blamed theHungarians for spoiling the Rusynswith their school-ing policy. In his opinion, the Rusyns had been corrupted by the “money andother material advantages” given to them as an incentive to accept the Magyar-

74 Emil Kasík, Obrázky z Podkarpatské, 3.75 Němejcová-Měkká, Podkarpatská Rus, 6.76 Ibid.77 Jiří Král: Podkarpatská Rus. Praha 1924, 3.78 Anděl, Republika Československá, 395.

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ization of their children in schools. He claimed that under Czech rule, the Rusynsexpected to get everything for free and did not want to pay for anything.⁷⁹ An-other observer complained that the Rusyns were so used to Hungarian lords andtheir ways that they had no understanding of Czech democratic customs. Theywondered whether the Czechs were really their masters after all, when they sawthem hiking in the mountains – something the Hungarians had never deigned todo.⁸⁰ Some commentators advised Czechs to abandon some of their democraticideals, warning that otherwise they might lose the respect of the locals.⁸¹

The perception of the Rusyns as basically good people, who had just beenimpoverished and corrupted by Jews andHungarians sometimes gaveway to com-plete disillusionment. For example, the right wing Národní listy claimed in 1921that the poor cultural development of the natives was due not only to the Hun-garian administration, but also to the “character of the Rusyn people”. The articlewent on to say: “At this point it is time to tell the truth: the Rusyns as a whole areindolent, lazy and incredibly devoted to alcohol. [. . . ] The farming is so primitivethat you sometimes cannot distinguish a field from a fallow. [. . . ] It is too muchwork for the Rusyn to pull weeds.”⁸²

Although there were German villages with perfect farms in the region,

their Rusyn neighbours see it [the German farming], but continue to happily farm in theirown way, calling the ‘Swabs’ names or envying them. [. . . ] Their passion for alcohol is alsowell known. There is possibly no other nation that is affected by it as much as the Rusynsare. [. . . ]. For alcohol, the Rusyn will sell you the shirt off his back, his wife, children, andevenhimself. [. . . ] Rusyn villagesmake anunfavourable impression. The cottages aremainlywooden and shabby; the fences are broken. [. . . ] To force the locals to repair the road, youmust refuse to sell them rum.⁸³

For Said, the orientalizing stereotype of the noble savage is typically accompaniedby attempts to infantilize local populations and portray them as irrational. Thiscan also be seen in the case of Sub-Carpathian Rus. The region was characterizedas our “dear foster child whom we are bringing up”.⁸⁴ A warning that “a ballot inthe hand of an illiterate voter becomes a razor in the hand of a child” circulatedin the run-up to a planned election.⁸⁵ One observer complained that the locals did

79 Pešek, Kulturní poměry, 12.80 Václav Čížek: Tělesná výchova na Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Zatloukal, Podkarpatská Rus,176–178, 177.81 Linek, Podkarpatská Rus, 35.82 Z podkarpatské Rusi, in: Národní listy, 22.06.1921, 1.83 Ibid.84 Václav Drahný: Zemědělské poměry v Podkarpatské Rusi. Užhorod/Praha 1921, 25.85 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 122.

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not understand the format of political speeches and always wanted to interruptthe speaker before he had finished.⁸⁶ Another recommended showing slides in-stead, which could perhaps help the audience remember a fewwords and ideas.⁸⁷It was said that the locals could be so fascinated by something that they forgoteverything else at once, living, for example, too much for politics and forgettingtoworkunder theCzechoslovak administration.⁸⁸ Even their sex lifewas criticizedas disorderly and deviant. Rusyns were alleged to engage in sexual activities withclose relatives and shamelessly perform sexual acts in front of their children.⁸⁹The Czechs perceived themselves as the ‘parents’ of the ‘childlike’ Rusyns. Some-times it was argued that the Czechs were actually only ‘step-parents’ who wouldone day return the child to its real parents – the Russians – as soon as they hadbeen liberated from the Bolsheviks.⁹⁰ This was, however, not the prevailing viewamong the authors I have examined, most of whom tended to stress the perman-ency of Sub-Carpathian Rus’s place in Czechoslovakia.

Interestingly, Czech descriptions of the Rusyns usually overlooked Rusynelites, who were not as few in number as the Czechs would have liked. It seemsthat the Czechs perceived them as rivals and attempted to marginalize them,suggesting that the Rusyn intelligentsia was very small or associating it with the‘pro-Hungarian’ Eastern Catholic Church or Ukrainian nationalists. Initially, theCzechs had placed certain hopes in the Rusyn émigrés returning from the UnitedStates.⁹¹ After all, the émigrés had decided to integrate the region into Czecho-slovakia and were thought to be in a position to teach local Rusyns rational anddemocratic habits. However, the Czech reluctance to grant real autonomy soonalienated the émigrés and some of them, including the first Governor Zhatkovich,went back to the USA or joined camps hostile to the Czechoslovak state. The inab-ility of the Czechs to win the trust of local elites was a key factor in the persisting

86 Ibid., 118.87 Linek, Podkarpatská Rus, 35.88 D. Richard [pseud.]: Podkarpatská Rus jindy a nyní. Politické a národohospodářské náčrtkyz Podkarp. Rusi. Mukačevo 1927, 17.89 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 148.90 This view was particularly prevalent among the Czech Russophile right. In 1921 the Drahnýsexpected that the situation in Russia would improve and she would once again become a greatpower. They wrote that then “the conditions for Sub-Carpathian Rusyns will be better in Russiathan in our state” (Drahný/Drahný, PodkarpatskáRus, 106). They claimed that one day “when ourbrothers in the East [the Russians, SH] ask how the child is doing, it will be in our interest not toget bad reports from the Rusyns [. . . ] but to be praised by them. This canwin us the sympathies ofthe great Russian nation” (ibid., 106). These almost obsequious statements suggest that for manyCzechs, the Rusyns’ only importance lay in their function as a bridge to the ‘beloved’ Russians.91 Drahný/Drahný, Podkarpatská Rus, 109.

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bad relations between Rusyns and Czechs in the region. As one observer admittedten years after unification, “it is a sad reality experienced by every Czech, but theRusyns do not like us.”⁹²

In Czech descriptions, the backwardness of the region was often linked toan under-developed Rusyn national consciousness. The Czechs were perplexedwhen the Rusyns confused ethnicity with religion (when asked about their eth-nicity, some of them said that they belonged to the “Russian religion”).⁹³ Czechobservers often pointed out that the Rusyns had no common national identityandwere divided into various tribes (Hutsuls, Boykos and Lemkos). The existenceof tribes reinforced the image of an underdeveloped ‘pre-modern’ people, but italso fascinated Czech observers. The Hutsuls in the east of the region were seenas the Rusyn elite; they were the “spiritually gifted part of the Rusyn nation [. . . ]noted for their artistic creativity, energy and independence”.⁹⁴ Czech visitors whowanted to experience real folk culture were advised to go the Hutsul region. Bycontrast, the Boykos in central Sub-Carpathian Rus were seen as the most back-ward and destitute of the Rusyn tribes. As one observer wrote, “the name Boyk isconsidered an insult.”⁹⁵ In terms of their cultural development, the Lemkos in thewest were seen to lie somewhere between the other two tribes. Perhaps that’s whythey are referred to less often in Czech texts. Tribal affiliation was not the only fa-cet of Rusyn identity. A distinction was also made between the population in themountains (Verchovinci) and the population in the lowlands (Dolňane). The firstgroup was said to be “physically and mentally backward”, while the second wasdescribed as “better situated and more physically and mentally developed”.⁹⁶

Czech discussions of the local tribes, Jews and Gypsies are infused withbiological-anthropological discourse.⁹⁷ At that time, this discourse was no longerbeing used to describe the adult population of the Czech lands, with the excep-tion of schoolchildren in poorer districts, the Roma population, and the mentallyor physically disabled. Hutsuls, Jews and Gypsies were categorized according tohair colour, eyes, nose shape, body shape, and stature. There was a consensusthat the mental capacity of the ‘impoverished’ Rusyns and Gypsies was low,with the possible exception of the Hutsuls. Jewish intelligence was interpreted

92 Slezák, Naše Malé Rusko, 277.93 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 107.94 Král, Podkarpatská Rus, 62.95 Němejcová-Měkká, Podkarpatská Rus, 18.96 Ibid., 19.97 See, for example, V. Suk: Příspěvky k anthropologii Podkarpatských Huculů, in: Národopisnývěstník Československý 15 (1922), 32–43.

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as cunning.⁹⁸ Opinions were divided on the question of the physical health ofthe locals; optimistic views alternated with descriptions of a “sick, starving anddestitute population”. The Hutsuls were usually characterized as healthy. Indeed,the members of this tribe seemed to exert an almost sexual fascination on Czechvisitors. One observer described their “robust and tall bodies (average 167 cm),bright eyes and dark hair”.⁹⁹ Another portrayed them as “strong healthymen, tallwith hooked noses, big dark eyes, dark hair; their look is an expression of manlystrength, Slavic character, and resolve.”¹⁰⁰ By contrast, the Boykos were said tohave “a weaker physical constitution than the Hutsuls and their mental develop-ment [was] slower due to malnutrition, diseases and an excessive fondness foralcohol.”¹⁰¹

The imageof Sub-Carpathian Jews cultivatedby theCzechs corresponds to thesecond orientalizing stereotype of the servile but treacherous Eastern merchantreferred to above. The Jewswere alleged to exploit theRusynpopulationwith theirshady dealings and lure them to alcoholism. Yet their cleverness and diligencewere also acknowledged:

The Jew is industrious, hard-working; he is engaged in business, handicrafts, or farm work.He knows how to read and write, he rules over the highlands and the destitute people wholive there. He buys cattle cheaply, stealing the Rusyn’s last penny, cheating him with hiscleverness and ambition, and driving him into incredible poverty.¹⁰²

Another observer wrote that “the Jew uses bribes and loans; with his cunning,usury and treacherous alcohol he brings the Rusyn down with a prepared trapfrom which the Rusyn has no chance of escaping; he becomes a true slave in thehands of the ruthless Jew.”¹⁰³

The view of this minority as racially different and inferior was also expressedin publications that seemed to dodge the Czechoslovak censor, whichwas usuallyvery strict with regard to fascist, racist and communist propaganda:

The Jew is different even physically; although he belongs to the white race, he is a memberof the Semitic family, so you can recognize him at first sight with his weak physical consti-tution, dark or red hair and beard, the oriental look in his eyes, a strongly hooked nose, andmassive protruding lips.¹⁰⁴

98 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 92.99 Král, Podkarpatská Rus, 24.100 Linek, Podkarpatská Rus, 22.101 Richard, Podkarpatská Rus, 62.102 Němejcová-Měkká, Podkarpatská Rus, 20.103 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 92–93.104 Ibid., 91.

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A third commentator described the Jews as a “destructive” and “subversive ele-ment”.¹⁰⁵ Their language was considered to be a “distorted German used asa way of communication in their shady business”.¹⁰⁶ Even the Jewish abilityto learn languages quickly was viewed with suspicion.¹⁰⁷ The Czechs allegedthat the Jews were collaborating with the Hungarians and used the image of atwo-headed monster and the term ‘Hungarian-Jewish’ (maďarskožidovský).¹⁰⁸ AsYeshayahu Jelinek has noted, this allegation was particularly ironic, given thatit was made at a time “when the government in Hungary was in the hands ofAdmiral Miklós Horthy, whose extreme right-wing followers took a decidedlyanti-Jewish stand.”¹⁰⁹

The level of anti-Semitism I have found in Sub-Carpathian Rus at this timecontradicts existing scholarly literature on interwar Czechoslovakia, which tendsto reproduce the image of the Czech population as liberal and friendly towardsJews. The Catholic and nationalist press was particularly anti-Semitic. The Cath-olic daily Našinecwrote that Uzhhorod was “full of dirt, water, mud and Jews.” Itclaimed that the regionwas “rich and beautiful, but fouled up terribly by Jews.”¹¹⁰To avoid accusations of anti-Semitism, some observers argued that they were notagainst the Jews per se, but only against those who lived in Sub-Carpathian Rus,who were in fact Khazars, an Asian tribe that had converted to Judaism in earlymedieval times.¹¹¹ Their descendants had allegedlymigrated from Galicia to Hun-gary in the late nineteenth century. Another observer refused to be called an anti-Semite, because his stance was held by all those writing on Sub-Carpathian Rus,including even “professors and men of science.”¹¹²

In Sub-Carpathian Rus, the former Hungarian lords corresponded to the thirdorientalizing stereotype of the oriental and cruel warrior. They were describedas “chivalric”, “haughty”, “boastful”, and “splendid”.¹¹³ While these attributeswere not entirely negative, they were used to illustrate their alleged inability togovern in a rational way. Their rule over the territory was characterized as “cruel,

105 Drahný/Drahný, Podkarpatská Rus, 32.106 Ibid., 38.107 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 92.108 Ibid., 85.109 Jelinek, The Carpathian Diaspora, 189.110 Na Podkarpatskou Rus!, in: Našinec, 21.02.1923, 2.111 Chazaři a židé, in: Rozvoj 13. 25.06.1932, 4. This claim was first made by Hungarian Anti-Semites. The key work in this field, ‘In the Khazar land’ by Miklos Bártha, was translated intoCzech and published in Mukachevo as ‘V zemi Chazarů’ in 1927.112 Drahný/Drahný, Podkarpatská Rus, 103.113 Linek, Podkarpatská Rus, 22.

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truly Asiatic and absolutist”.¹¹⁴ Sometimes, we find an element of Schadenfreudein Czech comments on the defeated former rulers: “There is no more beautifulsight than the liberated and freely breathing population of Slovakia and Sub-Carpathian Rus and the humiliated Hungarians and Magyarons [non-Hungarianinhabitants of Hungary who identified with Hungarians, S.H.]”, reported oneCzech member of the mass sports organization Sokol about his visit.¹¹⁵

The history of Sub-Carpathian Rus under Hungarian rule was typically de-scribed as one thousand years of oppression and exploitation.¹¹⁶ Yet contempor-ary historians such as Jelinek speak about the “relatively favorable economic situ-ation during the period of past Hungarian rule”.¹¹⁷ Interestingly, in the first yearsof the Czech administration of the region, Czech observers tended to overlookthe current Hungarianminority, focussing instead on the former Hungarian lords.In the late 1920s commentaries on Hungarians became less harsh and the focusturned to the current Hungarian minority, which was characterized as “nation-ally and politically conscious, materially well situated, literate, mainly farmers”in contrast to the “lazy” Rusyns.¹¹⁸ In 1929 the Czech liberal weekly Přítomnosteven described the Hungarian farmer as “placid, hard-working, peace-loving andfond of order, with no sympathies for the rebellious agitation of the disloyal partof the Hungarian intelligentsia.”¹¹⁹ Just as in the Czech perceptions of the Rusyns,here too a contrast was drawn between the ‘good people’ and a hostile intelligent-sia.

IV Communists, the Catholic Orthodox Church,Ukrainian émigrés and the Czech self-image

Apart from Hungarians and Jews, from the Czech perspective there were threeother groups hostile to the Rusyn people and opposed to efforts to introducedemocracy and civilization in Sub-Carpathian Rus: the communists, the CatholicOrthodox Church, and Ukrainian émigrés.

114 Volby na Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Národní politika 63. 4.03.1924, 1.115 Bartoníček, O významu zájezdu, 232.116 Tisíciletá válka, in: Zprávy čs. červeného kříže 2. 15.02.1923, 35.117 Jelinek, The Carpathian Diaspora, 125.118 Poměry na Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Národní politika 50. 20.02.1925, 2.119 Slezák, Naše Malé Rusko, 278.

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The communists were depicted as wild demagogues and agitators who prom-ised the impossible to the people.¹²⁰ The Bolshevik revolution was greeted withenthusiasm by many Rusyns, as were the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the ad-vancement of the Red Army into Central Europe in 1920. In the first elections in1924,whichwere held some time after the peak in the revolutionarywar, commun-ists gained a spectacular 39 per cent of the votes. It seems that they had a strongsupport base, particularly among Hungarians and Jews.¹²¹ The Czech right-wingpress demanded that the election results be declared invalid, arguing that whilethis step might be seen as anti-democratic, “the interests of the nation and thestate must be come before everything else, even before democracy if it poses adanger to them.”¹²² In this context, Hungary (together with Romania) was seenfor the first time as a positive example, as a country where “the government keepswatch so that the forces of destruction cannot expand dangerously and misusecivil andparty freedoms to the detriment of the state in the nameof democracy.”¹²³In some Czech reports on the communist victory, disappointment at the Rusyns’ingratitude is palpable: “Whoever voted for the communists was voting againstthe paved road to his village or the functioning hospital in his town.”¹²⁴ Czechobservers were loath to admit that serious social problems had been the mainfactor in the communist victory. Instead, they blamed communist demagogy andelection tricks. It was claimed that by registering quickly, the Communist Partyhad been listed as number one on the ballot papers and many people had votedautomatically for it.¹²⁵ In the late 1920s support for the Communist Party declinedin the region, plummeting from 30 per cent in the 1925 election to 15 per cent in1929. During the Great Depression the communists recovered some of their formerstrength, gaining 25 per cent of the votes in the last democratic election in 1935.¹²⁶Throughout the interwar period, however, the Communist Party had its best elect-oral results in this part of Czechoslovakia. It is therefore doubtful that the Rusynswere as opposed to integration into the Soviet Union in 1946 as is sometimesclaimed nowadays.

120 Němejcová-Měkká, Podkarpatská Rus, 23.121 According to Sláma, who analyzed the 1935 election, the communists gained 18 per cent ofRusyn votes in the region, 37 per cent of Hungarian votes, and 51 per cent of Jewish votes. We canassume that the proportions were similar in the 1924 election. See Jiří Sláma: Die Parlamentswah-len im Jahre 1935 in Karpathorussland, in: Bohemia 29 (1988), 34–49, 43.122 Vina vlády na prohraných volbách, in: Národní myšlenka 3 (1923/1924), 207.123 Ibid., 206.124 Skácelík, Podkarpatská Rus, 529.125 Josef Barabáš: Podkarpatské volby, in: Rozmach (6), 1.04.1924, 89.126 Michal Barnovský: Niekoĺko poznámok k stranícko-politickej štruktúre na PodkarpatskejRusi, in: Česko-slovenská historická ročenka 1997. Brno 1997, 91.

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The Czechs accused the entire Eastern Catholic Church and the local EasternCatholic priesthood of previous collaboration with the Hungarians and economicexploitation of the Rusyn people. Bishop Alexander Papp contributed to ten-sions when he refused to meet President Masaryk on his first visit to the region in1920.¹²⁷ One journalist described the Eastern Catholic priesthood as “not very edu-cated and greedy”.¹²⁸ Many Czech observers saw parallels between the historicaldevelopment of the Eastern Catholic Church in Sub-Carpathian Rus and the re-Catholicization of the Czech lands in the seventeenth century, an era rememberedby the Czechs as a time of national and cultural decline. In their narrative of themore recent developments in Sub-Carpathian Rus, the Catholic Church was sub-stituted by the Eastern Catholic Church and the Germans by the Hungarians.¹²⁹Only the Czech Catholic press had a different view, claiming that the Eastern Cath-olic Church was actually more loyal to the Czechoslovak state than was generallysupposed. It pointed out that although the head of church was pro-Hungarian,most priests were pro-Czechoslovak and pro-Rusyn, and they were held in highesteem by “the people”.¹³⁰ However, the conversion of one fifth of its membersto Russian Orthodoxy after 1918 and the communist leanings of many Rusynsindicates growing Rusyn distrust of the Eastern Catholic Church. The growingpopularity of the Russian Orthodox Church was welcomed bymany Czechs as theRusyns’ return to their Russian roots.¹³¹

The third group who came to be perceived as hostile by the Czechs were na-tionalist émigrés from Ukraine. About five thousand in number, the mainly intel-lectual émigrés were employed as teachers in Sub-Carpathian schools in the earlydays of Czech rule.¹³² At that time, the authoritieswere attempting to de-Magyarizethe school system and overlooked the fact that theUkrainians had little interest inthe Czechoslovak state. Due to their similar language and customs, they soonwoninfluence over the locals and some of them began to agitate in favour of a futureUkrainian state. They also succeeded in taking over certain Rusyn organizations,which subsequently started to stress the region’s Ukrainian identity. In the Czechpress, the “Ukrainian agitators” were accused of “exploiting the hospitality of ourstate and spreading distrust of it” and turning the Rusyn people into “a puppet in

127 Hierarchie na podkarpatské Rusi, in: Rozmach, Čtrnáctideník pro politiku a národní kulturu5 (1924), 30.128 Linek, Podkarpatská Rus, 8.129 “The well-known methods of the Jesuits were applied: setting Eastern Catholics against Or-thodox Russians, burning Orthodox Russian books”. See: Drahný/Drahný, Podkarpatská Rus, 35.130 Na podkarpatskou Rus!, in: Našinec, 21.02.1923, 2.131 Sláma, Die Parlamentswahlen, 38.132 Jaromír Hořec: První kroky svobody. Podkarpatská Rus 1918–1920. Praha 1999, 23.

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their hands”.¹³³ The Galician émigrés who were familiar with the region and thelocal dialectwereperceivedasparticularly dangerous.¹³⁴ Journals propagating theidea of a Greater Ukraine were alleged to have been circulated to pupils by teach-ers of Ukrainian origin. One journalist was critical of theUkrainian textbooks heldin school libraries,whichdescribedUkrainians as themost beautiful race on earthand Czechs as descendants of the Mongols.¹³⁵ Another journalist went even fur-ther, accusing the Ukrainian nationalists of being the allies of the Turks and theGermans “for a long time” and calling them “the enemies of the Slavs”.¹³⁶ SomeCzechs considered their language to be mere “jargon” and warned against intro-ducing it in schools.¹³⁷ In the words of one commentator, the “implementation ofUkrainian as an official language in the territory wouldmean the de-Slavicizationof the territory.”¹³⁸ In the late 1920s some of themost extreme Ukrainian national-istswere expelled fromCzechoslovakia.¹³⁹ To curb the influence of theUkrainians,the Czechoslovak authorities also began to encourage the exclusively Rusyn ori-entation they had previously rejected as pro-Hungarian. The Czechs believed thatthe Rusyns, unlike the Slovaks, could not be absorbed into the Czechoslovak na-tion. I found only one reference to the Rusyns as a Slovak tribe.¹⁴⁰ For the Czechauthorities, the question of which national affiliation was preferable remained,however, unresolved. With some exceptions, the Czechoslovak right wing sup-ported a Russian orientation for Sub-Carpathian Rus, the left wing favoured aUkrainian orientation, and the centre parties leaned towards an exclusively Rusynorientation.

There is little mention of two other ethnic groups in Czech discourse – theRoma and the Germans. Together, they accounted for one to two per cent of re-gion’s inhabitants. The Germans in Sub-Carpathian Ruswere described as orderlyand industrious; they were “the only good farmers, who generally accumulated aconsiderable fortune”.¹⁴¹ Their alleged cultural proximity to the Czechs was em-phasized, something that was unheard of in the rest of Czechoslovakia.¹⁴² Yet

133 Poměry na Karpatské Rusi, in: Český deník, 30.11.1923, 9.134 Politika na Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Národní politika, 11.06.1925, 2.135 X. A.W.: Dvěmemoranda z PodkarpatskéRusi, in: Národnímyšlenka. Volume 5 (8), 1925, 246.136 Ibid.137 F. Skácelík: Memento z Podkarpatské Rusi, in: Lumír 6/7, 12.07.1923, 371.138 Ibid., 368.139 Paul RobertMagocsi/Ivan Pop: Czechs, in: Paul RobertMagocsi/Ivan Pop (eds.), Encyclopae-dia of Rusyn History and Culture. Toronto 2002, 81.140 Antonín Hartl: Kulturní život v osvobozené podkarpatské Rusi. Praha 1924, 22.141 Z podkarpatské Rusi, in: Národní listy, 22.06.1921, 1.142 Drahný/Drahný, Podkarpatská Rus, 34.

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given the strained relations between Czechs and Germans back home, Czech ob-servers could only identify with the Germans to a certain extent. On the rare oc-casions they were mentioned, the Roma were portrayed as a radicalized versionof the impoverished Rusyns. They were said to be backward, with a tendency totempt people to sin (for example, by playing “seductive music” in pubs).¹⁴³ Czechobservers also rehearsed the typical racist claim that their beauty was short-lived:“The Roma body quickly develops a lively freshness of youth, but it descends tooearly into the shapelessness of old age, especially in the case of women.”¹⁴⁴

In contrast to Rusyns, Jews, Hungarians or Romani, the Czechs painted a pic-ture of themselves as rational, civilized and just Europeans.

As in Slovakia, here the Czechs have also shown great organizational talent and real Slavicpatriotism (pravé slovanství). Unlike the former foreign and arrogant Hungarian, the Czechwho came here after the coup is a man with a Western European education, an honest andefficient official, who easily understands the Rusyn people; he is less haughty and ostenta-tious, but educated and thrifty, without prejudices, and a real democrat. In his relationshipwith the local people, he is not a master or a commander, but an honest and friendly fellowcitizen and adviser. We bring order, discipline, Western European democracy, and cultureto this land of former oriental chaos and disorder.¹⁴⁵

Curiously, no contradictionwas seenbetweenSlavic patriotismandEuropeanism.The following description of the state regulation of Jewish usury illustrates howthe Czechs viewed themselves:

the Czech judge and policeman forced one to respect the law and other people’s property;the Jewish merchant felt secure and calculated the advantages of our revolution. But he hastrouble coming to termswith the honesty and intransigence of the Czech clerkwhen it comesto taxes, and it is an unpleasant novelty for the Jew that the Rusyns also get concessions [. . . ]due to their oriental origins and traditions, the Jews are inclined toward theHungarians, andyet they are above all coolly calculating; they accept the permanency of the CzechoslovakRepublic and the new conditions. Although they do not love our state, they have learnt toobey its laws, administrative capacity, universal tolerance, and good and stable currency.Let’s not forget, that, like allOrientals, the Jew is impressedby agovernment that is vigorous,strong and pompous.¹⁴⁶

143 Linek, Podkarpatská Rus, 40–41.144 Matoušek, Podkarpatská Rus, 89.145 Ibid., 206–207.146 Ibid., 96.

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On rare occasions, negative Czech attributes were mentioned, such as their ex-cessive idealism and kindness, which were sometimes exploited by the locals.¹⁴⁷Czech commentators also referred to the eternal political squabbling amongCzechs. As one observer put it, “what the region needs least from us, is polit-ics.”¹⁴⁸ What it most required was “positive work”. I also came across a warningto young Czech officials not to succumb to the temptations of alcohol and pros-titution while serving their country so far away from home. They were advisedto avoid pubs with “seductive Roma music” and attend theatre plays or concertswith their fellow Czechs instead.¹⁴⁹

V ConclusionCzech historiography continues to see the First Czechoslovak Republic, its polit-ical elites andbureaucratic apparatus as fundamentally democratic. Thenarrativeof the golden twenty years of Sub-Carpathian Rus reinforced the positive imageof interwar Czechoslovakia and it still prevails in Czech public discourse. In myarticle, I tried to highlight less familiar aspects of the period of Czech rule overSub-Carpathian Rus. Czech perceptions of the region and its inhabitants reflectednot only the ‘culture shock’ experienced by the new rulers, but also their attemptsto legitimize their domination. The construction of enemies of the Rusyn peoplein Czech discourse also allowed Czechs to present their rule as the only possibilityof saving ‘the people’. I also showed how the category of the ‘people’ was almostsacralized in support of a paternalistic relationship between the majority of thelocal population and the Czech administrators. Czech perspectives on the regionand its people in the interwar yearswere overburdenedwith Czech ethnocentrismandnationalism. For that reason, theCzech administrators of Sub-CarpathianRuswere unable to develop amore balanced view of the territory theywere ruling andonly alienated the local population further.

147 “Our regime elicits no respect, because our kindness is interpreted as a weakness. [. . . ] Wehave not yet learned how to colonize. We are paying, but the local people are not and they evenclaim that we are stealing their bread.” See: Poměry na Karpatské Rusi, in: Český deník, 20.7.1924,3; Kochannyj, O podkarpatské Rusi, 87.148 Šíp, Pro positivní práci, 1. The term ‘politics’ seems to have had very negative connotationsat that time. ‘Democracy’, on the other hand, was connoted positively. Politics was understood asquarrelling and demagogy, while democracy was seen as the responsible management of publicaffairs.149 Linek, Podkarpatská Rus, 40–41.

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It seems thatwhen the Czechs came to rule over otherminority ethnic groups,they quickly adopted the discourse of the rulers they were so critical of – theGermans and the Hungarians. Yet they disguised it with terms like ‘democratiza-tion’, ‘Slavic brotherhood’, and ‘cultural development’. Almost all the binaries ofWestern orientalist discourse as they are defined in standard textbooks on post-colonialism can be found in the Czech imagining of Sub-Carpathian Rus and itsinhabitants.¹⁵⁰

ThusCzechoslovak rule over Sub-CarpathianRuswasnot only about develop-ment andgrowth; its discourse andpractices canbe characterized to a large extentas semi-colonial. The Czech discourse on Sub-Carpathian Rus did not allow theregion to become a subject of history, and for that reason, Rusyn, Hungarian andJewish intellectuals couldnot identifywith it. This discoursemight have increasedthe legitimacy of Czechoslovakia in the eyes of the Czech public, but it alienatedother minorities. The failure of the Czechs to renounce it proved disastrous in thelate 1930s.

The Czechoslovak state invested massively in Sub-Carpathian Rus after 1918and it cannot be denied that Czech rule led to improvements in Rusyn cultural life.Yet ifwe consider the economic development of the region, the semi-colonial prac-tices and mentalities of its Czech administrators, and the denial of the autonomypromised in 1920, evaluations of Czech rule become less positive. We shouldalso not forget that improvements in local people’s lives were not only due tothe region’s integration into Czechoslovakia. Here, other developments in thetwentieth-century history of Sub-Carpathian Rus also played a role, for examplethe integration of the region into Hungary in 1939 and into the Soviet Union in1945 or the creation of an independent Ukraine in 1991. As part of Hungary after1938, the region enjoyed autonomy and its cultural life flourished. And under So-viet rule, the region witnessed significant cultural and social development (e.g.the founding of the University of Uzhhorod, which had been promised but notdelivered by the Czechs, as well as unprecedented industrialization and urbaniz-ation). While the disintegration of the Soviet Union was economically disastrousfor the region, it did create new opportunities for the Rusyns and the Hungarianminority to advance their cultural life. We can only hope that future historicalstudies will offer a more nuanced assessment of the history of Sub-CarpathianRus, a region whose inhabitants carried the passports of five different states inthe last century.

150 See, for example, Joanna P. Sharp: Geographies of Post-colonialism. Spaces of Power andRepresentation. London 2008.

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