The Fellow Who Made Himself President of a European Republic
Gregory Ignatius Zhatkovych
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/RRB.16.2020.16.06Keywords:
Gregory Ignatius Zhatkovych, the 1918-1919 incorporation process, Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), Uhro-Rusinia/ Rusinia, Uhro-Rusins, Subcarpathian Rus’, Carpatho-Rusyn American immigrantsAbstract
The study is the first comprehensive biography of Gregory Ignatius Zhatkovych, a Pittsburgh-based lawyer, who in 1918-1919 was instrumental in the creation of Czechoslovakia and the inclusion of its far eastern region, Subcarpathian Rus’/ Ruthenia, into the new country. Until now, information about Gregory Zhatkovych has come primarily from the extensive body of historical literature describing how Subcarpathian Rus’ was incorporated into Czechoslovakia at the close of World War I. The facts related in this literature are more or less the same. Their assessment, however, differs rather substantially depending on the ideological orientation of the authors and / or the time when they were writing. In the above literature Gregory Zhatkovych figures prominently, although until most recently he has been described in very different terms. For some authors, he is hailed as a friend of the young democratic Czechoslovak state. For others, especially those of Marxist persuasion, he is denigrated as a representative of Rusyn-American “bourgeois nationalist organizations”, a “lackey” and “loyal son of American capitalism”, and “an agent of American imperialism”. Finally, there are those who consider Zhatkovych a Carpatho-Rusyn patriot who did his best – but ultimately failed – to as sure that the promises made by the Czechoslovak government for Subcarpathian self-rule would be fulfilled. Despite his historic importance, to date there is no biography of Gregory Zhatkovych other than a few brief encyclopedic entries. Aside from their brevity, these entries generally focus on the few years just after World War I, when he was politically active in Europe. But Zhatkovych had a life both before and after those years as a lawyer and political activist in the United States, in particular in western Pennsylvania. Based on recently uncovered correspondence between Zhatkovych and his wife and between the wife and her sister, as well as unpublished biographical data provided by his surviving family members, the recently published correspondence with President Masaryk, and several rare newspaper reports especially from western Pennsylvania, this is the first study to provide a comprehensive biography that spans Gregory Zhatkovych’s pre- and especially post-World War I career in the United States until his death in 1967.
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