Between Russia and Czechoslovakia: Lemko Rus’ Struggle for Political Independence in the Years 1918-1921 and International Politics

Abstract

BETWEEN RUSSIA AND CZECHOSLOVAKIA: LEMKO RUS’ STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE IN THE YEARS 1918-1921 AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

The events in Lemko Rus had, in the years 1918-1921, a subjective and political character, and were the result of Lemkos’ own initiatives and activities, and not just external influences. They proved to be the national maturation of the Lemko community. However, it cannot be said that the newly created Lemko councils aimed at or constituted their own Lemko state with the headquarters in the village of Florynka. It becomes clear after analysing the chronology of Lemko political postulates in the context of events in the regional and global plane. None of the subsequent stages of the process of specifying their nationality by the Lemkos was connected with the idea of a separate Lemko statehood. Formally speaking, i.e., from the perspective of law and international relations, the Lemko region first wanted to belong to the Russian state, then to Czechoslovakia, always strongly rejecting the notion of being part of the resurgent Poland and the then-created Ukraine. Czechoslovakia was not an alternative to Russia for Lemko politicians, but only a tactical necessity against the momentary, as it was believed, impossibility to implement the original Russian option. It was a case created by a coincidence of ad-hoc circumstances. Be the Lemkos’ own country in the national sense, that is, they met both the political and cultural criteria of belonging there, which were important to their community. The Czechoslovak option somehow forced, or rather made possible the second option – striving to create a local state with a wider formula than just the Lemko region, connecting all Rusyns living in Austria-Hungary, that is also those from Eastern Galicia, Bukovina and Hungary. Such a Carpatho-Ruthenian republic was supposed to be a substitute, necessary for formal reasons, as an autonomous element in the federal structure of the Czechoslovak state, and for political reasons, as a safeguard for the national aspirations of the such a Carpatho-Rusyn and a guarantee of their future unification with democratic Russia. While Russia, both tsarist and liberal, guided by its national doctrine, was willing to unconditionally include all Austro-Hungarian Ruthenians in its borders, including also westernmost Lemkos, Czechoslovak leaders wanted to bite only as much as they could chew economically and politically, i.e. – include only regions rich in cities or natural deposits. The poor and non-urbanized Lemko region was treated only as a convenient item in their subversive game of borders with Poland.