A Brief Episode from the History of the Unformed Carpatho-Russian Republic of the USSR

In the mid-1980s, I had the opportunity to travel through Transcarpathia on a tour. Arriving by train in Lviv, our group transferred to a bus and headed into the mountains. The beauty of the Carpathians—its picturesque mountains and highland pastures, the rushing mountain rivers, and the colorfully dressed highlanders rafting timber downstream—left an unforgettable impression. We passed many large, well-maintained villages and small homesteads with fenced meadows and towering haystacks. Our guide explained that one village was Romanian, another Hungarian, yet another Moldovan, and that one Ukrainian. At the time, I had little interest in national or religious issues. The idea that the indigenous people of the region were Ukrainians, including the picturesque highland Hutsuls, seemed unquestionable. None of us were concerned with the religious affiliations of the local population. The word «Rusyn» never once reached our ears.

It was only decades later, while researching archival documents from the Council for Religious Affairs of the Soviet Council of People's Commissars (hereafter, the Council), that I first encountered the name of this people. It turned out that among the inhabitants of Transcarpathia, there were those who had preserved their Orthodox faith and Russian identity despite many hardships. These were the Carpatho-Russians, or Rusyns—«Sons of Rus,» as they called themselves.

Who Are the Rusyns?

The Rusyns are an East Slavic ethnic group living primarily in western Ukraine (Transcarpathia), eastern Slovakia (the so-called Prešov Rus), southeastern Poland (Lemkivshchyna), northeastern Hungary, northwestern Romania (Maramureș), as well as in Serbia’s Vojvodina and Croatia’s Slavonia. Significant Rusyn diasporas also exist in the United States and Canada.

Scholars debate the origins of the Rusyns. Modern Ukraine classifies them as Ukrainians, while Russia generally regards them as a distinct East Slavic people. One theory posits that the Rusyns are descendants of the ancient Rus' people, from whom Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians later emerged. Despite numerous challenges, the Rusyns have preserved their language—lexically close to Church Slavonic—and their Orthodox faith (although a smaller portion converted to Greek Catholicism).

Some believe that the ancestors of the Rusyns adopted Christianity during the missionary journey of Saints Cyril and Methodius to the Great Moravian Principality. In any case, these two saints are not only venerated as the «Apostles of the Slavs» but are also the patron saints of Carpathian Rus, with many local churches dedicated to them.

Debate continues over whether the Rusyn language is a distinct language or a dialect of Russian or Ukrainian.

Originally, the Rusyns were Orthodox Christians (affiliated with the Serbian and Constantinopolitan Patriarchates). Despite assimilation and partial loss of their native language, many remained faithful to their ancestral religion, particularly in mountainous regions. Under democratic Czechoslovakia, some Greek Catholic Rusyns began returning to Orthodoxy. In the USSR, this process accelerated after Ukraine was liberated from Nazi occupation. Today, over 60% of Transcarpathian Rusyns identify as Orthodox Christians, while 35% adhere to Greek Catholicism.

A Thorny Path

Beyond issues of national identity, the Rusyns have long faced difficulties in establishing statehood. Their small, isolated territory was subject to conquests by various powers. Due to its mountainous geography, the region was largely cut off from the rest of Rus', connected only by a few mountain passes.

The history of the Rusyns is a continuous struggle to preserve their national identity, culture, language, and faith, as well as their right to remain Russian. Since the 6th century, their lands have been under the rule of Avars, later influenced by the West Slavic Great Moravian state. In 903, Hungarian rule began, followed by over a millennium of Austro-Hungarian domination, lasting until the end of World War I.

In the late 19th century, the Rusyn national revival began in Austro-Hungary. It was seen by Rusyn intellectuals as a return to the all-Russian cultural heritage and an affirmation of their identity as part of the larger Russian people. In Ukrainian historiography, this movement was labeled "Muscovite philism."

After World War I, the Rusyns finally gained independence from Hungary and later from Austro-Hungary. However, during the war, the Austro-Hungarian authorities launched open terror and genocide against Rusyns suspected of pro-Russian sentiments. Concentration camps were established, where thousands of pro-Russian Rusyns—men, women, and children—were detained and perished. The most infamous camps were Thalerhof and Terezín.

During World War II, Rusyns formed the backbone of the First Czechoslovak Army Corps, which fought against Nazi Germany under Soviet command.

By November 1944, all of Carpathian Rus had been liberated by Soviet forces. Transcarpathian territories, populated primarily by Carpatho-Russians, were incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. However, as archival documents reveal, many Rusyns opposed this decision.

«We Do Not Want to Be Czechs or Ukrainians—We Want to Be Part of Soviet Russia!»

In a report dated December 16, 1944, the chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs, Georgy Karpov, informed Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Lavrentiy Beria about the arrival in Moscow of a delegation from Transcarpathia. This group, representing Carpatho-Rusyn clergy under the Serbian Orthodox Church, was warmly received by the Moscow Patriarchate.

What was the delegation’s request? According to the document:

«…The delegation leader, Abbot Theophan, delivered a petition signed by himself and 23 priests. They requested that the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church establish contact with the Serbian Orthodox Church to formally transfer the Mukachevo-Prešov Diocese under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.»

Beyond religious matters, the delegation addressed a political request: the inclusion of Transcarpathia into the Soviet Union as an autonomous republic. The petition stated:

«We are all loyal to the Soviet Union, but we strongly oppose the incorporation of our territory into the Ukrainian SSR. We do not want to be Czechs or Ukrainians—we want to be Russian and for our land to be autonomous within Soviet Russia.»

This sentiment was echoed in a letter to Stalin, where the Rusyns expressed gratitude for their liberation and emphasized their Russian identity. They insisted that the terms "Ukraine" and "Ukrainian" had only been introduced to them under Czech rule after World War I, whereas their identity as Rusyns dated back centuries.

Karpov noted in his report that he found contradictions within the delegation, as well as traces of Western and Uniate influences. Later, the Soviet newspaper Izvestia mentioned the delegation’s visit but omitted any reference to their request for autonomy.

An assessment of this situation by a contemporary Orthodox figure, Archpriest Dmitry Sidor, a Rusyn by origin and head of the Orthodox Subcarpathian Rusyn Society named after Cyril and Methodius, was published on a well-known Orthodox online resource.

«The position of Mehlis-Khrushchev prevailed, and most of Subcarpathian Rus… was annexed to Soviet Socialist Ukraine, with the forced renaming of its inhabitants—the eternal Rusyns—into… native Ukrainians," the clergyman states. "Subcarpathian Rus, from the Bolsheviks, received the name of an ordinary Transcarpathian region of Ukraine. And the Carpatho-Russian Autonomous Orthodox Church of the Serbian Patriarchate became part of the Russian Orthodox Church, but not as an autonomous entity, rather as a diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate.»

It is difficult to say with certainty what the main arguments of the Soviet government were in determining the fate of this small but proud people. However, it can be assumed that it was not Khrushchev and his associates who primarily influenced Stalin’s decision on the statehood of the Rusyns, but more significant internal and external political factors. The situation in Ukraine, newly liberated from the Germans, remained tense for a long time. While former Uniates were actively returning to Orthodoxy, Greek Catholics still had considerable influence. And the ethnic composition of post-war Transcarpathia was another complicating factor! In addition to Rusyns, Russians, and Ukrainians, there were also Hungarians and Romanians. Even among the Rusyns, there were influential supporters of Greek Catholicism, such as Bishop Theodore Romzha, who, according to the memoirs of General Pavel Sudoplatov, was eliminated in 1947 on Khrushchev’s initiative.