Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/353

 The Ukrainian cause did not encounter much sympathy among the people south of the mountains even after the disruption of the Danubian Monarchy. Only the Czech people enjoyed their confidence, and thus they decided to unite with the Czchoslovak Republic on condition that they received internal autonomy. The same hostility toward the Ukrainians showed itself among the Lemky. These constitute the most western branch of the Russian people in Galicia. The Rusins to the north of the Carpathians, refusing to call themselves Ukrainians, united with the Rusins south of the Carpathians, and toward the end of 1918 formed the National Council of Carpatho-Russians, with headquarters at Prešov. The president was a former member of the Hungarian parliament, Dr. Antonin Beskid. He came to Paris in January, 1919, with the Czechoslovak delegation to the peace conference, and in the name of his countrymen offered to our delegates and to the representatives of the Entente the union of the Carpatho-Russians with the Czechoslovak Republic. It is well known that the peace conference approved of this union, so far as it applied to Rusins of Hungary. Thus our state receives a Russian element and becomes the direct neighbor of Roumania, which now includes large sections of the former kingdom of St. Stephen.

On the 8th of May a congress was held, attended by delegations of Rusins from the districts of Uzhorod, Presov and Hust; this congress was remarkable for the distrust which the people showed to the majority of their “intellectuals.” It was realized that the Rusin leaders, and especially the clergy, have not been reliable from the national point of view. Not only during the war, but long before it, they were willing instruments of magyarization, or at any rate feeble defenders of the national idea. Thus the Rusin people felt tha.t their future was better secured by incorporation in the Czechoslovak Republic than by independent existence under their own leaders. A delegation went to Prague on May 22 to confer on the position which their people should occupy within the Czechoslovak Republic.

Since the general public is little informed about this branch of the Russian people, the following facts about the Rusins of former Hungary may prove of interest.

Rusins of Hungary have played a considerable role in the history of Hungary ever since the Arpad dynasty. Magyar writers pretend that Rusins are comparatively recent immigrants. That is true only as regards part of the race. The oldest Hungarian chronicler, known as Anonymus, a notary of King Bela, states that a large number of Russians joined the Magyar prince, Almos, when he arrived in Hungary, and settled on his lands. He relates that the Russian duke of Galicia ordered two thousand archers and three thousand peasants to guide the Magyars to Hungary across the Carpathian forests. On the other hand, science proved that Russian Slavs were settled along both slopes of the Carpathians long before the arrival of the Magyars in Hungary. It appears, nevertheless, that the first Russians to the south of the Carpathian Mountains were not numerous. There are found at many points along the frontier localities called Orosz or Oroszi (Russian); these are undoubtedly traces of original Russian immigration. This is partcularly [sic] so with Oroszvar (in German Karlsburg), near Bratislava. Biedermann believes that many Russian garrisons of Hungarian strongholds which down to the 16th century guarded certain royal castles were remnants of the Russian frontiers militia. They are mentioned in article 47 of a law enacted in 1498.

Other free Russians or Rusins are mentioned in article 29 of a law of 1500. They are referred to as Rutheni Regiae Majestatis in Nagij-Oroszfalu residentes who were employed as retainers in the service of the king; some ancient documents actually give the word orosz the meaning of janitor.

Rusins crossed the frontier in small groups, composed of mountaineers; this has been probably taking place since the beginning of the tenth century. A certain number of Rusins came to Hungary at the beginning of the twelfth century in the suite of the daughter of the Galician prince Svatopluk whose name was Předslava and who married king Koloman. These newcomers who enjoyed the privileges of noblemen founded in the county of Hont the settlement of Nemes-Orosz.

But only in the 13th century can one speak of a considerable immigration of Rusins into Hungary. After Tartar devastations colonization of northern Hungary was undertaken on a grand scale. Up to