Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/355

 tury, before it took roots. The nobility opposed it, because by it Rusin clergy received the rights of the Catholic clergy in the diet and in the county assemblies, with the participation in county administration.

In accepting the Union with Rome the Rusin clergy did not choose wisely. Their social and economic conditions did not greatly improve. Catholic hierarchy looked down upon the Rusin priests as men without culture. Catholic archbishops of Eger kept the Rusin bishops in an undignified dependence until the year 1771, when the Uniate bishopric was fully recognized by the pope. Such inferior situation deprived the Rusin priests of their proper weight before the public officials, the nobles and even the people. This lasted until 1771. Under the regime of bishop Ondřej Bačinski (1772-1809), educational qualifications of the Rusin priests were raised and their material welfare improved. In 1760 and 1761 Roumanian-Serbian agitators made a last, fruitless attempt to bring the Rusins of Hungary back into the Eastern church. As it is, of all the races of Hungary professing the Orthodox religion the Rusins alone accepted union with the Western Church and maintained it till the present day. Since 1821 they have had two bishops; at that time the bishopric of Mukačev was divided into that of Mukačev and that of Prešov. But for nearly a century after the conclusion of the union there was a succession of Orthodox bishops parallel to the Uniate bishops; it was ended in 1735.

On the whole church union was not beneficial to the Rusin national cause. If they had remained Orthodox, they could have retained, as did the Serbians and Roumanians, independence in their ecclesiastical and educational affairs. That is one of the reasons for their pitiable state in the former kingdom of Hungary. But there were other reasons. For one thing, there have been too few Rusins in Hungary compared with other nationalities. Their number in recent decades did not exceed half a million. It failed to increase not only by reason of forcible magyarization, practised during the last half a century, but also by reason of mean material conditions of existence. These poor Carpathian people have not enough land to satisfy their modest needs. On the territory inhabited by them most of the soil belongs to great noblemen who were in the habit of leasing the fields to Jews recently arrived from Russia and Galicia. These again subleased them in small parcels to Rusin peasants, of course at an extortionate profit. At the same time these Jewish middlemen were usurers and rum-sellers, and the result was systematic pauperizing of the people. Rusins emigrated in thousands to the United States, to Canada, to Brazil.

When the Hungarian government realized that the northeast was being depopulated, they sent to the county of Bereg, and to the counties of Marmaroš and Ung, an expert who was to submit plans for improving the economic situation of the Uhro-Rusins. This commissioner, Edmund Egan, was not only a theoretical, but also a practical economist, descendant of an Irish family which settled in Hungary at the beginning of the 19th century. Egan’s memorandum transmitted to the minister of agriculture Daranyi, made astounding revelations about the economic conditions prevailing in the northeastern counties of Hungary. The government commissioner, an impartial witness, described powerfully the exploitation of the Rusins by Jewish parasites. At that time a great sensation was caused by Egan’s report, and when the author died from some mysterious cause in 1901, many believed that his death was due to Jewish vengeance.

After Egan’s death the Magyar government did nothing to improve the material condition of the Uhro-Rusins. They were still in a state of extreme poverty, when the general war broke out, and they are still poor, as they join the Czechoslovak Republic. He who knows their sad past, will understand their touching confidence in our Republic.

Our government will not only not oppress them, but will grant them full political and national liberty and will assist them by material means. One of the most important tasks of the new government will be equitable expropriation of the great landed estates and the improvement of agriculture and industry. Among the means to be used is the establishment of trade schools, banks and factories. It will also be necessary to build as soon as possible a railroad through the Rusin country which will connect our Republic with the Roumanian Kingdom and will develop the Rusin country.