THE RUTHENIAN NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY AND RECEPTION IN SUBCARPATHIAN RUS’/CARPATHO-UKRAINE IN PUBLICATIONS FROM 1938 TO 1939

Abstract

According to the Peace Treaty signed in Saint Germain in 1919, Czechoslovakia was under the obligation to give autonomy to the Subcarpathian Rus’, but it was only after signing the Munich Agreement in 1938 that the essential autonomy was achieved . The first Ministerial Office (the Cabinet of ministers) of the Subcarpathian Rus’ was formed in October of 1938. The Ruthenian National Educational Association in its editions carefully monitored the situation in Czedhoslovakia, that is in the Subcarpathian Rus’. The Ruthenian Newspaper (Ruski novini) published the news, comments and additions on the events in the Subcarpathian Rus’, which, on one hand, gave the Yugoslav Ruthenians enough information on the political, cultural, national and economical circumstances in their old homeland. On the other hand, the revival and strengthening of the Ukrainian national idea in the Subcarpathian Rus’/Carpathian Ukraine induced the strengthening of the national consciousness of the Yugoslav Ruthenians who started giving help to the refugees who came to Ruski Kerestur from the Carpathian Ukraine after its collapse in the March of 1939.