After WWI, the new Czechoslovakia had an eastern most province not mentioned in the narrative here – Ruthenia. That province, now called Zakarpatskie Ukraine, was attached to the new Czechoslovakia because it had been part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire that had just been carved up, and it had a central European outlook. It had no majority population – there were Western Ukrainians, to be sure (mostly Lemko dialect), but they were less than 50%, the rest being Jews (the majority in many large towns), Romanians, Germans (not just in towns), Slovaks, and Roma. When Hitler removed the Jews (whose cemeteries I photographed about 20 years ago), That made the Ukrainians the majority, so the Soviets took the province and added it to Ukraine; that gave them the all-important corridor to Hungary, as well as Poland and Czechoslovakia, that could (and did) use to suppress any breakaway movements. The Ukrainian population, usually called Carpatho-Rusins now, have many excellent wooden churches in Slovakia as well as in neighboring southeastern Poland. They are mostly “Greco-Catholics” (orthodox rite Catholics). Steve Kotansky’s ancestors came from that community, and he and Susi are leading a dance tour to Northeastern Hungary and that part of Slovakia, where we will be learning some of the dances from the Rusins.
After WWI, the new Czechoslovakia had an eastern most province not mentioned in the narrative here – Ruthenia. That province, now called Zakarpatskie Ukraine, was attached to the new Czechoslovakia because it had been part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire that had just been carved up, and it had a central European outlook. It had no majority population – there were Western Ukrainians, to be sure (mostly Lemko dialect), but they were less than 50%, the rest being Jews (the majority in many large towns), Romanians, Germans (not just in towns), Slovaks, and Roma. When Hitler removed the Jews (whose cemeteries I photographed about 20 years ago), That made the Ukrainians the majority, so the Soviets took the province and added it to Ukraine; that gave them the all-important corridor to Hungary, as well as Poland and Czechoslovakia, that could (and did) use to suppress any breakaway movements. The Ukrainian population, usually called Carpatho-Rusins now, have many excellent wooden churches in Slovakia as well as in neighboring southeastern Poland. They are mostly “Greco-Catholics” (orthodox rite Catholics). Steve Kotansky’s ancestors came from that community, and he and Susi are leading a dance tour to Northeastern Hungary and that part of Slovakia, where we will be learning some of the dances from the Rusins.
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