page_title: Zakarpattia Oblast
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Zakarpattia Oblast / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Lemko, West-Ukrainien &amp; Hutsul claims in november and december 1918 according with the sources: The maps Austria hungary 1911.jpg and H.E.Stier (dir.), Grosser Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, Westermann 1985, p. 151, ISBN 3-14-100919-8 for the languages; Bernard Michel, La Chute de l'empire austro-hongrois: 1916-1918, R. Laffont and 1991, 322 p., ISBN 2221069323 Paul Robert Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, University of Toronto Press 1996, ISBN 0-8020-0830-5; Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, University of Toronto Press 1988, ISBN 0-8020-5808-6.
context_page_description: The Zakarpatska Oblast is an administrative oblast located in southwestern Ukraine, coterminous with the historical region of Carpathian Ruthenia. Its administrative centre is the city of Uzhhorod. Other major cities within the oblast include Mukachevo, Khust, Berehove and Chop which is home to railroad transport infrastructure.
  Zakarpatska Oblast was established on 22 January 1946, after the resignation of Czechoslovakia on the territory of Subcarpathian Ruthenia, annexed forcibly by the Soviet Union and attached to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, under a treaty between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. Some scholars say that during the Ukrainian independence referendum held in 1991, Zakarpatska Oblast voters were given a separate option on whether or not they favoured autonomy for the region. Although a large majority favoured autonomy, it was not granted. However, this referendum was about self-government status, not about autonomy.
  Situated in the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine, Zakarpattia Oblast is the only Ukrainian administrative division which borders upon four countries: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.
context_section_description: The lands of Transcarpathia were part of the Kingdom of Hungary since 895. In 895 the Hungarian tribes entered the Carpathian Basin from here through the Verecke pass. As such, it formed part of Austria-Hungary until the latter's demise at the end of World War I. It approximately consists of four Hungarian counties (comitatus): Bereg, Ung, Ugocsa and Maramaros. This region was briefly part of the short-lived West Ukrainian National Republic in 1918. The region was annexed by Romania by the end of that year, mostly the eastern portion such as Rakhiv and Khust. It was later recaptured by Hungarian Soviet Republic in the summer of 1919. Finally, under the name Subcarpathian Rus (Czech: Podkarpatská Rus), after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 it was annexed to Czechoslovakia with a supposedly equal level of autonomy as Slovakia and Bohemia-Moravia-Czech Silesia (Czech lands). Nevertheless, such autonomy was granted as late as in 1938, after detrimental events of the Munich Conference; until then this land was administered directly from Prague by the government-appointed provincial presidents (zemští prezidenti) and/or elected governors (guvernéři).
  The province has a unique footnote in history as the only region in the former Czechoslovakia to have had an American governor: its first governor was Gregory Zatkovich, an American citizen who had earlier emigrated from the region and represented the Rusyn community in the U.S. Zatkovich was appointed governor by Czechoslovakia's first president, T. G. Masaryk in 1920, and served for about one year until he resigned over differences regarding the region's autonomy.
  Following the Munich Agreement, the southern part of the region was awarded to Hungary under the First Vienna Award in 1938. The remaining portion was constituted as an autonomous region of the short-lived Second Czechoslovak Republic. After the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia on March 15, 1939 and the Slovak declaration of an independent state, Carpatho-Ukraine was proclaimed as an independent Republic but was immediately occupied and later annexed by Hungary.Voloshyn asked support for recognition in advance from Hitler but he even did not answer. The state is known as 'the one-day republic' because it did not exist more than one day. The military operations and the occupation of Carpatho-Ukraine was finished by the Hungarian troops on March 18.
  The Hungarian invasion was followed by a few weeks of terror in which more than 27,000 people were shot dead without trial and investigation. Over 75,000 Ukrainians decided to seek asylum in the USSR; of those almost 60,000 of them died in Gulag prison-camps. Others joined the Czechoslovak Army.
  The major Jewish communities of the region had existed in Mukachevo, Ungvar, and Khust.
  During the German occupation of Hungary - March 1944-December 1944] - almost the entire Jewish population was deported; few survived the Holocaust.
  In October 1944 the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine was occupied by the Red Army. On 26 November 1944 in Mukacheve took place the First Congress of People's Committees of Zakarpattia Ukraine, elections to which took place in November 10–25, 1944. In June 29, 1945, Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš signed a treaty ceding the area and the next month it was united with the Ukrainian SSR through the "Manifest for unification with the Soviet Ukraine" that was accepted by the 1st Congress of People's Committees of Sub-Carpathian Ukraine without any knowledge of common people. It was then annexed into the Ukrainian SSR as Zakarpattia Oblast.
caption: Zakarpattia (Hutsul Republic) as part of the territory claimed by the West Ukrainian People's Republic (1918)
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