The attempt for revision of the settlement policy of the first Czechoslovak Republic in Transcarpathia between 1938 and 1944

The Hungarian government on the reclaimed territory failed to revise the land reform and settlement policy carried out by the first Czechoslovak Republic. One of the reasons of this was that the changes going on in the region in the Czechoslovak era required sensitive and patient policies on part of the Hungarian leadership. In connection with the agricultural policy of the region, rather than the change of the land tenure system, working opportunities were most important to be provided for the Ruthenian population. The effectiveness of the measures to be taken was made difficult by the fact that the person of the chief organizer of the land reform changed frequently. The implementation of the revision was detained most of all by the policy of the Hungarian government towards the Ruthenians: as Ruthenians belonged among the beneficiaries during the deportations in the Czechoslovak times, significant part of the population of the settlers villages were Ruthenians, and the liquidation of these property acquisitions, as well as the sudden weakening of the economic positions of the Greek-Catholic church, which were strengthened among the Ruthenians in the Czechoslovak era, would have jeopardized the reintegration of Transcarpathia to the ties of the Hungarian Kingdom. Autonomy concepts connected with Transcarpathia and the fact that the Hungarian government would have been pleased to see Ruthenians among the eastern Slavonic nations as an independent one loyal to the Hungarians, tells about the long-term consolidation plans of the Hungarian government. The changed socio–political relations of Transcarpathia would not have coped with a rapid transformation in the tensed medium of the foreign policy. History though did not give a chance to the run-out of such a long-term policy, the war prevented any further experimentation. Therefore, the land tenure reform and the revision of the settlement policy was unsuccessful, and the Ruthenian settlers villages became after 1945 scene of the new settlement policy of the Soviet power.

Imre Szakál                               341.61:341.221

The attempt for revision of the settlement policy of the first Czechoslovak      341.222(437.6+477.87)

Republic in Transcarpathia between 1938 and 1944     314.745.4(477.87)

94(477.87)”1938/1944”

Keywords: Transcarpathia after the Vienna Arbitrage. Hungarian revisionist visions in the settlement policy in the former Czechoslovak era. Hungarians, Ruthenians and relocated “aliens” in Transcarpathia.