Opinion

FIRST TO FIGHT ‘FASCISM’: 70 YEARS OF CARPATHO-UKRAINE

By Stefko Bandera

Twenty thousand Ukrainians gathered on a remote plateau in the Carpathians in mid-March to honor those who fought for the independence of Carpatho-Ukraine that was declared as Europe braced for WWII.

In Ukraine, the exact start (and end) dates of WWII depend on the history textbook you’re reading.

Soviet apologists prefer to downplay the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the German-Soviet Commercial Agreements of 1939-41 – the two years of “all quiet” Stalin provided Hitler on his eastern front. In fact, Stalin did not passively allow Hitler to wreak havoc in Western Europe with the promise of non-aggression. The Kremlin actively supported the Nazis with economic and military backing.

The details of nearly two years of Soviet-Nazi collaboration are relegated to the footnotes and dismissed as minor, inconvenient truths by the addicts and pushers of the historical “opiate for the masses” being cooked in the Kremlin to this very day. They claim June 22, 1941 (when the Nazis launched Barbarossa) to be the official start of the “Great Patriotic War.”

Meanwhile, those subscribing to a more western view take the Nazi invasion of Poland on the first day of September as the official start date of the Second World War. After Soviet forces promptly invaded Poland from the east, Hitler and Stalin partitioned Eastern Europe from the western coast of the Black all the way up to the Baltic Seas, bringing Soviet troops into western Ukraine for the first time in September 1939.

But a third, even earlier date of foreign military invasion of Ukrainian lands occurred nearly half a year before the Nazis and Soviets divvied up Poland. That date is March 14, 1939, when Hungary launched an assault on Ukrainian forces in modern-day Zakarpattya oblast. And many in the country – including the president – maintain that WWII began for Ukraine with the Battle of Krasne Pole.

In mid-March seventy years ago, Carpatho-Ukraine declared independence in the midst of the geopolitical mess that resulted in Germany, Hungary and Poland annexing Czechoslovakia (while the Brits, French and Soviets looked the other way).

Hungary, led by Nazi client state leader Miklos Horty, moved quickly to quash independent Carpatho-Ukraine headed by President Avgustyn Voloshyn. The independence was very short-lived as it took only three days for the Hungarians to defeat Ukrainian forces in the Battle of Krasne Pole.

Preconditions for independence

Independence did not appear out of nowhere in Carpatho-Ukraine. While largely homegrown, it was boosted by nationalist support from western and “great” Ukraine. In the late IX century, most of the people living in the peaks and valleys of the inner eastern Carpathians weren’t exactly sure what to call themselves. “Tuteshni” meaning “from around here” was one way the locals referred to themselves.

But increased Ukrainian national awareness and the struggle for self-determination in the isolated region were the result of decades of hard work by the Ukrainian intelligentsia, through the Greek Catholic Church, village schools, farmer cooperatives and organizations like Prosvita and (later) Plast.

In January 1919, delegates of the Sobor Rusyniv convened in the city of Khust and voted to join the Ukrainian Peoples’ Republic that was created in Kyiv in the aftermath of WWI. After that bid for independence failed, Carpatho-Ukraine became part of Czechoslovakia.

In November 1938, the Ukrainian region was granted full autonomy by Prague’s parliament. A government led by Greek Catholic priest Voloshyn was formed. His government issued an appeal of support to Ukrainians abroad, and the rudiments of an army called the Karpatska Sich began being formed with the help of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

In February 1939, Voloshyn’s Ukrainian National Alliance party (UNO) won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections with more than 90 percent voter support.

On March 14, Voloshyn declared full independence and the parliament (called the “Soym”) convened in Khust to adopt a constitution. Voloshyn was voted the republic’s president.

But the Nazis urged the Ukrainians to retract their declaration while the Hungarians issued an ultimatum: put down your weapons and hand over the country - or else. But the Ukrainians had no intention of giving up without a fight.

When the Nazi consul suggested that Ukrainians forgo the fight for independence, the commander of Karpatska Sich Mykhailo Kolodzinsky told him: “A Ukrainian nationalist’s lexicon does not include the word capitulate… a stronger foe can beat us in battle, but never force us to kneel.”

Bridge over the River Tysa

Krasne Pole (“Colored Field”) is situated in the upper Tysa River valley, surrounded by 400 meter tall mountains of red and black volcanic rock. It is nestled between a narrow depression between two western ranges of the Carpathian slopes. Here the river carves a strategic pass from the eastern edge of Europe’s Pannonian Plain through the inner Carpathians to the highlands of the Hutzuls and Bukovyna beyond. The field itself is located just past a strategic bridge over the Tysa River, twelve kilometers downstream from the town of Khust where Carpatho-Ukraine’s government was based.

A detailed account of the three-day Battle of Krasne Pole was provided by Vasyl Grendzha-Donsky, a journalist who wrote for the pro-independence Nova Svoboda newspaper in 1938-39. In his post-war memoirs he recalled that while there were only 3,000 Karpatska Sich soldiers, up to 25,000 Ukrainians took part in armed battle with “Horty’s fascists,” mostly local villagers, students and seminarians as well as Ukrainian soldiers who were trained in the Czech and Slovak armies. The Hungarians, meanwhile, had over 40,000 trained soldiers, tanks, armored vehicles and airplanes.

Ukrainian forces took position on the north side of the Tysa River, across the Veriatsk Bridge that provided the only access into the valley that led into the inner Carpathians and Khust.

The Hungarian force met little resistance when it crossed the defenseless border into Carpatho-Ukraine until the soldiers reached the banks of the Tysa and the Veriatsk Bridge. Ukrainian forces managed to prevent the invading Hungarians from entering the strategic mountain pass for nearly 48 hours.

The Hungarians “tried to come through with tanks, but the barricades were well fortified and fire from our Maxims (machine guns) rained on the invaders. The Hungarians sent boats, to no avail. The high-water Tysa was our ally,” wrote Grendzha-Donsky.

“On March 16, Ukrainian forces repelled eight attacks by the aggressors, but Hungarian airplanes, mortars and cannons bombed our positions… and then our eternal problem – lack of ammunition – plus absence of artillery and anti-tank cannons allowed their armored vehicles to cross the Tysa... the overwhelming advantage managed to overcome the Ukrainians by noon on the seventeenth, after boats landed during the previous night, ending with the Ukrainians fighting in hand-to-hand combat against a force and technology that were a hundredfold stronger on Krasne Pole,” according to Grendzha-Donsky.

After the battle Hungarian forces had a relatively easy time in occupying the rest of Carpatho-Ukraine. The Ukrainian government was forced into exile. Hungarian rule lasted until the Soviets arrived in the autumn of 1944.

Lesson for today

President Victor Yushchenko is fond of pointing out that Ukraine declared independence six times last century – and lost it on five occasions. The short-lived history of Carpatho-Ukraine is one of those occasions.

Yushchenko led the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Carpatho-Ukraine on Krasne Pole in March of this year.

“The Second World War began for Ukraine on this field. When Hitler and Stalin were dividing up Europe, it was here that we rose up in uneven battle for our freedom… The Battle on Krasny Pole stands alongside with the Battles of Kruty, Kyiv, Sevastopol and Odesa,” Yushchenko told the 20,000 people who had gathered – many bused into Zakarpattya from neighboring oblasts.

During the ceremonies, Yushchenko bestowed state awards to the handful of Carpatho-Ukraine veterans still alive today.

One of them, Mykhailo Petrychko, was only 15 when the Battle of Krasne Pole occurred. He was later arrested by the Soviets and sent to the GULAG for being a member of the OUN and continuing the fight for independence. Today, the 85 year old recalls the heroic Battle of Krasne Pole and the five months of Ukrainian rule that preceded the Hungarian invasion.

“We measured our lives and work for Ukraine not by months, or even days. We lived by the hour,” he said.

Although the period of autonomy and independence were extremely brief, Petrychko feels that Ukrainians ought to learn a valuable lesson about the unifying power of national interests from the history of Carpatho-Ukraine:  “Our national leaders, our people were all united in the spirit of ‘We finally have our own state!’ And there was one hundred percent trust in our leaders.”