Ruska Kraina

Ruska Kraina (Hungarian: Ruszka Krajna). A name for Transcarpathia that was used briefly by the Hungarian government in 1918–19. The Hungarian government granted autonomy to Transcarpathia under that name in December 1918, and it appointed a Hungarian governor in Mukachevo and a minister of state for Ruthenia in Budapest. The Communist Hungarian government (March–August 1919) retained the use of the name Ruska Kraina. During its period in power the Ruska Kraina Commissariat, which replaced the Ministry of State, published the Ukrainian-language newspaper Rus’ka pravda in Budapest (13 issues in all). But on 8 May 1919 the representatives of Transcarpathian councils proclaimed the union of Transcarpathia with Czechoslovakia, and their proclamation was sanctioned by the Treaty of Saint-Germain (10 September 1919). Under Czechoslovakia the region was known as Subcarpathian Ruthenia.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]