Challenge: Ruthenia

Sir Isaac Brock · Nov 13, 2005

Produce a POD witch does not divide the Ukrainian (and Rusyn)-speaking parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (East Galicia, Bukovina, Transcarpathia) between new Polish and Czechoslovak states and Romania and Hungary. Keep them united in a new nation-sate, possibly called Ruthenia. You could start from a different end to the war, simply a different aftermath, or avoid the war and have A-H break up later.

Discuss the foreign policy relationship this Ruthenian state has with Poland and the USSR (if they still exist), Germany, other East-Central European states, and the West. What is it's fate in any possible WWII? Does this independent state operating to the west help or hinder national sentiment in the larger Russian-controlled Ukraine?

wkwillis · Nov 13, 2005

Carpatho-Ruthenia?
That area became part of Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1938, and part of Slovakia between 1938 and 1945.
Well, it was Ukrainian, Hungarian, Slovak, Rom, and who else?
Maybe if Czechoslovakia split up, then Slovakia got attacked by Hungary, and Ruthenia got free when the Slovak troops left?
Then everyone goes around them during WWII. They stay out and become a magnet for refugees. They had a little oil, I think, some mountains, and that's about it. Is it a good invasion route that the Germans needed?
They could have a well armed militia, some bunkers and minefields in the mountain passes, a socialist government that wouldn't hesitate to call in the Russians if invaded, a refusal to stab the Russians in the back during Barbarossa that the Russians would remember, and possibly an emigrant married to the President of the United States who would dissuade the Russians from annexing it after WWII?
Of course it would help if the Germans didn't succeed so well in Barbarossa in this timeline. Being five hundred miles behind the German lines is a bit of a handicap for an independent foreign policy.
On the other hand, the Ukraine may split up into the Crimea, a Russian part, a Ukrainian part, and a transdniestria part near Moldova. Ruthenia could be spun out essentially unimpeded.

Sir Isaac Brock · Nov 13, 2005

wkwillis said:
Carpatho-Ruthenia?

Yes, but not only there. I was referring to a much larger area including Galicia and Bukovina. I called it Ruthenia because it was common for Ukrainians for refer to themselves as such in former times.

The Carpathian region by itself would be a tiny state, unlikely to defend itself neighbours, and while that would still be true of my larger Ruthenia, it would be in a much better position.

Now that I think about it, the borders I'm talking about would be those of the West Ukrainian National Republic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Ukrainian_National_Republic

How could this entity have survived predations from Poland, et all?

Max Sinister · Nov 14, 2005

wkwillis said:
Carpatho-Ruthenia?
That area became part of Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1938, and part of Slovakia between 1938 and 1945.

AFAIK it was annexed by Hungary in 1938.

wkwillis · Nov 14, 2005

Max Sinister said:
AFAIK it was annexed by Hungary in 1938.

OK. Never paid much attention to Ruthenia.
A larger state based on Belarussia, sort of an expanded eastern Poland is also possible. Crowns were rolling down the streets between 1918 and 1921.

Stalker · Nov 14, 2005

Well, could you, please, supply me with the timeline for a country you design? When does this national formation spring into existance? After the Great War?
A few objections if you don't mind. First of all, the very existance of such a nation as rusyns is very arguable. Some of them who live now in Poland, Czeckia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania are trying fo find their own national identity but generally they all remain Ukrainians. Rusyns is just the word for Ukrainians living abroad. They call it because long ago Ukraine was called Rus, and what we know now as Russia was called Moscovia. So people who lived in Rus were logically called Russins or Rusyns. The Rus was also known as Ruthenia in Europe, a latinised analogue for Rus. And here is my next objection. Why people of this country should call themselves the way foreign people call them. For example, Germans do not call themselves Germans but Die Deutsche, and their country is neither Germany for them nor Allemania but Deutschland. The same principle works here. People of the country would call themselves ukrayintsi (Ukrainians) and their country Ukraine or Rus-Ukraine.
In OTL after WWI was such a phenomenon as WUPR (West-Ukrainian People's Republic - Zakhidno-Oohkrayins'ka Narodna Respublika) but it existed until 1920. It merged the other country, People's Republic of Ukraine with the capital in Kiev but them it was occupied by Bolshevicks, and the war of independence was lost by the Ukrainian Army from both ends - to the Poles and to the Russians.

Gladi · Nov 14, 2005

Be well
Well Stalker you have some good points, but AFAIK there are some people in modern Slovakia Sub-Carpathia (Trans-Carpathia to you) who identify themselves as Rusyns. Though those in Slovakia mostly for the benefits of not being Ukrainien and those in Sub-Carpathia to spite the Kievans.

Sir Isaac Brock · Nov 14, 2005

Starting Over

Stalker said:
Well, could you, please, supply me with the timeline for a country you design? When does this national formation spring into existance? After the Great War?

I'm working on it.

...the very existance of such a nation as rusyns is very arguable.

Whether or not you or I think they are a nation (I have my doubts) is not the point. They believe they are, and that's what counts. A nation is a voluntary community of shared idendity after all.

Rusyns is just the word for Ukrainians living abroad. They call it because long ago Ukraine was called Rus, and what we know now as Russia was called Moscovia. So people who lived in Rus were logically called Russins or Rusyns. The Rus was also known as Ruthenia in Europe, a latinised analogue for Rus.

Of this I am well aware. But these people are often called Rusyns, so I have nothing else to refer to them as.

Why people of this country should call themselves the way foreign people call them... their country Ukraine or Rus-Ukraine.

I meant that is would be called Ruthenia in English (and other Western languanges) not that it would be the official name. The official name is a touchy subject however. It could not claim to be Rus' or it would likely draw the ire of Soviet Russia, who would rather be seen as the inheritor of that legacy. And it could not be simply Ukraine, because that would imply a claim to Kyyiv and the East. So I imagine it would be named Galicia, or West Ukraine (like OTL).

In OTL after WWI was such a phenomenon as WUPR (West-Ukrainian People's Republic - Zakhidno-Oohkrayins'ka Narodna Respublika) but it existed until 1920. It merged the other country, People's Republic of Ukraine with the capital in Kiev but them it was occupied by Bolshevicks, and the war of independence was lost by the Ukrainian Army from both ends - to the Poles and to the Russians.

I sort of remembered this after I typed up the challenge. So the real challenge now is to up with a senario that allows the WUPR or someother West Ukrainian entity to survive as an independent state, even if the East falls to the Reds.

We need to create a very different dynamic between the Allies, Central Powers, the new Poland, and the Bolsheviks, so as to prevent the craving up West Ukraine that happened historicaly.

That's the heart of the challenge. Now I have a Mythology paper to write, so I'm going to put it off for a few days. But I will be back. See if you can come up with anything by thyen.

Cheers.

Stalker · Nov 15, 2005

Sir Isaac Brock said:
I meant that is would be called Ruthenia in English (and other Western languanges) not that it would be the official name. The official name is a touchy subject however. It could not claim to be Rus' or it would likely draw the ire of Soviet Russia, who would rather be seen as the inheritor of that legacy. And it could not be simply Ukraine, because that would imply a claim to Kyyiv and the East. So I imagine it would be named Galicia, or West Ukraine (like OTL).

Well, it's tour scenario, Sir!

So, whatever you wish. Simply, it seems to me that in 20th century nobody would be going to revive the medieval word for western-ukrainian nation. Well, WUPR, or Galitsia, really, sound much better.

Sir Isaac Brock said:
We need to create a very different dynamic between the Allies, Central Powers, the new Poland, and the Bolsheviks, so as to prevent the craving up West Ukraine that happened historicaly.
That's the heart of the challenge. Now I have a Mythology paper to write, so I'm going to put it off for a few days. But I will be back. See if you can come up with anything by thyen.
Cheers.

Oh, it's a hard task to make WUPR survive in the battle of titans.

Even if Simon Petlura would stop the Poles and Soviets. What do we have? A country with population about 9 million without any industrial base, mainly agricultural... The weak analogue of Weimar Republic. The Directory and the Goverment of WUPR initially consisted of social democrates but the economical challenges and general disappointment in economical policy of the government would lead the country into the embrace of facsism (not nazism) in late 20s. In OTL it was the fate of all new nations in Central Europe after WWI, so why should Ukraine avoid it? Mussolini rules!

Gladi · Nov 15, 2005

Bright day
Ahem not all CE countries

.

Unfortunately Czechoslovakia was not in demand of agricultural goods. If it was, it could develop interest in WUPR. Beside that I do not know of any potential ally to them.

Stalker · Nov 15, 2005

Gladi said:
Bright day
Unfortunately Czechoslovakia was not in demand of agricultural goods. If it was, it could develop interest in WUPR. Beside that I do not know of any potential ally to them.

Yes, it might have been. But WUPR and Czechoslovakia had disputable territories in Transcarpathia.