Constitutional position of the subcarphatian Rus in the first CSFR between 1918 and 1938 - Essay Example

CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION OF THE SUBCARPHATIAN RUS IN THE FIRST CSFR BETWEEN 1918 AND 1938 Carpathanian Rus wasa province in the Czechoslovak republic. Also known as Carpathian Ruthenia, the region had a rich medieval history. It is known to have been occupied by a wide variety of ethnically distinctive settlements of people. Politically, perhaps due to its strategic positioning, it was a region of political interest. This became evident when several countries laid claim to the territory during peace talks after World war I, arguing that this region be divided up among them.

However, the Carpathia Rus was integrated into the first Chechoslovak Republic as one of its provinces. The proposal to join the Carpathia Rus as a whole into the Czechoslovak state came from President Wilson. The Central National Council adopted this plan and sanctioned it in 1919 and sought to effect it in the Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920. This constitution granted autonomy to the new province. However, this autonomy was only on paper and not in reality. The central government was unwilling to grant full autonomy until much later in 1938 in the Munich Agreement (Hurny 2012).

While the treaty of Saint Germain required that minority rights be protected, the Czechoslovak Constitution gave only Ruthenians constitutional autonomy. The reality, however, is that legislative and judicial operations in the Carpathian Rus were run from Prague by the Central government. To justify this breach of the supposed democracy, the Czech government argued that the province lacked required judicial and legislative structures and could not, therefore, be fully independent. This was compounded by the fact that Carpathia Ruthenia was the least economically productive region in the country.

It was also the least populated of the provinces.For Ruthenians, the autonomy pledged by the Czechoslovak Republic and provided for by the Constitution of 1920 was not implemented for two decades. The issue became the subject of discontent. This situation only improved in 1938 after the Munich Conference.BibliographyHurny, R 2012, Tragedy of capartho – Ukraine. International Conference of Scientific Paper. Brasov.