Vanished Kingdoms

by Norman Davies

  No mention had been made in the speeches of German protection. Voloshyn was still full of hope, but so far a telegram which had been sent to Hitler at midnight on Monday-Tuesday, asking that Carpatho-Ukraine should be accepted as a full German Protectorate, had not been answered… We went to bed in a free Ukraine.3

  The next day, 16 March, dawned with the Republic still intact:

  On our last morning in Chust, we were woken by the Sitch marching down the street and singing patriotic songs. They had been released from gaol, had been re-armed and were to take over the defence and policing of the country. The Czechs… were in full retreat. Boxes were being carried downstairs, furniture, bicycles and people were being piled on to lorries. A small boy was waiting for transport with a huge white pig held by a rope round its hind leg.

  The Ukrainians were at last a free people. Every house was flying a yellow and blue flag. Blue and yellow were in every buttonhole, on every horse, on every café table. The Jews, in terror, were even painting bands of blue and yellow round their shop windows. The first meeting of the Diet, so long postponed, was to take place that very afternoon. Apart from the Government, we seemed to be the only people in town who knew that the Hungarians were advancing. But where were the German aeroplanes?…

  With the country’s future decided both the McCormicks and ourselves felt that there was no reason for stopping longer.

  So the Anglo-Americans decided on evacuation:

  But what route should we leave by?… We piled fifteen pieces of luggage into my ten-pound car, while the McCormicks, C and five more pieces of luggage were squeezed into a taxi, whose driver we had bribed heavily…

  When we left [Khust] at mid-day all the gendarmes had disappeared. The streets were being policed by the Sitch and by German colonists [wearing] swastikas… We felt as if we were leaving helpless children to be slaughtered.

  At Sevlus, some fifteen miles west of Chust, we found a very different scene. Not a single flag; and all the shops were shut. I suggested that it might be as well to inquire from the local commander [about] conditions on the frontier. We went into… the headquarters of the frontier guard. We… eventually found [the commandant] across the road. The remnants of the Czech Army were to evacuate the town in ten minutes, he said, and the Hungarians were only three kilometres away.

  ‘I suppose we can go through all right?’ asked Mrs McCormick.

  ‘You can of course do whatever you like,’ he said, ‘but listen!’

  From down the road came the steady rat-tat-tat of a machine-gun.

  ‘We shall have to go back,’ I said.

  ‘Oh no, it will be quite all right,’ said Mrs McCormick, ‘we’re Americans, no one will shoot at us.’…

  We hurried back, ran our cars into the [Polish] Consulate’s garden and were given coffee and liqueurs… while the battle went on outside. There was a good deal of noise, but… no one seemed to get killed. From the verandah we heard the command ‘Forward, boys!’ and saw the first Hungarians, the ‘irregulars’, with rifles slung over their shoulders on pieces of string, come clambering over the fence…

  Then came the Hungarian Army. Most of them were old warriors, some with falling moustaches, and they drove in aged cars most of which had been [requisitioned]… The local population, the majority of which is Hungarian, gave them a hastily improvised welcome. As many Hungarian flags [had been] hidden away… as there had been Ukrainian flags in Chust…

  As soon as the troops had passed, a lawyer in the house opposite darted out and put a Hungarian name-plate on his door. It was the fifth time he had changed it in the last twenty years, he said.

  After the [Hungarian] Colonel had come and drunk sherry with the [polish] Consul we proceeded on our way. We were in Ukrainian registered cars – but no one stopped, or even questioned us.4

  Hungarian forces pushed steadily forward, dispersing all opposition and arresting both Czechoslovak and Carpatho-Ukrainian officials. During the afternoon, Budapest radio announced that Kárpátalya had been reunited with the motherland after twenty-one years’ separation. Hitler had secretly authorized the action. By the evening, it was all over. The Hungarians captured Khust. Most of the Rusyn leaders escaped into Romania. The Sich fought on in the mountains. Hundreds were killed outright, while more than 1,000 reached Bratislava, only later to find their way into German camps.5 On 17 March Hungarian soldiers occupied the Polish frontier and completed their short campaign. They were met by Polish units, who helped them deal with captured Sich Guards. Prisoners suspected of coming from the Polish side were taken into Poland. The others were taken by their captors to the banks of the Tisa river, and (reportedly) massacred. The Hungarians then crossed into Slovakia to secure the frontier zone there.

  These events, though they involved military action, a substantial death toll, the invasion of a member state of the League of Nations, and the suppression of a democratic government, might well qualify as a prelude to the Second World War. Alas, they very rarely find mention.

  Carpatho-Ruthenia survived much of the war under Hungarian rule in relative quiet. But in 1944 the long-delayed arrival of the Nazis paved the way for the Holocaust’s last major operation and the extermination of the entire Jewish population. The arrival of the Red Army in turn spelled disaster for the Hungarians, many of whom were deported to the Gulag. A Czechoslovak delegation which hoped that the Soviets would relinquish control made a brief appearance, but swiftly departed. The Revd. Voloshyn, who had passed the war teaching quietly in Prague, was taken to Moscow and shot.6

  Fifty years of Soviet silence followed. In 1991 Zakarpattia resurfaced as a district of independent Ukraine, in 2002 the Revd Voloshyn was officially declared a Hero of Ukraine. In October 2008 an Orthodox priest from Uzhgorod, Abbot Dmitri Sidor, assembled a group of Russophiles, all conveniently armed with Russian passports (exactly as their counterparts in South Ossetia), and publicly announced the restoration of the Republic of Carpatho-Ruthenia.7 Once again, the world paid no attention whatsoever.

  III

  In the eyes of most Westerners, nothing could be more ‘Ruritanian’ than the story of Carpatho-Ukraine’s one-day republic. All the necessary ingredients are present: a diminutive East European country; a squabbling mix of obscure ethnic groups; a mass of near-unpronounceable names in unfamiliar languages; a brew of ‘fanatical nationalisms’; and a tragi-comic outcome for which the Ruritanians alone need be blamed.

  These attitudes about Eastern Europe have surfaced many times in the thinking of Western intellectuals. They are part of a widespread, but often unspoken assumption about Western superiority. They are implicit in several of the influential theories of economic history, such as those of Immanuel Wallerstein8 or Robert Brenner, and explicit in works of political science by Hans Kohn,9 Ernest Gellner10 and John Plamenatz.11 In one of his choicer passages, Plamenatz contrasts the healthy ‘civic nationalism’ of Western countries with the supposedly unhealthy nationalism of their Eastern counterparts. Western nationalism, Plamenatz maintains, was ‘culturally well equipped’. ‘They had languages adapted… to progressive civilisation. They had universities and schools… importing the skills prized by that civilisation. They had… philosophers, scientists, artists and poets… of world reputation. They had medical, legal and other professions… with high standards.’12 In other words, their inherently liberal attitudes were supposedly born from superior education and culture.

  From this one might deduce that Eastern Europe had no modern languages, no schools or universities (like Prague or Kraków), no scientists (like Copernicus) or poets (like Pushkin), and, despite the lawyer of Sevlus who dashed out to change his name-plate, no professionals. ‘What I call eastern nationalism has flourished among the Slavs as well as in Asia and Africa… and Latin America,’ Plamenatz explains. ‘I could not call it non-European, and have thought it best to call it eastern because it first appeared to the east of Western Europe.’13 In other words, the inherently illiberal attitudes of Eastern Europe were supposedl
y derived from inferior culture. It may not be completely irrelevant that Plamenatz, though an Oxford don, was born in Cetinje in Montenegro, the son of King Nikola’s prime minister-in-exile (see Chapter 12). A similar air of deprecation pervades the ethnic slurs and jokes purveyed by the science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who would habitually translate them into a Ruritanian context, not mentioning any real countries by name. A well-known conflict-resolution game, ‘Equatorial Cyberspace’, uses a highly nationalist country called Ruritania as the base model for its conflicts.

  The critical dimension in these false scenarios can be found in an ingrained leniency towards the conduct of the Great Powers and of Western countries in general. Any group of Ruritanians can be made to look ridiculous if one omits to make the necessary comparisons. In the case of the break-up of Czechoslovakia, for instance, it is not irrelevant to ask how the crisis started. Is the wild nationalism of the East Europeans to be condemned, and the measured civic nationalism of Adolf Hitler (who stirred up the conflict to begin with, and incited others to follow his example) to be praised? In the wider context of Ukrainian politics, are the minor iniquities of minor parties to be highlighted while the colossal mass murders in Soviet Ukraine are passed over in silence?

  Questions of the same sort can be asked about international diplomacy. It is easy enough to point out blameworthy faults among assorted Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks and Ruthenians. Yet all these most interested parties were excluded from the Munich Conference, as were the Soviets. The prime responsibility, therefore, lay with those who arrogated the decisions to themselves – notably with Adolf Hitler, the host, and with Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister and principal guest. Here is the context within which some telling comparisons can be made. Can one seriously suggest that the brands of nationalism favoured by Hitler or Mussolini should be characterized as civic or liberal? Will anyone dare to say that Julian Revay and the Revd Voloshyn were selfish, parochial and short-sighted politicians, unlike the generous, broad-minded and far-seeing statesman from Downing Street? All judgements about the luckless Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine should start from the fact that the Rusyn leadership was desperately trying to cope with the fall-out of policies which were none of their making.

  Fortunately, the ‘Ruritanian syndrome’ is now a well-recognized phenomenon in intellectual discourse and is the subject of numerous studies and analyses. Terms such as the ‘imperialism of the imagination’ or ‘narrative colonization’ are coined by scholars exploring Europe’s mental maps and ‘orientalist discourses of otherness’. ‘Balkanization’ is a stereotype with little more validity than Erewhon, Eothen or ‘Dracula-Land’; and it is harmless so long as it is kept in the realm of jokes or operetta. Nonetheless, ‘it is [still] possible for… advanced exponents of European multicultural ideals’, writes one indignant scholar, ‘to write about Albanians, Croats, Serbs, Bulgarians and Romanians with the sort of generalised, open condescension which would appall if applied to Somalis or the people of Zaire’.14 Nota bene: the Carpatho-Rusyns don’t even make it onto the list of the slighted.

  * Most unlikely; Commander William Wedgwood-Benn, Viscount Stansgate (1877–1960), was a long-serving Liberal and then Labour MP, who served in the RAF in both world wars.

  14

  Éire

  The Unconscionable Tempo of the Crown’s Retreat

  since 1916

  I

  By all accounts, Prince Albert’s visit to Dublin was a huge success. As befitted a state occasion, he was greeted by a 21-gun salute. He planted an Irish oak, sported a green tie embroidered with shamrocks and drew a large crowd as he strolled along Kildare Street on his way to tea at the Shelbourne Hotel. After visiting a local school, he took leave of the children with the Gaelic words: go raibh mile maith agat, meaning ‘Thank you a thousand times’. ‘Prince Albert’, gushed the Irish Times (founded 1859), ‘brought a touch of class and ceremony to Dublin.’ Some readers might have blinked and reread the headline. For this was April 2011; it was the Irish Republic; and the visitor was the son of the film star Grace Kelly, Prince Albert II of Monaco.1 Observers of Ireland beware: it is full of unexpected echoes of the past.

  Until very recently, Ireland was widely esteemed as a fortress of democratic republicanism, and a model of self-made prosperity; it is the republican David, who slung his shot at the British imperial Goliath, and escaped. Ireland is now a sovereign member both of the United Nations and of the European Union. The republican image is strong. Its head of state, the uachtarán or ‘president’ of the Republic, is elected directly for a term of seven years, renewable once; the present incumbent is Mary McAleese, a former professor of law born in the Ardoyne district of Belfast.2 The bi-cameral parliament, the Oireachtas, consists of a Senate of 60 members, and the lower house or Dáil, whose 166 members are elected under a system of proportional representation and single transferable votes. The taoiseach or ‘prime minister’ is appointed by the president after nomination by the parliament. The Republic’s capital is Baile Atha Cliath (Dublin), its official languages Irish Gaelic and English. Its coat of arms displays a golden harp on a deep blue field, its flag is a green-white-and-orange tricolour. And its national anthem is the ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’ or ‘Soldier’s Song’, invariably sung in Gaelic:

  Sinne Fianna Fáil

  Ata fá gheall ag Eirinn,

  Buidhean dar sluagh tar ruinn do rainig

  Chughainn …3

  The official use of Gaelic, which is no longer the language of everyday speech, is an essential part of the state ethos; the Irish don’t understand much of it, but the English can’t get a word.

  Visitors to Dublin see evidence of Ireland’s democratic and republican traditions on every hand. The castle, founded by King John and once the seat of English colonial power, is nowadays used for presidential receptions and inaugurations. Leinster House, once the palace of the Fitzgerald dukes of Leinster, is the home of the Dáil. The Bank of Ireland building, which faces Trinity College, once housed the parliament of the pre-1800 kingdom. The city’s main street is named after Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847), ‘the Liberator’, who fought for Catholic Emancipation. It shelters the old General Post Office, where the Irish Republic was first proclaimed in 1916, and, at its northern end, a Garden of Remembrance dedicated to ‘all who gave their lives in the cause of Irish Freedom’. The Mansion House, the home of the lord mayor, where the Republic was proclaimed for the second time in 1919, is situated close to St Stephen’s Green across the river on Dawson Street. The Green saw fierce fighting during the Easter Rising, and entered people’s hearts because both sides stopped firing to let the ducks in the pond be fed.4 It now shelters a monument to Ireland’s most revered female revolutionary, Countess Constance Markiewicz (1868–1927), who fought there as a soldier. The bronze bust sits atop a stone pedestal inscribed: ‘CONSTANCE MARKIEVICZ, MAJOR IRISH CITIZEN ARMY, 1916’.

  The Republic’s territory, some 27,450 square miles, is divided into twenty-six counties (since 1999, the Republic does not lay formal claim to the six counties of British-ruled Northern Ireland). Its area is smaller than both England and Scotland, but almost four times larger than Wales. The island forms a rough rectangle, the western coast constituting Europe’s most westerly rampart against the Atlantic Ocean.

  The Republic’s population, which stands at 4.442 million (2008) is considerably lower than the highest historical levels. In 1800 Ireland was home to some 8 million inhabitants, not far behind England’s then total of c. 10 million, a ratio of 1 : 1.25. Largely as the result of famine, emigration and the absence of Irish modernization and industrialization, the ratio had fallen by 1900 to 1 : 12.

  Ireland’s political system survived great turbuluence before it gained stability. Two main political parties trace their roots to the 1920s. Fianna Fáil or ‘Soldiers of Destiny’, once the party of Éamon de Valera, the ‘Father of the Republic’, has often dominated, forming the government for sixty of the state’s eighty years and most re
cently from 1997 to February 2011.5 The rival Fine Gael or ‘Clan of the Gaels’, otherwise the United Ireland Party, which also boasts republican roots, has usually headed the opposition. Its father-figure is De Valera’s rival, Michael Collins.6 Three other parties are represented. The Labour Party has a similar profile to its namesake in Britain; the environmentalist Green Party, founded in 1981, entered government with Fianna Fáil in 2007; and Sinn Féin, the oldest of Irish republican groupings, is looking to rebuild after decades of marginality.

  The Irish Republic experienced unprecedented levels of economic growth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Thanks to investment in education and modern technology, and to membership of the European Union, remarkable advances took place from the 1960s onwards; Ireland’s GDP per capita rose decade by decade until at the beginning of the twenty-first century it overtook that of the United Kingdom. For a time, Irish citizens enjoyed the top ranking in the Worldwide Quality of Life Index.7 Not until the global recession of 2008–9 did the ‘Celtic Tiger’ (so named in 1994) stumble, and with it the political elite’s reputation. Out of Prince Albert’s hearing, the talk in Dublin was of ineffectual leadership, and of ‘a culture of clientilism, cronyism and corruption’.

  The official Irish version of Irish history is built round a three-part scheme of periodization. Two or three millennia of the ‘Era of Ancient Celtic Freedom’, stretching from prehistory to the twelfth century AD, are followed by the ‘Era of Foreign Domination’ (1171–1916) and then by the ‘Era of National Liberation’, which is still in progress. (Liberation is judged incomplete because the Republic’s territory does not yet encompass the whole of the island of Ireland.) Present-day academics might reject the scheme as politically driven and ‘archaic’ in comparison to their own advanced researches; but academic histories do not have the last word in any country.