Avgustyn Voloshyn

Voloshyn was born on March 17, 1874, in Kelecsény, Carpathian Ruthenia, Máramaros County, Kingdom of Hungary (today Kelechyn, Ukraine). He studied at Ungvár (now Uzhhorod, Ukraine) School of Theology and at Budapest University. He became a Greek Catholic priest,[2] being appointed a Papal chamberer in 1924 (thus gaining the title Monsignor). He was professor of mathematics at Uzhhorod Teacher Institute from 1900 to 1917. In 1918, he became head of the Subcarpathian National Council,[2] which in 1919 asked Czechoslovakia to confederate Carpathian Ruthenia into Czechoslovakia. This was realised in Autumn 1919. In 1925, he was voted as MP in Houses of Parliament in Prague (as a leader of Ruthenian National Christian Party).

On 26 October 1938, President Hácha named Monsignor Voloshyn as the head of the government of the Subcarpathian Autonomous Region.[3] Following the breakup of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, he tried to proclaim Carpatho-Ukraine's independence, and he became president of Carpatho-Ukraine for a few hours (March 15, 1939)[2] with the help of local units of the Czechoslovak Army. He made the Kingdom of Romania a proposal for unification, but he was refused and one day later the region was occupied and annexed by the Hungarians. On March 19, 1939, Voloshyn, under the protection of last Czechoslovak troops, retreated to the Romanian border, which was Czechoslovakia's ally.

Monsignor Voloshyn then fled to Prague, where he lived during the war and was a professor of the Ukrainian Free University.[2] In October and November 1944, the Soviet Red Army took the whole of Carpathian Ruthenia, and incorporated it into the Ukrainian SSR. The government of Czechoslovakia later agreed on June 29. 1945, to cede the territory. The population of Carpathian Ruthenia became Soviet citizens. When Soviet troops took Prague in May 1945, Monsignor Voloshyn was arrested by the NKVD and taken to Moscow.[2] Although Voloshyn was never a citizen of the Soviet Union, he was accused of being a "Ukrainian nationalist and hostile to the Soviet Union."[2] The Monsignor died on 19 July 1945 in Moscow's Butyrka prison, the official cause of death that was given is heart failure.[2] It is unknown where Voloshyn's was buried.[2]

In 2002, by the decree of the then Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, Monsignor Voloshyn was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine and given the Order of State posthumously.

Statue in Uzhhorod on Uzh river

• Military history of Carpathian Ruthenia during World War II
• First Vienna Arbitration
• First Vienna Award
• Second Vienna Award
• Carpatho-Ukraine

• Tomeš, Josef. Biografický slovník Vol. III.

• Avhustyn Voloshyn at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine
• Deportation of Voloshyn (in Czech)
• Newspaper clippings about Avgustyn Voloshyn in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW