Carpatho-Ukrainian Aspects of European Foreign Policy During the Czechoslovakian Crisis (1938-1939)

The activities of the Ukrainian political forces of Subcarpathian Rus (Carpatho-Ukrainian state, Transcarpathian Ukraine) gave a boost to the Ukrainian problem in Czechoslovakia and uplifted it to the international level. However, in the context of the Third Reich complete domination in the region, Nazi Germany played a deep diplomatic game around the further fate of Czechoslovakia, which involved Hungary, Poland, Romania, and other states. Like Berlin, Budapest, Warsaw and Bucharest wanted to claim their sovreighnity over part of Czechoslovakia, including Carpathian Ukraine. Moreover, Hungary and Poland made significant efforts to satisfy their territorial appetites and eliminate the autonomous Carpathian Ukraine, whose brief existence not only coincided with the Czechoslovak crisis, but was also largely a product of the latter. Applying a delay tactic, manipulating around the Carpatho-Ukrainian question and, at the same time, holding in cofidence its own plans for the region, the Nazi elite tried to find out the real intentions of the countries concerned, to alienate Czechoslovakia from them and, by blackmail and encouragement, to strengthen its influence on the policy of these countries. Carpathian Ukraine was used as a bargaining chip by Germany and the USSR. Playing on Moscow's concerns about the plans to create a “Great Ukraine”, Berlin allowed Budapest to occupy the land, thereby demonstrating its indifference to the Carpatho-Ukrainian problem and creating a favorable ground for the German-Soviet rapprochement.

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