Regnum.ru: If Ukraine does not become a federation, it will break up into 6 pieces, candidate for president says
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 4:49AM Yet another translation, original of which can be found here. Recently I obtained Paul Magosci's English-Slovak monograph 'A New Slavic Language is Born - Zrodil sa Nový Slovanský Jazyk', I opened it and found a page with a Rusyn text. I read it and said: 'This is a dialect of Slovak written in the Cyrillic script.' I had a slight feeling that this will go down into a long line of my half-baked utterances but I have since found another supporter of this theory on a Czech forum for Russians, Russia enthusiasts and occasional Russophobes. Strangely enough it was not me who brought this idea up. Anyway, I based my claim on the fact that I understood the text in its entirety. On the other hand I struggle with the official Ukrainian language as it appears in the press. It might also be due to the fact that Magosci's book deals with the Slovak branch of Rusyns.
'If Ukraine does not become a federation, then it might soon break up into six separate countries,' this was mentioned by Sergei Ratushnyak, presidential candidate and mayor of Uzhgorod.
'Practically every region of Ukraine is a separate subculture. Apart from Zakarpatia, the Chernivtsi region and Crimea there are 10 other subcultures. If we do not start loving each other as a single nation, beautiful and unique in its diversity we will not prevail as a country. The best model for us is Yugoslav scenario, so it doesn't get blood, otherwise it will be bloody.' (1)
Ratushnyak also said: 'In Zakarpatia we have very strong separatist moods, not because we want ot be part of Austria-Hungary (2) or Romania or Poland but because we were unable to establish an attractive country and attractive conditions for development, this is why more than 90% of Zakarpatians want to secede. This is a serious fact that needs to be taken into consideration.' He thinks that Baloga and Yushchenko want to make use of this situation 'to set for themselves fiefdoms in order to escape responsibility and judgement by the Ukrainian people for the crimes they have committed.' ' All this is governed and financed by Baloga with his brothers, with his administrations, regions and district councils which are subordinate to him. Except for Uzhgorod.'
1) I don't know if he means the federal model of former Yugoslavia which nevertheless came to an end in a bloody way.
2) There are other questionable pronouncements made by the mayor, nevertheless I still find them to be interesting.
Reader Comments (2)
Jobbik the far right Hungarian party has also made an issue of the Carpathian Basin. I don’t know how much an issue it is in Hungry in general though.
http://www.jobbik.com/europe-news/3132.html
Zakarpatia has a sizable Hungarian minority, I think the entire place was incorporated into Hungary during the Second World War, and it definitely was part of the Hungarian state before the First World War. So much like Slovakia and Romania (Transylvania) this place will always be an area of interest for Hungarian nationalists.