RUTHENIA
By MARY H. LOGAN
Discouraged by the lack of hotels and headed off by the scarcity of roads and their primitive condition, however, few travellers penetrated so far east, and in consequence life in Podkarpatska Rus, as the Czechs call this lovely easternmost province, flowed smoothly, simply and happily, exactly as it had done for centuries. When friends in Prague tried to dissuade me—fortunately in vain—from going there, I was told it was a poor country, inhabited by a peasant race, and that few places of interest existed to attract visitors. This was largely true. But the people had a charm and possessed natural manners rarely met with, the country was altogether fascinating, and far greater poverty can be seen in many parts of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland today than was evident in the lovely villages of the Carpathian valleys or in those fringing the banks of the swift-flowing Tisa. With the exception of a salt mine, I saw no industries, and all activity was concentrated on the land. I write, alas! in the past tense, for the mailed fist was early laid upon Ruthenia, and how much its people have been martyred and bled we shall only now know.
In those years before the storm broke they were a self-contained and self-supporting community. They grew the timber to build their houses ; they made their own furniture, designed and painted it, concocting and blending the colours. They grew flax to make house linen and summer clothes ; they bred sheep for wool for warm winter ones ; the women spun and dyed it, wove it. and embroidered the garments with a skill and perfection we have to
be taught. They tanned their leather, they made crockery and cooking-pots, they turned wooden platters and bowls for kitchen use. They made their musical instruments and their own music. They brewed beer and made their wine and grew an abundance of food. They were their own wheelwrights and wove their wicker carts. Admittedly, climate and soil may have something to do with it (though the seasons are similar to ours), but the Ruthenian peasant, unlike our own, was by no means content with the bare necessities of life, for he grew his tiny tobacco crop, enabling him to enjoy his home-made cigar, and he planted his rows of sun- flowers so that he might have the finest oil for his salads.
Nowhere in the country was one far from habitations, and the villages were very numerous. These consisted merely of two rows of houses, possibly a school and a church, but shops were seldom seen, as the demand for goods of any kind was practically non- existent. The houses were neat and mostly built of wood, and set on piles, which made a flight of steps to the entrance necessary. The roofing consisted of wooden " slates " which greyed with the weather. The walls were white or cream-washed, and framing doors and windows were stencilled borders in brilliant-hued paints.
Numbers of domestic animals roamed about the roadsides,—little lean ponies, goats, pigs, sheep, ducks, geese, hens, and, in the absence of fences anywhere, herding was an all-time job for the very old or the very young. But while keeping an active eye on the straying flocks, they were not idle. Laziness was unknown. The women would be spinning or knitting or nursing a baby, the men whittling wooden utensils or mending or making with long thongs their soft sheepskin shoes. Even the children were busy with their bits of embroidery, and there was always someone singing or piping somewhere. I never saw a man or woman, old or young, wearing a plain shirt or smock. It may sometimes have been dirty, but it was always embroidered. The colours used, both for house decoration and personal adornment, were clear bright blues, greens, reds and yellows, and as the background of the former was white or cream, and the garments—woven of undyed flax or wool—an oatmeal colour, the result was pleasing and most effective.
Because of her ancient history and geographical position, various languages are spoken throughout Ruthenia. At the end of the last war, after' many vicissitudes, the country ardently desired a national anchorage and some measure of recognition and independence to enable her to live in peace and security and enjoy civil and religious liberty. At her own request she was included in the newly-formed Czechoslovak Republic, and became its tastenunost province. Under the wise and just guidance of President Masaryk, a Russian-speaking president was appninted to govern and develop the country under Prague. Much was done for this isolated corner of Europe by the understanding and enterprising authorities in Prague in the short twenty years or so, and much more would have been done by now had the plans already formed for her development been allowed to materialise.
As it was, the ancient arts and crafts of the race were revived and encouraged. Roads were being made. Schools were opened wherever there were enough children to fill them, and, an achieve- ment of which the regime was justly proud, the children were taught in their mother tongue in some seven different languages— Russian, Czech, Ruthenian, Rumanian, Yiddish, Polish, Hungarian —while, surely unique in Europe, the brown-skinned youngsters in the little gypsy village near Uzhorod, the capital (now Chust), had to tackle their three R's in Romany.
From the very beginning of the Czech rule the minorities got full recognition, though it meant added responsibility and complica- tion. Spurred on by this sympathetic interest and encouraged by the system of universal education, the young generation of Ruthenians I met were bright, quick-witted and, while ardent patriots, were impatiently keen to travel and see other countries than their own. I persuaded one or two of them, young sons of friends made at Uzhorod, to visit England, and after a stay of sometimes only a few weeks they had acquired a grasp of our constitutional methods, our parliamentary system and a working knowledge of our language that was frankly amazing. Not long
afterwards, when it was obvious to them that serious trouble was brewing for Ruthenia, they wrote asking for my co-operation to enable them to leave their country and come to England so that they might fight or work for her in freedom and amongst friends. Complying willingly, though it was a difficult time with frontiers closing down and passports unobtainable, I enlisted the sympa thy and help of those who had more influence than I had ; but before the plans could be put into operation the darkness had descended on Ruthenia with the unwarrantable annexation of the country by Hungary in 1939. • When the light comes to it, what shall we find? The dread years of war will have stilled their songs, as their land has been laid low ; but a people who sow and reap, who toil and spin, with no thought of gain or plan for profit, but only sd that they and their children may live in peace and comfort and be allowed to worship God in liberty, will surely rise again.
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