A RUSYN MEMORANDUM
SUBCARPATHIA
In The Center of Pan-Slavic Aspirations
By: Mihály Pazuhánics-Páncélos
Leader of the Freedom Movement of Subcarpathia.
Ruthenian life in Hungary until 1918.
The core of the Ruthenian people settled in North-Eastern Hungary, the present day Subcarpathia, at the end of the 14th century. Originally they lived around Lake Ilmen, which is located 200 kilometers South of Saint Petersburg, and which region belonged to the Lithuanian Principality. The people were called Russ, – Rutheni in Latin – which means rafts men in the ancient Lithuanian language. The memories of life on the water, the tradition of rafting survived among the people until the most recent times, and even in the past decades they transported the wood exploited in the forests of the Carpathian Mountains on rafts to the Hungarian Great Plain.
Ruthenian life in Hungary starts with the name of Todor Koriatovics. Because of his aspirations for independence, this Podolian prince was put in prison by his cousin, Lithuanian grand prince Vitold, in 1395. Koriatovics fled to Hungary in 1397, after he was released (or escaped?) from prison. Hungarian king Zsigmond (Sigismund) admits him and donates the castle of Munkács and the surrounding region to him and his people, who followed their prince from Podolia. Out of gratitude, because his people received not only refuge and a new homeland, but also land and equal rights to those of the Hungarians, Koriatovics built a monastery for the St. Balil-Order North of Munkács on the Csernek Mountain an elevation at the shore of the river Latorca.