In 1918 he became head of the Subcarpathian National Council,[2] which in 1919 asked Czechoslovakia to confederate Carpathian Ruthenia into Czechoslovakia; this came about in autumn 1919. In 1925 he was elected an MP to Parliament in Prague, as leader of the Ruthenian National Christian Party.
On 26 October 1938 Czechoslovak PresidentHácha named Voloshyn head of the government of the Subcarpathian Autonomous Region.[3] Following the breakup of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Voloshyn tried to proclaim Carpatho-Ukraine's independence and, with the help of local units of the Czechoslovak Army, on 15 March 1939 for a few hours became president of Carpatho-Ukraine.[2] He proposed, to the Kingdom of Romania, Carpatho-Ukraine's unification with Romania, but the proposal was rejected and one day later the region was occupied by, and annexed to, Hungary. On 19 March 1939 Voloshyn, under the protection of the last Czechoslovak troops, retreated to the border of Romania, an ally of Czechoslovakia. Voloshyn then fled to Prague, where he lived during the war and was a professor at the Ukrainian Free University.[2]
In October and November 1944 the SovietRed Army captured Carpathian Ruthenia, which was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. (The government of Czechoslovakia subsequently, on 29 June 1945, agreed to the territory's cession.) The population of Carpathian Ruthenia thus became Soviet citizens.
When the Soviet army took Prague in May 1945, Voloshyn was arrested by the NKVD and taken to Moscow.[2] Though he had never been a Soviet citizen, he was accused of being a "Ukrainian nationalist and hostile to the Soviet Union."[2] He died 19 July 1945 in Moscow's Butyrka prison; the official cause of death was given as heart failure.[2]
In 2002, by decree of then Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, Voloshyn was recognized as a Hero of Ukraine, with the civilian decoration of the Order of the State.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Avgustyn_Voloshyn, and is written by contributors.
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