During the twentieth century the region of Subcarpathia belonged to several different states: the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Czechoslovakia, the independent Carpatho-Ukraine, the Hungarian Kingdom, the Soviet Union and finally to Ukraine.... more
During the twentieth century the region of Subcarpathia belonged to several different states: the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Czechoslovakia, the independent Carpatho-Ukraine, the Hungarian Kingdom, the Soviet Union and finally to Ukraine. Today it borders four member states of the European Union (Poland, the Slovak Republic, Hungary and Romania), and due to its history several ethnicities and languages, religions and cultures live side by side in this region. However, as a consequence of the different language and minority policies in Subcarpathia, we cannot find a common language that everybody knows regardless of age, gender, education, religion or place of residence. The lack of a lingua franca makes dialogue between ethnicities difficult, sometimes even impossible. In this article we outline the main features of the regional, minority and language policies of the different states that existed at the various historical stages. We believe that the in-depth analysis of the history of this region can help find a model that could be useful not only in the region but also in the wider context of similarly multinational, linguistically diverse, culturally colorful territories in the Carpathian Basin and states in East-Central Europe.
