1.
Carpatho-Ukraine
–
Carpatho-Ukraine was an autonomous region within Czechoslovakia from late 1938 to March 15,1939. It was declared an independent republic by Avgustyn Voloshyn on March 15,1939, Voloshyn named himself the president and asked Hitler to support him. The territory is now administered as Zakarpattia Oblast in Ukraine, soon after the implementation of the Munich Agreement of 29 September 1938 Carpathian Ruthenia and Slovakia declared their autonomy within Czechoslovakia, which Prague accepted. The autonomous Carpathian Ruthenia changed its name to Carpatho-Ukraine soon afterwards, after Munich the Hungarians had remained poised threateningly on the Slovak border. The Czechoslovak army had built 2,000 small concrete emplacements along the border in places where rivers did not serve as natural obstacles, the situation was now verging on open war, which might set the whole of Europe ablaze again. From the German and Italian point of view, this would be premature, so they pressured the Hungarian, on November 2,1938, this found largely in favor of the Hungarians and obliged the Prague government to cede 11,833 km² of Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine to Hungary. Not only did this transfer the homes of about 590,000 Hungarians to Hungary, in addition, it cost Slovakia its second-largest city, Košice, and left the capital, Bratislava, vulnerable to further Hungarian pressure. As a consequence, the Slovak end of the Czechoslovak Army had to be reorganized and it had lost its natural defensive positions on the Danube River, almost the entire belt of fortifications along the Hungarian border and several major depots. The Arbitration of Vienna fully satisfied nobody, and there followed 22 border clashes between November 2,1938 and January 12,1939, during which five Czechoslovaks were killed, the Slovak national militia Hlinka Guard participated in these clashes. The ineffectiveness of the Prague government in protecting their interests stirred Slovak, on November 8,1938, the Slovak National Unity Party got 97. 5% of the Slovak votes, and a one-party state was instituted. Slovak autonomy was formalized by the Prague parliament on November 19, and to symbolize this new Slovak assertiveness, Slovak and Ukrainian nationalism grew more intense, and on March 10, there were demonstrations by the Hlinka Guard and Volksdeutsche, demanding their independence from Czecho-Slovakia. In the evening of March 13, Jozef Tiso and Ďurčanský met German leader Adolf Hitler, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Generals Walther von Brauchitsch, in fact, encouraged by the Germans, the Hungarians were largely massing on the adjacent Ukrainian border. Voloshin was new supported by Indigenous population of Subcarpathia, the First Constitutional Law of Carpatho-Ukraine of March 15,1939 defined the new status of the country as follows, Carpatho-Ukraine is an independent state. The name of the state is, Carpatho-Ukraine, Carpatho-Ukraine is a republic, headed by a president elected by the Soim of Carpatho-Ukraine. The state language of Carpatho-Ukraine is the Ukrainian language, the colors of the national flag of the Carpatho-Ukraine are blue and yellow, blue on top and yellow on the bottom. The national anthem of Carpatho-Ukraine is Sche ne vmerla Ukraina and this act comes valid immediately after its promulgation. The head of the Soim was Avhustyn Shtephan, his deputies were Fedir Révaý, the Slovak declaration of independence caused law and order to break down immediately. On the same day, Hungary had learned that the Germans would not object to a Hungarian takeover of Carpatho-Ukraine, the Czecho-Slovak government did not respond, and instead ordered its troops to attack the city of Mukacheve on the morning of March 14,1939
2.
Carpathian Ruthenia
–
Before World War I most of this region was part of the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary. In the interwar period, it was part of the First, during World War II, the region was annexed by the Kingdom of Hungary once again. After the war, it part of Soviet Ukraine. It is a diverse region, inhabited by Ukrainian, Rusyn, Lemko, Hungarian, Slovak. It also has small Hutsul, Jewish, Romani, Szekler, the nomenclature of the region depends on nationality, language/dialect, geographical perspective and political point of view. The name Carpathian Ruthenia is sometimes used for a contiguous area of Ukraine, Slovakia. Most Rusyns, however, use the term Zakarpattia, under suppression of Ukraine some Ruthenians and Hungarians identified themselves as Ukrainians. Carpathian Ruthenia is usually known as Transcarpathia, during the period in which the region was administered by the Hungarian states it was officially referred to in Hungarian as Subcarpathia or North-Eastern Upper Hungary. The Romanian name of the region is Maramureş, Romania includes the southern Maramureş region, on the south bank of the Tisa river. The name of the mountains themselves is Carpații Păduroși which means Wooden Carpathians, the main city of the Romanian Maramureş region is Sighetu Marmației. In 1945, most of the region was annexed by Soviet Union, the region has subsequently been referred to as Zakarpattia or Transcarpathia, and on occasions as Carpathian Rus’, Transcarpathian Rus’, Subcarpathian Rus’. Uzhhorod Mukachevo Khust Berehovo Vynohradiv Chop Svaliava Rakhiv Tiachiv Irshava Slavic tribes began to migrate from their Transcarpathia homeland in the 4th century, in 896 the Hungarians crossed the Carpathian Range and migrated into the Pannonian Basin. Anonymus chronicle and Nestor chronicle wrote that Hungarian tribes had to fight against local Slavs, prince Laborec fell from power under the efforts of the Hungarians and the Kievan forces, many of these forces remained behind and were assimilated by the White Croats. As the Hungarians established the borders of Kingdom of Hungary along the Carpathian Mountains, local Slavic nobility often intermarried with the Hungarian nobles to the south. Prince Rostislav, a Ruthenian noble unable to continue his familys rule of Kiev, governed a great deal of Transcarpathia from 1243 to 1261 for his father-in-law, Béla IV of Hungary. Later, the county system was expanded to whole Transcarpathia. From 1280 to 1320, north-western part of Carpathian Ruthenia was part of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, from 1526, the region was divided between Habsburg Monarchy and Eastern Hungarian Kingdom. Beginning in 1570, the region was divided between the Habsburg Monarchy and vassal Ottoman Principality of Transylvania, part of Transcarpathia under Habsburg administration was included into the Captaincy of Upper Hungary, which was one of the administrative units of the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary
3.
Kingdom of Hungary
–
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed from the Middle Ages into the twentieth century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen I at Esztergom in about the year 1000, by the 12th century, the kingdom became a European middle power within the Western world. The House of Habsburg held the Hungarian throne after the Battle of Mohács until 1918, from 1867 territories connected to the Hungarian crown were incorporated into Austria-Hungary under the name of Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen. The monarchy ended with the deposition of the last king Charles IV in 1918, the kingdom was nominally restored during the Regency of 1920–46, ending with the Soviet occupation in 1946. From 1102 it also included Croatia, being in union with it. Today, the feast day of the first king Stephen I is a holiday in Hungary. The Latin forms Regnum Hungariae or Ungarie, Regnum Marianum, or simply Hungaria, were the used in official documents in Latin from the beginning of the kingdom to the 1840s. The German name Königreich Ungarn was used officially from 1784 to 1790, the Hungarian name was used in the 1840s, and then again from the 1860s to 1946. The non-official Hungarian name of the kingdom was Magyarország, which is still the colloquial, in Austria-Hungary, the unofficial name Transleithania was sometimes used to denote the regions of the Kingdom of Hungary. Officially, the term Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen was included for the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, the Hungarians led by Árpád settled the Carpathian Basin in 895, established Principality of Hungary. The Hungarians led several successful incursions to Western Europe, until they were stopped by Otto I, the principality was succeeded by the Christian Kingdom of Hungary with the coronation of St Stephen I at Esztergom on Christmas Day 1000. The first kings of the kingdom were from the Árpád dynasty and he fought against Koppány and in 998, with Bavarian help, defeated him near Veszprém. The Catholic Church received powerful support from Stephen I, who with Christian Hungarians, Stephen I of Hungary was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1083 and an Orthodox saint in 2000. After his death, a period of revolts and conflict for supremacy ensued between the royalty and the nobles, in 1051 armies of the Holy Roman Empire tried to conquer Hungary, but they were defeated at Vértes Mountain. The armies of the Holy Roman Empire continued to suffer defeats, before 1052 Peter Orseolo, a supporter of the Holy Roman Empire, was overthrown by king Samuel Aba of Hungary. This period of revolts ended during the reign of Béla I, Hungarian chroniclers praised Béla I for introducing new currency, such as the silver denarius, and for his benevolence to the former followers of his nephew, Solomon. The second greatest Hungarian king, also from the dynasty, was Ladislaus I of Hungary. He was also canonized as a saint, however, kingship over all of Croatia would not be achieved until the reign of his successor Coloman
4.
Butyrka
–
Butyrka prison is a prison in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow, Russia. It was the transit prison in Tsarist Imperial Russia. During Soviet times, it held political prisoners. Currently, Butyrka remains the largest of Moscow remand prisons, overcrowding continues to be a problem. The first references to Butyrka prison may be traced back to the 17th century, the current building was erected in 1879 near the Butyrsk gate on the site of a prison-fortress which had been built by the architect Matvei Kazakov during the reign of Catherine the Great. The towers of the old fortress once housed the rebellious Streltsy during the reign of Peter I, members of Narodnaya Volya were also prisoners of the Butyrka in 1883, as were the participants in the Morozov Strike of 1885. The Butyrka prison was known for its brutal regime, the prison administration resorted to violence anytime the inmates tried to protest. Its famous inmates include the revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Russian revolutionary Nikolay Bauman. During the February Revolution, the workers of Moscow freed all the prisoners from the Butyrka. After the October Revolution, Butyrka remained a place of internment for political prisoners, during the Great Purge, about twenty thousand inmates at a time were imprisoned in Butyrka. Thousands of political prisoners were shot after investigations, later, prominent political prisoners included the writers Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Yevgenia Ginzburg. Varlam Shalamov notes, in one of his tales, that the Butyrka is extremely hot in summer, Eduard Limonov, in his drama Death in the Police Van, emphatically agrees. He says that, with the collapse of the Soviet regime, overcrowding has become a real issue, most of these people are politically unreliable subjects from the Caucasus. Moreover, inmates are brought to the tribunal in overcrowded police vans, Butyrka has its own slang, the wardens are called manti, the inmates patzani, to take drugs is smazatsia, i. e. to oil oneself. The word khuy is used profusely, on a lighter note, television has been allowed since 1995. Fabijan Abrantovich, a well-known Catholic priest and a pro-independence activist from Belarus, anna Abrikosova, a nun of the Dominican Order and prominent figure in the Russian Catholic Church. Andrei Amalrik, Russian historian and famed dissident during the 1960s, author of Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984. Władysław Anders, Polish general and prime minister, isaak Babel, writer, killed in 1940
5.
Moscow
–
Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality
6.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
7.
Hero of Ukraine
–
Hero of Ukraine is the highest national title that can be conferred upon an individual citizen by the President of Ukraine. The title was created in 1998 by President Leonid Kuchma and as of 27 March 2017 the total number of awards is 433, the title is granted to two different order recipients, a civilian Order of State and a military Order of Gold Star. There has been controversy over some of the awards, including allegations that they have either been politically motivated or given to those undeserving of the award. Most of the recipients of the title received it for heroic military action, while those awarded the latter were recognized for their contributions to national economy. The awards could be given to the individual more than once. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, similar awards were created in the independent countries. The title Hero of Ukraine was created on 23 August 1998 with Edict #944/98 by President Leonid Kuchma, similar in structure to the titles issued by the Soviet Union, the title is awarded in two distinctions, The Order of the Gold Star and The Order of the State. Unlike the Soviet awards, Ukrainian law allows a person to receive a title in each distinction only once and this means that if a holder of the Order of the State performs a heroic action, he or she can be presented with the Order of the Gold Star. Vice versa, if labor achievements of a holder of the Order of the Gold Star are recognized to be of value to the nation. Either of the distinctions can be presented posthumously, and a hero may only have his title removed by the president if they are convicted of a serious crime, two medals were created by Ukrainian law to differentiate between the titles. Connected to the ribbon is a suspension device joined to a medallion, on both medals, the name of each decoration and the award number are engraved on the reverse side of the medallion. Below the ribbon of the Order of the Gold Star, the suspension device contains a small engraving of the trident representing the Ukrainian Coat of Arms. The medallion is shaped like a five-pointed star 35 mm wide from one point to the other, two smaller five-pointed stars are engraved within the larger star. In contrast, the medallion for the Order of the State has the trident of Prince Volodymyr of Kiev placed on top of a wreath of oak leaves, the size of the medallion is 35 mm high and 36 mm wide. There is no design or symbol engraved on the suspension device. In addition to the award, recipients of either level are given a copy for use in public. Only one design of the wearers copy exists, being modeled after the Soviet hero medal with the red replaced by a blue. The trident, which is used on the coat of arms of Ukraine, is placed in the middle of the star and this medal is made out of non-precious metals and is worn on the wearers left-hand side above all other decorations
