Ruthenia

Ruthenia, former province of Czechoslovakia, (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia) corresponding to present-day Zakarpats'ka (Transcarpathian) Oblast' of Ukraine. The name Ruthenian was traditionally applied to the Ukrainian inhabitants of Poland, Austria, and Austria-Hungary. The Ruthenian area of Poland was divided between the empires of Austria and Russia when Poland was first partitioned in 1772. The Austrian portion (Galicia) was returned to Poland in 1918 and annexed to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) after World War II. Hungarian Ruthenia (Podkarpatská Rus) was an autonomous province of Czechoslovakia from 1919 to 1939. Returned to Hungary during World War II, it became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR)—present-day Ukraine—in 1945. The capital of Ruthenia is Uzhgorod (also spelled Uzhhorod).