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Maramureş region [Ukrainian:

Марамарощина, Мараморщина;
Marmaroshchyna, Maramorshchyna;
Hungarian: Máramaros]. A historical-

geographic region in the Maramureş Basin.

Its larger, northern part is Ukrainian ethnic
territory (eastern Transcarpathia), the
inhabitants of which speak a Transcarpathian
dialect of Ukrainian (see Transcarpathian
dialects). The south is settled by Romanians.

The name Máramaros appears in a Hungarian charter in 1199. Until the 14th
century the region was sparsely populated and served mainly as a hunting

ground for Hungarian kings and nobles. In the 14th century it was colonized
by Ukrainians from Galicia and Vlachs from Transylvania. At that time it was
ruled by a voivode under the Hungarian tutelage. In 1385 it became an
administrative-territorial komitat. After the partition of Hungary in 1526, the

region was part of Transylvania until 1733, when it was reclaimed by

Hungary, and it remained under Hungary’s control until 1918. In 1891
Máramaros komitat (10,354 sq km) had a population of 268,281: 122,528
Ukrainians, 64,957 Romanians, 45,679 Germans, and 33,610 Magyars
(Hungarians). In 1910, 45 percent of the region’s population of 360,000 was
Ukrainian, 24 percent was Romanian, 17 percent was Jewish, and the rest was German or
Magyar. The region’s Ukrainians were Greek Catholics and belonged to Mukachevo eparchy.
In the early 20th century a portion of them converted to Orthodoxy and were accused by the
Hungarian government of being Russian agents. In the resulting show trials 9 peasants in
1904–6 and 96 in 1913–14 were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the northern Maramureş region was
annexed by Czechoslovakia and administered as a zhupa (county). The south was annexed
by Romania. Because the new Czechoslovak-Romanian border along the Tysa River did not

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Maramureş region

correspond to the ethnic border, much of the region's Ukrainian ethnic territory—800 sq km—
became part of Romania.

Fourteen Ukrainian villages are now within Romania: along the Ruskova River, Poliany or
Ruska Poliana (Romanian: Poienile de sub Munte, approx pop 8,000), Kryvyi (Repedea, pop
3,000), and Ruskova (Ruscova, pop 3,000); along the Vyshava (Vişeu) River, Krasnyi (Crasna,
pop 2,000), Bystryi (Bistra, pop 3,000), Vyshavska Dolyna (Valea Vişeului, pop 1,200); and on
the left bank of the Tysa River, Luh (Lunca la Tisa, pop 1,500), Velykyi Bychkiv (Bocicoiul
Mare, pop 1,000), Krychuniv (Crăciuneşti, pop 1,500), Vyshnia Rivna (Rona de Sus, pop
4,000), Myhovo (Virişmort, pop 1,000; 300 Ukrainians), Dovhopole (Câmpulung la Tisa, pop
3,000; 550 Ukrainians), Tiachevo (Teceu, pop 700), and Remety (Remeţi, pop 2,000). Outside
the territory of compact Ukrainian settlement, Ukrainians also live in the town of Vişeul de
Sus (pop 13,000; 500 Ukrainians). In 1960 there were more than 30,000 Ukrainians in the
Maramureş region. In 1971, 3,500 Ukrainians lived in the border town of Sighetul Marmaţiei
(pop 40,000).

Under interwar Romanian rule Ukrainian community life in the Maramureş region was
poorly developed. In the 1920s and 1930s the region’s Ukrainians relied on the cultural
influence of the Bukovyna’s capital of Chernivtsi. The Greek Catholic church was largely
responsible for preserving Ukrainian identity against the militant onslaught of
Romanianization, as it had previously preserved it against Magyarization. In the 1930s, 11
Ukrainian Greek Catholic parishes and 3 of their chapters were subordinated to the vicar-
general for Ukrainian Catholics in Romania. In the early 1920s the region's Ukrainians elected
two representatives, Oleksander Ilnytsky and T. Bokotei, to the Romanian parliament. In 1926
Rev A. Sabo founded a Ruthenian party in Sighetul Marmaţiei, but it did not have a
significant impact. In 1931 a branch of the Ukrainian National party in Romania was
founded in the region, but it too was largely unsuccessful. The leading Ukrainian cultural and
educational figure in the region at that time was the lawyer I. Odovichuk. In March 1939 the
region's Ukrainians helped refugees who had fled from the Hungarian occupation of
Carpatho-Ukraine.

The Vienna Arbitration of 1940 granted the Maramureş region to Hungary, which occupied it
until 1944. In 1944–5 the region was occupied by the Soviet Army. In the winter of 1945
Transcarpathian Ukrainians took over the administration of Sighetul Marmaţiei and the
Ukrainian villages. Soon thereafter, however, the region again came under Romanian rule,
which was confirmed by the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 (see Paris Peace Treaties of 1947). The
Romanian administrative reform of 1968 established a province called Maramureş (6,215 sq
km, 1980 pop 543,000) in the region.

Ukrainian cultural life in the region improved after 1948, when new educational rights were
granted to Romania's national minorities. The Ukrainian lyceum (est 1948) and Ukrainian
pedagogical school (est 1950) created in Sighetul Marmaţiei fostered a new generation of
nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia for Romania as a whole. In all the elementary
schools in villages with a Ukrainian majority, teaching was conducted mostly in the
Ukrainian language. Later, however, Romanian sections were introduced in most of them,

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Maramureş region

and with time the language of instruction became Romanian. In the 1960s the pedagogical
school in Sighetul Marmaţiei was closed down, and the Ukrainian, Romanian, and Hungarian
lyceums there were amalgamated into one lyceum with three sections, the Dragoş Vodă
Lyceum, where approximately 150 Ukrainian students study each year. In each of the
sections instruction is conducted in the native language of the students, but general subjects,
such as history and geography, are taught only in Romanian. Since 1980 the only elementary
schools where teaching is conducted in Ukrainian have been those in Krychuniv, Poliany, and
Vyshnia Rivna. Elsewhere Ukrainian has only been taught as a subject. Ukrainian reading
rooms, clubs, and amateur groups are active in the villages.

In 1948 the Romanian authorities forced the region’s Ukrainian Catholic church and faithful to
convert to Orthodoxy. In the churches liturgies are conducted in Old Church Slavonic, but
sermons are delivered in Ukrainian. In the 1980s the region’s eight Ukrainian parishes and
eight priests were placed under the authority of an archpriest of the Ukrainian Orthodox
church in Romania, which is itself subordinated to the Romanian Transylvanian eparchy.

(See also Transcarpathia.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wenzel, G. Kritikai fejtegetések Máramaros megye történetéhez (Pest 1857)
Bergner, R. In der Marmaros (Munich 1885)
Mihalyi, I. Diplome Maramureşene din secolul XIV şi XV (Sighetul Marmaţiei 1900)
Várady, G. ‘Das Máramaroser Comitat,’ in Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und
Bild: Ungarn, vol 2, pt 2 (Vienna 1900)
Hadzhega, V. ‘Dodatky k istorii rusyniv i rus'kykh tserkvei: Studii istorychno-arkhivni:
Marmarosh,’ Naukovyi zbirnyk Tovarystva Prosvita, 1 (Uzhhorod 1922)
Kubijovyč, V. Păstoritul în Maramureş (Bucharest 1935)
Filipaşcu, A. Le Maramures (Sibiu 1944)
Pavliuk, M. ‘Do istoriï ukraïns'kykh sil Maramoroshchyny,’Novyi vik (Bucharest), nos 134–6
(1957)
Pavliuk, M.; Robchuk, I. ‘Rehional'nyi atlas ukraïns’kykh hovirok Rumuniï,’ in Pratsi XIII
Respublikans’koï dialektolohichnoï narady, ed F. Zhylko (Kyiv 1971)
Niculescu, I. (ed). Judeţul Maramureş (Bucharest 1980)
Pavliuk, M.; Robchuk, I. Ukraïns'ki hovory Rumunii: Diialektni teksty (Edmonton–Lviv–
New York–Toronto 2003)

Mykola Pavliuk, Arkadii Zhukovsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]

List of related links from Encyclopedia of Ukraine pointing to Maramureş region entry:

1 Bukovyna
2 History of the Ukrainian church
3 History of Ukraine
4 Hutsul region
5 Komitat

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Maramureş region

6 Koriiatovych, Fedir
7 Maramureş Basin
8 Maramures region
9 Moldavia
10 Monasteries

11 Mukachevo eparchy
12 Pankevychivka
13 Romania
14 Romanians
15 Sighetul Marmaţiei

16 Subcarpathian Ruthenia
17 Transcarpathia
18 Transylvania
19 Ukrainian National party

20 Ukrainian Orthodox church

+ 20 Records >>

A referral to this page is found in 23 entries.

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