In the early 1970s, as a student of history at the Kiev Pedagogical Institute, I participated in the archaeological excavation in Trans-Carpathia, an eastern part of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine.
The Carpathian Mountains form about a 1,000-mile-long range in Central and Eastern Europe. They stretch from west to east in an arc from the Czechia to Romania via Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine.
It is an ethnically diverse region in the center of Europe, inhabited mostly by people who regard themselves as ethnic Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks, and Poles. It also has small communities of Jewish and Romani minorities.
Trans-Carpathia had reverted from Austro-Hungarian Empire to Hungary because of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, then reverted from Hungary to Czechoslovakia in 1944 because of liberation of Czechoslovakia from the Nazi occupation and later was ceded to Soviet Ukraine in 1945 by a Czech-Soviet government agreement.
That year, in 1972, we excavated approximately 20-25,000 years-old Late Paleolithic cave in the vicinity of the remote Uglyanka village. One of the frequent visitors to our archaeological camp in Uglyanka was a local naturalist and historian Peter Sova. He was in his mid-80s; and he knew everything and everyone about this region.
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At one point, I asked Peter Sova, “Comrade Sova, what is your nationality?” “I am Trans-Carpathian,” replied Peter Sova with pride and without any hesitation.
“How can that be?” I questioned. “There is no such nationality, Trans-Carpathian.”
Peter Sova raised his eyebrows – looking at me with a mischievous smile. “I was born and raised in the Austria-Hungarian Empire, in my youth years I lived under Hungarian and Czechoslovakian ruling and now it is the Soviet Ukraine; and all my life I lived in the same place – Trans-Carpathia,” he explained. “So, you tell me, young man, what is my nationality?” he asked.
I was silent; truly, Peter Sova changed his citizenry four times during his life, while never relocating to any of the countries that took control over his homeland. Indeed, Peter Sova’s tragic life experiences are not uncommon in Europe – a continent, despite its great accomplishments in science, economic and industrial development, literature and arts, has been notorious for never-ending wars, regional conflicts, bloody socialist revolutions and murderous Holocaust. In short, today’s European multiculturalism could be metaphorically described as “far-left cultural and racial chaos.”
In contrast to today’s Europe, the United States is a historically an immigrant-seeking Constitutional Republic that managed to form a unique landscape of multiculturalism. In our country, many different types of cultures and races coexist and strive within one nation. On our national coinage is the inscription in Latin E pluribus Unum— “from many to one.”
The views expressed here are those of the author.
4 Comments
This was a good article. It seems to end abruptly. Did the end get cut off? Is there more?
I was apprehensive to make a hypothetical conclusion or speculation on today’s European status. A reader must formulate his/her own understanding on the future of US-European cooperation, Russian-Ukrainian war and US-Russian relationship. Also, shall US follow the European model of multiculturalism or not?
Multiculturalism is not a good idea. From 1892 to 1954 Ellis Island saw only 12 million mostly European legal and vetted immigrants. America developed a unified culture based on a common religion and defense of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. The the 1965 democrat Immigration and Nationality Act removed national origin quotas and ever since we have had massive immigration from every country on earth and less assimilation every year. With 20 million illegal aliens being invited in by Biden in just the last 4 years, and forcing American citizens to pay for our own foreign invasion, mass deportation is the only solution.
The US is multicultural already, despite what MAGAs want.