This Day in Rusyn History: Independence Edition

Quick, go out and get a copy of The Economist. We're in it.

Avhustyn Voloshyn, the president of Carpatho-Ukraine. For a day.
Previously, the head of the Ruthenian Peasants Party.

Alas, today is the 70th anniversary of the one day ever of Rusyn independence, which is not really anything to celebrate in this case, because it's got all the trappings of potential clerofascism and Nazi puppet statedom, not to mention the fact that the Germans made fools out of the already manipulated Slovaks and Hungarians, and totally exploited their mutual-dislike for each other in this situation.

But hey, Rusyns were independent. But this is nothing to brag about. Fast forward 15 years, and Rusyns got the rep for being the best apparatchiks. Something else to brag about? We've really gotta learn politics.